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Ozioma Onuzulike opens his first one-person exhibition with MARC STRAUS
NEW YORK, NY.- MARC STRAUS is presenting new works by Ozioma Onuzulike in his first one-person exhibition with the gallery. A ceramics artist, renowned poet, and a leading figure in the contemporary ceramic art scene in Africa, Onuzulike is presenting works from four series: Palm Kernel Shell Beads, Yam, Honeycomb, and Chainmail. The works directly address challenges that are not only historical and contemporary to Africa but also the world over with regard to colonialism, migration, and global warming. In the Palm Kernel Shell Beads series, Onuzulike reflects on the historical use of beads as items of commercial exchange for slaves in Africa by European merchants. A variety of other goods traded through the network included spices, silk, gunpowder, jewels, textiles, glass, wine, and mirror, much of which Onuzulike subtly references in the nuanced ... More

The subtlety of J.R.R. Tolkien
NEW YORK, NY.- Last week marked the 50th anniversary of the death of J.R.R. Tolkien, a date which yielded a spate of memorializing essays. I didnt write one because although Im currently reading The Lord of the Rings aloud to kids two and three this is the second time through, with at least one more ahead for kid No. 4 Im not a true enough Tolkienphile to be automatically aware of such anniversaries in advance. But I am enough of one to have some observations on other peoples Tolkien arguments. So lets take on a couple of questions raised by the memorializing essays, starting with the familiar debate about the supposed absence of moral ambiguity in Tolkiens works, relative both to more realistic novelists and to later fantasists who have adopted a grimmer and less heroic style. Here, from Sebastian Milbank, in an essay making ... More

36 hours in Amsterdam
AMSTERDAM.- Often caricatured as a sex-and-drugs haven, or a kind of continental Las Vegas, Amsterdam was not always an obvious choice for European cultural travel. Its image has undergone a significant transformation in the last decade, with government efforts to shrink its famous red-light district, curb reckless partying and orient visitors to its more honorable attractions. The city has regrettably lost a bit of its formerly funky edge, and the tide of tourists can make it nearly impossible to book tickets to famous attractions, such as the Anne Frank House, at the last minute. Still, there are new, off-the-beaten-track treasures to be found. Amsterdam essentially emerged from a swamp. The capital was founded along the banks of the Amstel River and built on reclaimed marshlands through an extraordinary feat of water engineering. Take ... More

Quil Lemons wants to be the Robert Mapplethorpe of his community
NEW YORK, NY.- Growing up in South Philadelphia, Quil Lemons first trained his lens on family and friends, his photographs of cousins and neighbors snaring the art worlds attention. By the time he was 20, he was focusing on young Black men as the subjects of Glitterboy, a series that highlighted, as its title suggests, adolescents slathered in glitter and colorful grease. Lately, Lemons has expanded his range. Quiladelphia, his new group of highly provocative, radically intimate photographs, on view through Nov. 4 at the Hannah Traore Gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, is billed as an exploration of Black manhood. Speaking by phone from his apartment in Brooklyn, Lemons, 26, said that his portraits, paradoxically raw and refined, were meant to dissolve calcified notions of Black masculinity, family, queerness, race and beauty. ... More

Climate protesters were coming, so the Gardner Museum locked down
NEW YORK, NY.- On Thursday evening, the doors abruptly closed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Officials had learned that climate protesters were planning a visit during the hours when the cultural institution offers free admission. Activist group Extinction Rebellion had posted on social media earlier in the day, saying this would be its second attempt at visiting the museum. This is a peaceful field trip without the risk of arrest, the invitation said. In March, demonstrators had tried to stage a guerrilla art installation that would have involved inserting their own images into empty picture frames at the museum, an action intended to draw attention to the loss of biodiversity. But the event also would have fallen on the same day as the infamous art heist at the Gardner 33 years earlier, and executives were nervous about security risks and decided ... More

