| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Friday, December 31, 2021 |
| | Remembering the racist history of 'Human Zoos' | |
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The Human Zoo, exhibit at the Africa Museum in Tervurnan, Belgium. In exhibitions that were popular until the early 20th century, living people of color were displayed for the enjoyment of white audiences. The bigotry behind those shows lives on. J. Van de Voorde/Royal Museum for Central Africa.
by Farah Nayeri
TERVUREN,.- The Roman Catholic church at the center of Tervuren, a Brussels suburb, is no tourist spot. Its a heavily restored building with unexceptional stained-glass windows and a little bell tower. Yet right outside its walls are seven stone graves of historical significance for Belgium as it strives to come to terms with the horrors of its colonial past. The graves hold the remains of six Congolese men and one woman who were exhibited like zoo animals in a nearby park in Tervuren during the rainy summer of 1897 and who died of influenza and pneumonia after being forced to spend their days outside. They were among the 267 men, women and children transported to Tervuren for a colonial exhibition ordered by the Belgian king, Leopold II. To commemorate the 125th anniversary of the tragedy that was the Tervuren exhibition, the museum that King Leopold built in that same park which recently rebranded as the Africa Museum has put on a show titled Human Zoo: The Age of Colon ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Czech-born Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was one of the most celebrated artists in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. As an influential force behind the art nouveau movement, he created sumptuous posters and advertising---promoting such everyday products as cigarette papers and tea biscuits---that transformed the streets of Paris into open-air art exhibitions. Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary celebrates the Mucha Trust Collectionâs first major U.S. tour in 20 years, featuring a vast array of posters, illustrations, ornamental objects, and rarely seen sculpture, photographs, and self-portraits.
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| Exhibition celebrates the creative genius of Sandro Botticelli | | Herzog & de Meuron design concept unveiled by Memphis Brooks Art Museum | | Exhibition surveys six decades of Jasper Johns' practice in printmaking | 
Alessandro Filipepi, commonly called Botticelli (circa 14451510), Portrait of a Young Woman, also known as La Bella Simonetta, circa 1485, tempera and oil on poplar wood, 81.8 x 54 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, CC BY-SA 4.0.
PARIS.- The Musée Jacquemart-André celebrates the creative genius of Sandro Botticelli (14451510) and the activity in his studio, by exhibiting forty works executed by the sophisticated painter, complemented by several paintings by contemporary Florentine artists who were particularly influenced by Botticelli. Botticellis careerhe was one of Florences greatest artistsattests to the economic development and the profound changes that transformed the city during the rule of the Medici. Botticelli is one of the Italian Renaissances best known painters, although some aspects of his life and the activity of his studio remain a mystery. He consistently alternated between the production of one-off paintings and works produced in series, completed with the help of his many assistants. The exhibition shows the importance ... More | | 
Front Street, Entry Court, Facing West | Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, © Herzog & de Meuron.
MEMPHIS, TENN.- Memphis Brooks Museum of Art unveiled the design concept for its 112,000-sf new home atop a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Developed by the international design firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with the Memphis-based archimania, the design signals the 105-year-old institutions commitment to the future of the diverse community of Memphis. Upon the museums grand opening in 2026, visitors will find expanded exhibition galleries, more and varied spaces for community and educational programs, and several central spaces offering continual free public access. The relocated Brooks is the keystone of an ambitious six-mile-long redevelopment of the Memphis riverfront that is now underway. A view to the future by way of recreational paths and parks; a cultural corridor of museum, library, and law school; and a newly preserved historic cobblestone landing, the project reorients Memphis towards the river, invitin ... More | | 
Target, 1974. Screenprint on paper, 35 1/8 x 27 3/8 in. ed. 3/70. Collection Walker Art Center, Gift of Judy and Kenneth Dayton, 1988 © Jasper Johns/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.
GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.- The Grand Rapids Art Museum is presenting the first major exhibition of Jasper Johns prints in two decades, An Art of Changes: Jasper Johns Prints, 1960 2018. On view at the Museum from October 2 through January 8, 2022, the exhibition surveys six decades of Johns practice in printmaking through a selection of some 90 works in a wide range of techniques. When Johns paintings of flags and targets debuted in 1958, they brought him instant acclaim and established him as a critical link between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. In the ensuing 60 years, he has continued to astonish viewers with the beauty and complexity of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints. His imagery has grown to include objects found in the studio, abstract patterns glimpsed in the environment, souvenirs from his childhood, ... More |
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| A theater treasure of St. Marks Place faces closure | | Five Smithsonian Museums among those shuttering amid omicron staff shortages | | Museo Picasso Málaga announces its exhibition programme for 2022 | 
Theatre 80 at 80 St. Marks Place, a Prohibition-era speakeasy converted into an off-Broadway theater in the early 1960s, in New York, Oct. 6, 2020. Zack DeZon/The New York Times.
by Bill Hughes
NEW YORK, NY.- There are fewer and fewer places left in New York City where you can walk through a door and feel transported back in time. Among them is 80 St. Marks Place, a Prohibition-era speak-easy converted into an off-Broadway theater in the early 1960s. Inside the front door there are still hooks embedded in the brick where steel plates were once hung to buy time during police raids. The lobby walls are covered with framed, autographed photos from dozens of famous actors, including Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy. A narrow hallway connects the theater lobby with William Barnacle Tavern, where you can still get absinthe from a bar that has been in place since the 1920s. The performance space itself, Theater 80, is intimate, with a 199-seat capacity. You can hear someone speaking at a normal volume from anywhere in the room. But like so many of the citys ... More | | 
The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington on Oct. 12, 2018. As the omicron variant overtakes the country, and coronavirus cases reported for the last week in the capital region climbed to their highest since the start of the pandemic, the Smithsonian Institution said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021 it would shutter four of its museums through Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022. Jared Soares/The New York Times.
NEW YORK, NY.- As the omicron variant overtakes the country, and coronavirus cases reported for the last week in the capital region climbed to their highest number since the start of the pandemic, the Smithsonian Institution said this week that it would temporarily shutter five of its museums. The biggest among them is the National Museum of Natural History, which will close Thursday and Friday and is scheduled to reopen Jan. 5. The museum is normally closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Linda St. Thomas, a spokesperson for the Smithsonian, said Wednesday that the museum was experiencing a shortage of visitor services staff. The line to enter the museum was at least an hour long Wednesday, she said. The additional closure of the National ... More | | 
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Bust of a Man, Mougins, 8 november 1970. Oil on plywood, 96,5 x 57,5 cm. Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, Madrid © FABA Photo: Soko-studio © Sucesión Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2021.
MALAGA.- In February 2022, Museo Picasso Málagas annual programme will begin with Face to Face. Picasso and the Old Masters (22nd February 26th June 2020), in which works by Old Masters such as El Greco and Zurbarán will be shown alongside others by Pablo Picasso, discovering links between Picassos work and a selection of works by the Old Masters. Michael FitzGerald, professor of modern and contemporary art at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, is the curator of the show, which has been jointly organized by Museo Picasso Málaga and Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. In spring 2022, a retrospective of Paula Rego comes to Málaga (26th April 21st August 2022). It shows the work and tells the story of an artist who led an extraordinary life, highlighting the personal nature of much of her work and the socio-political context in which it is rooted. Paula Rego (Lisbon, 1935) has lived and worked in London si ... More |
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| Haunting the coast of Spain: The ghost hotel of Algarrobico | | The Metropolitan Museum of Art announces spring 2022 season of exhibitions | | Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project presents Bill Viola's 'Five Angels for the Millennium' | 
Ivan Garcia, the director general of Grupo Playas y Cortijos, at the farmhouse that his company is hoping to convert into a 30-room boutique hotel near Almeria, Spain, on Dec. 26, 2021. Ben Roberts/The New York Times.
by Raphael Minder
NEW YORK, NY.- Sixty years ago, British film director David Lean traveled to Spains remote southern province of AlmerÃa to shoot his Oscar-winning movie, Lawrence of Arabia. The location was chosen because this really was just an empty desert facing the beautiful sea, recalled Peter Beale, who was a young runner on the film set. The movie crew built a plywood replica of Aqaba, the Red Sea port city, in a dry riverbed leading down to the pristine beach of Algarrobico, a temporary stand-in for Lawrence and his troops to charge on horseback and capture. In the decades following, many other parts of the Spanish coastline became almost unrecognizable, with massive construction to draw tourists and their dollars. Resort towns mushroomed, yachting marinas eclipsed fishing ports, and golf courses became the greenery of choice ... More | | 
Installation view of the Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Oct. 11, 2021. The show features artists who redrew the map of the 20th centurys most provocative art movement. Jeenah Moon/The New York Times.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its lineup of exhibitions for the first half of 2022 along with highlights of the in-person programs that have resumed. We are thrilled to announce the latest on The Mets robust exhibition offerings, as we continue to welcome more visitors to the Museum, particularly with the easing of restrictions on international travel, said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met has an exceptionally ambitious slate of exhibitions, programs, and activities planned for the coming months that ensures a unique and memorable experience for both our local and global audiences. The Mets 2022 exhibition program launches in January with Charles Ray: Figure Ground (opening January 31, 2022), a focused presentation that will unite sculptures from every period of this important contemporary artists career. Jacques Louis David: R ... More | | 
Bill Viola, Five Angels for the Millennium (detail), 2001. Video/sound installation Image: "Departing Angel" Photo: Kira Perov © Bill Viola Studio.
