| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, April 15, 2020 |
| | | In rural Japan, a 370-year-old tradition falls to one child | |
|
|
Mao Takeshita, 6, prepares for her kabuki performance at Damine Elementary School in Damine, a village in mountainous central Japan, on Feb. 9, 2020. Every year, students in Damine participate in an elaborate Kabuki performance, but an aging society has put their show and their school in jeopardy. Noriko Hayashi/The New York Times.
by Ben Dooley
SHITARA (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- More than three centuries of tradition rest on Mao Takeshitas narrow shoulders. Mao is 6 and swaddled in a heavy kimono, her face covered in the thick white greasepaint of a Kabuki actor. Before her, an audience of hundreds sits on tatami mats. She steps forward, toward the footlights, and performs a dance, then introduces herself in the droning style of an ancient soliloquy. Her appearance is an initiation of sorts and Mao does it alone. When the new academic year begins, she will be the sole first grader at her school in Damine, a village in mountainous central Japan, where she will join a long but dwindling line of children who have performed the stylized dramas of Kabuki. Every year, the students spend months preparing for their roles in an elaborate production staged by the villagers in honor of a Buddhist goddess. The intense commitment to the performance, for which Damines residents build a temporary theater from bamboo, has helped keep the elementary school alive ev ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Artemis Gallery's Ancient Ethnographic Jewelry Charity Auction on Thursday, Apr 16, 2020 11:00 AM CDT supports Community Food Share, a Feeding America Food Bank that provides meals to families in need year-round, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this image: 22K+ Gold Pin w/ Etruscan Carnelian Scarab. Estimate $3,000 - $5,000.
|
|
|
|
|
| | Frieze Viewing Room to launch with Frieze New York 2020 | | Andrew Jones Auctions announces highlights included in its online DTLA Collections & Estates auction | | Hauser & Wirth presents online exhibition Rashid Johnson, Untitled Anxious Red Drawings |
Over 200 galleries from across the globe will present major works by established and emerging artists in a virtual gallery space.
NEW YORK, NY.- Today Frieze revealed details of the debut of Frieze Viewing Room, an ambitious new digital initiative that will launch with an online edition of Frieze New York. The mobile app and web-based platform will be live May 815, 2020, with an invitation-only preview May 67 , and will offer visitors the opportunity to enter over 200 virtual viewing room spaces. Frieze Viewing Room builds on Friezes longstanding commitment to expanding and diversifying audiences by connecting galleries, artists, curators and collectors from around the world. The launch edition of the Frieze Viewing Room is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing a shared commitment to artistic excellence. The inaugural edition of Frieze Viewing Room will showcase an extraordinary cross-section of artwork, from todays most exciting emerging artists to pioneering figures of the 20th century. With the use of augmented ... More | |
Pair of Louis XV style paint decorated fauteuils from the second half 20th century, each one 28 inches tall by 28 ½ inches wide (est. $800-$1,200).
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Andrew Jones Auctions online DTLA Collections & Estates auction on Sunday, April 19th, will feature a vast selection of market fresh furnishings, decorations and accessories, all enticingly priced. Bidding will be available online, through AndrewJonesAuctions.com, LiveAuctioneers.com and Invaluable.com, starting promptly at 10:30 am Pacific time. The auction will feature over 500 lots of important antiques and fine art. Andrew Jones Auctions will be the place to find unique, fun, quirky and out-of-the-ordinary accessories and furnishings, as well as luxe décor and statement pieces for the home, loft, gallery and retail space. Interior designers will be able to re-design a room or an entire home in an affordable, sustainable way. In these uncertain times we want to keep connected to our clients and community, said company president and CEO Andrew Jones. He added, ... More | |
Rashid Johnson with his work Untitled Anxious Red Drawing, 2020.
ZURICH.- With the online exhibition Untitled Anxious Red Drawings, American artist Rashid Johnson introduces a selection of new works made since the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic. Using oil stick on cotton rag paper, the artist has here updated the visual language of his long-established Anxious Men series, in which deceptively crude archetypal faces express the fundamental tensions and traumas that course through contemporary life. By departing from his signature use of black wax to adopt a blood red medium for the first time in this well-known series, Johnson captures the life and death urgency of an unprecedented moment that is now both separating and connecting communities around the globe. His Anxious Red Drawings could be read as history paintings for our times. Whereas Johnsons Anxious Men series has been characterized by faces scratched into the pictorial surface in a kind of drawing through erasure, his new Anxious Red Drawings employ ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | Lockdown stalls Notre-Dame's rebirth one year after fire | | Peter Beard still missing, weeks after disappearing on Long Island | | Auschwitz online: raising Holocaust awareness in the digital age |
This picture taken on April 14, 2020 shows the Paris' Cathedral Notre Dame at sunrise on the eve of the first anniversary of the violent fire that destroyed a large part of the monument. THOMAS COEX / AFP.
