| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Friday, September 9, 2022 |
| | Want to buy a Banksy? This building comes with it. | |
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The mural by the artist Banksy known as Swing Girl and Girl on a Swing, on a building in downtown Los Angeles, Aug. 29, 2022. The painting and the building are headed to an auction with the hope that the sale price will reach $30 million. Beth Coller/The New York Time.
by Debra Kamin
NEW YORK, NY.- In 2010, while in town for the Los Angeles premiere of his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, British street artist Banksy left a gift for fans: a mural of a girl on a swing, dangling beneath the 5-foot red A of the word PARKING on a gritty downtown lot. Now that girl as well as the historic building in the downtown fashion district that serves as her canvas is for sale to the highest bidder. Banksys painting, known to fans as both Swing Girl and Girl on a Swing, adorns an exterior wall of 908-910 S. Broadway, an art deco mid-rise building with a storied silver-screen past. Its designers, Meyer & Holler, are the team behind some of Tinseltowns best-known buildings, including Graumans Chinese and Egyptian theaters. Built in 1914 just as the silent-film era was reaching its peak, the structure first housed L.L. Burns Western Costume Co., from which nearly every movie of the era sourced ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Carolee Schneemann Body Politics installation views, Barbican Art Gallery, 2022. Photo Lia Toby, Getty Images.
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| Wolfgang Tillmans: Older, wiser, cooler | | Nationalmuseum acquires pastel portraits by de La Tour, Danloux and Boze | | Painting Michelle Obama took 9 months. Keeping it secret took 6 years. | 
The German photographer and video artist Wolfgang Tillmans in his studio in Berlin, July 18, 2022. Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek/The New York Times.
by Matthew Anderson
BERLIN.- It was shortly after 11 a.m., and Wolfgang Tillmans studio was coming to life. Assistants had gathered in a corner of the huge, light-filled space and were running Tillmans through their plans. Hundreds of artworks were packed and ready to go, but there were a few busy days still ahead. Although masking is increasingly rare in Berlin these days, everybodys face was covered. Tillmans was worried that a coronavirus outbreak could derail the final preparations for his most significant exhibition to date: To Look Without Fear, a career retrospective that opens at the Museum of Modern Art on Sept. 12 and runs through Jan. 1. His first major institutional show in New York, it had been postponed for 18 months because of the pandemic. Just a few days earlier, he and many of his staff had celebrated the opening of a new building around the corner that Tillmans designed himself, with his ... More | | 
Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Portrait of an Unknown Woman, formerly known as Madame Masse, mid 18th century. Pastel on blue paper. NMB 2808. Photo: Anna Danielsson / Nationalmuseum.
STOCKHOLM.- Nationalmuseum has acquired pastel portraits by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Henry-Pierre Danloux and Joseph Boze, three artists active during the golden age of pastel in 18th-century France. In recent years Nationalmuseum has acquired several works exemplifying this major trend in 18th-century European painting, and as a result the museum now has one of the worlds foremost collections of pastels. Developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, the pastel technique was originally used exclusively for preliminary studies, usually of faces. Appreciating the immediacy that could be achieved using the nuanced colours, 18th-century artists refined the technique to create portraits in pastel, which proved very popular and garnered recognition as fully fledged artworks. They could be both highly elaborate and sketchlike, with artists consciously embracing the natural fluidity of the technique. Maurice Quentin de La Tour (17041788 ... More | | 
An undated photo provided by the White House Historical Association/White House Collection shows the White House portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama, by Sharon Sprung. White House Historical Association/White House Collection via The New York Times.
by Will Heinrich
NEW YORK, NY.- When Sharon Sprung was chosen to paint Michelle Obamas official portrait for the White House, she knew shed have to keep it a secret she just didnt know for how long. Unlike Amy Sheralds portrait of the former first lady, commissioned by the Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery and unveiled there in 2018, alongside Kehinde Wileys depiction of former President Barack Obama, Sprungs was commissioned by the White House Historical Association to hang in the White House. Since the Carter administration, former presidents have returned to the White House for an unveiling ceremony when their portraits are finished. But you cant have a White House ceremony without the approval of the sitting president. And for the four years of President ... More |
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| Public Art Fund debuts a towering mythical mother sculpture at Central Park | | Zephyr, a breath of fresh air on the dinosaur market | | Christie's announces 'Churchill to Eden The Collection of the Earl and Countess of Avon' | 
Bharti Kher, Ancestor, 2022. Courtesy the artist; Hauser & Wirth; Perrotin; Nature Morte, New Delhi; and is in the collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. Presented by Public Art Fund at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, New York City, September 8, 2022August 27, 2023. Photo: Nicholas Knight, Courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY.
