| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Sunday, December 27, 2020 |
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| | Goya painting is on display at the Museo del Prado following its restoration | |
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Elisa Mora working on the restoration of The Countess of Chinchón by Goya. Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado.
MADRID.- The Museo del Prado presented The Countess of Chinchón by Goya following its restoration within the programme supported by Fundación Iberdrola Españá as its Protector Sponsor. The painting, which is documented in Godoys palace in 1800, was moved to the General Deposit of Seized Works in 1813, located in the stores of the San Ildefonso Glassware Manufactory on calle Alcalá in Madrid. In 1814 it was in the palace at Boadilla del Monte near Madrid among the items returned to the Countess of Chinchón. It remained with her direct descendants until it entered the collections of the Prado in 2000, acquired with State funding and with a contribution from the Museum itself from the Villaescusa Bequest. The restoration, undertaken by Elisa Mora, has reinstated the green tones of the ears of corn in the sitters hair, the crisp texture of her muslin dress and its embroidered details, and the subtle nuances of the greys and ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day The exhibition Ladies First! is the first time that the Neue Galerie Graz has taken a closer look exclusively at the art production of women in Styria. At the heart of the show lie the works and life-stories of some 60 well-known - and a few lesser-known - women artists from the period 1850 to 1950. Installation view "Ladies First!", 2020. Photo: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek.
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| Belvedere 21 opens Maja Vukoje's most comprehensive solo show to date | | Exhibition sets out to provide a first-ever survey of the creative work of Styrian women artists | | 'Box' or gem? A scramble to save Asia's Modernist buildings | 
Maja Vukoje, SPA 3, 2020. Courtesy Maja Vukoje, Photo © Roland Krauss © Bildrecht, Vienna.
VIENNA.- In her painting Maja Vukoje explores cultural hybridity and transculturality as basic conditions of our globalized lives. Over various stages of her artistic career, Vukoje has developed a distinct artistic language in which she not only focuses on the mixture and fusion of elements of different cultures as visual motifs. Vukoje also reflects these hybrid phenomena in the materials and artistic methods she applies, thus blurring the boundaries of painting as a medium. The Belvedere 21 is hosting the artists most comprehensive solo show to date. The exhibition comprises some one hundred works from the past fifteen years, with an emphasis on her most recent work series. In the latter tropical fruit and commodities with colonial traces like coffee and sugar come face to face with symbols of our digitized everyday lives, motifs from popular culture, and iconic works of painterly abstraction. In a spatial intervention specially des ... More | | 
Marie Auersperg, Vase mit Blumen, 1840s. Oil on wood, 34 x 28 cm, National Museum of Slovenia, Photo: Toma Lauko, National Museum of Slovenia.
GRAZ.- The exhibition Ladies First! is the first time that the Neue Galerie Graz has taken a closer look exclusively at the art production of women in Styria. At the heart of the show lie the works and life-stories of some 60 well-known and a few lesser-known women artists from the period 1850 to 1950. It was the generation of those born around 1850 for whom it was even conceivable that they could make a living from their own artistic activities. For the generation of female artists to follow, the emancipatory tendencies were already discernible, to the point that post-1950, conditions for women artists had been fundamentally transformed. With this overall assessment, the exhibition sets out to provide a first-ever survey of the creative work of Styrian women artists and to invite all those interested to engage further with this subject. Why have there been no significant female artists? the American art hi ... More | | 
Hong Kongs General Post Office, built in 1976, was designed by K.M. Tseng, a government architect in what was then a British colony, June 8, 2019. Lam Yik Fei/The New York Times.
by Mike Ives
HONG KONG (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When the General Post Office opened on Hong Kongs waterfront in 1976, a local newspaper predicted that the modernist-style building would certainly become as much of a landmark as its Victorian-era predecessor. Not quite. The building with its white concrete facade, harsh angles and tinted glass became a fixture of Hong Kongs downtown. But it was never added to the citys register of protected landmarks. Now, with Hong Kong officials under pressure to generate revenue, the nearly 12-acre site, which has been valued at over $5 billion, was put up for sale this month. Supporters of the building are scrambling to save it because whoever buys the land underneath would have every right to tear down the post office. Some ... More |
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| On paper, The best way to enjoy the alps this year | | Latitude shares results of its support of Brazilian art market over the course of 2020 | | BIG reinterprets a 100+ year zoning law in the heart of Harlem | 
Hans Looser (1897-1984), Toggenburg. Lithographic poster, 1952. Estimate: £800-1200 + fees.