by Jean-Louis De La Vaissiere and Joseph Schmid
PARIS (AFP).- Perched over the gaping roof of Notre-Dame, a crane stands idle above the silent Paris cathedral, where repair work has ground to a halt one year after the monstrous blaze that nearly destroyed one of the world's most revered monuments. Millions around the world watched in horror last April 15 as firefighters battled through the night to save the 13th-century masterpiece from the fire, which ravaged its roof and toppled the steeple. French President Emmanuel Macron promised a herculean effort to have the UNESCO heritage site restored within five years, in time for the Paris Olympics of 2024. But France's lockdown to combat the coronavirus -- which has forced a full suspension of work at the site -- is making that goal even more unlikely than before. Work had already been delayed for months by decontamination efforts after more than 300 tonnes of lead from the roof melted in the blaze, covering the site in toxic particles that have proven hard to remove. And the fragile structure remain ... More | |
Peter Beard (American, b. 1938), Untitled (Elephants and Baboons under Kilimanjaro), 1984. Oversized digital pigment, printed later, 29 x 80 inches.
by Stacey Stowe
MONTAUK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Taking chances has long been second nature to Peter Beard, a photographer and artist who spent decades living and working at his rustic tent camp in Kenya, where he documented both Africas natural beauty and its environmental decay. Beard nearly died on a photography shoot in 1996 when he was trampled by an elephant and he was known to jump into waters to swim alongside crocodiles. But when he disappeared two weeks ago from his home here, Beard, the adventurer who had honed his survival skills in the wild, was no longer the ageless, daring, physically robust explorer of the past. He was 82, incapacitated by dementia and walked slowly. Though the police are no longer searching the nearby woods, the hunt for Beard, one of Americas most celebrated photographers, continues even as the mystery surrounding his disappearance deepens. We have not given up looking and we are not going to give up, Zara Beard, his daughter and only child, said in a brief interview earlier ... More | |
This file photo taken on December 5, 2019 shows the main gate with the inscription "Arbeit macht frei" (literally in English: "work makes (one) free") at the entrance to the former Auschwitz German Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland. JANEK SKARZYNSKI / AFP.
by Bernard Osser
OSWIECIM (AFP).- Every day, Pawel Sawicki, head of social media at the Auschwitz Museum, posts several photos of victims of the former Nazi German death camp on a Twitter account that has become a powerful tool in Holocaust education. A recent post to the account, which has a million followers, featured a photo of a baby girl in a knitted woollen dress, adorned with a large white collar. "8 April 1940 | French Jewish girl Jacqueline Benguigui was born in #Paris. She arrived at #Auschwitz on 25 June 1943 in a transport of 1,018 Jews deported from Drancy. She was among 418 people murdered in a gas chamber after the selection," reads the caption. "We show people on their birthday and provide biographical information," Sawicki told AFP. "It's important for us to show the fates of individuals because it is sometimes difficult to fathom the scale of the crime." This year marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | Lyon & Turnbull's Contemporary & Post-War Art sale includes works by Nan Goldin | | Period & historically significant works lead online sale at Freeman's | | Victor Skrebneski, who captured stars in striking photos, dies at 90 |
Nan Goldin, Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC, 1991. Cibachrome print, A.P., signed, titled, editioned and dated verso, unframed, 71cm x 101cm (28in x 39.75in). Estimate: £6,000 - £8,000 + fees - to be offered at auction 16 April.
EDINBURGH.- Influenced by the fashion photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin, Goldin's earliest photographic works are portraits of close friends glamorously dressed in drag. She intended her work to be an homage to their beauty and courage; exploring drag and its ability to fulfil the fantasy of reconstructed identities. Nan Goldin is an American photographer best-known for her deeply personal and candid portraiture. Her photographs serve to document herself and those closest to her, particularly the LGBTQ community and associated heroin-addicted subcultures. Influenced by the fashion photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin, Goldin's earliest photographic works are portraits of close friends glamorously dressed in drag. From the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, while she was living in New York, Goldin continued to ... More | |
Notable highlights include a rare, and possibly unique, painted tinware and zinc 'Liberty' cap parade pole finial with Civil War association to the "Pratt Street Riot (Lot 95, $15,000-25,000).
