| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Friday, July 29, 2022 |
| | The role of art in a time of war | |
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The battered Central House of Culture in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, Ukraine, July 6, 2022. The authorities in Ukraine, up to the actor-turned-commander in chief, have not been shy in encouraging the domain of international culture to support the war effort. Emile Ducke/The New York Times.
by Jason Farago
KYIV.- You do not have to go far outside Kyiv to see how the massacre of civilians and the trampling of culture still come one after the other. In Borodianka, a nucleus of Russian atrocities about 45 minutes north of here the drive is slower now that the bridges have been demolished the Palace of Culture has had its windows blown out; its concert hall is dust-caked, and the ticket booths have been ripped asunder. Halfway between the capital and the Belarusian border, I had to contort my body through twisted studs to enter the leveled Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum, its statuary now pitted, its embroideries scorched. It is much worse farther east. Here in Kyiv, the masterpieces have, like many of its citizens earlier, gone underground. The Khanenko National Museum of Arts, in an old mansion on Tereshchenkivska Street, owns a smaller Rubens: a little oil sketch of a river god, normally on a blue wall beneath a beaux-arts skylight. I couldnt see it when I walked ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day The PinchukArtCentre opened the group exhibition When Faith Moves Mountains featuring more than 45 Ukrainian and international artists.
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| Monika Sosnowska's "Fatigue" on view at Kunstraum Dornbirn | | How to decolonize a museum? Try an ax. | | Regen Projects presents its third solo exhibition with the artist Sergej Jensen | 
View of Fatigue, Kunstraum Dornbirn, Austria, 2022. Courtesy of Monika Sosnowska, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Günter Richard Wett.
DORNBIRN.- Monika Sosnowskas expansive sculptural works seem familiar and yet strange in their aesthetic uniqueness. T, a bent T-profile of five meters height, leans against a wall of Kunstraum Dornbirn. The bar curves up at the bend, the profile with its 900 kilograms no longer carries anything but itself. A steel tube named Pipe with a diameter of 182 centimetres is torn through the middle, reminiscent of the tear in a sheet of paper, and rolled up over a length of 10 metres. The beginning and end of the tube are circularly intact, lying and standing in space. Next to it hangs from the ceiling Facade, a seven and a half-meter-high folded steel scaffolding that rests lightly with one corner on the floor. A bundle of steel struts called Rebar 16 protrudes directly from the back right wall of the exhibition hall. As if bridled by gravity, they resemble a kind of oversized ponytail. T ... More | | 
An ambitious survey of the life and art of Raphael Montañez Ortiz is at El Museo del Barrio. Martin Seck/El Museo del Barrio via The New York Times.
by John Vincler
NEW YORK, NY.- El Museo del Barrio has had its own internal struggles, concerning whether to focus on its Nuyorican roots or represent the Latin American diaspora more broadly. But Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective proves that at its best, it can do both. The ambitious exhibition turns the spotlight on the museums founder, who continues to make radical and compelling work at the age of 88. With this show, Montañez Ortizs legacy should be cemented for his art as well as for the museum he started. As I walked through the exhibition, I thought of recent protests: the environmentalists in London gluing themselves to artworks over the continued extraction of fossil fuels, or last years 10-week-long campaign, Strike MoMA, that claimed to link the activities of board members at the New York museum ... More | | 
Installation view of Sergej Jensen, The Adult Light, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, July 9 August 20, 2022.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Regen Projects is presenting The Adult Light, the gallerys third solo exhibition with the Berlin- and New York-based artist Sergej Jensen. This presentation brings together oil painting on linen assemblages which foreground the relational possibilities of painting's surface and background. Since the early aughts, Jensen has been known for his laconic handling of materials which, combined with an embrace of accidents, irregularities, and material idiosyncrasies, demand the viewer to consider how a painting can represent both the process of its own creation and the world at large. Stitching together scraps of wool, silk, linen, and burlap as if they were brushstrokes, he both invokes and questions the formal methodology of the stretched canvas and the painterly gesture. At first glance austere, his assemblages are rife with visual wisecracks and wry, materialist critiques. For ... More |
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| Hollis Taggart now represents German artist Justine Otto | | Clark Art Institute opens newest contemporary exhibition with works by Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu | | Skeleton of a Gorgosaurus sells at auction for $6.1 million | 
Justine Otto Harpist, 2022.
