| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Monday, August 17, 2020 |
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| | Cracking codes with Sanford Biggers | |
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Artist Sanford Biggers at his studio in New York, July 8, 2020. You dont have to follow the norms, says this artist who makes wrenching sculptures transformed by gunfire and radically altered heirloom quilts. Gioncarlo Valentine/The New York Times.
by Siddhartha Mitter
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- One afternoon in June, artist Sanford Biggers, having returned to the city after a stretch bunkered out of town with his wife and young daughter to avoid the pandemic, opened up his expansive basement studio in Harlem for a socially distanced visit. Biggers is a specialist in many styles, and several were in evidence. A shimmering silhouette made entirely of black sequins, for instance, towered along one wall; it depicted a Black Power protester drawn from a late 1960s photograph. There were African statuettes that Biggers purchases in markets, then dips in wax and modifies at the shooting range a wrenching sculpture by gunfire that he has exhibited as multichannel videos. There were also busts from a series he is making in bronze and another in marble, with artisans in Italy. They merge Masai, Luba, and other African sculptural traits with ones from the Greco-Roman tradition. Most of all, there were quilts stretched against the wall, piled onto pallets, in scraps on the ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A visitor looks at artefacts at the National Museum in Bangkok on August 14, 2020. Mladen ANTONOV / AFP
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 | | Rediscovered art works by Victor Pasmore feature in Hastings Contemporary's re-opening exhibition | | Eusebio Leal Spengler, who restored Old Havana, dies at 77 | | Tribute in Light will shine after all, officials say | 
Victor Pasmore with his work Grey Development in Three Movements, 1968-9. Courtesy of The Estate of the Artist and Marlborough, New York and London. Photo by John Pasmore.
HASTINGS.- Hastings Contemporary announced that the gallery re-opened with two spectacular new exhibitions - Victor Pasmore: Line and Space and Sir Quentin Blake: We Live in Worrying Times. With the continual generosity and unwavering support of its members, and the financial grant generously awarded by the Arts Council Covid -19 Fund and Hastings Borough Council, the Hastings Contemporary team has been able to prepare the gallerys new exhibitions and create a safe and socially distanced environment. Gallery members and visitors can visit and enjoy the exhibitions from mid August, safe in the knowledge that their health and wellbeing is the gallery teams priority. Building on the global attention that the gallerys Robot Tours received during lock-down, Hastings Contemporary will now not only welcome guests through the doors, but will continue to host guests virtually via the telepresence ... More | | 
As a historian and director of the Havana City Museum, Leal was passionate about saving Cubas architectural history. Photo: Wikipedia.org.
by Steven Kurutz
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Eusebio Leal Spengler, who led an effort to preserve Old Havana, transforming that historic district from a forgotten slum into an architectural jewel and tourist destination, died July 31 in Havana. He was 77. His death was reported by Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. In recent years he had been treated for pancreatic cancer. In a statement, President Miguel Diaz-Canel of Cuba called him the Cuban who saved Havana. Leal began his preservation efforts in the 1980s, when the old center of the capital city was a ruin. Residents lived without indoor plumbing or reliable electricity, garbage piled up on the streets, and 250-year-old buildings sometimes collapsed before their eyes. As a historian and director of the Havana City Museum, Leal was passionate about saving Cubas architectural history. He ... More | | 
The Tribute in Light shines above visitors at the National September 11 Memorial in New York, Sept. 11, 2014. Kirsten Luce/The New York Times.