NEW YORK, NY.- Public Art Fund presents Ancestor, an 18-foot-tall patinated bronze sculpture by New Delhi and London-based artist Bharti Kher. The powerful new work is on view through August 27th, 2023 at Doris C. Freedman Plaza at the southeast entrance to Central Park. Depicting a universal mother figure linking our cultural and personal pasts and futures, Ancestor is Khers most ambitious work to date. The sculpture stems from the artists ongoing Intermediaries series in which Kher reassembles small, broken clay figurines of humans, animals, and mythical beings into hybrid figures that defy a fixed identity. Brought to life at a monumental scale, Ancestor embodies the ... More | | 
Zephyr. Estimate: 400.000 500,000 © Vincent Girier Dufournier.
PARIS.- On the 20th of October 2022, auctioneer Alexandre Giquello and expert Iacopo Briano will offer for sale the fossilized skeleton of Zephyr, a dinosaur of the iguanodon family that lived more than 150 million years ago, at their annual Naturalia auction at Drouot, Paris. The estimate is between 400 000 and 500 000 euro Discovered in 2019 in Colorado (during road construction works on private land), Zephyr underwent a meticulous restoration by a team of Italian commercial paleontologists. After having sold several important specimens at Drouot, maître Giquello and Iacopo Briano will present this time a specimen with dimensions close to those of a work of art, Zephyr is more than 3 meters long and 1,30 meters high. Zephyr has been discovered in 2019 in Colorado, US during the construction of a road on private lands rich in fossiliferous deposits dating from the Morriso ... More | | 
Sir Winston Churchill, The Canal at St-Georges-Motel, (estimate £200,000-400,000). Courtesy Sotheby's.
LONDON.- Christies announces Churchill to Eden: The Collection of The Earl and Countess of Avon. An evocative journey into an almost vanished world of politics, society and inter-connections the auction will include English furniture, Impressionist and Modern Art, Modern British Art, Antiquities, Chinese Works of Art, Islamic Works of Art, Books and Manuscripts and Silver, all of which were collected by Lord and Lady Avon over a period of eighty years. The sale will take place live on 21 October at Christies London headquarters. This eclectic collection was the property of Sir Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, K.G., M.C., P.C. (18971977), the former British Conservative Party politician who served as Foreign Secretary (19351938; 19401945 and 19511955) and Prime Minister of the UK (1955 1957) and his second wife, Clarissa SpencerChurchill (19202021). Clarissa Churchill, born i ... More |
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| Sylvia Wolf, John S. Behnke Director of the Henry Art Gallery, announces retirement | | Palace of Versailles: A web series on the Palace of Versailles during the Second World | | Neuberger Museum of Art opens exhibition "Nicolás De Jesús: A Mexican Artist for Global Justice" | 
Sylvia Wolf. Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit.
SEATTLE, WA.- Sylvia Wolf announced today that she will retire as John S. Behnke Director in spring 2023, after 15 years leading the Henry. The University of Washington, in consultation with the Henrys Board of Trustees, will launch the search for a successor later this year. In the interim, Wolf will continue to serve in her current role, leading the long-term strategic and daily operations of the Henry. We are grateful for Sylvias outstanding leadership, for her vision, and for her many contributions to strengthening the Henry and the arts at the University of Washington, says College of Arts & Sciences Dean Dianne Harris. Since Sylvia joined the Henry in April 2008, the museum has become a platform for creative research and the development of new work, featuring a dynamic and diverse roster of artists and programs that amplify underrepresented voices grounded in community and social ... More | | 
Protection put in place for the Apollo Served By the Nymphs statue in the Palaces grounds, September-November 1939 © Palace of Versailles.