EDINBURGH.- For the many keen skiers who make an annual pilgrimage to the Alps in the winter months this season promises to be something of a disappointment. Relatively few will be travelling to the slopes while travel restrictions continue. However, one way to get something of the skiing hit in the New Year is to peruse The Ski Sale to be held by international auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull on January 20. The sale features a fine selection of original lithographed posters focused on winter sports and travel curated by former Christies vintage poster specialists Nicolette Tomkinson and Sophie Churcher. The pair first teamed up with Lyon & Turnbull to launch dedicated poster sales in 2018. The sale features a group of ski posters of resorts in Switzerland as well as others from France, Austria and Norway - all of them in colourfulness and striking designs redolent of the eras for which they were made. Werner Weiskönig (1 ... More | | 
Alfredo Jaar, I cant go on. Ill go on.,2016. Neon. Edição: 36 + 6PA50 x 50 x 4 cm. Photo: Everton Ballardin | Carbono.
SAO PAULO.- Latitude Platform for Brazilian Art Galleries Abroad, a partnership between ABACT [Brazilian Association of Contemporary Art] and Apex-Brasil [Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency], shared the results of its commitment to supporting and funding the promotion of the art market and art galleries in Brazil over the course of 2020. We are all too familiar with the infamous curse, May you live in interesting times. The past year certainly has been one of the great challenges, most of which have been met with a great sense of positivity and optimism. As galleries in Brazil experienced stability and even growth over the period prior to the crisis, they remain committed to exploring innovative ways to continue to highlight and promote the work of their artists around the world. --Luciana Brito, President of the Brazilian Association of Contemporary Art Galleries Most of the year has been a ... More | | 
The Smile. North Street View. Image by Pernille and Thomas Loof.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Smile, designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, is a mixed-use residential development introducing affordable housing units alongside market rate rentals, set within the vibrant Harlem streetscape. In 1912, the Equitable Building in Lower Manhattan was designed to be the largest building that could fit its site and rose skywards from the street lot-line without any setbacks. The building has since served as the prime example of the perils of unregulated development and as a result, the first building regulation in the United States was born. The landmark 1916 Building Zone Resolution enforced the construction of "stepped façade" towers in order to allow light and air back into the streetscapes. BIGs reinterpretation of the resolution is demonstrated in The Smile with its scalloped façade. Draped between two existing buildings, The Smile gently curves inwards as it rises upwards to bring ample daylight into the residential streets wh ... More |
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| miart 2021 will take place from 17 to 19 September, after Salone del Mobile and before Milan Fashion Week | | GalerÃa Kreisler opens the first solo exhibition in Madrid of the Czech artist Jan Kaláb | | Fri Art Kunsthalle reopens with the long-awaited exhibition 'A Selene Blues' by Giulia Essyad | 
Jannis Kounellis, Mensola, 1980. Steel, plaster, paint, glass, tape and cloth 121.9 x 59.8 x 14.6 cm, 48 x 23 1/2 x 5 3/4 in. Courtesy Cardi Gallery.
MILAN.- miart, Milan's international modern and contemporary art fair, organised by Fiera Milano and the first under the artistic direction of Nicola Ricciardi, initially scheduled for its traditional slot in April, has been moved to 17 to 19 September 2021 (with the preview on 16 September). Following on from the 2020 online edition, which enabled gallery managers, collectors, art professionals and visitors to stay in touch, miart has identified its ideal window of opportunity in between Salone del Mobile (5-10 September) and Milan Fashion Week (21-27 September). This decision stems from a rigorous assessment and determination not to compromise the attractiveness of miart, which has always distinguished itself due to its international vocation. Indeed these new dates will ensure the event stays true to this important and fundamental characteristic. The aim is to create a fair that will be a solid ... More | | 
Jan was one of the pioneers in his country as a graffiti writer, better known as Cakes (from Czech, which translates as "Splash") and founder of DSK crew.
