The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, October 27, 2023



 
Mark Rothko at full scale, and in half-light

Mark Rothko No. 13 (White, Red on Yellow), 1958 No. 9 / No. 5 / No. 18, 1952 Green on Blue (Earth-Green and White), 1956 Untitled, 1955. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko - Adagp, Paris, 2023.

by Jason Farago


PARIS.- Melt the world away, lose its details, dissolve its borders; it doesn’t sound like such an unwelcome prospect right now. The most substantial Mark Rothko retrospective in a generation has opened at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and it is a show of monumental dispersion: a pull-out-all-the-stops blockbuster where life passes into vapor. From 1949, when his early figurative pictures finally liquefied into stains of translucent color, Rothko painted with no allusions, no particulars. Over and over, in soft-edged blocks layered on filmy backgrounds, he modeled a commitment to abstraction that charged at the hardest questions of life and art through refusal of the easy path. A lot of people find his large paintings consoling, or seek the romantic sublime in the depths of his reds and violets. Rothko never thought of them as peaceable. “Behind the color lies the cataclysm,” he said in 1959 — a citation that rarely makes the auction preview catalogs. His misty abstractions ... More


The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
Installation view of David and other sculptures, a solo exhibition by Elmgreen & Dragset at Perrotin Paris, 2023. © Elmgreen & Dragset / ADAGP, Paris 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. Photo: Claire Dorn.





Acquisition: First painting by early modern Italian woman artist Lavinia Fontana   Robert Irwin, artist of fleeting light and space, is dead at 95   Artists for the second edition of Greater Toronto Art (GTA24) have been announced


Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni (detail), c. 1590, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Funds from Anonymous in memory of Montana Walker Strauss, and Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2022.38.1.

WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art has announced its acquisition of it's first painting by early modern Italian woman artist Lavinia Fontana. This highly detailed and exquisite portrait depicts the 16th-century musician Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni (b. 1561–at least 1610) by the most productive woman artist of the late 16th century, the Bolognese painter Lavinia Fontana. This portrait is among Fontana's best preserved and most accomplished surviving works in the genre. A rare depiction of a 16th-century woman musician by a 16th-century woman artist, this painting tells the story of two accomplished women who were able to overcome obstacles in a patriarchal society to succeed in the artistic spheres of painting and music. Fontana died just before her 62nd birthday after a highly successful career. Trained by her father, Prospero Fontana (1512 ... More
 

Robert Irwin, a California installation artist, during an interview in New York on May 20, 2013. (Chester Higgins Jr/The New York Times).

by Jori Finkel


NEW YORK, NY.- Robert Irwin, a Southern California artist associated with the Light and Space movement of the 1960s, who early on stopped making paintings in favor of creating ephemeral and sometimes intangible art environments, died Wednesday in the La Jolla section of San Diego. He was 95. His death, at Scripps Memorial Hospital, was caused by heart failure, said Arne Glimcher, the founder and chair of the international Pace Gallery, which has shown Irwin’s work since 1966. Irwin lived in San Diego. Within the contemporary art world, Irwin’s work on human attention and perception — he called it, with a nod to scientific research, an “inquiry” into perception — was highly influential; he won a MacArthur “genius” award in 1984. The work was not highly visible to the public, however. Until the late 1970s, he did not allow his projects to be photographed. He long gravitated toward site-specific ... More
 

Jean-Paul Kelly, That ends that matter, 2016-19. Exhibition view, A sensation best described by another, VOX centre de l’image contemporaine, Montréal, 2019. Photo: Michel Brunelle/VOX.

TORONTO.- The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto announces the list of artists for the second edition of Greater Toronto Art (GTA24), a triennial exhibition showcasing practitioners with a connection to the Greater Toronto Area. Organized by curators Kate Wong, Ebony L. Haynes, and Toleen Touq, GTA24 will be on view across all three floors of the museum from March 23 until July 28, 2024. GTA is the only recurring institutional exhibition in the city dedicated to highlighting artists from the region. The 2024 edition of Greater Toronto Art proposes that explorations of personal identity are vital to creating new forms of relation, particularly in places as dense as the Greater Toronto Area. GTA24 puts forth an artistic constellation of 23 artists who connect through affinities of visual, material, and symbolic language. Including works of video, sculpture, installation, painting, photography, drawing, sound, and performance, ... More


The art of fate   First-ever exhibition to focus on relationship between John Singer Sargent's portraits and fashion   When the skyscraper you hate blocks the skyscraper you love


Alexander Hugo Bakker-Korff, (The Hague 1824 – Oegstgeest 1882), La Lettre de Recommendation. Signed and dated lower right A.H. Bakker Korff fec. 1876 and with authentication on the reverse, oil on panel, 9 ½ x 11 7/8 inches (24 x 30 cm).

