| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Saturday, May 15, 2021 |
| | | National Gallery of Art reopens with a new vision: 'For all the people' | |
|
|
A rendering of new signage for the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The museum has a new logo and mantra as its director, Kaywin Feldman, moves to diversify the collection and the staff. National Gallery of Art via The New York Times.
by Zachary Small
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When the doors reopen at the National Gallery of Art on Friday, visitors may be surprised by new changes to this Washington museums look. Some 20 clashing typefaces and confusing signage have been gradually disappearing from the building, replaced by a new logo visible inside and out, and a new mantra Of the nation and for all the people that will appear on its website and be shared with staff. The museum says this vision statement, developed through meetings with employees, symbolizes a renewed commitment to diversity, inclusion and excellence. I was hired with a clear mandate from the board to put the national back in the National Gallery of Art, Kaywin Feldman, who became the museums first female director in 2018, said in a recent Zoom interview. The branding campaign, which the museum said would cost around $820,000, is the National Gallerys first attempt in the more than 80 years since its founding to establish a public identi ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day This picture taken on April 27, 2021 shows a worker grinding metal inside a still-under-construction replica of the Titanic ship in Daying County in China's southwest Sichuan province. The ill-fated Titanic which sank over a hundred years ago is being resurrected as the centrepiece of a theme park in southwest China, where tourists can splash out for a night on the true-to-size vessel. NOEL CELIS / AFP
|
|
|
|
|
| Picasso painting sells for $103 mn in New York | | Pace opens a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Moroccan-French artist Yto Barrada | | From David Hammons, a tribute to Pier 52 and lastingness |
'Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)' by Pablo Picasso is on display during a preview of the upcoming 20th Century Evening Sale at Christie's on May 07, 2021 in New York City. Cindy Ord/Getty Images/AFP.
NEW YORK (AFP).- Pablo Picasso's "Woman Sitting Near a Window (Marie-Therese)" sold Thursday for $103.4 million at Christie's in New York, the auction house said. The painting, completed in 1932, was sold after 19 minutes of bidding for $90 million, which rose to $103.4 million when fees and commissions were added, Christie's said. Christie's had estimated the painting -- bought by an online bidder in California -- would sell for $55 million. The sale confirms the vitality of the art market despite the Covid-19 pandemic -- but also the special status of Picasso, who was born in 1881 and died in 1973. The generally good performance of Thursday's auctions, totalling $481 million, "signals a real return to normal and also a message that the art market is really back on track," said Bonnie Brennan, president of Christie's America. The ... More | |
Yto Barrada, Velvet collage #6, 2021. Silk velvet dyes from plant extracts mounted on board, 42" à 30" (106.7 cm à 76.2 cm). © Yto Barrada, courtesy Pace Gallery.
EAST HAMPTON, NY.- Pace Gallery inaugurated its second summer season in East Hampton with a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Moroccan-French artist Yto Barrada, who is known for a body of work built over the past two decades which mines historical figures, sites and situations for artistic material. This exhibition brings together over 25 works by Barrada: recent pieces created with a reappropriation of Frank Stellas Moroccan paintings; a selection of collages using naturally-dyed velvets, part of Barradas ongoing deep dive into natural dyes; a series of photograms of candy wrappers which explore the idea of the void; a selection of paper collages that respond to the aftermath of the catastrophic 1960 earthquake in the Moroccan city of Agadir; and furniture sculptures that revisit the 18th century facing-bodies conversation chair using traditional Moroccan wicker weaving techniques. ... More | |
David Hammons Days End, at Hudson River Park in New York, May 13, 2021. Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times.
by Holland Cotter
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In 2014, the director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Adam D. Weinberg, invited artist David Hammons to tour the museums still empty new building. Weinberg remembers them standing together at the panoramic fifth-floor window overlooking the Hudson and talking about the history of the waterfront facing the museum, about what was there and what was gone. Gone, since its demolition in 1979, was Pier 52, once a warehouse for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co., and famous in the art world as the setting for a monumental work of guerrilla-style public sculpture called Days End by American conceptualist Gordon Matta-Clark. The Matta-Clark piece was a work of excision, not construction. In 1975, he commandeered the piers immense, by-then half-ruined, shed it measured ... More |
|
|
|
|
| The Brooklyn Museum opens 'The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time' | | Banksy. A Visual Protest opens at Serlachius Museums in Finland | | Ferraris for the people: luxury goods now sold in fractions |
Hew Locke (Scottish, born 1959). Koh-i-noor, 2005. Mixed media, 116 à 86 à 25 in. (294.6 à 218.4 à 63.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Charles Diamond and bequest of Richard J. Kempe, by exchange, 2007.54. © Hew Locke. Photo: FXP Photography.