NEW YORK, NY.- Hollis Taggart announces its representation of Hamburg- and Berlin-based artist Justine Otto, who joins the gallerys growing contemporary program. Ottos expressive body of work leverages the freedom of abstraction to explore the aura and symbolism of heroic and iconic figures, from military generals to the cowboys of the Wild West to musicians and performers. Inspired by films, vintage photographs, and other representational references, Otto translates and transforms these figures through her own distinct lens, inviting viewers to look anew at these recognizable archetypes. Hollis Taggart will serve as the sole representative for Otto in the United States. The gallery will soon announce a date for Ottos first solo exhibition. Otto began her painting career working largely in figuration, engaging initially with representations of women and girls. Over the years, her paintings have become ... More | | 
Yuji Agematsu (b. 1956, Kanagawa, Japan, lives and works in New York), zip: 07.01.21 . . . 07.31.21, 2021 (detail: 07.28.21). Mixed media in cigarette pack cellophane wrapper, approx.: 2 1/2 x 2 1/8 x 1 in. Private collection, Zurich. © Yuji Agematsu [photo: Stephen Faught].
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.- Tauba Auerbach and Yuji Agematsu: Meander, opening July 16, 2022 at the Clark Art Institute, presents an exhibition pairing new works by the two New York-based artists. Presented in parallel galleries in the Lunder Center at Stone Hill on the Clarks upper campus, the exhibition features two distinctbut complementaryartistic practices united by the notion of the meander, a self-avoiding line, as both motif and method. The exhibition continues through October 16, 2022. Yuji Agematsu and Tauba Auerbach are both vibrant and compelling artists, but in very different ways, said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. This exhibition looks at their work independently but challenges the viewer to follow ... More | | 
The sale was the latest in a series of dinosaur-fossil auctions that have infuriated paleontologists who worry about the commercialization of Earths evolutionary history. Courtesy Sotheby's.
by Vimal Patel
NEW YORK, NY.- A robust skeleton of a Gorgosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus rex relative that roamed the Earth about 80 million years ago, sold at a Sothebys auction Thursday for $6.1 million. The sale, which fetched that price with fees, was the latest in a series of auctions for dinosaur fossils that have infuriated some scientists who worry about the commercialization of the earths evolutionary history. They are also concerned that, with so many fossils falling into private hands, their research will suffer from having fewer samples available to study. Living in the late Cretaceous era, about 10 million years before the T. rex, the Gorgosaurus was smaller but most likely faster than the tyrant lizard king, with serrated teeth for slicing the flesh of its ... More |
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| Los Angeles enjoys its new bridge a little too much | | Prague gets a reset, and the emphasis is local | | K11 ECOAST Hong Kong-based K11 announces flagship project in the Chinese mainland | 
The Sixth Street Viaduct in Los Angeles, July 27, 2022. The long-awaited Sixth Street Viaduct has proved to be irresistible to pedestrians and neighborhood residents but also graffiti artists and exhibitionist drivers. Hunter Kerhart/The New York Times.
by Shawn Hubler and Soumya Karlamangla
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Less than three weeks ago, with fireworks, crowds and the civic joy that only a new Instagram backdrop can muster, Americas second-largest city christened a stunning new $588 million landmark: a bridge that would create a ribbon of light between the downtown arts district and the historic bungalows of East Los Angeles. With its 10 sets of white, lit arches, the glistening Sixth Street Viaduct as it is formally known replaced an 83-year-old art deco bridge over the concrete Los Angeles River that for generations had been a renowned Hollywood location for film noir car chases and dystopian hellscapes. Critics declared it an instant icon. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who narrated a tongue-in-cheek slow jam in the bridges honor when construction ... More | | 
The Kunsthalle Praha exhibition space, which opened in a former electrical substation, in Prague, July 16, 2022. Lenka Grabicova/The New York Times.