NEW YORK, NY.- There are some proverbs that often ring true. ‘Timing is everything’ is a good one followed by ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ Many times, people refer to both when reflecting on their own or someone else’s career. Artists are, of course, no different in this respect. Certain events change the course of an artist’s careers and often turn tragedy into triumph. Alexander Hugo Bakker-Korff is no different. Living in a different time or a different moment, we might have never had these little gems of works that he generated. Alexander Hugo Bakker-Korff (1824-1882) was a Dutch painter known for his landscape and genre scenes. He was born in The Hague, Netherlands, and later moved to Leiden. Bakker-Korff was associated with The Hague School, a group of Dutch painters who focused on realistic and atmospheric depictions of landscapes and rural ... More
 

John Singer Sargent, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892. Oil on canvas. Overall: 127 × 101 cm (50 × 39 3/4 in.). National Galleries of Scotland, Purchased with the aid of the Cowan Smith Bequest Fund 1925.

BOSTON, MA.- John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) brought his sitters to life, but he did much more than simply record what appeared before him. He pinned and draped, he changed or ignored decorative details, and sometimes he simply made it up. Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tate Britain, Fashioned by Sargent explores the artist’s influence over his sitters’ images by illuminating the liberties he took with sartorial choices to express distinctive personalities, social positions, professions, gender identities and nationalities. The exhibition features approximately 50 paintings by Sargent—including major loans from museums and private collections around the world—along with more than a dozen dresses and accessories. Several of these garments are reunited for the first time with Sargent’s portraits of the sitters who once wore them. Through the lens of dress, ... More
 

A view of Empire State Building from the plaza just south of Madison Square Park in New York on Sept 21, 2023. (George Etheredge/The New York Times)

by Michael Kimmelman


NEW YORK, NY.- Sometimes New York’s a downer. I had an appointment the other day near Madison Square Park. For years, one of the great architectural twofers in the city has been the view up and down Fifth Avenue from the pedestrian plaza next to the park, south toward the Flatiron Building, north toward the Empire State. When I reached the plaza I turned to admire the Flatiron, as usual. But the view north had changed. The Empire State Building is gone, or almost. From much of the plaza, yet another anorexic supertall for squillionaires, rising at 29th Street, now blots it out. A generation ago, the New York skyline was a global icon, shaped more or less like a suspension bridge stretched between the Empire State and the twin towers, making it possible to, say, pop out of some unfamiliar subway station, gaze up toward the clouds and orient oneself along the skyline’s ... More



Niclas Castello's exhibition 'Born to be Alive' is now showing at Osthaus Museum in Hagen, Germany   Ippodo Gallery is now hosting exhibition by Masaaki Miyasako 'Living Dreams'   Michail Michailov captures vestiges of time with an 18-part series of colored pencil drawings


Niclas Castello, Copyrights: DDM Branding. Alive Copyrights: Niclas Castello.


HAGEN.- Niclas Castello welcomes you to join his new exhibition BORN TO BE ALIVE at Osthaus Museum in Hagen, Germany. Niclas Castello is a contemporary artist – who plays a modern influence in the Neo-Expressionist movement. The background of each piece created by Castello is a true story rooting from real life experiences or a historical event, the art produced remains free of any judgement as it refers to mechanisms and memories residing within the artist. By creating a language with his pictorial symbols, he transforms all actual events that occurred into conceivable facts in the work – and vice versa. The relationships between these symbolisms give rise to infinite keys to interpreting what is shown, yet a common denominator is always recognisable that provides the viewer with an anchor point as access to knowledge of the meta-level of the work. Castello’s actual exhibition is called “Born to be Alive” meani ... More
 

Masaaki Miyasako, Firework 'Aqua' Eternal - 水花火 2023, Painting, H70 7/8 x W141 3/4 in, H180 x W360 cm.