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Freemans American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts auction will proceed as an online auction on its originally scheduled date of April 28 at 10am. The auction includes an array of fresh-to-market works that were made in various regions along the Eastern seaboard and span centuries. The sale places significant emphasis on fine period furniture examples from New England, the Mid-Atlantic and the South; Marine Art, including sailors valentines, woolies, and ship paintings; Chinese Export Porcelain, including a Tobacco Leaf service (Lots 29-39); textiles, including 18th century canvaswork; and items with important historical significance. Notable highlights include a rare, and possibly unique, painted tinware and zinc 'Liberty' cap parade pole finial with Civil War association to the "Pratt Street Riot (Lot 95, $15,000-25,000); a portrait of Henry Clay (1777-1852), attributed to the School of Matth ... More | |
Victor Skrebneski. Orson Welles, 1970.
by Neil Genzlinger
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Victor Skrebneski, whose striking photographs of celebrities and models including Cindy Crawford, Bette Davis and Orson Welles were a fixture of advertising campaigns and gallery shows for more than a half-century, died on Saturday in Chicago. He was 90. The cause was cancer, his friend Stephen Rybka said through a spokeswoman. Skrebneski first became well known for photographing a print advertising campaign for Estée Lauder, a contract he landed in 1962. The Estée Lauder woman, as the campaign came to be known, ran for years in glossy magazines and featured a series of models shot by Skrebneski, often in settings that suggested old money and refined taste. The campaign made such an impression that the company received thousands of inquiries from people who wanted to know where to get the tablecloth or the vase seen in a particular image. One woman said she was redecorating her living room to match ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | 9K gold presentation bowl gifted to Queen Elizabeth II's grandparents in Heritage Silver & Objects of Fine Vertu Auction | | Hand-signed letter from Florence Nightingale among treasures in Heritage Historical Manuscripts Auction | | Music capital Vienna silenced by coronavirus crisis |
A Hermann Ratzersdorfer Gem-Set, Partial Gilt, and Enameled Silver-Mounted and Engraved Rock Crystal Figural Tazza, Vienna, circa 1880. 10-1/2 x 10 x 6-1/4 inches, 26.7 x 25.4 x 15.9 cm.
DALLAS, TX.- The 9K gold centerbowl presented to Queen Elizabeth IIs grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, could bring $80,000 or more in Heritage Auctions Fine Silver & Objects of Fine Vertu Auction May 5 in Dallas, Texas. The waisted, ovoid bowl by Rattray & Co. (estimate: $60,000-80,000) was presented to the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, parents to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Queen Consort to George VI of England and Queen Mother to Elizabeth II, Sept. 30, 1931 at their home, Glamis Castle, by a deputation of the city of Dundee in honor of their golden wedding anniversary. We are pleased to offer this historically significant Rattray & Co. presentation bowl, Heritage Auctions Silver and Decorative Arts Director Karen Rigdon said. This gift celebrating family is all the more meaningful, using Celtic motifs of dragons and knots reflecting the familys Scottish heritage. A Hermann ... More | |
Florence Nightingale Autograph Letter Signed "Florence Nightingale." Two pages of a bifolium, 7.25" x 9", Scutari, Turkey "Barrack Hospital"; July 10, 1856.
DALLAS, TX.- A letter signed by Florence Nightingale, whose name has become synonymous with the altruistic spirit many associate with the members of the medical profession, is among the featured lots in Heritage Auctions Historical Manuscripts Auction April 22 in Dallas, Texas. In the letter (estimate: $2,000+) addressed to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Nightingale expresses her gratitude for his advice in a recent letter to her, and promising to help distribute a large donation Sultan Abdulmecid of the Ottoman Empire made to the nurses and hospitals in response to efforts by Nightingale and other British nurses to improve conditions in hospitals during the Crimean War. When she heard about the substandard conditions of the hospitals, Florence Nightingale traveled in 1854 to Scutari, a district in Istanbul, with more than 30 nurses to care for those who were sick and dying, Heritage Auctions Historical Manuscripts Director Sandra Pa ... More | |
In this file photo taken on March 11, 2020 a skateboarder skates his board past the closed State Opera in Vienna, Austria. JOE KLAMAR / AFP.