PRAGUE.- Prague was justifiably popular with visitors before the pandemic, but life here often felt slightly out of whack before 2020. As a small counterbalance to an immense tragedy, the pandemic offered the city a chance for a much-needed reset. Residents had time to rediscover sites and neighborhoods that theyd long since abandoned to tourists. The sudden lack of foreign guests forced restaurant owners to refocus on customers who actually live here. Historic attractions underwent renovations. And new projects that went ahead with openings in 2020 and 2021 have made the city even more fun than before. As a result, Prague now feels like a place with less touristic gimcrackery and more local flavor. It also has a younger vibe than many visitors might expect, explains Jan Valenta, who blogs about local restaurants and offers food tours through his company, Taste of Prague. The biggest difference, I think, between a Western country like the U.S. and a post-communist country like us is ... More | | 
Visual Rendering of K11.
SHENZHEN.- A one-of-a-kind commercial complex worth RMB10 billion and jointly developed by New World Development Company Limited (the parent company of K11) and China Merchants Shekou Holdings in Shenzhen, was officially named K11 ECOAST. Upholding the core values of Art, People, and Nature, K11 ECOAST has partnered with 50 world-leading artists and architects to create the most aesthetic and impactful of Chinas seaside art districts. The team of architects of K11 ECOAST includes David Chipperfield, a renowned UK architect, one of only eight architects honoured with a knighthood and the designer of Shanghai West Bund Museum, OMA which designed the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, and leading Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, celebrated for his integration of nature and architecture. The three architectural masters delve into the elaborate balance between architecture and nature, skillfully harmonizing the architectural design with the coastal landscape, birthing a new hot spot and destination f ... More |
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| Miles McEnery Gallery opens an exhibition of large-scale paintings from the 1970s by Norman Bluhm | | John Wayne by Andy Warhol and The Linemen by Ernie Barnes headline Moran's auction | | 9 leading U.S. art museums receive grants for creative aging programs | 
Norman Bluhm, Coral Dream Girl, 1978. Oil on canvas, 89 x 76 inches, 226.1 x 193 cm. Signed and dated: "bluhm '78" (lower right recto).
NEW YORK, NY.- Miles McEnery Gallery opened an exhibition of large-scale paintings from the 1970s by Norman Bluhm. The artists first solo exhibition
at the gallery will open on 28 July at 525 West 22nd Street and
remain on view through 1 September 2022. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an essay by Zachary Ritter. In 1977, Jane Livingston, Chief Curator of The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., stated Norman Bluhm is a painter who remains apart from the diversions of recent art history. While he continues in a post-Abstract Expressionist vein, he is tenaciously independent and he will not avoid difficult change in his work. Bluhm is distinguished from his peers in many ways, one of which is that he seems to have decided that for himself the mark - that exalted touch, or strokewas not enough. Beginning in the 1970s, and after more than two ... More | | 
Andy Warhol (1928-1987, American), John Wayne from "Cowboys and Indians," 1986, Screenprint in colors on Lenox Museum Board under Plexiglas, Image/Sheet: 36" H x 36" W est. $70,000-90,000.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Before we say goodbye to Summer, John Moran Auctioneers is making one last splash with their Summer Modern & Contemporary auction, Tuesday, August 30, 2022, at 12:00pm PST. This sale will feature many exceptional artists, and their most impressive works, but one stands alone. Best known for his bravery, ruggedness, and True Grit. A legendary American icon. Morans is proud to present one of the most famous depictions of The Duke in Andy Warhols John Wayne. Out of all the portraits ever produced by Andy Warhol, his depiction of Hollywood celebrities is among the most memorable. John Wayne was originally part of a ten-print portfolio titled Cowboys & Indians. This suite of screen-prints included portraits of other key figures in the mythology surrounding the American West like Teddy ... More | | 
A landscape painting class at Olana. Photo courtesy The Olana Partnership.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- Nine leading American art museums will receive grants totaling more than $2 million from E.A. Michelson Philanthropy as part of its Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums initiative, to launch a new series of arts programs aimed at museum audiences who are 55 years of age and older. Since 2013, the foundation has invested more than $15 million to fund creative aging programs at art and history museums, performing arts organizations, botanical gardens, and community centers. The foundations latest round of grants engaged a diverse group of nationally prominent art museumsBrooklyn Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and Utah Museum of Fine Artsin order to expand ... More |
