| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Thursday, August 3, 2023 |
| | | The price of admission to America's museums keeps rising | |
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Visitors at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, March 5, 2020. The museum raised its entry fee from $25 to $30 for adults. (Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)
by Zachary Small
NEW YORK, NY.- Audience sizes just arent what they used to be at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where membership once a dependable source of income has declined by nearly 16% since 2019, and attendance in June slumped by 26%, from 89,600 to 65,900, over the same time frame. What has increased is the cost of running the institution. A newly unionized workforce has bumped up salary expenses, while inflation is driving up the cost of everything from heating to shipping artworks, according to senior museum officials. At the Guggenheim, leaders said that options for relief were limited after three years of managing the fiscal crisis of the pandemic. And so on Tuesday, the museum raised admission fees, bringing the cost of an adult ticket from $25 to what is becoming the new normal for major museums: $30. Most cultural organizations are navigating the same uncertainties, asking if the decision to raise fees to offset operating costs basically maximizing revenues from a smalle ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day INTERMEZZO is at Kunsthal 44Møen, in collaboration with Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), from 18 June -10 September 2023, 44moen.dk
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| At the Roosevelt Library, an unflinching look at race | | Kunsthaus Zürich launches 'ReCollect!' - How artists see the Kunsthaus Collection | | A stairway to nowhere sells for $32,000 in London |
The new exhibition explores the presidents mixed record on civil rights and the charged debate over racism in the New Deal. (Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)
by Jennifer Schuessler
NEW YORK, NY.- In October 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had his administration send letters to thousands of clergy across the country, asking if the New Deal was helping their communities. Even from admirers, the news wasnt always good. Local administrators did not carry out your will and purpose, J.H. Ellis, a Black pastor in Hot Springs, Arkansas, wrote, especially as it relates to the Negro group. J.W. Hairston, an African American minister in Asheville, North Carolina, lamented that in the South there are two states and two cities, one white one black. The Northern Black press, meanwhile, was more blunt. The New Deal, more than one newspaper proclaimed, was also a Raw Deal. Eight decades later, that charge ... More | |
Matias Faldbakken MONSTRUM, 2021. Ink and watercolour on paper, lacquered bricks, 176.5 x 162.5 x 14 cm. © Matias Faldbakken.
ZURICH.- With the new ReCollect! series, the Kunsthaus is inviting artists to present their take on the collection in dialogue with their own works, thereby interrogating and reshaping the established canon. ReCollect! begins on 1 September with Matias Faldbakken/Ida Ekblad (Norway), Daniela Ortiz (Peru), and the collective Hulda Zwingli (Switzerland). Museum collections contain not just a remarkable quantity of objects but also an abundance of (undiscovered) histories. Depending on how they are selected, works of art can give rise to various narratives and open up new perspectives on the here and now, and on the past. The history of art is also replete with talks, conversations, disputes and discussions, friendships and alliances between artists both posthumously and during their lifetimes. The Kunsthaus Zürich is home to a collection of art from the Middle Ages to the ... More | |
Simon Squibb, who was the winning bidder for a stairwell, with his auction paddle in London, Aug. 1, 2023. (Claire Moses/The New York Times)
by Claire Moses
LONDON.- Even by the standards of Londons white-hot real estate market, it was a property with seemingly limited appeal: an unused stairwell, attached to the back of a suburban building, next to a parking garage. Nevertheless, the four-story metal stairwell, enclosed by translucent panels, sold at auction Tuesday morning for 25,000 pounds (about $32,000), 20% more than the starting bid. Simon Squibb, the longtime entrepreneur who bought the stairwell, said he saw what the property listing called its development potential. Squibb recently co-founded HelpBnk, a company that supports budding entrepreneurs, possibly with the help of his new stairwell. The plan is to help other people start, or learn to start, companies from the stairwell by offering desks (presumably one on each landing) or to ... More |
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| The sorcerer of costumes | | Ground-breaking book 'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger inspires exhibition at Bo Lee and Workman | | Venice faces an unwelcome honor: Joining the endangered places list |
Donna Zakowska at her studio in Brooklyn, June 10, 2023. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)
by Rhonda Garelick
NEW YORK, NY.- Clothes hold a visceral thrill for Donna Zakowska. Theres a sensuality and a tactile aspect to fashion, she said. Im always thinking about the quality of the garment, the fabric, the way it plays with light and air and movement about the emotional impact of color. Zakowska won a 2019 Emmy for designing costumes for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and she has just received her fifth nomination for her work on the series. Her passion for her art is instantly palpable to anyone visiting her workshop at the Steiner Studios in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where much of the show was filmed. The space is a vast confectionery of the vibrant 1950s-style fashions she created for Mrs. Maisel: hats bedecked with jewels or feathers; swing coats in tones of crimson, emerald and teal; racks of suits and ... More | |
Polly Morgan, Ish, 2023. Painted polyurethane, powder-coated steel, 150 x 49 x 6.2 cm.