PARIS.- From 3 September, the Palace of Versailles is brought to the screen in a documentary series that plunges viewers into a little-known chapter of its history: Occupied Versailles: The Palace of Versailles during World War Two. Four episodes narrated by Comédie Française member Denis Podalydès explore the troubled times that spanned pre-war preparations to the reopening of the museum in 1946 through French, German and American archive material revealed here for the very first time. A symbol of the Franco-German rivalry that began brewing in the 19th century, the Palace of Versailles was witness to the dawning of the German Empire in 1871, and fuelled Adolf Hitlers thirst for revenge following the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. As the 1930s drew to a close, ... More | | 
Nicolás De Jesús, Sueño Migrante.
PURCHASE, NY.- Nicolás De Jesús is a storyteller. His tales are portrayed through intricate etchings, paintings on bark paper, monumental colorful paintings, and large banners that once billowed above the streets of his home community in Mexico. Elaborate details of bucolic everyday life in rural villages are interwoven with scenes from urban barrios in places like Chicago, Paris, and Jakarta. His vivid depictions of people joyfully dancing, eating, fishing, making music, or harvesting, recall the work of Renaissance masters. While his whimsical and satirical skeleton-characters echo the annual Day of the Dead calavera traditions, his underlying themes are pulled from the headlines of world events and global politics. On September 7th, the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College, SUNY opens its doors to Nicolás De Jesús: A Mexican Artist for Global Justice, a ... More |
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| Ken Burns explores America's inaction during the Holocaust | | Academy Museum's show on Black cinema raises questions about who it's for | | An American leads the Odesa philharmonic to Berlin | 
In an image provided by Library of Congress, via PBS, an immigrant family looks at the Statue of Liberty from Ellis Island in New York in 1930, as seen in The U.S. and the Holocaust, Ken Burnss latest deep dive into Americas past. The U.S. and the Holocaust, coming to PBS Sept. 18, 2022, examines the reasons behind the countrys inadequate response to Germanys persecution of Jews. Library of Congress, via PBS via The New York Times.
by Joseph Berger
NEW YORK, NY.- A new documentary about the Holocaust opens with photos of perhaps the most familiar faces from that dark chapter of history: those of Anne Frank and her family, whose story has been read or seen by millions around the world. So why would a six-hour film that offers fresh illuminations about Americas response to the Holocaust begin with such well-worn images? The answer is likely to surprise even those who know all about the arrest and eventual deaths of Anne, her sister and their mother. Their deaths, the documentary argues, were also a stain on the United States and the foundational myth of its benevolent open door for huddled masses of immigrants and refugees. As recounted in The U.S. and the Holocaust, Ken Burns latest deep dive into Americas past, Otto Frank tried ... More | | 
In a photo provided by Cinémathèque Franchise, via Academy Museum Foundation shows, a costume design for Carmen Jones (1954), starring Dorothy Dandridge. Regeneration is a worthwhile look at stars and films, but it presents a tale of difficulty and triumph that doesnt always engage with Hollywoods history of racism. Cinémathèque Française, via Academy Museum Foundation via The New York Times.
by Manohla Dargis
NEW YORK, NY.- In January 1942, Lena Horne signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She wasnt the first Black performer to sign with a major studio, but it was big news, suggesting real change had come to Hollywood. Lena is different, exclaimed one gossip columnist. Another writer optimistically predicted that Horne would play legitimate roles and not have to do illiterate comedy or portray a cook. Not everyone was onboard, and when Horne showed up on the lot to shoot her first film, MGMs white hairdressers refused to work with her Black ones were brought in instead. Horne appears several times in the exhibition Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971, a sweeping show thats on view at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. Its an exhilarating, complicated endeavor ... More | | 
Hobart Earle, the leader of the Odesa Philharmonic, in Berlin on Sept. 6, 2022. Maria Sturm/The New York Times.
