The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, May 4, 2024



 
Frieze New York brings a rich, cross-cultural mix

Visitors to the Frieze New York art fair in Manhattan on Wednesday, Mat 1, 2024. The fair features an impressive collection of painting, textile and collage in its booths. (Ben Sklar/The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- “Money is no object,” states a sly little text painting by artist Ricci Albenda in this year’s edition of Frieze New York. Which, of course, isn’t true. At any art fair, as at any trade fair, money is the object. Put another way, in this context all the objects on view basically equal cash. And anyone allergic to the “political,” never mind the “activist,” in contemporary art will find a refuge here. But for casual ... More


The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
Dale Frank: Growers and Showers, Installation view, National Art School, 2024. Photograph by Peter Morgan.






Court says Italy is rightful owner of bronze held by Getty Museum   Renault Collection, leading the way   They used to award Olympic medals for art?


The Statue of a Victorious Youth, left, also known as the Getty Bronze, seen in the Hellenistic Gallery at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Calif., April 5, 2018. (Kendrick Brinson/The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday upheld Italy’s right to confiscate a contested ancient Greek statue on display in the J. Paul Getty Museum in California. It ruled that in trying to recover the artifact, Italian authorities ... More
 


Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), Lice tapisse, 1972. Acrylic on Klegecell, 288 x 386 cm. Estimate: €1,000,000 - 1,500,000. © Christie’s Ltd Images 2024.

PARIS.- In early June, Christie’s will present an exceptional auction featuring 33 artworks from the Renault Group’s art Collection. These works selected from an ensemble of 550 pieces by major post-war figures epitomise the relationship between Renault and the world of art. The Renault Group’s ... More
 


Brendan Rooney, the National Gallery of Ireland’s head curator, in Dublin, April 29, 2024. (Ellius Grace/The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- During all of the years that the Olympics gave out medals in arts, not just athletics — and if you didn’t know about that, the rest of this article may hold more surprises — the pinnacle came in Paris 100 years ago this summer. The gold medal sculpture at the 1924 Paris Olympics was by a ... More


An artist from Kosovo takes flight   11 spring art fairs kick off for buyers and browsers alike   Christie's announces highlights from Modern & Contemporary Art sale


Petrit Halilaj on the Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden with his sculptural installation “Abetare” in New York, on April 29, 2024. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- When Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj received an invitation for his biggest project ever in the United States, he knew just where to go: back to school. For “Abetare,” his spare, smart, absolutely delightful sculptural installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Halilaj, ... More
 


In a photo provided by Jitske Nap shows, The TEFAF New York fair, shown here in 2023, returns this year at the Park Avenue Armory with a worldly collection of art, antiques and design work, along with a robust slate of programming. (Jitske Nap via the New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- Frieze New York is upon us, which means an explosion of art fairs over two weeks, most but not all of them in Manhattan. These fairs are where dozens of leading galleries and dealers from around the world exhibit their best, and ... More
 


Mohamed Melehi (1936, Asilah – 2020, Boulogne-Billancourt), Moucharabieh, Blue on Black, (estimate US$ 40,000-60,000), painted and exhibited in the artist’s final year. © Christie's Images Ltd. 2024.

DUBAI.- Christie’s announced the second edition of its Dubai online platform, Modern and Contemporary Art – Dubai, live for bidding from 9 – 23 May, celebrating cross-cultural dialogues between modern and contemporary artists from the Middle East and the wider Global South, reflecting the region’s diverse ... More



India's master of nostalgia takes his sweeping vision to Netflix   Nye & Company announces 2 online-only photography auctions   What is a song?


The director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, a rare remaining master of the grand old style of Indian filmmaking, works on the set of “Heeramandi” in Mumbai, on July 19, 2023. (Atul Loke/The New York Times)

MUMBAI.- In the small Bombay theater that showed big films, his father brought him — over and over again — to see the biggest of them all. With every one of his 18 viewings of “Mughal-e-Azam,” a hit 1960 musical about a forbidden romance between a prince and a courtesan, the young boy fell more in love. ... More
 


Doris Salcedo, Istanbul Project I, Piezo-Pigment, 2003, Edition 8 of 8 AP, on Hahnemuhle German etching paper.

BLOOMFIELD, NJ.- Nye & Company Auctioneers will hold two online-only photography sales on Wednesday, May 15th, starting at 10 am Eastern time, with The Photographer’s Lens; A Collection of Images auction, featuring about 200 lots of contemporary photography from a private New York City and Ibiza, Spain collection; followed by a Various Owners Photographs ... More
 


Ed Sheeran departs federal court in Manhattan, April 27, 2023. The jury ruled in Sheeran’s favor, finding that he and a co-writer had created their song independently and not copied from Gaye’s 1973 classic. (Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- For most music fans, a song is a simple thing to define: It’s the melodies, the lyrics, the grooves that come out of your speakers. It’s a much thornier question when it comes to copyright law, one that has been tested in a ... More


Rarest rocket-launching Boba Fett action figure featured in Heritage's May 31 'Star Wars' Auction   Duane Eddy, whose twang changed rock 'n' roll, dies at 86   Standouts at NADA New York, the fair for up-and-comers


Star Wars Prototype Rocket-Firing Boba Fett L-Slot / Hand-Painted AFA 60 (Kenner, 1979).