by Aimee Ortiz
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The National September 11 Memorial & Museums Tribute in Light will shine this year after all, officials said Saturday. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said the state would provide the health personnel and supervision so that the display, which has memorialized the attacks on the twin towers since 2002, could safely continue. The museum announced Thursday that the tribute, which features 88 specially made lights used to create the projections that tower over the city until dawn Sept. 12, needed to be canceled as a result of the coronavirus crisis. It takes a team of about 40 stagehands and electricians working closely on the installation for more than a week to get it ready. The lights create two ghostly towers that are beamed into the sky from near ground zero. On a clear night, they can be seen from 60 miles away. In the last 24 hours weve had ... More |
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| | He's sharing the history of Black New York, one tweet at a time | | Swoon joins Turner Carroll Gallery | | Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust announces September reopening | 
Sola Olosunde, a graduate student and archival image enthusiast, in New York on July 30, 2020. Naima Green/The New York Times.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When a video of a racist attack on Black children by white residents of Rosedale, Queens, in 1975 was posted on Twitter last summer, it quickly drew attention and has now been viewed more than 4.5 million times. But few know about the man who unearthed and posted the clip, Oluwanisola Sola Olosunde, who wasnt even born when the attack was filmed. Olosunde, 24, is a history enthusiast who posts threads of archival photographs, news clippings and video footage on Twitter, racking up tens of thousands of retweets and likes. He found the Rosedale footage on YouTube while doing research. One look at Olosunde, seated on a park bench in Bedford Stuyvesant wearing a powder blue suit, a white Kangol Bermuda hat and a face adorned with slightly overgrown mutton chops, and its obvious how deeply he ... More | | 
Swoon, Yaya, 2016. 89 x 52″. Block print on mylar with coffee, sewn panels and acrylic.
SANTA FE, NM.- Turner Carroll Gallery announced its representation of artist Caledonia Curry, whose work appears under the name Swoon. Swoon is widely known as the first woman to gain large-scale recognition in the male-dominated world of street art, and she has gone on to energize and inspire an entire generation of female street artists. Her work can be found on the sides of buildings worldwide and installed in prominent institutions such as New Yorks Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Tate Modern, and the São Paulo Museum of Art. Her upcoming installations and exhibitions include Seven Contemplations at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, and The Heart Lives through the Hands at Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, PA. As is the case with its most successful artist relationships, Turner Carroll and Swoon were introduced by another artist Turner Carroll represents: Judy ... More | | 
Concrete posts that were once part of the fence of the Auschwitz camp (1940-1945). These posts were covered in barbed and electrified wire, ensuring that no prisoner could escape. Collection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oświęcim, Poland. Photo: Museum of Jewish Heritage/John Halpern.
NEW YORK, NY.- As New York enters the next phase of reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Museum of Jewish Heritage A Living Memorial to the Holocaust today announced plans to reopen its doorspending City and State approvalon a reduced schedule in September and extend the internationally acclaimed and popular exhibition, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away., through May 2, 2021. Under the new system, once Museums are permitted to welcome visitors indoors again, the Museum plans to open three days per week rather than the previous six days, and with limited hours: Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 10 AM to 5 PM. If allowed to open, the first two days will be for members only ... More |
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| | Bling no longer king in India as gold loses its shine | | China Guardian Hong Kong August Auction brings $ 1 million | | Screenprint by Roy Lichtenstein headlines Neue Auctions' sale | 
In this photograph taken in July 31, 2020, a shopkeeper holds gold bangles at a shop in Faridabad. As gold's value skyrockets, jewellers in India, traditionally one of the world's hottest markets, are struggling -- with shops shut, sales down and craftsmen staying home due to coronavirus fears. Money SHARMA / AFP.
by Vishal Manve
MUMBAI (AFP).- Jewellers in the traditionally lucrative Indian gold market are struggling -- even while the metal's value skyrockets -- as coronavirus fears keep sales down, craftsmen at home and shops shuttered. Months after India lifted its strict lockdown, the country's biggest gold market Zaveri Bazaar remains desolate, with most stores closed and no customers in sight. "We have been running this shop for the last 40 years and I have never seen the business hit such lows," said 75-year-old Madhubhai Shah, one of only a handful of jewellers who decided to reopen. The Mumbai market was hit hard by the March lockdown, which saw millions of migrant ... More | | 
No2Good, Astro Mousy. Executed in 2010. Fiberglass Sculpture. Edition: 1/2, 94 x 65 x 45 cm. 37 x 25 1/2 x 17 3/4 in. HK$ 171,100 / US$ 21,936.
