| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Saturday, June 6, 2020 |
| | | A near-private encounter with 'Las Meninas' as Madrid's Prado reopens | |
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People wearing face masks walk at the Prado Museum on June 4, 2020 in Madrid, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. Spanish lawmakers voted to extend the state of emergency a final time through to June 21. It is the sixth time the measure has been renewed, meaning the restrictions will remain in force, although they have been significantly eased since the start of the lockdown in mid-March. Gabriel BOUYS / AFP
by Laurence Boutreux
MADRID (AFP).- A moment of almost-total silence contemplating Velazquez's "Las Meninas" is the rare opportunity offered by Madrid's Prado museum as it reopens its doors to a handful of visitors Saturday after a three-month closure. In its vast central gallery which is bathed in natural daylight, Spain's biggest museum has put together more than 200 paintings in a new exhibition called "Reunion" that will run until September 13. Ana Garcia, one of the museum staff tasked with guarding the celebrated painting, said the reopening will offer people a unique opportunity to get up close to works of art that are often crowded out by visitors. "It's a luxury to be able to be alone with 'Las Meninas'," she said of Diego Velazquez's 17th-century canvas which depicts the young princess, Infanta Margarita, with her ladies-in-waiting ("meninas") wearing tight corsets and wide hooped skirts. The place where the painting normally hangs is "the room which is most visited by big groups," said the 52-year-old who w ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day One of the first new projects to go on show in an Italian museum after the closure brought about by the health emergency runs from 4 June to 23 August 2020 at the Centro per lÂarte contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, which is exhibiting for the first time in Italy a corpus of works by the acclaimed Chinese photographer and poet Ren Hang (1987- 2017), who tragically died before turning thirty.
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| | Baselitz to highlight Christie's ONE: a Global Auction of the 20th Century in London | | Artcurial announces highlights included in the Modern & Contemporary Art auction in Paris | | The Museo Reina SofÃa reopens on Saturday June 6th |
Georg Baselitz, Gebeugter Trinker, 1982. Estimate: GBP£4.5-6.5 million/ USD$6-8 million. © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.
LONDON.- Christies announced the first highlight of the London leg of One: a Global Auction of the 20th Century: Georg Baselitzs Gebeugter Trinker, 1982 (estimate:GBP£4.5-6.5 million/ USD$6-8 million). Rendered in vibrant orange, Gebeugter Trinker is one of the largest examples from Baselitzs iconic Drinkers series, and a prime example of the artists shift during a period of reexamination within his practice. The '80s helped me to rearrange everything, he noted, I was able to set up a whole range of ideas and experiences anew, which meant I was able to break everything down so I could make something out of it again. Already at odds with their orientation, the works that Baselitz executed up until the 1980s were tangentially related to both his Expressionist forebears and Abstract Expressionism. However, as he hit his stride, works like Gebeugter ... More | |
Alexander Calder, Sans titre, 1963 © Artcurial
PARIS.- Important works by major 20th century artists will be presented by Artcurial in the prestigious sales of Impressionist & Modern Art and Post-War & Contemporary Art, to be held on the evening of Wednesday 8 July and the afternoon of Thursday 9 July. The Modern Art section boasts several French and European collections with highlights including an expressionist masterpiece by Chaïm Soutine, a selection of paintings by Edouard Vuillard, a large composition by Henri Lebasque and an image of a young girl surrounded by roses by Auguste Renoir. Some remarkable works on paper by Marc Chagall and Raoul Dufy are presented alongside watercolours and pastel drawings from various collections. The post-impressionist period is well represented by Henri Martin with his Vue de Collioure as well as Henri Morets Brittany landscapes. The sculptures on offer feature a rare example of Implorante by Camille Claudel cast by Blot, linking to work by ... More | |
The Museum will be opening its spaces progressively.
MADRID.- After being closed for nearly three months, the Museo Reina SofÃa is getting ready to welcome back the public on Saturday June 6th at the usual hour of 10 am, with free entry over the weekend. Intense work has been carried out in a number of areas with the aim of fully guaranteeing the quality of visits, and ensuring this is clearly perceived for the peace of mind of both visitors and workers. The Museum will be opening its spaces progressively, so it has been decided at the same time to reduce the entrance fee to 5 euros. The time bands with free entry will be retained, and the one novelty, for the time being only, is that the Museum will close on Sunday afternoons. The public will be able to visit most of the galleries on the second floor of the Sabatini Building, where the most emblematic works of the Collection are on display, among them Guernica by Pablo Picasso, Girl at a Window by Salvador DalÃ, and A World by Ãngeles S ... More |
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| | Pressure mounts to remove Confederate monuments amid US protests | | On a caravan, with one of the Sahara's last European explorers | | Newly minted work by a change artist |
In this file photo a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, unveiled in 1890, stands at the center of Lee Circle along Monument Avenue August 23, 2017 in Richmond, Virginia. CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP.
by Chris Lefkow
WASHINGTON (AFP).- As protests for racial justice grip the United States, pressure is mounting to take down monuments to the slave-holding Civil War South, with several memorials being dismantled this week and others slated for removal. Debate over what to do with Confederate symbols has simmered for years and has reached a boiling point with the death of George Floyd, the African-American man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last week. Floyd's death triggered demonstrations nationwide and some of the anger has been directed at the Confederate monuments seen by many Americans as symbols of a racist legacy. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced on Thursday that a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy during the 1861-1865 Civil War, would be removed "as soon as possible." ... More | |
A women walks through the Neolithic trading town of Tichitt on January 22, 2020. Tichitt was once a thriving crossroads on the trans-Saharan caravan route and flourished between the 11th and 19th centuries. Merchants bearing gold, salt and cloth would stop to water their camels on the way to Timbuktu and settlements in the Niger river basin. JOHN WESSELS / AFP.
IN THE SAHARA (AFP).- Climbing into the saddle, he adjusts the scarf protecting his head from the sun and, with a tap on the camel's back, the caravan sets off. Thierry Tillet is again off to explore the vast Saharan desert, at the head of a nine-camel convoy with three other riders. At 68, the Frenchman is one of the last European explorers since the end of the 19th century to dedicate much of his life -- 47 years -- to crisscrossing the Sahara. This expedition, which began before the coronavirus epidemic, starts and ends at two desert jewels in central Mauritania. From Tichitt, the convoy is headed east to Oualata, 300 kilometres (185 miles) away, travelling in single file over a sandy, rocky landscape. For the first time, Tillet -- or Ghabidine, as a Tuareg friend renamed him -- is taking journalists along "so that this knowledge reaches the general public". ... More | |
Johnny Swing with his new works. Courtesy of R & Company.
by Stephen Wallis
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Did you have beef or lamb? It was the first question a design-world veteran asked when I mentioned Id been to visit Johnny Swing in February. For the last 25 years, the sculptor and furniture maker with the boogie-woogie name has been based just outside Newfane, a quaint southern Vermont town sometimes described as one of the most photographed in the state. Swings home is an updated old farmhouse that sits on 50 hilly acres of woods and pastures he uses for grazing cows and sheep. The property includes an improvised chicken coop with several hens that provide fresh eggs, and Swing is building a new sugar shack for making maple syrup. Theres also a guesthouse to accommodate visitors, whom Swing an affable host and enthusiastic cook often treats to meals of lamb or beef from his own animals, roasted for hours in his vintage Boston Stove Foundry wood-burning oven. (For the record, the beef was delicious.) Swing decamped to this bucolic spot with ... More |
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| | Cirque du Soleil walks a tightrope through pandemic | | Paint fades, but murals remember people killed by police | | Former king's statue defaced as Belgium confronts colonial past |
In this file Canadian circus troop "Cirque du Soleil" performs in their acrobatic performance on ice titled CRYSTAL on January 15, 2020 at Arena Riga, Latvia. Gints Ivuskans / AFP.
by Jacques Lemieux
MONTREAL (AFP).- Its shows canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an already heavily indebted Cirque du Soleil's fight for survival has invited an intense backstage battle to try to save the Canadian cultural icon. High on a list of potential suitors is former fire eater Guy Laliberte, who founded the acrobatic troupe in 1984 but later sold it. "Its revival will have to be done at the right price. And not at all costs," said the 60-year-old, determined not to see his creation sold to private interests. The billionaire clown said after "careful consideration," he decided "with a great team" to pursue a bid, but offered no details. Under his leadership, the Cirque had set up big tops in more than 300 cities around the world, delighting audiences with enchanting contemporary circus acts set to music but without the usual trappings of lions, elephants and bears. Then the ... More | |
Hulbert Waldroup restored his mural of Amadou Diallo, who was fatally shot by the police in the Bronx in 1999, after it was vandalized in 2001, but he did not object when another artist, Hawa Diallo, redid it in 2017, in New York on June 3, 2020. Mohamed Sadek/The New York Times.
by Zachary Small
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Their faces are painted on the walls so that people will not forget. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, grocery shoppers at the Triple S Food Mart walk by an image of Alton Sterling near the spot where the 37-year-old black man was fatally shot by two police officers in 2016. In the Bronx, New York, a portrait of Amadou Diallo adorns a building on Wheeler Avenue close to where he was killed in a hail of 41 police bullets in 1999. But the murals that memorialize people killed in deadly encounters with police do not always survive as legacies of loss. So it is with the mural that was painted on a Staten Island, New York, storefront in 2018 to mark the death of Eric Garner, who suffocated in a police officers chokehold ... More | |
A statue of King Leopold II of Belgium is pictured on June 4, 2020 in Antwerp after being set on fire. JONAS ROOSENS / Belga / AFP.
BRUSSELS (AFP).- Statues of the late King Leopold II, a symbol of Belgium's bloody history as colonial power in central Africa, have been defaced as the US campaign for racial justice re-energises the struggle in Europe. An anti-racist group called "Repair History" has demanded that all statues of Leopold, who ran and brutally exploited the then "Congo Free State" as a personal domain, be taken down. And unknown vandals have targeted at least three of the statues. Outside the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, near Brussels, a bust of the former monarch has been daubed with blood red paint and the three-letter tag "FDP" -- short for the French "fils de pute," or "son of a bitch," AFP journalists reported. Similar apparent protests targeted statues in Antwerp and Ostend. The graffiti comes amid renewed and more intense debate about Belgium's attitude to its colonial past. June 30 marked the anniversary of Congo's eventual independence, a ... More |
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| | As audiobook market grows, narrators of color find their voice | | Miller & Miller Auctions will hold an online-only advertising, toys & historic objects auction | | Royal Ontario Museum announces appointment of Deputy Director Collections Research and CIO |
Janina Edwards, an African-American narrator who recorded her first audiobooks in the late 1980s for the American Foundation for the Blind, at her home in Atlanta on April 30, 2020. Edwards says that actors with cultural ties to a book improve the listeners experience. Audra Melton/The New York Times.
by Fabrice Robinet
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When actor and audiobook narrator Cary Hite learned he had been cast to read a novella for a sci-fi anthology, he was ecstatic and not just because he loved the genre. Until that point, Hite, who is African American, was mainly hired to narrate urban lit, from classics like Iceberg Slims Pimp to Wahida Clarks best-selling Honor Thy Thug. I was being pigeonholed, the New York native said. He remembered wondering, Will I ever get a shot to read something like Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird? The sci-fi project, which he landed in 2017, helped him break out. His resounding voice has since chronicled a wider range of stories, including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a childrens ... More | |
Restored 1930s Sturditoy Pumper No. 7 pressed steel fire truck, made in the U.S. and modeled after a 1927 LaFrance fire truck, with functioning bell and water pump (est. CA$1,500-$2,000).
NEW HAMBURG, ON.- A Kuntz tin lithographed beer tray made in Canada and featuring a St. Bernard dog graphic, a Canadian J.M. Fortier Cigar framed lithograph from the 1890s, and an American Coca-Cola school policeman sign from the 1950s are just a few of the expected top lots in Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd.s online-only auction planned for June 20th. The 687-lot Advertising, Toys & Historic Objects auction is bursting with advertising and signs, toys, general store items, petroliana (gas station collectibles), automobilia, breweriana and historical ephemera, much of it Canadian in origin. There will be no in-person event to attend, but bidders will be able to tune in to a live telecast on June 20th to watch lots close in real time. Internet bidding will be facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com, Invaluable.com and the Miller & Miller website. Phone and absentee bids will be accepted. Demand ... More | |
Previously, Hartigan held the position of The James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Deputy Director for the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts.