SHANGHAI.- From December 10th, 2021 to April 14th, 2022, the Centre Pompidou à West Bund Museum Project presents Five Angels for the Millennium (2001). This monumental video environment designed by American artist Bill Viola at the turn of the new millennium is presented here in an exceptional manner in the Museums "Box", a space dedicated to the most daring multimedia experiments in the contemporary history of artistic creation. Bill Viola is born in 1951 in the State of New York (USA). This leading video pioneer has been involved in radical experimentation using electronic media since the early 1970s. Like certain artists of his generation, he saw that the television screen could represent a new reality and connect distant cultures. His body of work is unique, from his first black-and-white experiments with video, to the sophisticated treatments of his large high-definition projections. His starting point is sensory experience, which he destabilises by playing with temporal paradoxes and ... More |
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| Heritage Auctions soars past $1.4 billion in sales in 2021 | | Portland Museum of Art presents a major survey of one of the world's preeminent multimedia artists | | The Parrish Art Museum presents solo exhibitions by Peter Campus, Virginia Jaramillo, and John Torreano | 
Highest Graded Copy of Super Mario 64. Sold on Jul 11, 2021 for: $1,560,000.
DALLAS, TX.- Heritage Auctions recorded $1.4 billion in sales in 2021, marking the first time in its 45-year history the Dallas-based auction house has surpassed the billion-dollar mark. Heritage also set numerous auction world records during the past year, including ones for the worlds most valuable comic book, J.C. Leyendecker painting, video game, Michael Jordan jersey, Peanuts artwork, hockey trading card and Harry Potter book. And it did not take a magic wand to reach this extraordinary benchmark. Heritage is built by collectors and for collectors, says Heritage Auctions CEO and co-founder Steve Ivy. Even when we are talking about serious money, the passionate pursuit of a collector is still a pursuit of fun, and we will never forget this. Our extraordinary success in 2021 was due to this very fact: We dont sell things. We offer memories, passions, pursuits that bring broad grins ... More | | 
Clifford Ross (United States, born 1952), Mountain IV, 2005 (detail), chromogenic print, 75 x 130 inches framed. Courtesy of the artist and Ryan Lee Gallery © Clifford Ross.
PORTLAND, ME.- American artist Clifford Ross is steeped in the traditions of modernism across a range of media, but his photographic and video practices over the past 30 years reveal one of the most incisive and technically sophisticated investigations into the nature of vision in the mediums history. His art is characterized by relentless inventiveness and iteration; Ross explores the expressive possibilities of his subjects through newly created media, working at a variety of different scales. Viewers of his work might find themselves immersed in waves from a hurricane, printed with incredible resolution on 12-foot-tall panels of maple-veneered plywood or depicted as digital pixels crashing across enormous LED screens. Sightlines, the first major exhibition of Ross work ... More | | 
peter campus, which way, 2001 (detail). Videograph. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York.