HONG KONG.- China Guardian Hong Kong August Auction 2020 To Youth: Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art completed with outstanding results following the success of the July Auction, comprising of 79 works amassing a sale total of HK$ 7.75 million, doubling pre-sale estimates, with 94% sold by lot, 100% sold by value and 54% lots sold exceeding estimates. Ms. Vita Chen, General Manager, Senior Specialist of Asian 20th Century and Contemporary Art of China Guardian (HK) Auctions Co., Ltd, says, The auction goes beyond the standard model of major Spring and Autumn sales, by consolidating online and offline bidding for the first time, whilst curating a sale which present a variety of vivid works of art including classics from great masters and photography works. The outstanding results are contributed by our hard work, and support from our collectors - over a hundred telephone bidders from Mainland China, ... More | | 
Screen-print in colors by Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), titled The Oval Office, a politically-themed work, especially meaningful in todays trying times (est. $30,000-$50,000).
BEACHWOOD, OH.- A screen-print in colors by Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), titled The Oval Office, a politically-themed work that is especially meaningful in todays trying times, is an expected star lot in Neue Auctions online sale of modern art and design slated for Saturday, August 22nd. Previews will be held in the Beachwood gallery (outside of Cleveland). The auction, nicknamed Whats Neue, Pussycat?, has a start time of 11 am Eastern. Previews will be held at 23533 Mercantile Road in Beachwood. The sale features all things modern, said Cynthia Maciejewski of Neue Auctions. That includes fine art, design, furniture, prints, modern paintings and more. Most, if not all, of the lots are fresh to the market, pulled from area estates. Maciejewski said the modern furnishings category is especially strong, with offerings by some of the biggest names in mid-century ... More |
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| | Locarno hails hybrid-format film festival | | As pandemic lingers, one DJ tests virtual 'tours' | | Slow motion recovery: cautious Hollywood edges back to work | 
Locarno Film Festival.
by Robin Millard
GENEVA (AFP).- Switzerland's Locarno Film Festival said Sunday it hoped to have set the bar for future international film festivals, having adopted a new semi-virtual format due to the coronavirus crisis. Founded in 1946, Locarno is one of the world's longest-running annual film festivals and focuses on auteur cinema. Held in the town on the shores of Lake Maggiore, in the Italian-speaking Ticino region of southern Switzerland, films are normally screened in the central piazza holding up to 8,000 people -- a feature of Swiss national life captured on the country's 20-franc banknotes. However, the 73rd festival, which closed on Saturday, could not be staged in the usual way due to the COVID-19 pandemic and so switched to a hybrid format, with films and content made available online. The festival's artistic director Lili Hinstin, who put the semi-virtual concept together, said the festival "made us reflect about the future of the cinema". "It showed that screenings in theatres and video- ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on February 24, 2018 DJ Michael Brun poses for a picture during an interview with AFP in Brooklyn, New York. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP.
by Maggy Donaldson
NEW YORK (AFP).- Livestreamed concerts are now a common feature of the coronavirus age, with musicians vying for a spot on the overcrowded virtual stage even when they're doing it for free. This weekend, Haitian DJ Michael Brun hopes to find a way to make streams more profitable, with plans to test a model rarely used in music. The practice is known as "geofencing" -- limiting virtual viewers to a specific geographic area. His strategy aims to draw an audience for a fee by catering to certain cities. Like many artists, the New York-based Brun -- who's played top festivals and seen his remixes generate millions of streams -- has delivered several free virtual shows from his apartment since the pandemic began. His first three paid concerts since then will be geofenced to people within 100 miles of Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on on June 17, 2014, actor Gregg Daniel attends the premiere of HBO's "True Blood" season seven at the Chinese theatre in Hollywood. Chris DELMAS / AFP.