BROOKLYN, NY.- The exhibition contemplates the tumultuous year 2020 and its lasting impact on our future, with new contemporary acquisitions from the collection, including artists Mel Chin, Arthur Jafa, Tschabalala Self, Simone Leigh, and others. A major new commission for the Museums façade, Nick Caves Truth Be Told, is being presented in conjunction with the exhibition. The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time draws examples from the Brooklyn Museums renowned collection of contemporary art to contemplate the profound disruption that occurred in 2020. Borrowing its title from an aeronautical term that refers to the pull of the current that is left in the wake of a large and powerful object, the exhibition ... More | |
A view of the Serlachius Museums exhibition Banksy. A Visual Protest. Photo: Sampo Linkoneva.
MÃNTTÃ.- The exhibition Banksy. A Visual Protest, extensively presenting the art of Banksy, the most famous and enigmatic street artist, opens at the Serlachius Museums on 15 May 2021. The exhibition, implemented in cooperation with 24 Ore Cultura of Milan, is the first Banksy exhibition to be shown in Finland. Admission to the museum is free during the exhibition. Banksy. A Visual Protest features, in particular, works belonging to Banksys early output: graphics and record covers. The exhibition is complemented by multimedia of street art he has made around the world, some of which has already been lost. The exhibition will run from 15 May to 10 October 2021. The exhibition whose previous versions have been seen in Milan and Rome, is curated by Gianni Mercurio, a curator specialising in pop and street art. This is not an official Banksy exhibition, as it has not been authorised by the artist himself. However, all the ... More | |
In this file photo a trainee practices methods in verifying the authenticity of a handbag following class at the Extraordinary Luxuries Business School in Beijing. WANG ZHAO / AFP.
by Thomas Urbain
NEW YORK (AFP).- Anyone can easily own a Basquiat painting, a pair of Yeezy sneakers or even a Ferrari -- at least, that's the promise of a growing number of fractional ownership platforms that sell shares of these rare items, starting at just a few dollars. One platform, Masterworks, in spring 2020 turned the $6 million painting "The Mosque" by Jean-Michel Basquiat into 284,420 shares at $20 each. With fractional ownership, there's no chance of hanging the painting in a buyer's home, parking a Lamborghini in their garage or storing six bottles of Romanee-Conti wine in their cellar. But by owning at least a piece of the property -- at least on paper, like the shares of a publicly listed company -- anyone can now directly benefit ... More |
|
|
|
|
| The National Gallery brings Dutch masterpiece to six unusual locations across the nation | | Skirball Cultural Center opens an exhibition of portraits made up of thousands of LEGO bricks | | "From Heroes to Immortals" and "A Room with a View" open at OKCMOA |
Jan van Huysum, Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, 17367. Oil on canvas, 133.5 x 91.5 cm © The National Gallery, London.