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Collection in Focus: Beatrix Potter's Letter
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| More News |
 Sullivan+Strumpf opens 'Julia Gutman: Muses'SYDNEY.- Through western art history, the three graces have been used to represent the ideal female form. Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalya were associated with love, nature, joy, fertility and creativity. The graces were prototypes of femininity, endlessly depicted and manipulated by the desires of men. Typically seen as opulently beautiful young women, often nude, occasionally headless. Flesh exposed and gazes distantthey were readily consumable by design. The three graces were always posed together, embraced with clasped hands to represent the circle of friendship between women. Yet, they were always performing for some imagined spectator, watching themselves being seen. In Julia Gutmans Muses, she considers how women were depicted historically and reimagines them as contemporary figures: herself and her friends. ... More  'A Stone in the Mosaic': A director enters the house of WagnerNEW YORK, NY.- New productions of Richard Wagners Ring cycle, a 16-hour epic taking place over four evenings, are always a highly anticipated event, and even more so when they take place at the annual Bayreuth Festival in Germany. Opera houses most often roll out stagings of the four Ring works Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung over multiple years. But Bayreuth, which is still managed by the descendants of the composer himself, presents the entire cycle all at once. And its newest production, by Austrian director Valentin Schwarz, opens July 31. Since World War II, there have only been nine Bayreuth productions of the Ring among them Patrice Chéreaus storied 1976 staging, which introduced critical, political dramaturgy to the piece, and the most recent one, a divisive 2013 interpretation by Marxist firebrand ... More  SFMOMA announces key appointments to further museum's missionSAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art today announced two key appointments to further the museums mission to share the art of our time with passion and purpose as it strives to be a vital, inclusive place of inspiration for all. Erin OToole has been appointed Curator and Head of Photography and Katy Siegel has been appointed Research Director, Special Program Initiatives, bringing deep expertise in their fields, years of experience building wide-ranging exhibitions and a demonstrated commitment to artists and community engagement. OToole, formerly SFMOMAs Baker Street Foundation Curator and Interim Head of Photography, will be responsible for the strategic direction of the department and the museums research, acquisitions, exhibitions and publications in the area of photography. The position ... More  'Princes can be Asian, too': A dancer breaks barriers in balletNEW YORK, NY.- On a sleepy summer morning recently, a group of about 50 dancers from New York City Ballet gathered inside a sunny rehearsal studio at Lincoln Center and stretched. They had come from three weeks of rest and were back in company class, preparing for a tour in upstate New York. Some carried energy drinks and bottles of hand sanitizer; others brought their dogs, who settled into naps under the barre as the dancers began a series of exercises pliés, tendus, jumps and pirouettes. Tall and stately, Chun Wai Chan stood near the center of the studio. In May, he became the first principal dancer of Chinese descent in City Ballets 74-year history, only the fourth Asian to hold that rank. At the studio that morning, some dancers were still easing into their routines. But he brimmed with energy, vowing to use class time to exercise ... More  New York Times selects Gilbert Cruz as its next books editorNEW YORK, NY.- The New York Times on Thursday named Gilbert Cruz as its Books editor, tasking him with transforming the newspapers book review for the digital age. Cruz has been the Culture editor at the Times since January 2018, in charge of arts and culture coverage, including the Arts & Leisure print section in the Sunday paper. Cruz replaces Pamela Paul, who was the editor of The New York Times Book Review for nine years before becoming an Opinion columnist in April. "A natural leader, he will push for provocative coverage and challenging ideas, and bring fresh perspectives to our books report, Times editors Sam Sifton, Joe Kahn and Carolyn Ryan wrote about Cruz in a note to the newsroom Thursday. The Times book reviews and coverage of the industry are widely influential. The Times publishes the last stand-alone newspaper ... More  Fridman Gallery opens a group exhibition at its Beacon locationBEACON, NY.