MADRID.- GalerÃa Kreisler is presenting the first solo exhibition in Madrid, of the Czech artist Jan Kaláb, which can be visited until January 23, 2021. In this exhibition the artist fills the capital with energy and color with a variety of canvases in relief of hypnotic, organic and vibrant forms like those that exist in nature. Vivid colors, inspired by the variations of sunlight during the course of the day. Jan was one of the pioneers in his country as a graffiti writer, better known as Cakes (from Czech, which translates as "Splash") and founder of DSK crew. Since 2008 he started to experiment with sculpture and canvas which gradually led him to abstraction, perhaps also influenced by his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. How could we define his work? "Geometric and minimal abstraction", mostly created on frames designed and made by him, where he stretches ... More | | 
Doll - composite picture.
FRIBOURG.- A Selene Blues is the first solo exhibition of Giulia Essyad (*1992, Geneva) in an institution. On this occasion, the artist transforms the first floor of Fri Art into an environment dedicated to the universe of a heroic fantasy saga of which she is the author, actress and director. In an abandoned museum of cinema or at the premiere of a film that does not exist, advertising sets, merchandising and relics break down the barriers between entertainment, ecofeminist science fiction and institutional criticism. The exhibition of Giulia Essyad, winner of New Heads 2020, is organized together with HEAD Genève, Haute école dart et de design. In a distant future in which men have disappeared, female characters have created an artificial intelligence on which they depend for reproduction and which they use for entertainment, to keep memories, to create emotional bonds. This technology, a kind of smartphone of the future, takes th ... More |
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| mumok opens exhibition of works by Kapsch Contemporary Art Prize winner Hugo Canoilas | | Take a ride through the streets of NYC with photographer & former taxi driver Joseph Rodriguez | | Cheyney Thompson opens an exhibition of works at Ordet, Milan | 
Hugo Canoilas. © mumok / Klaus Pichler.
VIENNA.- Hugo Canoilas uses the tradition and history of painting and object art to redefine and expand the connection between installation and performance strategies. Along with art history, he also references sociopolitical developments and the philosophical and art-theoretical discourses it involves. The departure points are interconnected topics such as the climate crisis, environmental degradation, and the ever-widening gap between poor and rich countries, whose virulence is spurred on by the coronavirus pandemic. The artist ties his work in with these developments and their effects first and foremost in posthumanist schools of thought that call a rigid anthropocentric, hierarchical worldview into question and call for a careful and egalitarian human treatment of nature and its creatures. In the context of this new empathetic worldview, Canoilas gives painting an altered form and function: In this exhibition he tilts it to the horizontal plane and constructs it as a walk-on floor ... More | | 
TAXI: Journey Through My Windows 19771987 by Joseph Rodriguez. Essay by Richard Price.
NEW YORK, NY.- New York City in the late '70s was a collection of villages with its downtown scene, midtown workers, and uptown elegance. It was also a city that was more integrated than ever before or ever would be again. All of the city's humanity met in its streets with layered soundtracks of salsa, rock, disco, reggae, and soon hip-hop booming for all to groove to. But, NYC was also a place of chaos and mayhem. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy with rampant crime it was the city's drug users, dealers, and pimps and prostitutes who ruled the streets of Manhattan. The grittiness of the city was a beacon and a promise to many outsiders, those who didn't quite fit into any mold, and a vibrant LGBTQ community became the nexus of an underworld of sex workers who liked to party. For a NYC cabbie such as Joseph Rodriguez, the hot spots to pick up fares were clubs like the Hellfire, Mineshaft, The Anvil, The Vault, and Show World. Losing his first ... More | | 
Cheyney Thompson, To be titled, 2020.