LONDON.- Following the positive response to Artemisia Visits (2019), the National Gallery announced Jan van Huysum Visits which will see Van Huysums magnificent Flowers in a Terracotta Vase (17367) travel to six locations across the nation in summer 2021. The painting will visit Cornwall, Norfolk, the East Midlands, South Yorkshire, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each display will explore one of six Ways to Wellbeing: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning, Give, and Care (for the Planet). Flowers in a Terracotta Vase will be on tour for approximately three months, from early June. In each region, the painting will pop up in an unusual or unexpected non-museum venue; locations include a food bank and community library, a covered market, a former department store and community centres. The tour will promote ways in which art and culture can support wellbeing and reach audiences who have ... More | |
Installation view of Ai Weiwei: Trace at Skirball Cultural Center. Photo by Robert Wedemeyer.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Skirball Cultural Center announces that it will resume indoor museum operations this May with the Southern California debut of Ai Weiwei: Trace. Created by Ai Weiwei, one of Chinas most provocative and socially engaged living artists, the installation features portraits made up of thousands of plastic LEGO® bricks, each assembled by hand and laid out on the floor. These portraits depict individuals from around the world whom Ai and leading human-rights groups consider to be activists, prisoners of conscience, and advocates of free speech. The body of work is shaped by Ais own experiences as an outspoken human-rights activist: In 2011, he was arrested, interrogated, and incarcerated by the Chinese government for eighty-one days. Upon release, he was kept under surveillance and prohibited from traveling abroad or engaging in public speech until 2015. Since that time, Ais art has increasingly centered around the ... More | |
Robert Freebairn, An Italianate River Landscape, 1796 (detail). Oil on canvas, 21 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds provided by Angie Hester, 2001.013.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA.- Two new, original exhibitions, From Heroes to Immortals: Classical Mythological Prints and A Room with a View: Scenes of the Italian Countryside, open May 15 at 10 a.m. at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Curated from OKCMOAs permanent collection, the exhibitions highlight themes from The Painters of Pompeii: Roman Frescoes from the National Archaeological Museum, Naples, the Museums blockbuster summer exhibition. Throughout history, artists have turned to classical mythology and the Italian countryside for inspiration, said Bryn Schockmel, curator for both exhibitions. Theseus and the Minotaur, Narcissus and Echo, the Judgment of Paris these may be stories you know, or names you have heard. From Heroes to Immortals features 500 years of works on paper that explore our enduring fascination with these spectacular ... More |
|
|
|
|
| 'We are the Met': Opera unions rally against proposed pay cuts | | Exhibition aims to awaken public consciousness to the realities of environmental destruction | | 'The Great Wonder: Violet Oakley and the Gothic Revival' on view at Vassar |
James J. Claffey Jr., president of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents Met stagehands, addresses the crowd at a rally outside the Lincoln Center. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times.
by Julia Jacobs and Matt Stevens
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- As New York prepares for the long-awaited reopening of its performing arts sector, with several Broadway shows putting tickets on sale for the fall, it is still unclear whether the Metropolitan Opera will be able to reach the labor agreements it needs to bring up its heavy golden curtain for the gala opening night it hopes to hold in September. There have been contrasting scenes playing out at the opera house in recent days. On the hopeful side, the Met is preparing for two concerts in Queens on Sunday the companys first live, in-person performances featuring members of its orchestra and chorus and its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, since the start of the pandemic. And it recently reached a deal on a new contract with the union that ... More | |
Installation view: And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers, Kunsthalle Wien 2021, photo: © eSeL.at - Lorenz Seidler.
VIENNA.- And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers? writes the Chilean poet, artist and activist Cecilia Vicuña in an untitled poem from the late 1960s, early 1970s. With this question Vicuña counters anthropocentric and hetero-patriarchal urges with healing and appreciation, reviving the aesthetic and spiritual bonds between human and nonhuman entities and worlds. The exhibition And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?, curated by Miguel A. López, revolves around this very vision of interconnectivity that Vicuña portrays in her poem by bringing together artists whose practices engage in the struggle for collective survival and the processes involved in restoring disrupted social bonds. Indigenous epistemologies are understood as central in order to explore the possibilities of interweaving the poetic gesture with radical political action. With their works, the more than 35 exhibiting artists who are located everywhere from the Amazon region to Australia, from G ... More | |
Violet Oakley, Study for The Great Wonder: closed state, ca. 1922-1924. Watercolor on paper. Gift of Celia Clevenger, class of 1958. 1987.24.2.