NEW YORK, NY.- Ippodo Gallery is now hosting Masaaki Miyasako: Living Dreams the legendary painter’s premier solo exhibition in the United States. Miyasako’s work is praised for evolving the historical Nihonga painting technique urazaishiki, a traditional back-painting method invented between the Heian and Kamakura periods (794–1333). Mi- yasako’s pictures represent romantic visions of life, nature, and the change of seasons in East and Southeast Asia. After leading the Institute of Knowledge and Inspiration collaboration between Tokyo University of the Arts and the Japanese government for a half-decade [i], Miyasako reclaims his mantle as the greatest and most accomplished Nihonga painter of the present. Eight large paintings, one four-panel folding screen, and ten calligraphy and sculptures display Masaaki Miyasako’s (b.1951) transcendent sense of the invisible and unspoken dimension. ... More
 

Installation view, "Carlone Contemporary: Michail Michailov. Dust to Dust". Photo: Johannes Stoll / Belvedere, Vienna.

VIENNA.- Michail Michailov’s modular work series, Dust to Dust, was exhibited at the Bulgarian pavilion during the 2022 Biennale di Venezia. The series captures incidental, often overlooked vestiges of time, such as dust, hair, imprints, and stains, calling into question the value and existence of things. General Director Stella Rollig: Michail Michailov is interested in providing his audience with an experience that only art can make possible. The old master technique of trompe l’oeil that he employs in the Carlone Hall seeks to amaze, amuse, and fascinate. Whether in a large-scale installation or a sheet of paper, Michailov’s work challenges the senses to set the mind in motion. Upon first glance, Dust to Dust may seem like a minimalist installation in the baroque ambiance of the Carlone Hall. However, upon closer inspection, the display’s space-consuming surface reveals profound poetry. Michail Michailov ... More


MGM's The Wizard of Oz's Scarecrow memorabilia to be auctioned by Lion Heart Autographs   Bonhams partners with Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair   The MAK is presenting Wong Ping's first solo exhibition in Austria


Printed Score. 6pp. Small folio. N.p., November 28, 1938. Ray Bolger’s copy of the printed handwritten piano vocal score (known as an Ozalid) of “If I only Had a Brain,” written out by Arlen’s copyist during the production of The Wizard of Oz.

NEW YORK, NY.- Lion Heart Autographs, among the world’s most respected and leading dealers in historical autographs and manuscripts has announced an extraordinary opportunity to own items from one of the most famous movies in Hollywood history – MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. So extraordinary are the items being offered – including two original studio printed music scores used in the film’s production – that one could find one’s self magically transported back to the “Yellow Brick Road,” holding the memorable lyrics and music of Ray Bolger’s personally-owned copies of “If I Only Had a Brain,” (Estimate: $7,000-$8,000) and “Over the Rainbow,” (Estimate: $12,000 - $15,000) often cited as the “Number One Song of the 20th Century.” Ray Bolger’s portrayal of the “Scarecrow” in The Wizard of Oz remains one of the most memorable film characters of all time. Millions of people instantly recognize the melody of these fam ... More
 

David Shrigley (British, born 1968), Enjoy Each Moment, screenprint in colours with varnish overlay, 2022. Estimate_ £2,500-3,500. Photo: Bonhams.

LONDON.- In celebration of the playfully irreverent mood of the 21st century, Bonhams Prints and Multiples department partnered with Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, hosting a stand at the event from 26-29 October. Bonhams is featuring a selection of highlights from the online-only auction, Text Me If You Can: Contemporary Editions x Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair which takes place between 24 October and 7 November on bonhams.com. The preview features two works by David Hockney, widely considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st century. His The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) – 21 March, which has an estimate of £70,000-100,000, embodies his life-long desire to experiment with different materials and techniques, incorporating newer technologies into his practice, through the use of iPad drawing. Alongside his The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 201 ... More
 

Wong Ping in the exhibition MAK Contemporary. Courtesy of the artist, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles und Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong / Shanghai © kunst-dokumentation.com/MAK.