by Blaise Gauquelin
VIENNA (AFP).- Austria had hoped the year 2020 would be dedicated to celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who died in Vienna in 1827. But confronted with the coronavirus pandemic, one of the world's music capitals has been silenced, leaving an entire sector fearing for its future. Although Austria on Tuesday started easing strict confinement measures with shops opening again, resuming cultural life for now is still out of the question. "The Vienna State Opera usually resembles an anthill where 1,000 people are busy," opera director Dominique Meyer tells AFP. "Now the place is silent, and it is emotionally very trying." Normally not a day goes by in Vienna when there isn't an orchestra performance to listen to or an operetta to admire or a festival to attend. But it all came to an abrupt halt a month ago, with concert halls among the first ... More |
|
How the Rolex GMT-Master Became the Ultimate TravellerÂs Watch
|
|
| |
| | More News |
Rolex, Patek Philippe ditch Baselworld to create new watch fair
ZURICH (AFP).- Five of the world's biggest luxury watchmakers, including Rolex, Patek Philippe and Chanel, announced Tuesday they would withdraw from Baselworld to create a new watch fair. Also joined by jeweller Chopard and Rolex subsidiary Tudor, the brands that for decades were considered pillars of the iconic fair in the northern Swiss city of Basel have decided to leave and instead create an annual event in Geneva, starting in April 2021, the Foundation High Horology (FHH) said in a statement. "This departure follows a number of unilateral decisions made without consultation by Baselworld management," the statement said. It criticised the fair organisers for, among other things, unilaterally deciding to cancel the 2020 edition, which had been scheduled to kick off at the end of April, amid concerns over the novel coronavirus pandemic. It also ... More
Albert K. Webster, who built up the New York Philharmonic, dies at 82
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Albert K. Webster, who as managing director of the New York Philharmonic ushered the ensemble into the modern era, when major orchestras began to resemble corporations, died on April 3 at his home in Manhattan. He was 82. The cause was complications related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Sally Webster, Websters wife, said. Albert Webster held the Philharmonics top post from 1975 through 1990, mostly coinciding with Zubin Mehtas music directorship. Websters accomplishments were unglamorous yet crucial: enormous growth in subscriptions, gifts and the endowment, as well as musicians salaries. Beyond the Philharmonic, he helped create the American Arts Alliance and worked with the League of American Orchestras and the National Endowment for the Arts. Nick ... More
A dancer's quarantine diary: Coming full circle
SANDY, UT (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- For ballet dancers, normal life means dancing and sweating very close to one another for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. Typically, morning company class at New York City Ballet looks as crowded as the 42nd Street subway station after two trains have passed by without stopping. For dancers, 6 feet apart rarely happens. In this new life were all leading, we dont have access to our usual studios, with their special floors, mirrors and ballet barres. And maybe the most challenging thing is that what we work toward day in and day out live performance is on indefinite hold. Like the rest of the world, we are trying to work remotely. But with our jobs its not as simple as moving from the big office desk to a home laptop. Ive found refuge in Utah, at my childhood home, which I left 20 years ago to pursue a ... More
Abrons Arts Center and Henry Street Settlement launch a relief fund artists
NEW YORK, NY.- Abrons Arts Center, together with Henry Street Settlement, announce the launch of the Artist Community Relief Fund, a community micro-grant program intended to support local Lower East Side and Chinatown based artists and arts workers whose income has been directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications opened on Tuesday, April 14th on the Abrons website. The Artist Community Relief Fund will provide short-term, immediate financial assistance to artists or arts workers living in 10002, 10009, or 10013 zip codes. Artists can apply to receive unrestricted funds in the amount of US $250 per person. Up to 40 individuals will receive this distribution, and this application phase will close when the funds are exhausted. The impact of COVID-19 has been profound and this situation has had a devastating impact on the income ... More
Damiani publishes 'Body Language' by Allen Wheatcroft
NEW YORK, NY.- Allen Wheatcroft's first monograph, Body Language (Damiani) explores the delicate balance between connection and dislocation, which he keenly observes while roaming city streets in the U.S. and Europe, with his Leica camera on hand. Taken from 2014-2018 in Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris and Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden, the photographs emphasize gestures, movements, and expressions - a visual language without words. These pictures prompt the viewer to wonder about, and empathize with, the bankers and doormen, loners and gym rats, tourists and sun bathers - eager, perplexed, hurting - who inhabit our modern cities. With a focus on tension, loneliness, and synchronicity in contemporary life, this project artfully captures the universal language ... More
Stream and shout: 10 underseen rock documentaries
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- As we all hole up, rock documentaries can perk up any living room. But in the list below, I opted to skip the well-known ones. Dont look for stadium headliners or anything by Martin Scorsese. The emphasis is on lesser-known personalities whose energy is palpable through a screen of any size. Also required was a portrayal of community-building and togetherness something many of us are craving right now and a healthy amount of music, preferably loud, live and with a you are there quality. Minus the stinky bathrooms, of course. At a time of rising anti-corporate anger and protests over inequality, heres a handy primer to a musical movement that raged against the machine in a grassroots, DIY manner. At the dawn of the 1980s, hard-core took punk, sped it up and spat it back in everybodys face. Directed ... More
Cannes film festival difficult to hold 'in original form': organisers
PARIS (AFP).- It will be difficult to hold the Cannes film festival in its original form in 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak, organisers said Tuesday, adding they were looking at new ways of hosting the world's biggest annual celebration of cinema. The festival had already been postponed from its original mid-May dates to late June and early July. But organisers said this is "no longer an option" after President Emmanuel Macron said cultural festivals could not resume until mid-July at the earliest. "It is clearly difficult to assume that the Festival de Cannes could be held this year in its original form," the organisers said in a statement, adding they were exploring "all contingencies" to realise Cannes 2020 "in one way or another". The virus outbreak has ravaged France's glittering spring and summer cultural calender, with organisers last night cancelling ... More
Algerian author wins top Arab fiction prize for 'Spartan Court'
ABU DHABI (AFP).- Algerian author Abdelouahab Aissaoui on Tuesday won a prestigious prize for Arabic fiction with his novel "The Spartan Court". Backed by the UK's Booker Prize Foundation, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) is financed by Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism. Aissaoui will receive $50,000 and funds will be provided to translate the book into English, the organisers said on their website. Published by Dar Mim, "The Spartan Court" is a historical novel that relates the power struggle between Ottoman and French colonial powers in Algeria at the start of the 19th century. Born in the northern Algerian city of Djelfa in 1985, Aissaoui graduated in electromechanical engineering before devoting himself to writing, penning several books and receiving many awards. The Spartan Court "invites the reader to gain a greater ... More
Holocaust memorial sites fight new threat from far right
BERLIN (AFP).- From swastikas sprayed on the walls to Hitler salute selfies, far-right provocations are a growing problem at the sites of former Nazi concentration camps in Germany. Museum directors have sounded the alarm over a spike in incidents, which include visitors writing messages of Holocaust denial in the guestbook and challenging tour guides on the facts of the genocide. "Messages glorifying Nazism or demanding the camps be reopened for foreigners have become more common," Volkhard Knigge, museum director at the former Buchenwald concentration camp in eastern Germany, told AFP. "There have always been incidents at memorial sites, but we have noticed an escalation due to the far right's breaching of language taboos," he said. At Buchenwald, where 56,000 people died between 1937 and 1945, the number of reported incidents ... More
In about-face, musicians' union agrees to pandemic fundraiser
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- A Broadway fundraiser to benefit entertainment workers whose livelihoods have been imperiled by the coronavirus will be rescheduled after a labor union retreated from a demand that musicians be paid for the streaming of the previously recorded event. We believe all musicians should be fairly compensated for their work all of the time, but we also believe that we must do everything possible to support entertainment workers hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, Ray Hair, international president of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, said in a statement Monday. We fully support the union musicians who have graciously offered to forgo all required payments to allow this charity event to move forward. The fundraiser, which had been scheduled for Monday night, is to raise ... More
Shut by virus, Met Opera announces starry 'at home' concert
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Starry (and often epically long) concerts are a Metropolitan Opera stock in trade. In 1966, the Met bid farewell to its old theater with an all-hands-on-deck gala, and cast-of-dozens spectacles have been mounted over the years for retirements, anniversaries and the companys centennial, in 1983 a concert that lasted 11 hours, with dinner break. All those events, while sometimes shot through with melancholy, were celebratory in spirit. The At Home Gala the company is planning for Saturday, April 25, is far different, coming as the Met has been forced to cancel the final two months of its season and begin an urgent effort to raise the tens of million dollars it is losing because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Met announced on Monday afternoon that the concert will feature more than 40 artists, including stars like Anna ... More
|
|
PhotoGalleries
Roy De Forest
Franz Klainsek
Niclas Riepshoff
Charles Atlas
Flashback On a day like today, Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci was born April 15, 1452. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519), more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. In this image: Agents speak on their phones with their clients while bidding on at the auction of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" during the Post-War and Contemporary Art evening sale at Christie's on November 15, 2017 in New York City. The rediscovered masterpiece by the Renaissance master sells for an historic $450,312,500, obliterating the prevous world record for the most expensive work of art at auction. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFP.
|
|
| |
|