DALLAS, TX.- It’s almost that time, so let Heritage Auctions be the first to say: May the 4th be with you. This year’s will be a particularly special Star Wars Day, too, with today’s launch of the May 31 Star Wars Signature® Auction, which features the most coveted Star Wars toy never made in 1979: one of the two surviving hand-painted, missile-firing ... More
 


Duane Eddy had tremendous success as a strictly instrumental recording artist in the late 1950s and ’60s.

NASHVILLE, TENN.- Duane Eddy, who broke new ground in pop music in the 1950s with a reverberant, staccato style of guitar playing that became known as twang, died on Tuesday in Franklin, Tennessee. He was 86. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of cancer, said his wife, Deed (Abbate) Eddy. Duane ... More
 


Kukje Gallery, features Haegue Yang’s research project on cut-paper collages, in New York on May 1, 2024. (Ben Sklar/The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- This year’s edition of the New Art Dealers Alliance fair, the city’s preeminent show for up-and-coming galleries, boasts 92 booths and several strong exhibitions by hometown favorites, including photo-painter Dietmar Busse at Fierman (4.04); Hesse Flatow’s (4.01) show of ... More




From Agnes Pelton to Rembrandt Peale: The 2024 American Art Signature Auction.



More News

'Lempicka' to end Broadway run a month after opening
NEW YORK, NY.- “Lempicka,” a new musical about an artistically and sexually adventurous painter, announced Thursday evening that it would close May 19, just a month after opening. This is the first show to fall after this year’s Tony nominations were announced Tuesday. “Lempicka” scored three nods — for actresses Eden Espinosa and Amber Iman, as well as for scenic design — but was shut out of the best musical category. It really needed a boost, because its grosses have been anemic — last week it grossed $288,102, which is unsustainably low for a Broadway musical. The musical, which has been in development for years, had productions at the Williamstown Theater Festival and the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego before arriving on Broadway during a crush of openings this spring; it began previews March 19 and opened April 14. ... More


Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, who helped Timothy Leary turn on, dies at 90
NEW YORK, NY.- Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, the energetic scion of a storied wealthy family who funded Timothy Leary’s psychedelic adventures — and famously helped him find the spot to do so, at her brothers’ estate in Millbrook, New York — died April 9 at her home in Tucson, Arizona. She was 90. The cause was a stroke, said her daughter Sophia Bowart. Hitchcock had been suffering from endometrial cancer. Timothy Leary hadn’t yet been thrown out of Harvard for his experiments with psychedelic drugs when he met Hitchcock one weekend at the apartment of Maynard Ferguson, the jazz trumpeter and bandleader, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx borough of New York City. “Pretty Peggy Hitchcock was an international jet-setter,” Leary wrote in his 1983 autobiography, “Flashbacks,” “renowned as the colorful patroness of the livelier arts and confidante of jazz musicians, racecar drivers, ... More


'Pokémon,' 'Magic: The Gathering' cards share rare uncut test sheet in Heritage's Trading Card Games Auction
DALLAS, TX.- When the Pokémon trading card game was launched in 1996, it enjoyed immediate success in Japan. But any effort to expand to a global audience had to begin with selling the concept to a Western audience. Part of that sales pitch was a Magic: The Gathering/Pokémon Test Print Uncut Sheet with Notes (Wizards of the Coast) that will find a new home when it is offered to the game-playing world in Heritage’s May 17-18 Trading Card Games Signature® Auction. The intriguing story lines are as numerous as the cards that appear on the sheet. “This is as unique as any lot Heritage has offered,” says Jesus Garcia, Consignment Director of Trading Card Games at Heritage. “It is a sheet of test prints from ... More


Museum of Graffiti announces the grand opening of a new fine art gallery
MIAMI, FLA.- On May 11, 2024, Wynwood will become home to a brand new luxury art gallery from the founders of Museum of Graffiti. The gallery will open in a 3,700 square foot converted warehouse space located at 2521 NW 3rd Ave., adjacent to the Museum of Graffiti and its sister exhibition space the Art of Hip Hop. The gallery, once located around the corner from its new flagship location, was originally dubbed The Private Gallery as it started during the COVID-19 pandemic as a place for friends, family, and members of the Museum to collect art in a safe, private environment. The Private Gallery quickly earned a long list of celebrity clientele from Quest Love and Diplo to Miami’s own Pitbull because of its intimate nature and rare selection of original post-graffiti works. The gallery represents a diverse group of global contemporary ... More


Chazen Museum of Art names Cat Birk as winner of 2024 Panczenko MFA Prize
MADISON, WIS.- The Chazen Museum of Art has selected artist Cat Birk (b. 1994) as the 2024 Russell and Paula Panczenko MFA Prize winner. A current MFA candidate in the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s art department, Birk’s work is the focus of a solo exhibition at the Chazen open through July 14. “My mother is a horse. An exhibition by Cat Birk” presents paintings, silicone surfaces, prints and sculpture in an exploration of how images and objects serve as catalysts of identity formation. Birk emphasizes t4t (trans for trans), the vital network of transgender solidarity and mutual aid, in an examination of embodiment and relationships. With references to organizing structures such as the grid, minimalist sculpture and queer politics, Birk presents connections between material objects and intangible social networks. In the installation, abstraction is used in part to symbolize ... More