VIENNA.- With WONG PING. edging, the MAK is presenting the first solo exhibition in Austria of one of the most aspiring and eccentric contemporary artists. In his trenchant short films that intertwine personal and fictional stories Wong Ping (* 1984 in Hong Kong) uses sexual desire and suppressed fantasies as metaphors for larger social issues. In a setting created especially for the new exhibition space MAK Contemporary, the artist is presenting four of his latest animated films. Wrapped in colorful pop language and cute aesthetics, Wong Ping addresses our deepest desires, suppressed fantasies or obscenities, paired with existential and political themes. Many of his stories reflect the atmosphere of our globalized and digitized society in the 21st century. “Sex is only the language, not the message,” says Wong Ping about his work, which takes a light-hearted, humorous, and accessible approach to reveal uncomfortable and shameful tru ... More




Allison Katz: In the Studio



More News

Fernand Khnopff is the star of Bonhams Stoclet Collection in Brussels
BRUSSELS.- Fore Aeternum Futur by Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921) was the top lot at Bonhams' Stoclet Collections sale on Monday 23 October at Chaussée de Charleroi, Brussels. The work, which comes from the Adolphe Stoclet collection, and was displayed in his bedroom, sold for €165,500. The total of the sale achieved €380,335. Christine de Schaetzen, Head of Business Development of Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr in Brussels, commented: “It is a great honour to have been entrusted with the Stoclet Family Collection. The fresh-to-the-market objects with this exceptional provenance from Adolphe Stoclet, whose collection was amongst the most important European collections in the first part of the 20th century, generated strong demand. This, together with attractive estimates, drove competition across the world. Collectors ... More

A Hindu goddess festival where Indian progressivism is alive and well
KOLKATA.- Purbasha Roy held her 9-year-old daughter’s hand and pointed toward the towering art installation: blooming pink buds symbolizing embryos, menstrual cups shaped to form a bouquet, fallopian tubes descending from corners of the ceiling. The work, part of a makeshift pavilion to worship the Hindu goddess Durga, was designed to break taboos in India about menstruation. And it had a clear target: A half-man, half-bull demon at Durga’s feet, an organizer explained to Roy and others, represented the “moral police” — India’s patriarchal society. The pavilion was one of hundreds, many politically pointed, that dotted Kolkata during a five-day festival called the Durga Puja, an event that brings this muggy, sleepy city alive each year as if jolted by a high-voltage current. Part Mardi Gras, part Christmas, the festival, which ended ... More

When a book deal feels like 'Winning the Middle-Aged Lottery'
NEW YORK, NY.- For a few hours every morning, Dann McDorman sits on his windowed front porch in Brooklyn, a steaming cup of coffee by his side, a computer on his lap and maybe a space heater by his feet if it’s cold. There he sits, for an hour or two, writing novels. And then he goes to work at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, where he is the executive producer of one of MSNBC’s most successful news shows, “The Beat With Ari Melber.” McDorman’s life has taken an unexpected turn in middle age. Decades after he tucked away dreams of becoming an author, diving into a busy family life and a career in journalism, he tried two years ago to write a novel. It worked: A publisher bought it. And now, his first book, “West Heart Kill,” will be published this week. McDorman has since finished a draft of his second novel and started ... More

To make 'Fellow Travelers,' a screenwriter had to fall in love
NEW YORK, NY.- Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated screenwriter, can still recall a chance meeting on a beach more than 50 years ago. Then a teenager and a self-described “Jesus freak,” he’d come to Ocean City, New Jersey, to attend a Youth for Christ conference. Late one night, he said, while walking alone, he saw “a gorgeous, muscular guy” across the sand. That young man asked him to speak in tongues — it was an invitation to religious ecstasy and nothing more. Nyswaner complied. He told me this story over lunch in SoHo on a stormy afternoon in September as a way to explain that, for him, “sex and the sacred have always been united.” He wanted that same union for “Fellow Travelers,” a series that premieres Friday on Paramount+ and then on Showtime on Sunday. Moving back and forth from the early 1950s ... More

A truckload of Persian puppets was stolen. A resident helped track it down.
NEW YORK, NY.- Inside the U-Haul were nearly 500 handmade shadow puppets and dozens of masks, costumes and backdrops — the culmination of three years of painstaking labor, which, Sunday evening, came to life in a balletic performance before a crowd of hundreds at a theater in San Francisco. Monday morning, the puppeteers awoke to find the truck gone. At first, they hoped the truck, parked at a Comfort Inn in the city’s northeast, had been mistakenly towed, said Hamid Rahmanian, 55, an Iranian American artist and the creator of the show “Song of the North,” an adaptation of the Persian poet Ferdowsi’s 10th-century epic “Shahnameh” that combines shadow puppetry, animation and music. But when hotel employees reviewed the security camera footage, it quickly became clear that the truck had been stolen. “My face dropped — my ... More