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY.- Violet Oakley (18741961) was a pathbreaking American artist and social activist during the first half of the twentieth century. Her eloquent narrative paintings, colorful stained-glass designs, and otherworldly book illustrations conveyed morally uplifting messages for audiences in New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere in the United States. Between 1922 and 1924, Oakley executed a monumental, Gothic-revival painting called The Great Wonder: A Vision of the Apocalypse for the living room of Vassar Colleges newly built Alumnae House. The artist also designed and furnished the living room in a hybrid medieval and Renaissance style, creating a peaceful yet visually stimulating environment which the Vassar community and visitors enjoy to this day. Drawing on the rich holdings of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center and Vassars Special Collections Library, this exhibition features drawings, watercolors, illustrated books, ... More |
|
Artist Interview---Alex Da Corte: As Long as the Sun Lasts
|
|
|
| More News |
Billie Hayes, memorable witch on 'H.R. Pufnstuf,' dies at 96
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Billie Hayes, who rode a memorable cackle to kiddie-TV fame, playing a witch named Witchiepoo in the short-lived but much remembered 1969 series H.R. Pufnstuf, died on April 29 in Los Angeles. She was 96. News of her death was posted on her website. Hayes had built a moderately successful stage career and had portrayed Mammy Yokum in the 1959 film version of Lil Abner (reprising a role she had played on Broadway) when she was cast as Witchiepoo. H.R. Pufnstuf was the first of a string of childrens shows made by the brothers Sid and Marty Krofft in the 1970s trippy, slapdash-looking affairs that contrasted noticeably with the carefully pitched messages of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood, which were born in the same era. Krofft shows tended toward the bizarre: ... More
Wallace Chan takes titanium to new height
VENICE.- Chinese artist Wallace Chans first major sculpture exhibition is taking place at Fondaco Marcello in Venice, Italy, from 14 May 31 October 2021. TITANS: A dialogue between materials, space and time, curated by James Putnam, features a series of large-scale titanium and iron sculptures and an immersive installation composed of titanium and mirrored stainless steel, giving an unprecedented survey of Chans work as a sculptor. Together, this new body of work conveys Chans contemplation on the relationship between materials, space and time through titanium: a futuristic, space-age material that has long been the subject of his experimental impulses. Wallace Chan is one of the worlds most celebrated jewellery artists, but his accomplishments in sculpture an art form that he has been practicing for almost half a century are less ... More
David Kovats Gallery opens its second solo exhibition dedicated to the prolific Hyperrealist István Nyári
LONDON.- David Kovats Gallery announced the opening of its second solo exhibition dedicated to the Hungarian artist István Nyári, as part of the gallerys summer exhibition programme. The exhibition opened to the public on May 5th at the gallerys main location, 80 Long Acre in Covent Garden. István Nyári is one of the most prolific figures of Hungarian hyperrealism who has developed an international career and he is based between Budapest and Amsterdam. Always approaching painting with the attitude of a film director, István seeks to place realistic characters into fictitious scenarios in his art that could happen in real life but due to their grotesque, surreal nature, never do. Frequently employing a vivid colour palette, Istváns hyperrealist artworks, predominantly acrylic on canvas, account for exceptional technical mastery about ... More
Christian Newby's 9 metre textile work in response to our Covid-19 shared experience unveiled at Collective
EDINBURGH.- Collective opened a major new commission by artist Christian Newby, displayed in the City Dome exhibition space. Responding to this remarkable building, originally built to house an astronomical telescope, Christian has created a large-scale, highly decorative, architectural intervention in the form of a nine-metre-wide textile, Flower-Necklace-Cargo-Net, which reshapes the space. The images depicted on the tapestry are an intuitive reaction to typical rug and textile design and subvert traditional motifs such as flowers, geometric patterns, birds and shells. In this new work these motifs are pictorially contained by a large net that envelopes the whole work and alludes to our shared experience of enclosure during the Coronavirus lockdown. Christians practice focuses on experimental textile production. This new work for his largest exhibition ... More
Morgan Lehman opens Jason Stopa's first solo exhibition with the gallery
NEW YORK, NY.- Morgan Lehman is presenting Joy Labyrinth, Jason Stopas first solo exhibition with the gallery. Over the past year, I've thought about how painting can respond to crisis. In this new body of work, Ive made a series of paintings that reference utopian architecture, avant-garde music and joy. "Joy Labyrinth," (2020-21) is the centerpiece of the show. I see the title as a metaphor for moving through the world in the grips of a pandemic. -Jason Stopa, 2021 Deploying buoyant, lively color systems defined by opaque grounds and translucent glazes, Stopas paintings celebrate the power of color in its own right. These works exude a certain optimism, playfulness, and hope, feelings that run contrary to the pain and suffering of a pandemic-weary world. In short, they are a reprieve from what so many of us have had to deal with this ... More
Huge Titanic replica to open as Chinese tourist destination