MILAN.- Cheyney Thompsons new series of Displacement paintings posits each canvass ground as a touch-sensitive surface. The works adopt a uniform structure of five-millimeter square black marks painted in a gridded pattern atop a white ground. Before the paint is dry, Thompson deploys an assortment of custom silicone tools against the surface, forcing the wet squares out of place. He adds no new material, but rather subjects the existing marks to this process of reorganization. The resulting transformations appear as extensions of squares into lines, glyph-like forms, and sweeping, sinuous fields of paint. Each painting has become a record of the tools interaction with the surface: the stops and starts, the kinetic limits of Thompsons body and the entropic movement of the order of painted squares into noise. But, they are also pictures, as this play of ruptures and conjured forms has been frozen into an unsettled pictorial field, still with the trappings of figure-groun ... More |
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Alice Neel: They Are Their Own Gifts, 1978 | From the Vaults
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| More News |
 Dr. Brian P. Kennedy to step down as Director and CEO of the Peabody Essex MuseumSALEM, MASS.- The Peabody Essex Museum announced that Dr. Brian P. Kennedy will step down from his position as the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO on December 31, 2020. Dr. Kennedy has been Director and CEO since March 2019. The Board will form a search committee to begin the process of identifying a new Director and CEO. Dr. Kennedy led the museum through the challenges associated with the pandemic crisis, began a strategic planning process, and continued work on diversity and inclusion," said Stuart Pratt, Chair of the Board of Trustees. "PEM is in a strong position moving forward, having opened a new Collections Center and a new wing in 2019, completed many new and innovative installations of its collections, and successfully adapted to an entirely new Covid-operating environment." After thirty years ... More  Ecological curating in times of pandemic: Pera Museum opens "Crystal Clear"ISTANBUL.- Pera Museums new exhibition, Crystal Clear, opened to the public on December 22 and can be visited through March 7, 2021. Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum in Istanbul bids farewell to 2020 with an exhibition highlighting the global crisis under the influence of the pandemic. Crystal Clear, curated by Elena Sorokina, brings together the works of 20 artists from different countries and generations who engage with the questions of transparency and opacity, earth and de-growth, and the extractive logic that we have to challenge. Created in the context of the pandemic, the question of sustainability in artistic and curatorial practices became central for the exhibition, affecting changes in its structure and choices of material the artists would use. Crystal Clear features work by Sammy Baloji, Minia Biabiany, Katinka Bock, ... More  Foam opens exhibition of works by Foam Paul Huf Award winner Laia AbrilAMSTERDAM.- Spanish artist Laia Abril (1986) won the fourteenth edition of the Foam Paul Huf Award this year with her long term project A History of Misogyny. This prize is organised by Foam and annually awarded to a talented young photographer, by an independent, international jury. It consists of a cash prize of 20,000,- and a solo exhibition at Foam. The multidisciplinary artist uses photography, text, video and sound to tell intimate stories that evoke uncomfortable and hidden realities and often deal with inequality between the sexes and oppression of women. With her project The History of Misogyny Laia Abril wishes to bring attention to current social-cultural topics. In 2016 her first chapter in this Series On Abortion was published. With On Rape - A History of Misogyny, Chapter Two, the artist presents a series of conceptual ... More  5 minutes that will make you love BeethovenNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In the past, weve asked some of our favorite artists to choose the five minutes or so they would play to make their friends fall in love with classical music, the piano, opera, the cello, Mozart, 21st century composers, the violin, Baroque music and sopranos. Now we want to convince those curious friends to love the stormy, tender music of Beethoven, who was born 250 years ago this month. We hope you find lots here to discover and enjoy. Forget that famous portrait of Beethoven, scowling with arched eyebrows and Medusa hair. For all its anguish, his music teems with hope. The seemingly inescapable low point of the Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat (Op. 110), a resigned arioso, gives way to a wondrous fugue. Later, that ariosos darkness returns a reminder, even a relapse but is fought off by ... More  Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation warns feds about online "coin" sellerTEMECULA, CA.- Promptly acting on a tip from a concerned collector, the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundations (www.ACEFonline.org) Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force (ACTF) has notified law enforcement agencies and online shopping platform Amazon.com about a seller who is in apparent violation of federal laws involving reproductions of rare coins. The seller using the name SeTing offered nine reproductions of coins and fantasy dates, but none of the accompanying coin images indicated any of the items were properly marked COPY as mandated by the Hobby Protection Act. The offered items included replicas of a 1794 Flowing Hair dollar, an 1804 Draped Bust dollar and a 1915 Indian Head Quarter Eagle ($5). There was also a fantasy piece resembling a Trade Dollar but with the date 1791 and a Carson City ... More  Telluride Gallery of Fine Art exhibits paintings and digital pigment prints by Ed MosesTELLURIDE, CO.