by Zachary Woolfe
NEW YORK, NY.- There was a warm ovation as the musicians of the Odesa Philharmonic Orchestra came onstage here Tuesday evening, and cheers when the ensemble played the Ukrainian anthem. Applause greeted the conductor Hobart Earles spoken introduction in German. But none of that was as loud as the roar from the crowd at the Philharmonie when Earle switched to Ukrainian. To hear that language spoken in front of dozens of Ukrainian musicians in a Western European capital was a stirring sign of the defiant survival of Ukraine and its culture in the face of Russias war of aggression. (The concert can be viewed at mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de through Sept. 17.) That defiance was particularly powerful coming from an orchestra from Odesa, whose port holds the key to the Black Sea and the global grain trade. The city may be the most strategically and symbolically crucial prize of the war as it drags on. The Philharmonic, which dates its modern history to the 1930s, was performing ... More |
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Teresita Fernández's Stacked Landscapes
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 Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım appointed curator at the Harvard Art MuseumsCAMBRIDGE, MASS.- Martha Tedeschi, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard Art Museums, announced today the appointment of Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım as the new Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art at the Harvard Art Museums, effective October 3, 2022. Currently the Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum, in New York, Yoltar-Yıldırım has worked since August 2017 to organize the extensive reinstallation of the Brooklyn Museums Arts of the Islamic World galleries, which after being closed for a decade are slated to reopen on September 30, 2022. She also curated the 201819 exhibition Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart. Earlier in her career, Yoltar-Yıldırım held curatorial, research, and teaching positions as well as fellowships ... More  Brandywine River Museum of Art announces new curatorCHADDS FORD, PA.- The Brandywine River Museum of Art announced today the appointment of William L. Coleman, Ph.D. as the Wyeth Foundation Curator of the Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection and Director of the Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Study Center. Coleman, an experienced curator, art historian and teacher, will assume this newly created senior position at the Brandywine on October 17. Funded by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, this role emerged from an innovative collections-sharing partnership between the Brandywine, the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Wyeth Foundationwhich was announced earlier this spring. We are thrilled to welcome William to this new position, said Thomas Padon, the James H. Duff Director of the Brandywine River Museum of Art. His appointment is key to activating Betsy ... More  Chloé M. Pelletier named Curator of European Art (Before 1800) at the Montreal Museum Of Fine ArtsMONTREAL.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts announces the appointment of Chloé M. Pelletier to the position of Curator of European Art (before 1800). This specialist of European art will be responsible for an extensive collection of paintings, works on paper and sculptures dating from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, including masterpieces of French and Italian art, an impressive body of religious objects, and a distinguished collection of paintings from the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age. Reporting to the MMFA's Chief Curator, Pelletier will be charged with establishing a vision for, and enriching and promoting this collection that comprises nearly 1,100 works. She will also oversee the European art acquisition program and develop exhibitions in this subject area. Furthermore, she will be called on to contribute to publications and research ... More  CHART Art Fair announces new DirectorCOPENHAGEN.- As the newly appointed Director of CHART, Julie Quottrup Silbermann will be responsible for laying out the organizations future course and strategic development as the primary platform for the Nordic art community. Julie Quottrup Silbermann has significant experience from different positions within the international art scene. She has previously worked as gallery director, art advisor, cultural communicator and curator. Julie Quottrup Silbermann assumes the position with a vast national and international network and is driven by a passion for contemporary art. Julie Quottrup Silbermann states: Im looking forward to take up the position as Director and continuing the work on CHARTs visionary plans and its standing as a strong and defining institution within the Nordic art scene. It will be exciting to further develop the digital ... More  Kasmin Gallery opens the first New York solo exhibition of work by Sara AnstisNEW YORK, NY.