Lesley Lokko receives King's Royal Gold Medal for Architecture
LONDON.- Presented by RIBA President, Muyiwa Oki, on behalf of His Majesty the King, the Medal recognises Lokko’s commitment to championing diverse approaches to architectural practice and education. For over two decades, Lokko has devoted her career to amplifying under-represented voices and examining the complex relationship between architecture, identity and race. Her work to “democratise architecture” was hailed by the RIBA Honours Committee as a “clarion call for equitable representation in policies, planning, and design that shape our spaces”. Professor Lesley Lokko is the 45th recipient of the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, which has been awarded since 1848. Acknowledging the achievement, RIBA President, Muyiwa Oki, said: “Lesley Lokko is a true agent of change who has successfully shifted the dial and pioneered ... More


How Rachel Khong conjures worlds, in her books and beyond
NEW YORK, NY.- By the time Rachel Khong was finishing her latest novel, “Real Americans,” in 2022, interest in the book was so high that it sparked a 17-way bidding war among many of the country’s top publishing houses. Among the interested parties was John Freeman, the writer, literary critic and executive editor at Knopf, who was teaching in Paris that summer and planning to fly to Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, for a book festival. He learned Khong was on vacation in Istanbul, which he thought was sort of on his way (“I didn’t really look at a map,” Freeman confessed). Maybe the two could meet? They got together at a cafe in Istanbul — a dog cafe, to be precise, where they were greeted at the door by a resident basset hound. The whole scene, he said, felt like a page out of the novel that Khong had been writing, “where you see people blown ... More


She wrote 'The History of White People.' She has a lot more to say.
NEW YORK, NY.- As historian Nell Irvin Painter has learned over the course of her eight decades on this earth, inspiration can come from some unlikely places. In 2000, she happened across a news photograph of Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya, which had been bombed into rubble during the long stretch of devastating wars between Russia and the Caucasus. The photo prompted Painter to wonder how “Caucasian” became a term for white people; that in turn led her to an 18th-century German naturalist who picked out five skulls to embody the five “varieties” of mankind. What he deemed “the really most beautiful form of skull” belonged to a young Georgian woman and would therefore represent Caucasians, whom he called “the most beautiful and best formed of men.” From a photograph of bombed-out Grozny to the absurd methodology ... More


The wartime music of Debussy and Komitas, still resonating today
NEW YORK, NY.- Kirill Gerstein, a Soviet-born pianist whose parents sold their only proper asset — a garage — so that they could afford plane tickets to the United States for their son’s education, approaches music in a way that recalls something his countryman, conductor Kirill Petrenko, once told him: “I sacrificed so much in my life to not do things by default.” The career of Gerstein, 44, is filled with moments that defy a belief in doing things “by default.” There was the time when he devoted a significant portion of his $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award to commissioning new piano music from composers across jazz and classical music, placing Chick Corea and Brad Mehldau alongside Oliver Knussen and Alexander Goehr. Or there was the time, in 2017, when Gerstein championed a new, shockingly modest critical edition of Peter Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto ... More


Tim Kent disrupts traditional depictions of the interior space in his enchanting exhibition at JD Malat Gallery
LONDON.- Acclaimed New York-based painter Tim Kent presents Histories in Flux, a solo exhibition at Mayfair’s JD Malat Gallery this May. Having exhibited in international galleries and collections, Kent returns to London for a second time to showcase his new body of work. On view from the 2nd of May until the 1st of June, Histories in Flux unveils Kent’s depictions of vast architectural spaces which harbour deeper narratives of human history and our struggle to address self-implemented power structures. Histories in Flux presents twelve psychologically charged portraits, architectural depictions of estates, and cultural institutions that highlight key issues pertaining to class, access, privacy and consumption. Kent resists and highlights the conformity presumed in traditional painting genres, attuned to the issues of the contemporary. His work sees Baroque ... More


After a long stretch of darkness, the Bay Bridge lights are returning
NEW YORK, NY.- The gray Bay Bridge, the region’s workhorse bridge connecting San Francisco with Oakland, has never gotten as much acclaim as its splashy red neighbor to the northwest. But lately, it’s been even more muted than usual. For the past 14 months, the bridge’s Bay Lights art installation — 25,000 LEDs that twinkled across 300 cables on the western span of the bridge — has been turned off. Now, fans of the 1.8-mile stretch of sparkle can rejoice. The team behind the installation says it will be coming back with nearly twice as many lights. The target date is next March. “I feel like there’s a hole in the night sky,” said Ben Davis, the founder of Illuminate, the San Francisco public arts nonprofit behind Bay Lights. “It’s going to feel so good when we bring them back.” Davis surprised Bay Area residents in January 2023 when he announced that the installation had deteriorated so badly after 10 ... More



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Gabriele Münter

TARWUK

Awol Erizku

Leo Villareal


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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