SUINING (AFP).- The Titanic is being brought back from the deep, more than a century after its ill-fated maiden voyage, at a landlocked Chinese theme park where tourists can soon splash out for a night on a fullscale replica. The project's main backer was inspired to recreate the world's most infamous cruise liner by the 1997 box office hit of the same name -- once the world's top-grossing film and wildly popular in China. The original luxury vessel, the largest of its time and branded "unsinkable" by its owners, has become a byword for hubris ever since it plunged into the depths of the Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg, leaving more than 1,500 people dead. Investor Su Shaojun says he was motivated to finance the audacious, 260-metre-long (850-foot-long) duplicate to keep memories of the Titanic alive. "I hope this ship will be here ... More
Vienna's Secession presents a newly commissioned work by artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi
VIENNA.- Vienna Secession and Wiener Festwochen are presenting a newly commissioned work by artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi. HERE, her expansive exhibition, premieres in Vienna before travelling to Athens and Turin in the 2021/22 season. Taking place during opening hours, the live installation invites visitors to share time and presence with six dancers in the Secessions iconic exhibition hall. Over several weeks they will navigate a choreography that unfolds at a decelerated pace within a sculptural environment. Embedded in a sound composition, a female voice counting the seconds from 1 to 14,399 fades in and out, underlining the eternal succession of time. Immersed in this continuum, the dancers movements create a situation of everchanging presence, one that demonstrates the slippery nature of hereness. The dancers ... More
Rolex presented to Thunderbird pilot more than six decades ago to touch down at Heritage Auctions
DALLAS, TX.- A gold Rolex once owned and worn by one of the earliest pilots in the "Thunderbirds" Air Demonstration Unit will land in the collection of a new owner when it is offered in Heritage Auctions' Watches & Fine Timepieces Auction June 1. The Exceedingly Rare Yellow Gold Rolex Wristwatch Presented To And Owned By Thunderbird Pilot Herman E. Griffin, Ref. 6605, circa 1958 (estimate: $25,000-35,000) comes to Heritage Auctions directly from the family of Capt. Griffin, complete with impeccable provenance that includes five 10-by-8-inch black-and-white photos of the Thunderbird team in the late 1950s; four of the images clearly show Capt. Griffin wearing this watch. "The Thunderbirds were a very important unit in the Air Force, showcasing the latest advancement in America's fighter technology," Heritage Auctions Watches & Fine ... More
As Broadway plans its return, 'Hamilton' will require vaccines backstage
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- As Broadway prepares for a fall reopening, Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller said he will mandate that all of his shows employees, including the cast and the backstage crew, be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Seller is the first producer to make such a declaration publicly, and it is not clear whether any of Broadways many labor unions could or would challenge such an effort. Brandon Lorenz, a spokesman for the Actors Equity Association, said of a vaccination requirement, That would be something we would find acceptable, as long as the employer complies with the law. Broadways cast and crew work in very close quarters in tight backstage spaces, and actors onstage are extensively exposed to one anothers exhalations because they are unmasked, speak and sing loudly in proximity, dance in partnered and group ... More
Crafting their way through lockdown
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Necessity is the mother of invention, and at the start of the pandemic, the thing everyone needed was masks. To help keep people safe, an army of home sewers banded together last spring to make face coverings and other personal protective equipment for health care workers, family members and strangers. Stuck at home without the diversions of socializing, travel or dining out, the crafting continued. Americans knitted, crocheted and wove through the lockdown. They made hand-tufted rugs, paper orchids, wooden chess sets, tiny shrines and botanical mandalas. Sewing machines got hauled out of closets, dusted off and used to create, among other things, jackets out of vintage quilts, which spurred a fashion trend. And if the crafts themselves look modest and homespun, the money they are generating is not: A ... More
Reanimating 'Cabaret,' one frame at a time
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Theater is what dies every night at 11. Or thats what it used to be. But what if some of the greatest shows of the past shows that ran before your time and closed before the advent of archival video could be brought back to life? Or at least a kind of half-life? Thanks to new technology, old-fashioned luck and curatorial mania, thats happening. Among the shows recently reanimated is the original production of the groundbreaking Broadway musical Cabaret. If you ever wanted to see how it moved, and how it was moving, now you can. In a series of astonishing scenes created by Doug Reside, curator of the Billy Rose Theater Division at the New York Public Library, we discover exactly how Joel Grey, as the impish master of ceremonies of the Kit Kat Klub, danced with his chorus of tatty Weimar- ... More
|
|
PhotoGalleries
Sophie Taeuber-Arp & Hans Arp: Cooperations â Collaborations
Future Retrieval
Clarice Beckett
Kim Tschang-Yeul
Flashback On a day like today, American photographer Richard Avedon was born May 15, 1923. Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 - October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century". In this image: Humphrey Bogart, October 2, 1953 by Richard Avedon.
|
|
|
|