Shara Hughes first presentation in Los Angeles now on view at David Kordansky Gallery
LOS ANGELES, CA.- David Kordansky Gallery is now presenting Light the Dark, an exhibition of new paintings by Shara Hughes and the artists first presentation in Los Angeles. The exhibition is on view in Los Angeles, where it will occupy three of the gallerys spaces. Hughes has become increasingly recognized as one of contemporary paintings most vital and energizing voices. Her canvases, with their views of vivid landscapes and roiling natural scenes, are alive with colors, moods, and nuanced compositional transitions. They are visual experiences in which the felt dimension of life becomes palpable in the fullest way possible. Though Hughes makes no overt reference to her own biography, her work is deeply personal and suggests that all forms of lifeincluding biological life and the shifting lives of art historyexpress emotion and desire. ... More

The long life and long reach of George Balanchine's butterflies
NEW YORK, NY.- While celebrating its 75th anniversary this fall, New York City Ballet is performing 18 ballets by its founding choreographer, George Balanchine. But to get a sense of the global standing of Balanchine, 40 years after his death, other numbers might be more telling. Last year, for instance, about 50 other ballet companies across the world performed his works, about 75 dances in total. Balanchine likened his ballets to butterflies: They live for a season. But they have lasted much longer than that. They have become classics, cornerstones of the international repertory, 20th century equivalents of 19th century staples such as Swan Lake, danced everywhere by all the major ballet companies and most of the minor ones, too. These ballets, like Balanchine, emerged from the same Russian Imperial tradition as Swan Lake, but were shaped ... More

New York City Ballet was in peril. Then came a revival.
NEW YORK, NY.- The leaders of New York City Ballet filed into a banquet hall at Lincoln Center one day in the spring of 2022 for a meeting. The organization was in an uncertain position. It had lost about $55 million in ticket sales during the pandemic shutdown, and as cultural institutions reopened that season, there was no guarantee that audiences, or donors, would return in force. The company was still working to recover from a series of scandals, including accusations of abuse against a former ballet master in chief and an outcry over vulgar texts sent by male dancers. And the nationwide reckoning over racial injustice had brought fresh attention to the dearth of people of color on and offstage in ballet. At a daylong retreat inside the David H. Koch Theater, the companys longtime home, City Ballets board, staff and artistic leaders devised a strategy. ... More

Victor Pinchuk Foundation now featuring exhibition on Russian War Crimes
BERLIN.- Victor Pinchuk Foundation opened the Russian War Crimes Exhibition in Berlin. In partnership with PinchukArtCentre, Office of the President of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Deutsche Bundestag, Humboldt University of Berlin. On 4th September 2023, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and PinchukArtCentre, in partnership with the Office of the President of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Deutsche Bundestag and Humboldt University of Berlin, opened the Russian War Crimes exhibition in Berlin. The project shows photos taken from all over Ukraine since the start of Russias brutal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Even so, it only addresses a fraction of the committed crimes. It makes the Western audience witness the stories of torture, executions, and bombardments committed ... More

Mixed media paintings by ShauntÃ© Gates on view at Sperone Westwater
NEW YORK, NY.- Sperone Westwater has opened ShauntÃ© Gates second solo exhibition at the gallery, showcasing the artists new series In Light of the Hunt. In these mixed media paintings, set loosely within the journey upriver in Francis Ford Coppolas film Apocalypse Now, dreams intertwine with reality, theater and myth, drawing the viewer into what Carl Jung refers to as The Shadow: the aspects of our personalities that exert a powerful influence, despite our attempts at repression. Gates work expands this concept beyond the individual to society as a whole. Gates creates densely layered stage-like spaces combining photos from his native Washington, D.C. with images from film and television. The artist photographs friends, family and acquaintances, transforming them into the heroes of his narratives. He manipulates these images digitally as well as physically by cutting, tearing and colla ... More

A physical and spiritual awakening (but no steady paycheck)
NEW YORK, NY.- There were moments of total exhaustion. A young dancer, having performed a difficult matinee and faced with an evening show, slipped into her dressing room. She placed something soft on the ground to cushion her body from the concrete floor. She lay down. She listened. As the afternoon light faded, streetlights switched on. She could hear buses, cars, footsteps, horns images and sounds that havent faded from the memory of Barbara Walczak, one of three living dancers who performed at New York City Ballets opening night at City Center for Music and Drama in 1948. Sitting at a table in her winding, treasure-filled Manhattan apartment, she took a breath. And then my mind would return, Walczak said, and I would look ahead to the evening performance with such gratitude to be doing what I loved. Walczak, 92, always wanted to dance. ... More