WATER MILL, NY.- The Parrish Art Museum presents three solo exhibitions of East End artists peter campus (American, b. 1937), Virginia Jaramillo (American, b. 1939), and John Torreano (American, b.1941), which are on view November 7, 2021 to February 27, 2022. peter campus: when the hurly burlys done; Virginia Jaramillo: The Harmony between Line and Space; and John Torreano: Painting Outer Space/Inner Space, 1989 to Present feature predominantly new, never-before-seen work by artists in the seventh decade of their careers and at the top of their creative powers. The exhibitions are organized by Alicia G. Longwell, Ph.D., the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator at the Parrish Art Museum. John Torreano emerged as a painter in the late 1960s and has always charted his own course. With the universe ... More |
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Why is this painting an odd shape? | 10-minute talk: Tiepolo's 'Allegory with Venus and Time'
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 5 classical music albums to hear right nowNEW YORK, NY.- Over the past decade, the reputation of Australian composer Liza Lim has grown steadily, with consistently strong chamber and orchestral albums released on top-flight experimental music labels like Wergo and Kairos. Singing in Tongues collects vocal and operatic music written by Lim between 1993 and 2008 all of it handled persuasively by her longtime collaborators in the Elision Ensemble. The earliest piece here is an abstract take on The Oresteia. Its airy extended techniques, snatches of luminous vocal harmony and gnarly full-ensemble blasts of sound give a sense of Lims approach to music drama: Its more about traveling between timbres than it is about moving from one plot point to the next. That approach has remained remarkably consistent, but that doesnt mean she hasnt evolved. The most ... More  Kehrer Verlag publishes 'Ara Oshagan: displaced'NEW YORK, NY.- Photographer Ara Oshagan and author Krikor Beledian grew up in Beirut's Armenian communities formed by refugees and survivors of genocide. They came of age in families and streets fraught with the collective memory of extreme violence and dispossession.Both left Beirut decades ago and nowreturn,carrying their own histories of displacement,to immerse them-selves in its fractured urbanscape. Oshagan wades through the spaces and narrow neighborhoods of his past to create dark and lyrical photographs that straddle the line between documentary and narrative: an attempt to articulate his own ambiguous relationship to place and history. While Beledian,the preeminent author ofthe Armenian diaspora, drawing from his decades-long research and several novels about these communities, pens an original and poetic semi-autobiographical ... More  Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire exhibits Raymond Depardon's The La ferme du Garet seriesCHAUMONT-SUR-LOIRE.- The La ferme du Garet series (1984), which are some of the photographs exhibited at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, occupy a unique, intimate and deeply-rooted place in the work of Raymond Depardon. Today, this testimony to rural life and country folk which gives a voice and face to people and places long considered silent and invisible, is familiar to those who know the work of the great documentary filmmaker. After the publication of this series as a collection in 1995 (Editions Carré, republished by Actes Sud), the trilogy Profils paysans (2001-2008), filmed together with his wife Claudine Nougaret, was published in the 2000s and includes La terre des paysans (Le Seuil, 2008), Paysans (Points, 2009) and more recently Rural (Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, 2020). In 1984, when Depardon returned, ... More  The 25 best classical music tracks of 2021NEW YORK, NY.- Venerable older works and ambitious newer efforts were among New York Times critics favorite recordings this year. Andy Akiho: Pillar III Seven Pillars; Sandbox Percussion (Aki Rhythm Productions) A lush, brooding celebration of noise, Seven Pillars is the sprawling result of a deep collaboration between a composer and a percussion quartet. Mixing antsy chimes and a low-slung beat below, Pillar III builds in force before collapsing in ferocious shudders, explosions and shivers and an ominous lullaby coda. ZACHARY WOOLFE CPE Bach: Rondo in D minor Mozart and Contemporaries; Vikingur Olafsson, piano (Deutsche Grammophon) Pianist Vikingur Olafsson has released another fascinating album, this one offering works by Mozart alongside pieces by his contemporaries Domenico Cimarosa, Baldassare Galuppi, ... More  Lee Kaufman, who cleaned her way to late-life stardom, dies at 99NEW YORK, NY.- Talk about an unlikely celebrity. I didnt understand why people would be looking at me, I really didnt, Lee Kaufman told The New York Times in 2014, when she was 91 and about six months into her substantial splash of internet and television fame. I looked down. I thought my pants fell off. Kaufman and her husband, Morty, were at that moment something of a phenomenon, thanks to internet spots and television commercials in which they appeared for the Swiffer line of cleaning products. They were pioneers in an advertising strategy for Swiffer built on ordinary people, rather than actors, and the public responded with adoration and a click count that soared into the millions. There are few things in this world that are as precious as Lee and Morty Kaufman from the Swiffer commercials, read one typical post on Twitter at the time. ... More  Inspired by Murano, glassware goes wildNEW YORK, NY.