María José Llergo's songs have Flamenco roots. They raise a ruckus.
NEW YORK, NY.- When Spanish singer María José Llergo talks about flamenco, it often sounds as though she is describing something springing from beneath her feet. “The genre is rooted in my land,” she said in a video call from her place just outside Madrid. “It’s in our roots.” Growing up in rural Andalusia, where flamenco was born, Llergo first became interested in music while watching her grandfather work on his farm. “I remember him raking the earth, watering the plants and singing — everything from tangos to boleros,” she said in Spanish. Life for him wasn’t exactly easy back then. “My grandparents come from very humble — albeit very happy — origins,” said Llergo, surrounded by family portraits. She comes from that world, too. Llergo, now 29, has developed a voice and singing style of her own, but she’s intent on keeping regional traditions ali ... More

Borough Yards, London hosting 'Delight' dedicated to past, present and future of Seoul
LONDON.- Now open, Seoul-based artist Gyoungtae Hong and director Younsook Im is presenting a dedicated multimedia exhibition exploring the bustling city of Seoul. Set against the backdrop of the Victorian tunnels at Borough Yards, visitors will be able to weave through the multi- sensory displays and immerse themselves in the heritage and culture of Seoul. Inspired by the vibrant cityscape of Seoul, Delight is a new multimedia exhibition that combines visuals and sound to animate the cultural heritage and spirit of the city. Drawing on Seoul's history such as the iconic gate Gwanghwamun, the shopping district of Myeongdong and Korean deities, each installation asks visitors to consider how different aspects of the past remain in contemporary Korean society today. A vibrant city with a population of just under 10 million, the ... More

Museum Abteiberg is forging ahead with its series of consecutive 'Field Tests'
MÖNCHENGLADBACH.- Museum Abteiberg has foraged ahead with its series of consecutive “Field Tests” in 2023, continuing its processing and presentation of the ANDERSCH COLLECTION/ARCHIVE. The experimental, alphabetically ordered displays of the extensive Fluxus collection amassed by Dorothee and Erik Andersch provide first insights into the works of over 50 artists within the extended Fluxus network. Acquisition of these holdings in 2017 was made possible with generous support from the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Kunststiftung NRW, and the Hans Fries-Stiftung. Field Test #3: Fine – Knowles joins the testing series of various elements for the display storage (Schaumagazin) meant to house the ANDERSCH COLLECTION/ARCHIVE long term: In ... More

Carpenters Workshop Gallery is presenting Vincenzo De Cotiis's exhibition 'Archaeology of Consciousness'
LONDON.- World-renowned artist Vincenzo De Cotiis's solo exhibition, Archaeology of Consciousness, opened on 11 October at Carpenters Workshop Gallery London. The exhibition explores the enduring motif of the archway as a portal and aims to challenge its historic connotations in order to pave the way for fresh perspectives. “Arches symbolise transitions, a concept that extends beyond the mere human and earthly to encompass the ancestral” – De Cotiis. Through Archaeology of Consciousness, Vincenzo De Cotiis reimages traditional archway structures through deliberate, creative perversions of form and material. Utilising non-traditional materials, including rare stones, recycled fibreglass, and Murano glass, alongside distortions of shape and form, the exhibition questions long-held preconceptions regarding ... More

The UK's best new buildings - 2023 RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist announced
LONDON.- The Royal Institute of British Architects has today (Wednesday 6 September) announced the shortlist for the coveted 2023 RIBA Stirling Prize, awarded to the UK’s best new building – sponsored by Autodesk. Presented since 1996, the RIBA Stirling Prize is the highest accolade in architecture. The six new buildings in the running to be crowned the UK’s best are: • A House for Artists, Barking (Apparata Architects) • Central Somers Town Community Facilities and Housing, Camden (Adam Khan Architects) • Courtauld Connects - The Courtauld Institute of Art, Westminster (Witherford Watson Mann Architects) • John Morden Centre, Blackheath (Mæ) ... More


PhotoGalleries

Gabriele Münter

TARWUK

Awol Erizku

Leo Villareal


Flashback
On a day like today, American painter Lee Krasner was born
October 27, 1908. Lee Krasner (October 27, 1908 - June 19, 1984) was an influential American abstract expressionist painter in the second half of the 20th century. On October 25, 1945, she married artist Jackson Pollock, who was also influential in the abstract expressionism movement. In this 1949 photo provided by the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, artists Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock are shown in their garden at their East Hampton, N.Y., home.

  
© 1996 - 2021
Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez