| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Monday, May 4, 2020 |
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| | Art biennials were testing grounds. Now they are being tested. | |
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In an image provided by Kato Ken/Organizing Committee for Yokohama Triennale, Joko Aviantos The border between good and evil is terribly frizzy, at the Yokohama Triennale in Yokohama, Japan, Nov. 5, 2017. The coronavirus crisis has thrown into question the post-pandemic future of contemporary art biennials (and their cousins, triennials and quadrennials). Kato Ken/Organizing Committee for Yokohama Triennale via The New York Times.
by Siddhartha Mitter
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The Prospect New Orleans art triennial in October has been postponed to next year. So has the Liverpool Biennial. São Paulos Bienal is delayed by at least a month. The Dakar Biennale has yet to set new dates. Front International, in Cleveland, has decided to skip 2021 altogether and return in 2022. The coronavirus crisis has thrown into question the post-pandemic future of contemporary art biennials (and their cousins, triennials and quadrennials). Of an estimated such 43 exhibitions in 2020, some 20 have been postponed so far, according to a tally by the Biennial Foundation, with further changes near certain. The Biennale of Sydney opened in March for a three-month run and had to close after 10 days. The biennial is a testing ground, said Defne Ayas, co-curator, with Natasha Ginwala, of the Gwangju Biennale, in South Korea, which is still preparing to open in September. But the testing ground is itself being tested. The idea of the international art exhibition ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A woman makes her way through the VIP underground corridor at the premises of the former Pussycat strip club, turned into a local NGOs community centre and small museum, in the coastal Mediterranean city of Tel Aviv on March 5, 2020. The demise of Tel Aviv's strip clubs was accelerated in 2018, when Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a law banning brothels. But the final straw came in April last year when the public prosecutor issued a directive to clamp down on lap dances, arguing they could in some cases be viewed as prostitution. Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP
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 | | Race, loyalty and transparency in an artist's lawsuit | | The hidden feats that built New York's towering skyscrapers | | Online sales surge to $41 million in one week at Heritage Auctions amid pandemic concerns | 
Howardena Pindell with her work Autobiography: Artemis (1986) at Garth Greenan Gallery in New York, Jan. 11, 2019. Daniel Dorsa/The New York Times.
by Hilarie M. Sheets
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- For many African-American artists looking for gallery representation in the 1980s, George NNamdi was the only game in town. One of the few black art dealers, then and now, NNamdi opened his first gallery in Detroit in 1981 and focused on black artists working in abstraction. They had been largely ignored by the mainstream art world and marginalized, as well, within black communities that expected their artists to make socially and politically oriented work. We were basically considered traitors if we didnt do specifically didactic work, said Howardena Pindell, 77, a graduate of Yale University, who took her pioneering abstractions to the Studio Museum in the Harlem borough of New York City only to be told, she said, by the director in the 1970s to go show your work with the white ... More | | 
A promotional image for the not-yet-completed Seagram Building from The New York Times in April 1957. New York Times Files.
by Michael Kimmelman
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Over the years, architects have not been the only ones to inscribe New Yorks skyline the signature image of the last American century across the urban ether. Among others, structural engineers, practical poets of often towering imagination and import, have also figured out how to scale those heights. Skyscrapers are team efforts, after all. The insides of modern landmarks like Black Rock, historical monuments like the Statue of Liberty and some of the new supertalls now dwarfing yesterdays cloud-scratchers are as eye-popping as whats outside. This is the latest in a series of diversionary walks around town the second of two (condensed and edited) virtual strolls exploring midtown skyscrapers, with the Seagram Building as a starting point. The first was with Annabelle ... More | | 
John Hancock Autograph Letter Signed " John Hancock": $18,125.
DALLAS, TX.- More than 16,000 online bidders proved a global pandemic could not stop the action at 23 auction sessions held April 20-27 as Heritage Auctions brought in more than $41 million across multiple categories. Spring auctions spanning rare U.S. coins, historical manuscripts and art genres ranging from illustration to modern and contemporary all beat expectations due in most part to a surge in online bidding, said Jim Halperin, Co-founder of Heritage Auctions. Heritage was the first auction house to host online bidding in 1999, Halperin said. What were once concerns that participation in the middle of a pandemic would hurt the auctions turned into a record-setting number of online bids by more than 16,000 clients all over the world. A total of 23 auction sessions generated sales of $41,027,418. Sell-through rate reached 97 percent with more than 16,000 bidders participating across the board. More than 29,831 clients trac ... More |
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| | Sous Les Etoiles Gallery opens an online exhibition featuring the work of French artist Sophie Delaporte | | Sotheby's & Ressence launch a watch design competition, ahead of July charity auction | | Rizzoli announces 'Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die: Punk & Post Punk Graphics 1976-1986' | 
Sophie Delaporte, Watery Dress, 2019 (detail). Archival Pigment Print, 23 x 16 | 60 x 40 in. Ed.of 5 + 2 AP.
NEW YORK, NY.- Sous Les Etoiles Gallery is presenting Fragile Landscapes, featuring the work of French artist and photographer Sophie Delaporte. Fragile Landscapes is Delaportes fourth solo exhibition at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, and is an exclusive online exhibition on view May 1st through June 5th, 2020. The series Fragile Landscapes has received the Grand Prix Photography & Sustainability in 2019 organized by Eyes and Talent and Paris good Fashion. Since the early 90s, when the artist began her formative collaborations with cutting-edge British magazine I-D, Sophie Delaporte has remained dedicated to the play in photography and fashion in its most straightforward definition, emphasizing freedom and theatricality. Today, with her specific touch of color and the grace of her poetic illusion, she evokes her concern about the fragility of our landscapes, exploring a ne ... More | | 
The winning drawing will be turned into a watch to be offered for sale at Sothebys this summer. Courtesy Sotheby's.
LONDON.- Ready, Steady, Draw! Independent watchmaker Ressence and Sothebys Watch Division are joining forces against coronavirus this season and launching a competition to design a unique watch. For the first time ever, watch-lovers will have the chance to create their own interpretation of one of Ressences latest models, the Type 1 Slim. Their creativity will support medical research. The competition is open from 28 April (2pm GMT) until 12 May (2pm GMT). The winning design will be selected by Belgian designer and Ressence founder Benoît Mintiens, in consultation with the brands Swiss manufacturers, who will then bring the winning design to life as a watch. The successful designer will have their name engraved on the case of the piece. The unique piece will be offered in Sothebys Hong Kong ... More | | 
Buzzcocks: 1 What Do I Get? 45 sheet music, UA Records (1978); Malcolm Garrett/Assorted Images design; Jill Furmanovsky photography.
NEW YORK, NY.- Since discovering punk in the summer of 1976, Andrew Krivine has amassed one of the world's largest collections of punk graphic design and memorabilia, with part of his collection forming the core of a traveling museum exhibition. Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk and Post-Punk Graphic Design represents the cream of the crop from Krivines collectionover 700 original scans of posters, flyers, covers, ads, and other ephemera from the prime years of the movement, which forever changed the world of graphic design. This extensively illustrated volume recounts one man's obsession with creating an unparalleled collection of punk memorabilia. The content of the book is verified, critically assessed, and given provenance by an array of graphic design experts, academics, and commentators, ... More |
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| | Bonniers Konsthall presents Swedish artist Ãva Mag's most extensive exhibition to date | | Steidl to publish 'David Goldblatt: Ex Offenders at the Scene of Crime' | | Sainsbury Centre's Art Deco by the Sea exhibition featured as BBC iPlayer special | 
Ãva Mag. Photo: Märta Thisner.
STOCKHOLM.- Bonniers Konsthall is presenting There Is a Plan for This, Swedish artist Ãva Mags most extensive exhibition to date. Mag examines issues of vulnerability and strength in asking how do you stand up straight in the world and, having stood up, how do you remain standing through life? At Bonniers Konsthall, Mag takes on the entire space with material that is new to her. The work, There Is a Plan for This, consists of an immense amount of things, from mortuary freezers to old chairs, broken canoes, motor parts and heaps of random metal. Mag has borrowed the material from her father, where on a small piece of land outside Stockholm he has for many years collected and saved things that others have discarded. Throughout the exhibition someone will be at work, at times the artist herself, with organizing all the stuff. At first the work centered around Mags desire to tidy up, but it has come to express something ... More | | 
Tiarna Wheeler was 15 when she broke a love rival's jaw in March 2008 on the #23 bus to Birmingham. 26 September 2012.
NEW YORK, NY.- The origins of this book lie in David Goldblatt's simple observation that many of his fellow South Africans, regardless of their race and class, are the victims of often violent crime. I have asked myself, says Goldblatt, not least in the fear and fury of holdups with knives and guns, who are you? Are you monsters? Are you ordinary peopleif there are such? How did you come to do this? What are your lives? And so began in 2008 Ex Offenders at the Scene of Crime, for which Goldblatt photographed criminal offenders and alleged offenders at the place that was probably life-changing for them and their victims: the scene of the crime or arrest. Each portrait is accompanied by the subjects written story in his or her own words, for many a cathartic experience and the first opportunity to recount events without being ... More | | 
Martine Ronaldson, Summer Thomas,1928. Oil on canvas © Manchester Art Gallery, purchased from the artist in 1929.
NORWICH.- The Sainsbury Centre announced details of a 15-minute film enabling viewers at home to enjoy the highly successful Art Deco by the Sea exhibition, available to view on BBC iPlayer. This project is part of BBC Arts Culture in Quarantine initiative which is designed to bring the best of arts and culture into the homes of audiences during this lockdown period. It is a great pleasure for the Sainsbury Centre to reconnect with members of the public and share its current major exhibition, organised in partnership with the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, on such a prominent BBC platform. This BBC iPlayer Museums in Quarantine film gives future visitors to the exhibition an insightful preview of its wonders, and also reach a vast number of people who would otherwise have been unable to see it. Viewers can see ... More |
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| | Arkansas Arts Center Delta Exhibition goes digital | | One-of-a-kind piece of early Nintendo history scores $28,800 | | World Illustration Awards 2020 longlist announced | 
Aaron Bleidt, Drawn to the Moon, 2019, freehand digital drawing and archival pigment ink print on paper, 36 x 24 inches.
LITTLE ROCK, ARK.- In a creative reimagining, the " target="_blank">Arkansas Arts Centers 62nd Annual Delta Exhibition will be hosted in a digital format during this time of ongoing social distancing. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Historic Arkansas Museum, Thea Foundation, ACANSA Gallery and the Argenta Branch of the William F. Laman Library, will be open for online viewing beginning June 19. The Delta Exhibition is now part of the Arts Centers new digital engagement initiative Arkansas Arts Center Amplified through which the center is offering engaging art experiences where many people are now spending much of their time online. In addition to the centers popular Young Arkansas Artists digital exhibition, the new digital format for Delta also offers increased accessibility to an exhibition that represents the entire Mississippi Delta region. ... More | | 
The Nintendo-Mego Game & Watch Sales Demo cabinet sold for $28,800.
DALLAS, TX.- No one knew how much it would sell for, because so few knew what it was this Game & Watch demo cabinet made close to 40 years ago by an emerging Nintendo but marketed by a company that sold Star Trek action figures. It was for a game known by two inviting titles: Exterminator or Vermin, take your pick. As of Friday morning, when it went to auction in Dallas, it was the first of its kind ever to see public sale. But when the hammer fell during the third session of Heritage Auctions Comics & Comic Art Auction, which began Thursday and ends Sunday, the Nintendo-Mego Game & Watch Sales Demo cabinet sold for $28,800. It had no opening estimate, only because no one knew how to price it. But the final sale price was a far cry from the $1,650 bid with which it opened the day. "We expected this to be quite popular because its an early piece of Nintendo history it even predates the Nintendo Entertainment System ... More | | 
Bartosz Kosowski, The Shining, 2020 / Longlist. Advertising.
LONDON.- The AOI, in partnership with the Directory of Illustration, announced for the first time ever, the 500 projects that have been longlisted for the World Illustration Awards 2020! In December 2019, AOI opened its call to illustrators to Be Ambitious, Be Seen, Be Celebrated. An incredible 4,300+ entries were submitted by illustrators from 79 countries into this years awards. This was followed by a competitive judging process to find the 500 longlisted projects. The Longlist represents some of the best illustration from across the world, featuring an incredible array of techniques, concepts, processes and formats. We are presenting the Longlist for the 2020 World Illustration Awards at an extraordinary time. Now more than ever the value of illustration is startlingly obvious. It communicates, enchants, explains. Illustration is the perfect commission for our socially distanced times. This longlist ... More |
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Fine Jewels from Cartier, Chaumet and Van Cleef & Arpels
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 osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION presents Public SoundsOSLO.- Over the course of history, our cities have been shaped by disease, by war, by migration, by weather, by trauma, and the twenty-first century is no different. Curated by Eva González-Sancho Bodero and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk, osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION 20192024 has set out, through a five-year programme, to explore the unusual contexts and questions deriving from art in public space. With all of us now living in socially distanced self-isolation and taking into consideration official guidance related to Covid-19, the biennial programme continues to investigate the subtle and myriad ways in which people encounter art in public space and the public sphere. The spring programme will start with an exploration of sound environments with works by Norwegian artists Alexander Rishaug and Ãystein Wyller Odden. The curators note: ... More Explore Compton Verney exhibitions from home during lockdownCOMPTON VERNEY.- A virtual tour of the critically acclaimed Compton Verney exhibition, Cranach: Artist & Innovator - that sadly had to close its doors just 5 days after opening as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus is proving a massive success with more than 22,000 people already having explored the show digitally. Lucas Cranach the Elder was one of the leading German painters and printmakers of the early 16th century. This landmark exhibition a collaboration with The National Gallery, London - not only showcases his artistic genius through his most beguiling paintings and illustrations, but also de monstrate his powerful legacy over the last five centuries through works by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Michael Landy. For those who did not manage to see the exhibition described as a temptation that should not be resisted' ... More Amanda Aldous Fine Art launches first online group exhibition in May: Water BASINGSTOKE.- Amanda Aldous Fine Art launched its first entirely online group exhibition including 15 different artists. It runs from 1st May until 31st May 2020. Restricted by lockdown, Amanda Aldous decided to ask her artists to contribute works to a 'Water' themed online exhibition with 10% percent of each sale going to support plasticoceans.co.uk. Amanda says: At this time of year, we are usually all looking forward to a summer holiday, and inevitably we gravitate towards the sea or water in some form or other. So it seems that in 2020, when most of us are forced to self-isolate inland, the theme of water will resonate. A fundamental of life, it is both a necessity and a pleasure and we encounter it in so many different ways. Amanda works with a wide range of artists, from the more traditional painters, sculptors, watercolourists and draftsmen to artists working ... More Terra Foundation announces $8M COVID-19 relief fundCHICAGO, IL.- The Terra Foundation for American Art announced an $8 million commitment to emergency funding and ongoing relief for visual arts organizations impacted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund provides emergency support to Chicago, US, and international arts organizations, as well as relief over the next two years for arts organizations in the US. The ongoing relief for US museums is in the form of a new two-year grant program for the purpose of funding museums collection projects. This multi-year effort focuses on supporting visual arts organizations committed to engaging with art of the United States. What happens to the future of our arts organizations impacts all of us, and this moment is critical for institutions around the world, said Joseph P. Gromacki, chair of the Terra Foundation for American Art board of directors. The Terra Foundations board ... More Iraqis turn to sketches and songs to contain virusBASRA (AFP).- Bushy moustaches, thick Syrian accents, fistfights in 1930s Damascus and... medical masks? A parody of a popular Syrian television show is raising awareness on curbing the coronavirus outbreak in neighbouring Iraq. Artists in Iraq's southern port city of Basra have adapted the beloved characters of "Bab al-Hara" ("The Neighbourhood Gate") -- a 10-season period drama watched across the Arab world -- to convince their compatriots to take the pandemic seriously. In one skit, the show's main character Abu Issam returns to the Syrian capital Damascus unannounced after a long absence, just in time to keep his son from getting into a street fight. "Put on your mask!" Abu Issam, played by Iraqi artist Mohammad Qassem, scolds his son. When his wife -- also played by Qassem -- later draws close to welcome him home, Abu Issam ... More Star filmmakers draw inspiration from Russia lockdownMOSCOW (AFP).- The coronavirus pandemic might have brought the film industry to a halt but Andrei Konchalovsky, one of Russia's most renowned film and theatre directors, is as busy as ever. He wants to make a documentary about daily life under quarantine, exploring the poetic side of the mundane, and he has invited ordinary Russians to work with him on the project. "All of us have ended up on a desert island and that's the most interesting thing," the 82-year-old told AFP in a video interview. In late March, Konchalovsky issued a call on social media to his fans to make short videos for a project he has called "Quarantine Russian Style". "Take your smartphones, film your new routines, your favourite spot at home, or even your work web conference. And we'll make movies!" he said. Every week the celebrated filmmaker, who is followed by more ... More Revered Algerian singer and Berber idol Idir dies at 70PARIS (AFP).- Algerian singer Idir, a leading cultural ambassador of his native Kabylie and its Berber language, died in Paris on Saturday, aged 70, his family announced. Idir, who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, was hospitalised on Friday. "We regret to announce the death of our father (of us all), Idir," a message posted on his official Facebook account said. Contacted by AFP, his family declined to comment further. Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called him "an icon of Algerian art". "With his passing, Algeria has lost one of its monuments," Tebboune said on Twitter. France's former president Francois Hollande also paid homage to Idir, saying he "entranced entire generations with the rhythms of his dulcet, rich and moving melodies". UNESCO praised Idir as an "eminent ambassador of the Kabylie and Berber cultures". Idir, whose real name was Hamid Cheriet, was born on O ... More Bolshoi ballet soloists limber up in lockdownMOSCOW (AFP).- In the middle of their bedroom, Bolshoi ballet dancers Margarita Shrainer and Igor Tsvirko have placed a linoleum mat and a barre. Since the start of the lockdown, the couple, both soloists in the legendary troupe, have largely used their own initiative to keep up their dance skills at home. The Bolshoi held its first online classes only this week, more than a month after lockdown began. Yet Tsvirko and Shrainer still look toned and Tsvirko pulls at his waistband. "I don't think I've got fat, that's the main thing," says the 30-year-old dancer, a leading soloist at the Bolshoi who has performed lead roles in "Ivan the Terrible" and "Nureyev". Shrainer, a first soloist who has performed major roles in "Coppelia" and "Carmen Suite", massages her leg with a tennis ball and moves into the splits. Together for more than a year, they are living in a studio flat owned by the theatre. ... More Hamilton Bohannon, driving disco drummer, dies at 78NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Hamilton Bohannon, a drummer whose disco records propelled people onto dance floors in the 1970s and 80s and then lived on as popular samples for major hip-hop artists, died April 24 at his home in Atlanta. He was 78. His daughter, April Bohannon Binion, said the cause of death had not been determined. Bohannon began his career primarily backing Motown acts like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross and the Supremes before going off on his own. Danceable rhythm was the defining characteristic of Bohannon's most successful compositions. He was an early devotee of the so-called four-on-the-floor rhythm, which became the backbone of disco and many later forms of dance music, especially house. Bohannon became known for long-running tracks like Foot Stompin Music, Disco Stomp and Bohannons ... More Galerie Parisa Kind opens an exhibition of works by Marcus GundlingFRANKFURT.- It's a question as old as the history of photography itself: what is the relationship between painting and photography? Today the question could be specified: What is the relationship between painting and digital photography? In the works of Marcus Gundling's solo exhibition As I Please, both media are inextricably linked. Painting becomes a dark room. In it the artist develops his 'negatives', photographs processed on the computer, into object-like surfaces. Marcus Gundling comes across countless images in the digital world of the Internet, from which he subjectively - As I please - selects and saves only a few. He often deletes annoying elements that actually determine the information content. This gesture is like a painterly one: he abstracts or removes (lat. Abstrahere = peel, separate, remove) the informative level of those ... More Percival Everett has a book or three coming outNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Once youve finished Telephone, the latest book by Percival Everett, you may be talking about it with another reader and finding that you disagree on what happened. That is intentional. There are three different versions of this novel, theyre all published identically, and you cant know which one youre getting, Everett said during a video interview from his home in Los Angeles. With an apologetic chuckle, he added: Its going to piss a lot of people off, Im afraid. The author of more than 30 novels and collections of stories and poetry over the past 30 years, Everett, 63, has cultivated a reputation for his vast, genre-defying and sometimes gleefully unhinged body of work. Consider Erasure, a race-in-publishing novel with a Blaxploitation parody inside, or the absurdist I Am Not Sidney Poitier, narrated ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, American painter Frederic Edwin Church was born May 04, 1826. Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 - April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, perhaps best known for painting large panoramic landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets, but also sometimes depicting dramatic natural phenomena that he saw during his travels to the Arctic and Central and South America. In this image: Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), Winter Twilight from Olana, about 1871-2. Oil on paper, 25.6 x 33 cm© New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation / Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY (OL.1976.4)
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