TORONTO.- Josh Basseches, Director & CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum, announced today the appointment of Lynda Roscoe Hartigan as Deputy Director for Collections & Research and Chief Innovation Officer. Lynda is one of the museum sectors most highly regarded and accomplished thought leaders and innovators, says Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. In addition to her extensive experience leading curatorial and collection teams across art, culture and nature, Lynda has demonstrated an exceptional ability, over the span of her career, for bringing innovative and transdisciplinary thinking to the museum practice. As we look towards reopening and making the ROM an even more essential cultural and community hub, Lyndas in-depth experience makes her uniquely positioned to play a key role in our ongoing transformation and future success. As Deputy Director for Collections & Research, Hartigan will be responsible for th ... More |
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Legendary Timepieces from the Father of Modern Horology
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Michael Jordan's personal Air Jordan I and baseball glove removed from his closet in 1994 head to auction
DALLAS, TX.- For sale in Heritage Auctions' June 14 Sunday Sports Collectibles Weekly Online Auction: one Nike Air Jordan I from Michael Jordan's personal collection, as well as a black Wilson baseball glove bearing its owner's moniker ("MICHAEL JORDAN, hard to miss) stitched across the thumb. These days, in the wake of the Last Dance documentary that captivated a nation currently in short supply of sports and heroes and iconic moments, those signifiers should be enough to spark interest among collectors and casual onlookers. When rookie cards, sneakers and ticket stubs set record prices at auctions, week after week after week of late, Items once owned or worn or touched by The Greatest of All Time immediately demand widespread attention from collectors and fans as they're set upon the auction block. Especially ... More
Robert Ford Jr., an early force in hip-hop, is dead at 70
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Robert Ford Jr., who as a journalist in the late 1970s was an early chronicler of the newly emerging hip-hop scene, and who then became a producer and mentor to a generation of influential figures, including Kurtis Blow and Russell Simmons, died May 19 in Brooklyn. He was 70. His wife, Linda Medley, who confirmed the death, said Ford had dealt with several chronic illnesses in recent years. Hip-hop in its pre-commercial days was brought to life by a relatively small network of DJs, MCs and party promoters. It largely developed in parks, rec rooms and hotel ballrooms, far from the eye of the press. Ford, who was known as Rocky, was writing about black music for the trade magazine Billboard when he received a tip from a co-worker about a curious trend in vinyl sales. He traveled to the Bronx to meet with Kool Herc, ... More
Rare coin linked discovered in Colchester 50 years ago fetches £4,216 at Dix Noonan Webb
LONDON.- An extremely rare coin was minted by the Emperor Carausius, the first ever Brexiteer, who rebelled against the Roman Empire and led a breakaway British Empire between 286-293 was sold by International coins, medals, banknotes and jewellery specialists Dix Noonan Webb for £4,216 in a live online auction of Ancient and Islamic Coins yesterday (Wednesday, June 3, 2020). It had been expected to fetch £800-1,000 and was bought by a collector in the USA. The bronze coin, known as an antoninianus, was struck by Carausius in 291 in order to pay his army. It was discovered by Kevin Scillitoe in Colchester and is one of only two known examples with this reverse. Kevin found the coin in the mid 1970s when he was just a 10 year-old boy (see photo above). At the time, the river in Colchester was being dredged and the resulting spoil heaps ... More
Musicians playing through the lockdown, to one listener at a time
STUTTGART (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Atop a hill beside a vineyard, a woman sat down a few yards from a stranger holding a double bass. She sat in silence for a minute, trying to hold his gaze. It was hard looking him in the eye. Shed spent weeks staring at screens, largely in isolation. Human contact felt intense, strange. After 30 or 40 seconds, she glanced away. But then the musician raised his bow. The air began to hum with the deep chords of the instrument. She began to relax. He had picked a version of an English folk song an adaptation of Greensleeves. She realized what it was, and its origins. In her reverie, it felt like an homage to her time in England, where she had spent part of her life. She suddenly felt overwhelmed. During two months of lockdown, her amateur choir practices had been canceled. A concert she had planned to see had been postponed. But here on a hill ... More
Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci opens an exhibition of nudes by Ren Hang