by Andrew Marszal
LOS ANGELES (AFP).- When veteran Hollywood actor Gregg Daniel was offered an audition for a new movie in Los Angeles, he nearly didn't show up -- the pandemic was well under way, and "no one was shooting." "I almost hesitated even going to the audition," said Daniel. "I'm African-American, I'm over 50 and disproportionately black people were dying of COVID-19... but the script was so good, and I'm an actor at heart." Fast-forward to today, and Daniel has completed boxing drama "7th & Union," filmed in the streets of the eerily quiet California entertainment capital. Thanks to relentless testing, on-set "COVID officers," sanitation stations and enforced social distancing between takes, "everything went smoothly" and safely, said executive producer Jolene Rodriguez. Yet it is one of just a handful of film productions to resume ... More |
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In 60 Seconds: Flaxman's 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'
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 Exhibit Columbus announces theme and J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipientsCOLUMBUS, IND.- Exhibit Columbuswhich launched in 2016 to celebrate the design legacy of Columbus, Indiana, through its annual exploration of architecture, art, design and communitytoday announced its curatorial theme for the 2020-2021 cycle as well as the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize Recipients and other participants. For the 2021 Exhibition, which will take place fall 2021, co-curators Iker Gil and Mimi Zeiger have invited the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipients (as well as the University Design Research Fellows and the High School Design Team) to create site specific, future-oriented installations, which will be developed over the coming year in response to the theme: New Middles: From Main Street To Megalopolis, What Is The Future of The Middle City? This 2020-2021 symposium and exhibition cycle explores the future of the ... More Dr. Jay Galst, a specialist in eyes and coins, dies at 69NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When Dr. Jay M. Galst was a boy in Milwaukee, his father, who owned a grocery store, would bring home coins from the days receipts, and young Jay would enjoy searching through them for wheat pennies, buffalo nickels and other distinctive finds. That boy grew up to be an ophthalmologist, and in a happy merging of vocation and avocation, he developed a passion for numismatics that included a singular area of expertise: He may have known more than anyone about coins, tokens, medals and similar artifacts that were in some way related to the eye. He knew so much, in fact, that in 2013 he and Peter van Alfen, chief curator of the American Numismatic Society, wrote a book about them. A book about coins related to the eye? Must have been a pretty thin book, you might think. Nope. The volume, Ophthalmologia, ... More Julian Bream, maestro of guitar and lute, dies at 87NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Julian Bream, the English musician who pushed the guitar beyond its Spanish roots and expanded its range by commissioning dozens of works from major composers, and who also played a crucial role in reviving the lute as a modern concert instrument, died Friday at his home in Wiltshire, England. He was 87. His representatives at James Brown Management announced his death in a statement but did not give a cause. Bream was the most eloquent guitarist of the generation that came of age soon after Andrés Segovia carved out a place for the guitar in the mainstream concert world. It could be argued, in fact, that Bream, even more than Segovia, established the guitars credibility as a serious solo instrument. He updated the technical standard of classical guitar playing and replaced the Romantic, rubato-heavy phrasing ... More Outdoor medicine for the play-starved soulFLORHAM PARK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The emailed instructions from the box office tell you to put on your mask before you even get out of your car. Off the parking lot, the wide, curving path through the greenery is painted with white Xs for social distancing, and when it opens on a sweep of lawn, that grass too is marked with 8-foot circles, 6 feet apart, each pod big enough for a family of five with blankets and chairs, a picnic if you want. None of this is normal, of course. But if almost normal is what youre yearning for, if an alfresco evening at the theater is a fixture of your summertimes, then the Shakespeare Theater of New Jerseys Back Yard Stage is the place: a homey oasis in our 2020 hellscape where, for a little over an hour, you get to feel like yourself again. Because all those reminders of the pandemic fall away as soon as youre watching ... More The Contemporary Dayton announces 2020 online art auction & benefitDAYTON, OH.- The Contemporary Daytons 26th Annual Art Auction will take on a different look this year as a virtual event that will bring the same excitement and fun with online bidding. This no-cost event will be held August 2630, 2020 with a live auction livestream that begins promptly at 7 p.m. on Saturday, August 29, 2020. In recognition of the interconnectedness of art and activism, The Co will donate 10% of proceeds raised from the art auction to The RubiGirls Scholarship Fund for LGBTQ students and straight allies as well as the YWCA Daytons Stand Against Racism Campaign 2020, both of which are working on the frontlines of social justice and anti-oppression. The 2020 Online Art Auction & Benefit is The Cos signature fundraising event and the only auction in the region dedicated exclusively to visual art. Proceeds will provide critical ... More PHI to present the Venice Biennale's VR selection VENICE.