BRUTON.- Inspired by the ground-breaking book Ways of Seeing by John Berger, Bo Lee and Workman presents an exhibition that takes viewers on a visual journey. Exploring the complexities of perception and interpretation, the works of these 5 artists challenge traditional notions of art, subverts visual codes and expectations and invites viewers to explore new ways of seeing. Sam Bakewell is an artist whose abstract clay works are composed like paintings, with thick colourful layering of coloured forms. Bakewell challenges conventional perspectives by manipulating a ubiquitous material in unexpected ways. His artworks often feature juxtapositions, ambiguous shapes, and intricate patterns that intentionally blur boundaries between sculpture, painting, and ceramics, to create intriguing visual puzzles. Des Hughes work evokes curiosity and contemplation, alongside a keen sense of the comical or absu ... More | |
The Grand Canal from the Rialto bridge in Venice, Italy, July 5, 2022. (Laetitia Vancon/The New York Times)
by Emma Bubola
VENICE.- To protect its fragile ecosystem and stunning architecture, Venice has taken bold steps. In recent years, it has banned cruise ships from its lagoon and built sea walls to keep out high tides. Still, the city remains under serious threat, United Nations experts warned this week. The United Nations culture agency, UNESCO, proposed in a document released Monday to include Venice and its lagoon on its World Heritage in Danger list. It said the city had not made enough progress in preventing damage from mass tourism, climate change and development projects, adding that the corrective measures that Italy has proposed are still insufficient. Some prominent Venetians took issue with UNESCOs critique. Renato Brunetta, a former government minister who now leads a foundation aiming to make Venice the worlds capital of sustainability, said ... More |
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| University of Richmond welcomes Issa Lampe as new executive director of University Museums | | Exhibition at Chemould Prescott Road unearths urban narratives through the works of several artists | | Gagosian exhibits three early paintings by Andy Warhol from 1963 |
Issa Lampe, the new executive director of University of Richmond Museums.
RICHMOND, VA.- Issa Lampe, an expert in university art museums with 15 years of experience leading exhibition and engagement programs, has been appointed the new executive director of University of Richmond Museums. Lampe will also hold affiliated faculty status in the Department of Art and Art History. Lampe, who began her new role at UR in June, most recently served as deputy director overseeing academic and curatorial affairs at the Smart Museum of Art and director of the Feitler Center for Academic Inquiry at The University of Chicago. At Stanford Universitys Cantor Arts Center, she was associate museum director for public and academic engagement. Lampe has also held positions in museums at Yale University and Indiana University. I believe that academic museums can play a profoundly uplifting role in the lives of students by enhancing their education, fostering creativity and social belonging, and providing training for future careers ... More | |
Reena Saini Kallat, Pattern Recognition, Installation view, Chemould Prescott Road, 2023.
MUMBAI.- How does a place influence our emotions and behaviour? What are the various experiences that two people can have of the same place? And can a place be reimagined to modulate our perception of its meaning and purpose? By asking these questions, you have become a psychogeographer. This mindset challenges the conventional, utilitarian understanding of urban spaces. It instead emphasises subjective experiences, playful explorations, and the potential for unexpected encounters. Psychogeography is a hybrid term that combines psychology (the study of the mind and its functions) and geography (the study of physical characteristics of the earth). However, if geographers carve, draw, or write the earth, psychogeographers add a zest of soul to the mix; linking earth, mind and foot. Today, the term broadly refers to the revealing of underlying forces and influences that shape our experiences of the city, including social structures, power ... More | |
Andy Warhol, Silver Liz (Studio Type), 1963. Silkscreen ink and spray paint on linen, 40 x 40 in. © 2023 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever.
PARIS.- Gagosian is presenting Andy Warhol: Silver Screen, an exhibition of three early paintings by Andy Warhol from 1963, organized for the gallery by Jessica Beck, formerly of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Sixty years ago, in the summer of 1963, Warhol was thinking as both painter and filmmaker, producing silkscreened canvases with multiple images. This was when he received his first camera (a 16mm Bolex that he later used for the Screen Tests, cinematic portraits of friends and superstars) and his paintings began to mirror the repetitions of filmstrips. At the same time, Warhol worked in a leaky former firehouse on the Upper East Side, eventually hiring poet Gerard Malanga to complete some of his most significant early silkscreened paintings, Disasters, Silver Elvis, and Silver Liz. A year later, Warhol moved to a larger space on East 47th Street. There, lighting ... More |
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| Edward Sexton, bespoke tailor of rock 'n' roll, dies at 80 | | James Fuentes opens Stipan Tadić's exhibition '36 Views of NYC' | | How mid-twentieth century American culture was powerfully shaped by commercial dictates of Rockwell imagery |
When the Beatles marched across Abbey Road in 1969, three of them were suited up by Nutters. (George Harrison wore bluejeans.)
NEW YORK, NY.- Edward Sexton, a master tailor who, with his business partner, Tommy Nutter, upended the staid British institution that was Savile Row with Nutters, a shop with rock n roll flair and clientele, died July 23 in London. He was 80. His death was announced by his company, which shares his name. No cause was given. Nutter was the shops charismatic frontman, and Sexton was known as the wizard with the scissors, the expert cutter who created the flamboyant shapes the shop would become famous for: the wide lapels and sharp shoulders, the nipped in waists and waistcoats, and the sweeping trousers. The aesthetic was continental, American, queer and camp, journalist Lance Richardson noted in House of Nutter: The Rebel Tailor ... More | |
Stipan Tadić, Christmas market, 42 St. Bryant Park, 2022. Oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches.
NEW YORK, NY.- James Fuentes has now opened '36 Views of NYC', a new body of work by Croatian artist Stipan Tadić. Taking its title from Fritz Langs 1927 titular film and referencing Hokusais woodblock-print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the series, like its name, is a mosaic of references. Throughout the 36 paintings on view, Tadić maps the neighborhoods surrounding the D line train from the Bronx to Coney Island. The series is the result of a year-long walking tour during which Tadić documented well-tread and lesser-known cityscapes, taking photographs, collecting historical references, and observing passers-by. Allowing his mind to wander and his senses to guide him, the artist absorbed locales where he has little context and no personal roots. Instead, Tadić activates his imagination ... More | |
Norman Rockwell, The Lineman, 1948. Advertising illustration for Bell Telephone System. Norman Rockwell Museum. Collection, Gift of Verizon.
STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.- Norman Rockwell Museum is presenting a new exhibition exploring the business and cultural context of Rockwells art. Norman Rockwell: The Business of Illustrating the American Dream examines how Rockwell navigated relationships with publishers, advertising clients, and other business entities to create work that shaped and reflected American culture and influenced notions of the American Dream. Based on extensive research in the Norman Rockwell Museum archives by guest curator Deborah Hoover, the exhibition shines new light on the interplay of artistry, advertising, consumerism, business relationships, and ambitious cultural, consumer and capitalist agendas that informed Rockwells work. ... More |
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Bringing the Tudors to the west coast: A conversation with the curators
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Mario Ayala included in Sitting on Chrome at SFMOMA
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- In Sitting on Chrome at SFMOMA, Mario Ayala, rafa esparza, and Guadalupe Rosales engage the visual language of lowriders and explore cruising as a practice of resistance and community visibility. From pinstriped, stylized exteriors to lush, upholstered interiors, these customized cars are modified over time by drivers, their families, and communities for the sake of joy and visual pleasure. Designed to be seen, they express individual and collective identities and transform public spaces. Join SFMOMA's celebration of the exhibition opening on Thursday, August 3 at 6 PM, featuring RBL Posse and Brown Amy. Reflecting on their own early experiences cruising through the streets of Los Angeles, Ayala, esparza, and Rosales have transformed four of SFMOMAs Floor 2 galleries through vibrant, multisensory installations. Celebrating ... More
'Eco Tone' by Courtney Egan and Natori Green now on view at Knoxville Museum of Art
KNOXVILLE, TENN.- Eco Tone, on view at the Knoxville Museum of Art, is a show of Egans artwork from 2020 to present, including new pieces made in collaboration with another New Orleans artist, Natori Green. Courtney Egans projection-based sculptural installations deliver an experience that is both pleasing and disconcerting. The ethereal projections converging on walls, floors and sculptural elements are inspired by the growing frequency of human exposure to nature via computers or television. Egan creates stunning yet subtly impossible, hybrid tableaus, which envelop the viewer in a conversation between memory of the natural world and a new experience with a plant or flower. She explains the fundamental irony of the experience, stating, We get closer and farther away from the natural world simultaneously when we experience ... More
Works by Agnes Pelton and Edmonia Lewis among Colby College Museum of Art's newest acquisitions
WATERVILLE, MAINE.- Works by groundbreaking female artists Agnes Pelton and Edmonia Lewis are key among more than 300 new acquisitions approved by the Colby College Museum of Arts Board of Governors during the 20222023 academic year. Among other notable acquisitions are a group of paintings, drawings, and works on paper by Roy Lichtenstein from the Lichtenstein Foundation; important gifts of art from Norma B. Marin (19302022), a longtime supporter of the Colby Museum and artist-advocate; and a series of new purchases and commissions of art by contemporary Native artists. The Lunder Collection has also grown, gaining watercolors by Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent, among other works. Being (c. 192326), an oil painting by Agnes Pelton joins the Colby Museums collection thanks to a combination of generous ... More
R² Rūsiņš Rozīte has on show 'Exhibition from The Generation cycle'
RIGA.- Starting August 4th, the exhibition R² Rūsiņ Rozīte, part of the cycle The Generation, is presented in the right wing galleries of the 2nd floor of the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga (Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1). Maximal minimalist, R², is how Rūsiņ Rozīte (19431978) defined himself. The artists creative versatility was phenomenal graphic art, painting, book illustration, stage design. Rūsiņ thought and worked quickly, he was present at the academys balls, theatre performances and events. This intensity of processes and the broad circle of friends was a sort of necessity for getting to know different spheres of life, and Rūsiņ appeared and disappeared in this self-made social whirlwind like a flash. Rūsiņ Rozīte entered the art scene effortlessly: started his education, like many, at the ... More
David Hallberg's new job: Decision-maker
LONDON.- It was March 2020, and David Hallberg, who had weathered more than two years of injury and physical rehabilitation, was back in the saddle, rehearsing Swan Lake with Natalia Osipova at the Royal Opera House in London. Then the world shut down as the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns became a new reality. Hallberg, a resident guest principal at the Royal Ballet and a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, saw his packed schedule of performances collapse like a house of cards. But he was less upset than he might have been. On March 1, Hallberg had been offered the position of artistic director of the Australian Ballet, and had secretly flown to Sydney from London to accept the job. Three years later, he is back in London, heading the Australian Ballets first international tour since the pandemic, and its first appearance ... More
Review: In 'Amour,' putting a Palme d'Or winner onstage
SALZBURG.- How can I speak of love when Im dead? runs a powerful line in Amour, a stage adaptation of Michael Hanekes 2012 film that premiered Sunday at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Love and death are, of course, the two great themes of art, but rarely have they been brought together so hauntingly as in Hanekes film, a portrait of an elderly couple forced to confront the issue of when life is no longer worth living. Told in Hanekes characteristically severe style, the film earned the Austrian director both a Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar for best foreign language film. Karin Henkel, the adaptations director, eschews the films realism, opting instead for a highly stylized and self-consciously artificial staging that achieves its visceral impact through a combination of Brechtian estrangement techniques, emotionally naked ... More
'Let's Call Her Patty' review: Unseen depths of an Uptown matriarch