- Fridman Gallery announces SHAPESHIFT, an exhibition at its Beacon location gathering together new and recent work across media by artists living and working in the Hudson Valley. What is at the edge of abstraction and representation? When we blur the line between these two points, what forms are possible? The works in this exhibition oscillate between being recognizable as functional objects and evading definition. The artists in SHAPESHIFT uncover new possibilities through deconstructing and recoding the various relationships among nature, architecture, and our bodies. Jill Barroffs sculptures and works on paper create complex, diverse outcomes from the simple tasks of rearranging table tops, legs and corners, and cutting, folding and floating painted shapes. Often furniture-like and made from unexpected ... More  The Alexander Team launches metaverse real estate development, 'The Row'NEW YORK, NY.- The Alexander Team and Everyrealm, the metaverse real estate development firm, announced today the launch of The Row, a private, members-only metaverse real estate community featuring architecture designed by artists. The Row is being co-developed by The Alexander Team and Everyrealm and will be launched on the metaverse world-building platform Mona. The metaverse has no physics, no weather, and no limitations other than human ingenuity, said Janine Yorio, CEO, Everyrealm. The Row brings together visionary artists best known for their architectural landscapes and collectors seeking a unique, limited edition residence that they can deploy across many different metaverses over time. The Row will be a limited-edition series of 30 3D architectural landmarks, each sold as a 1-of-1 non-fungible token (or NFT) designed by celebrated artists including Daniel Arsham, who also serves as Everyrealms Creative Ambassador, Misha Kahn, Andrés Reis ... More  Singapore Biennale 2022: First list of more than 50 artists embarking on a collective journey with NatashaSINGAPORE.- The 7th Singapore Biennale 2022 or Natasha, announced an exceptional line-up of over 50 artists and collaborators. This edition of the Singapore Biennale, organised by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and commissioned by the National Arts Council, Singapore (NAC), has been named by the Co-Artistic Directors, Binna Choi, Nida Ghouse, June Yap and Ala Younis. This act of naming encourages fellow artists, collaborators, and audiences to re-discover ways of seeing and relating to the world, as they embrace intimacy and spontaneity towards the transformative potentials in life and relationships within it from self to others, from human to non-human, from living to non-living and vice versa, and beyond. The artists and collaborators are also referred to as fellows of the journey with Natasha, and will share their own inquiries ... More  Denise Littlefield Sobel named Chair of Clark Art Institute's board of trusteesWILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.- Denise Littlefield Sobel was recently selected to serve as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Clark Art Institute, effective July 1, 2022. Sobel is the first woman to lead the Clarks Board of Trustees. Sobel is a philanthropist with a longstanding interest in the visual and performing arts and has served on the Clarks Board of Trustees since 2014. She has been a member of several Board committees for the Clark and, most recently, served as vice chair from 202122. Sobel has also taken a leadership role in supporting a number of exhibitions at the Clark, including Rodin in the United States: Confronting the Modern (currently on view); Ground/work; Renoir: The Body, The Senses; Jennifer Steinkamp: Blind Eye; Women Artists in Paris, 18501900; Helen Frankenthaler: As in Nature; Monet | Kelly and VanGogh and ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Brandywine Workshop @ Harvard Museums 
Set It Off 
Frank Brangwyn: 
Marley Freeman
Flashback On a day like today, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh died July 29, 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 - 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died at the age of 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found). His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still. In this image: Jussi Pylkkanen views Van Gogh's "A Pair of Shoes," as it went on display in the Christie's auction rooms in London, Friday, September 10, 1999. The rarely exhibited and little known painting is the missing link in an important series of five closely related pictures by Van Gogh between 1886 and 1887.
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