- This year, the virtual reality section of the Venice Biennale, entitled Venice VR Expanded, will exceptionally take place in a handful of satellite locations around the world. Happening from September 2nd to 12th, the Venice Mostra (77th edition of the Venice International Film Festival) will open its selection of virtual reality works, featuring several world premieres, at leading cultural venues from the international XR scene, including the PHI Centre. Having maintained strong ties with the Biennale for several years, the PHI Centre is honoured to announce that it will be the only Canadian institution to be part of these satellite locations, alongside Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, Beijing and other major cities. This is a unique opportunity to offer the Montreal public access to this world-class VR lineup. The selections 44 works are usually reserved for a limited ... More GOST Books to publish 'Paradise City' by Sébastien CuvelierLONDON.- Sébastien Cuveliers journey to Iran was inspired by a manuscript written on his late uncles journey to Persepolis nearly fifty years ago. In Paradise City, photographs from Cuveliers time in Iran are layered on top of his uncles diary to create a conversation between the two travels. The book follows his search through both the contemporary and ancient landscapes of Iran to locate an elusive, dreamlike version of paradise. The Iran depicted in his uncles writings and photographswhich later surfaced in a briefcasewas far removed from that which confronted Cuvelier. The revolution of 1979 irrevocably transformed the country into a state in which citizens lives are restricted. The countrys young and connected population has had to constantly adjust its way of living in order to circumvent the limitations imposed by the government. As a result, ... More MOSTYN reopens with exhibition of works by Athena PapadopoulosLLANDUDNO.- This exhibition presents a new body of work by artist Athena Papadopoulos. Working across sculpture, painting, text and sound, Papadopoulos practice defies traditional representations of the body, creating excessive, decaying and abject hybrid forms hovering between the worlds of the imagined and the real. Through a process of assemblage, her work is formed of found objects amassed and collaged together. Traditional binary perceptions of gender and sexuality are uprooted and unfixed. Using her ever-expanding vocabulary of materials and ancient narratives, which she combines with unlikely elements, this new series of works includes sound, sculpture and painting. Exploring human dichotomies, the exhibition questions the complicated duality of reason and emotion. The exhibition is inspired by her recently published ... More Govett-Brewster Art Gallery announces the release of 'Tangible/Intangible: The Sound of Sculpture' NEW PLYMOUTH.- The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre launches Tangible/Intangible: The Sound of Sculpture by Caleb Kelly. Commissioned in association with the Govett-Brewsters 2018 exhibition Sensory Agents (August 4November 18, 2018), this new essay looks to sculptural practices that explicitly employ sound as a medium. Scholar and curator Caleb Kelly explores the development of sound arts through sculptural form and installation practices, investigating a changing understanding of the nature of sculpture itself and a new perspective on the importance of the senses in our appreciation of the arts. Kelly notes, Sound may seem like an odd material for sculpture, yet intangible materials have been utilised by sculptors since the mid-(twentieth) century. At that time, artists, including Len Lye and Max Neuhaus (two key case studies in this volume), were drawn to the intangible, seeking to ... More American iconoclast Michael Almereyda's films to be shown at Museum of the Moving ImageNEW YORK, NY.- A true American iconoclast, Michael Almereyda has been directing, writing, and producing unconventional, fiercely independent visions in a variety of genres and styles for more than three decades, whether working in documentary, fiction, or a combination of the two. From August 21 through September 20, Museum of the Moving Image will present Michael Almereyda Here and Now, a recent career retrospective featuring four of the directors most memorable 21st-century visions William Eggelston in the Real World, Experimenter, Marjorie Prime, and Escapes and a collection of rarely shown shorts. The retrospective coincides with the release of his latest film, Tesla, which stars Ethan Hawke and Kyle MacLachlan, on August 21. The prolific Almereyda has long challenged viewers with detailed, observant, and idiosyncratic ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, Italian painter Francesco Albani was born August 17, 1578. Francesco Albani or Albano (17 March or 17 August 1578 - 4 October 1660) was an Italian Baroque painter. Albani never acquired the monumentality or tenebrism that was quaking the contemporary world of painters, and in fact, is derided often for his lyric, cherubim-filled sweetness, which often has not yet shaken the mannerist elegance. While Albani's thematic would have appealed to Poussin, he lacked the Frenchman's muscular drama. His style sometimes appears to befit the decorative Rococo more than of his time. In this image: Baptism of Christ ca 1640 (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
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