- Saving the Best for Last, an exhibition of 24 paintings and six digital pigment prints by the late artist Ed Moses, opened at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art December 15, 2020 through February 6, 2021. Online viewing is available at telluridegallery.com. This collection of work includes a group of his most recent acrylic paintings, as well as digital prints provided by Patricia Correia Projects. It is the only 2020 solo show of Ed Moses work. Even in his 9th decade, Southern California native Ed Moses spent most days in his Venice studio. In one of his final interviews, he told Los Angeles Times reporter Deborah Vankin You caught me on a good day! Pointing to freshly painted canvases drying in the sun, he explained, These are all self-portraits. These paintings have history, action - scars and blemishes, scratches and imperfections. ... More  Exhibit Columbus installation "The Exchange" by Oyler Wu Collaborative headed to TaiwanCOLUMBUS IN.- The 2017 J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize-winning installation The Exchange'' will be decommissioned over the next few days from its location at the Irwin Conference Center and then shipped to Taiwan where it has been acquired into a private collection. This has been one of the most popular installations from our exhibitions, and while we are sad to see it go, we are delighted to see it have another significant life, said Anne Surak, Director of Exhibit Columbus. Our community really embraced this installation over the years. Weve seen it used in so many incredible ways as a workspace for Cummins employees to a backdrop for live performances, wedding photos, family portraits, and company pictures. The Exchange was fabricated by hand in Los Angeles, California by Oyler Wu with support from Ayoroa|Simmons, Baller ... More  Digital technology spurs Ketterer Kunst to world records in Covid yearMUNICH.- Proceeds of nearly 30 million grossed in the second half of 2020 made for the best season result on the German market for the fifth consecutive time for Ketterer Kunst, the leading auction house for Art of the 19th, 20th and 21st Century. A sales total of 60 million for all of 2020 repeatedly confirmed the houses number one position in the ranking of German art auction houses. Despite Covid, the company keeps up with the record level of the two previous years. With 126 results in six-figure realms, the to date record mark of 114 was also topped. Additionally, three results beyond the magic million euro line, as well as numerous world records also contribute to the companys excellent standing. This excellent balance is a strong and important signal in challenging times like these, says auctioneer Robert Ketterer. While we saw ... More  New initiative sells art to support preservation of natural forestsVILNIUS.- A group of Lithuanian artists have teamed up to launch a fundraising initiative called Artists Saving Forests. The new project takes the form of an online platform where donated digital artworks are for sale for a symbolic price. All funds raised are allocated to the Ancient Woods Foundation supporting the protection and restoration of natural forest areas in Lithuania. According to Eglė Plytnikaitė, the illustrator behind the initiative, the new initiative is particularly relevant during the pandemic and pre-holiday season as it allows contactless purchase and helps avoid health risks. The platform presents a perfect opportunity to buy unique gifts without even going outside, said Plytnikaitė. What is even more important is that this way people protect tiny forest territories from being cut down. I believe that as the project moves ahead, these territories will merge into one big fores ... More  A 'great cultural depression' looms for legions of unemployed performersNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In the top echelons of classical music, violinist Jennifer Koh is by any measure a star. With a dazzling technique, she has ridden a career that any aspiring Juilliard graduate would dream about appearing with leading orchestras, recording new works, and performing on some of the worlds most prestigious stages. Now, nine months into a contagion that has halted most public gatherings and decimated the performing arts, Koh, who watched a years worth of bookings evaporate, is playing music from her living room and receiving food stamps. Pain can be found in nearly every nook of the economy. Millions of people have lost their jobs and tens of thousands of businesses have closed since the coronavirus pandemic spread across the United States. But even in these extraordinary times, the losses in the performing ... More  How Pixar's 'Soul' animates jazzNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Pixars animators have a history of achieving impressive feats, making characters and textures feel more authentic in increasingly complex ways. (That flowing hair! Those landscapes!) But how would they portray jazz? With Soul" (streaming on Disney+), the challenge was to translate the musics emotional and improvisational qualities through a technical process with little room for improvisation. While plenty of animation over the years has gotten the spirit of jazz, Soul sits right next to the piano keys to show, in detail, a musician creating. And Pixar knew many eyes, especially those belonging to jazz musicians, would be examining its work. The film follows Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a school band teacher by day, a talented but unsuccessful jazz pianist by night (and always). He struggles ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Anne Truitt Sound 
Islamic Metalwork 
Klaas Rommelaere 
Helen Muspratt
Flashback On a day like today, German-American painter Max Beckmann died December 27, 1950. Max Beckmann (February 12, 1884 - December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s, he was associated with the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), an outgrowth of Expressionism that opposed its introverted emotionalism. In this image: Auctioneer and Global President Jussi Pylkkänen selling Max Beckmann's Hölle der Vögel (Birds' Hell) (1937-38), for £36,005,000. © Christie's Images Limited 2017.
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