PRATO.- One of the first new projects to go on show in an Italian museum after the closure brought about by the health emergency runs from 4 June to 23 August 2020 at the Centro per larte contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, which is exhibiting for the first time in Italy a corpus of works by the acclaimed Chinese photographer and poet Ren Hang (1987- 2017), who tragically died before turning thirty. Curated by Cristiana Perrella, the exhibition Nudes presents a selection of 90 photographs by Ren Hang from international collections, accompanied by backstage documentation of a photo shoot in Wienerwald in 2015 and a broad selection of the photographic books he created. Ren Hang, who never wanted to be considered a political artist despite his photographs being considered pornographic and subversive in China is known above all ... More
Rodeo Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Apostolos Georgiou
PIRAEUS.- In this new suite of works we are confronted with an abundance of situations that take place in Georgious familiar undefined interiors. But for a change, some situations are set outdoors. The nature of man unfolds in various works. Isolation, failure, and seeming irrationality are recurring conditions his subjects undergo. Never, though, are they unrealistic. The artists main material is human nature and its abyss. As a writer of short stories, the artist composes large-scale paintings in which words have been replaced by rapid strokes; an extension of his body embodying the narratives his heroes undergo. A series of acts, some might even call them performances, take place: the story in the artists head, the one in the artists body as he applies the story to the canvas, the viewer confronting the painting. As the title of the show suggests, ... More
John McCormack, a nurturing theater producer, dies at 61
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- One thing people agree on about theater producer John McCormack: He stopped at nothing to create opportunities for young actors. Also older actors. And young playwrights. And established playwrights who needed a recharge. And Latino playwrights, directors and actors. When 80 or so mostly theater people came together on Zoom to memorialize McCormack last month, nearly everyone told the same story: He lifted my career. Beyond that, his life was something of a mystery, even to relatives how he managed financially, his personal world. Everyone told the same story, said Chris Messina, who in the mid-1990s knocked on the door of the Naked Angels theater company, where McCormack was artistic director, and announced himself as one of the best actors in New York that you never heard ... More
Paul Holberton publishes 'Of Modernism Essays in Honour of Christopher Green'
LONDON.- Of Modernism presents original research by ten contemporary scholars of modern art. By turns provocative, insightful and informative, these essays written in honour of the eminent art historian Christopher Green rethink some of the crucial artworks, problems and practices of European modernism, from Les Demoiselles dAvignon to Orpheus, Cubism to Brutalism, Seurat to Sargent. Professor Christopher Green has made a preeminent contribution to the historiography of European modernism. As a teacher at the Courtauld Institute of Art, his wide-ranging scholarship and generosity of mind have inspired several generations of students, many of whom have gone on to lead distinguished careers in the worlds of art and academia. Of Modernism is a collection written in his honour. Questions about modernism shape ... More
A world redrawn: virus will inspire writers, says Lebanese novelist
NICOSIA (AFP).- Lebanese novelist Jabbour Douaihy says the coronavirus pandemic, like past epidemics and wars, will feed the imagination of novelists. "Great authors wrote about previous pandemics and used them as symbols," he said. Douaihy, who has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), spoke to AFP as part of our "World Redrawn" series. He said the novel coronavirus "will become part of the general literary scene and the imagination of humanity, just like wars, the plague... and other pandemics in history". While the virus will change human behaviour, he does not expect it to completely overturn our way of life. The 71-year-old, with a doctorate in comparative literature from the Sorbonne, is waiting out Lebanon's coronavirus lockdown in the town of Ehden, in the hills above the northern city of Tripoli. ... More
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PhotoGalleries
Mia Photo Fair 2020
Susan Rothenberg (1945 Â 2020)
Southern Light
Art After Stonewall
Flashback On a day like today, French painter Yves Klein died June 06, 1962. Yves Klein (28 April 1928 - 6 June 1962) was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein was a pioneer in the development of performance art, and is seen as an inspiration to and as a forerunner of minimal art, as well as pop art. In this image: Yves Klein, "Untitled Fire-Color Painting (FC 1)," 1961. Private Collection. © 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Image courtesy Yves Klein Archives.
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