- Kasmin is presenting Procession, the first New York solo exhibition of work by London-based artist Sara Anstis. Anstiss evocative paintings and soft pastels on paper mine art history to render a darkly humorous universe defined by its rich layers of meaning and symbolism, its indeterminate, primarily nocturnal landscapes, and a population of deftly lit figures that seem to hark from the realms of folklore, dream, and mythology. Comprised as a series of tableaux depicting scenes from a funeral procession, the exhibition presents figures on a ritualistic or ceremonial journey, weighed down by, Anstis writes, passengers, free-loaders, dogs, memories of people no longer alive, memories of past selves at different ages, exhaustion, the thought of the long journey ahead or an anticlimactic arrival at their destination. In Knot (2022), a ... More  Rhizome appoints Makayla Bailey & Michael Connor as Co-Executive DirectorsNEW YORK, NY.- After an extensive international search, Makayla Bailey (formerly Development Director at Rhizome) and Michael Connor (formerly Artistic Director) have been newly appointed to the joint role of Co-Executive Directors of Rhizome, the premier digital arts organization in the country and affiliate of the New Museum. Rhizome is the leading organization for digital art. Founded in 1996 by artist Mark Tribe, the 501c3 organization has been an independent affiliate of the New Museum of Contemporary Art since the early 2000s. Rhizomes work includes public programs as well as new commissions, art/tech collaborations, and digital preservation, making the organization a unique bridge between the past and future of digital art. The majority of its programs have taken place online or in NYC, and Rhizome ... More  Raises and safety protections in City Ballet dancers' new contractNEW YORK, NY.- When the pandemic hit in 2020, battering cultural institutions and forcing New York City Ballet to cancel performances for 18 months, the company reduced the salaries of dancers and other artists by 4% as it worked to weather the crisis. The dancers have in recent months sought to offset those losses, pushing for raises as they negotiated a new labor contract. This week, they won a victory: City Ballet said that as a part of a three-year labor agreement, it would raise salaries for dancers and restore some benefits that were halted during the pandemic, including vacation pay and contributions to retirement accounts. Sam Wheeler, the national executive director of American Guild of Musical Artists, the union representing dancers, stage managers and other workers at City Ballet, said in a statement that the contract was a great ... More  Madison Museum of Contemporary Art presents a multimedia installation by SHAWNà MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAYMADISON, WI.- Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, presents closeLISTENER(reverse, react, desire), a multimedia installation by SHAWNà MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, who is from the Chicago area and now lives in Richmond, Virginia. The fifth iteration of HOLLOWAYS DOGWHISTLE series, this installation uses text, animated video, and immersive sound to visualize and contemplate loss. A dog whistle, HOLLOWAY explains, can be heard by some people but not by others, resulting in a sound that hovers on the edge of silence. Those who can hear it describe it as irritating, creating a physical sense of discomfort that even those who cannot ... More  Max Brand: Blue Elevator Pitch opens at HarkawikNEW YORK, NY.- The verbal description of a visual form should take about 10 seconds. This is the optimal length of time for words to drift to the top and make their way out into the conversational arena. Longer than this, and they might need to be rended forcefully from the corners of the brain in which they linger. Tell me about yourself. Keep it positive. Dont cry. Theres no 13th floor. Your back brain controls the yaw. Its the elevator that controls the pitch and thats what allows the scale to go sky high. The hertz are in the details. Theirs is the timbre of a single raindrop turning to steam on the pavement amidst a downpour. Blue Elevator Pitch, Max Brands first solo exhibition in New York in six years, is comprised of 12 large-scale canvases, each increasingly dense, eclectic, and maximal. Untitled and identified by arbitrary numbers, they propose ... More  Ahlers & Ogletree announces results of Fine Estates & Collections saleATLANTA, GA.- A vibrant and colorful four-panel oil on canvas painting by Nyoman Gunarsa (Indonesian, 1944-2017), titled Balinese Dancers, impressive at a combined 106 ¼ inches by 107 inches, sold for $20,000 in a three-day, Fine Estates & Collections auction held August 25th-27th by Ahlers & Ogletree. The painting was the top achiever of the three-day, 1,289-lot event. Balinese Dancers came to the auction with a modest estimate of $500-$700, but bidders quickly blasted through that and then some. The four-panel series depicted women in the foreground in different poses and a group of women in the background dancing. The unframed work was artist signed and dated at the lower right panel ... More |
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Ben Sledsens 
The Cynthia & Heywood Fralin Collection 
Fragile Crossings 
Indigo Waves and Other Stories
Flashback On a day like today, American artist Sol LeWitt was born September 09, 1928. Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 - April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he preferred instead of "sculptures") but was prolific in a wide range of media including drawing, printmaking, photography, and painting. He has been the subject of hundreds of solo exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world since 1965. In this image: A visitor looks at the piece of art "Wall Drawings" by American artist Sol LeWitt at the Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004.
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