- What happened in Murano, stayed in Murano. So was the rigidly guarded way of life on the tiny island in the Venetian Lagoon, about 1 mile north of Venice, Italy, where, in the late 1200s, the Venetian government mandated that the furnaces used by local glassmakers, and the glassmakers themselves, be relocated from the city center. Intended as a measure to protect central Venice from the fire hazard posed by the furnaces, the law also protected the secrets of the Murano glassblowers revered craft, which involves melting mineral sands at temperatures between 1,700 and 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit and adding in elements like cobalt and gold leaf to create vivid colors and glimmering finishes. The Murano name encompasses various styles and techniques, including millefiori, which is characterized by psychedelically dense floral ... More  Beverly Russell, who ran design magazines with flair, dies at 87NEW YORK, NY.- Beverly Russell, a British American journalist and editor who led the design magazines Interiors and Architecture, advocating for women to seize their place in media and design, died Dec. 11 at her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was 87. Her son, Benjamin Beardwood, said she had a terminal heart condition and had undergone medically assisted suicide. In the 1980s halcyon days of print media, Interiors was one of the design industrys premier trade magazines, and Russell was its chic and commanding editor-in-chief. From the magazines New York office, she led its coverage through a decade of ritzy architectural trends, touch-the-sky skyscrapers and glamorous starchitects. Under her purview, Interiors published articles tailored for industry insiders, running profiles about ascendant design world figures, comprehensive ... More  Exhibition presents works that reflect the United Arab Emirates's diverse contemporary art sceneWASHINGTON, DC.- The Middle East Institute Arts and Culture Center, in partnership with The NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, announced the opening of Between the Sky and the Earth: Contemporary Art from the UAE at the MEI Art Gallery at 1763 N Street NW, Washington DC. Now open to the public the exhibition brings together 12 artists whose different concepts, mediums and backgrounds, reflect the United Arab Emiratess diverse contemporary art scene. This exhibition, conceptualized by independent Abu Dhabi-based curator, Munira Al Sayegh, introduces an intergenerational dialogue between artists who explore their social, cultural, and natural landscapes. With roots in the Gulf, the Levant, Southeast Asia and the United States, the artistsall of whom call the UAE homeexamine themes around permanence and fluidity, time and memory ... More  Architects Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel design the MPavilion 2021MELBOURNE.- After two life-altering years in the making, MPavilion 2021The Lightcatcherdesigned by globally acclaimed architects Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel of MAP studio (Venice), has opened in the Queen Victoria Gardens. Renowned for responding to existing sites in a way that is both sensitive and celebratory, MAP studios MPavilion heralds a milestone for Melbourne, representing a significant path back to re-energising the creative and cultural life of our city. A mirrored kaleidoscopic cube featuring an open steel structure on four u-shaped concrete columns, The Lightcatcher was conceived as an urban lighthousethe angled mirrored panels acting as a container of ideas that reflect and amplify both the people and cultural activity taking place in MPavilion, and its ever-changing environment in the Queen Victoria ... More  Jeanine Tesori's gift: Conjuring the storytelling potency of musicNEW YORK, NY.- Jeanine Tesori can take apart music and put it back together as well as any composer whos put note to paper. She can write a recitative worthy of Janacek, or a pop tune that could have charted on 1970s AM radio. She can conjure a gospel number, a tap soft-shoe, or a folk-rock confessional like a seasoned pro. And as the co-creator of Caroline, or Change (now in a widely acclaimed revival on Broadway) and the Tony-winning Fun Home, she has helped to expand the boundaries of the American musical in a way that recalls such forebears as Stephen Sondheim and Elizabeth Swados. But you dont come away from a Tesori musical not the soulful Violet, the jazzy Thoroughly Modern Millie, the snarky Shrek the Musical, the meta-cultural Soft Power, nor the offbeat Kimberly Akimbo, now in a well-reviewed premiere ... More  "For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design" on view at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art OKLAHOMA CITY, OK.- Featuring nearly 100 paintings and 200 years of American history, For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design opened Nov. 6 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and runs through Jan. 30, 2022. Organized by the American Federation of Arts and the National Academy of Design the exhibition is comprised of paintings by masters such as Winslow Homer, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, John Singer Sargent, Peter Saul, Charles White, Andrew Wyeth, and many more that tell a unique history of American art through the eyes of many of the best-known American artists. This exhibition offers a glimpse into the ways American artists have defined themselves and their painted worlds over the past two centuries, said OKCMOA curator Catherine Shotick. This is the first time these works have traveled together to ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Le Design Pour Tous 
New Galleries of Dutch and Flemish Art 
Cassi Namoda 
Anke Eilergerhard
Flashback On a day like today, Italian painter Giovanni Boldini was born December 31, 1842. Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 - 11 July 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter who lived and worked in Paris for most of his career. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.
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