NEW YORK, NY.- She shops at Zabars, does Pilates on Columbus Avenue and resides comfortably in a prewar high-rise between West End and Riverside, where she gossips about private lives as though they were front-page news. That she could be any number of women, of some advanced years and moderate means, who live on Manhattans Upper West Side is suggested by the taxonomic title Lets Call Her Patty, a new play by Zarina Shea that opened Tuesday night at the Claire Tow Theater, overlooking its subjects natural habitat. Close your eyes to picture the type, and the productions star, Rhea Perlman, may spring directly from a sidewalk crack, with her featherweight frame, babka-colored curls and voice like gravel and honey. Patty is introduced to the audience, chopping onions behind a long and luxe marble-topped kitchen island, ... More
'The Half-God of Rainfall' review: Basketball under the heavens
NEW YORK, NY.- Turning verse into action is tricky, especially with ideas as lofty as the ones in Inua Ellams epic poem The Half-God of Rainfall, now appearing in theatrical guise at New York Theater Workshop. The poem is a melodious, sky-high tale of a basketball superstar born as a result of a celestial contest between the Greek and Yoruba gods of thunder, Zeus and Sango. But the stage adaptation, which opened Monday, runs into some flaws that, while not fatal, strand this Nigerian writers work in the mortal realm. A storm of plot and themes is squeezed into an intermission-less 90 minutes: After defeating Sango (Jason Bowen) in a race, Zeus (Michael Laurence) has his pick of Sangos subjects. To Heras (Kelley Curran) defeated disdain, Zeus rapes Modúpé (Jennifer Mogbock), a Nigerian woman, and soon the mixed-race half-god Demi ... More
Pee-wee Herman was exuberant. Paul Reubens was almost serene.
NEW YORK, NY.- Pee-wee Herman was noisy. He was boisterous. He had a voice that would shoot up several decibels without warning, whether he was inviting his TV viewers to play a game of connect the dots or interrogating his friends about the whereabouts of his missing bicycle. The mysterious nature of his character was he supposed to be a man, a child or a man pretending to be a child? seemed to excuse his exuberant energy and excessive volumes, and he, in turn, gave that same permission to his audience. Like he told us on Pee-wees Playhouse, his kids show that wasnt really just for kids, You all know what to do when anyone says the secret word, right? Thats right: Scream real loud! Paul Reubens, who created and played Pee-wee Herman for more than 40 years, and who died Sunday at age 70, was quiet. It wasnt simply ... More
Ora-Ora announces new representation of three artists, William Lim, Henry Chu, and Genesis Kai
HONG KONG.- Ora-Ora announced that the gallery will be representing three highly sought-after artists with immediate effect, namely Hong Kong-based artists William Lim and Henry Chu, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) artist, Genesis Kai. The agreements are not exclusive. William Lim is a hugely influential architect and artist, who has shown his paintings in solo shows in Hong Kong and internationally, and featured at Art Basel Hong Kong 2023. Henry Chu and Genesis Kai are both artists at the forefront of technological innovation, with a dynamic, multi-media repertoire which responds to real-time, real-life themes. The new additions are the first since Joseph Tong joined Ora-Oras roster in late 2022. Commenting on the announcement, CEO and Co-founder of Ora-Ora, Dr. Henrietta Tsui-Leung said, Ora-Oras three new artists interpret ... More
Eva Respini appointed Deputy Director & Director of Curatorial Programs at Vancouver Art Gallery
VANCOUVER.- The Vancouver Art Gallery announced the appointment of Eva Respini as the new Deputy Director & Director of Curatorial Programs, which she assumed on August 1, 2023. As the new Deputy Director & Director of Curatorial Programs, Respini will continue to shape and drive the vision of the Vancouver Art Gallerys curatorial program along with CEO Anthony Kiendl and the dynamic Gallery team. She will be responsible for the direction of the activities of the Curatorial and Museum Services departments and will work collaboratively with organizational leadership to develop inspiring and innovative exhibition and collections strategies that respond to the Gallerys strategic and business plans. Respinis expertise, innovative thinking, global purview and commitment to curatorial craft at every level of exhibition-making make her a valuable asset ... More
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PhotoGalleries
Gabriele Münter
TARWUK
Awol Erizku
Leo Villareal
Flashback On a day like today, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson died August 03, 2004. Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 - August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the "street photography" or "life reportage" style that has influenced generations of photographers who followed. In this image: USA. New York City. Manhattan. 1947. Near the Hall of Records. © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos.
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