| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Saturday, April 20, 2019 |
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An employee stands near a truck on April 19, 2019, in Paris, after loading large artworks saved from the fire that devastated the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral. Thousands of Parisians and tourists watched in horror from nearby streets on April 15 as flames engulfed the building and rescuers tried to save as much as they could of the cathedral's treasures built up over centuries. PHILIPPE WOJAZER / POOL / AFP.
by Alain Jean-Robert and Adam Plowright
PARIS (AFP).- French art experts headed into the stricken Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris to remove all the remaining paintings on Friday despite warnings from an environmental group that the site could be a toxic health threat. Officials from the culture ministry were allowed into the 850-year-old landmark to begin retrieving the artworks after fire service officials declared the scorched structure safe enough to go inside. Firefighters and engineering experts have been working on the fragile landmark since a devastating blaze on Monday night, erecting scaffolding and other wooden supports to stop any of the stonework collapsing. "The paintings inside the cathedral have been saved from the flames and can now be taken down and transported to safe areas," France's Culture Minister Franck Riester told reporters at the scene on Friday. "All of the paintings will be removed today," Riester added, saying that he was feeling "very positive" given how most of the priceless canvasses, many of them dating from ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is presenting The Nature of Arp. This exhibition investigates in depth the achievements of Jean (Hans) Arp (1886-1966), one of the most important and multifaceted artists of the modern era, whose experimental approach to creation, radical rethinking of traditional art forms, and collaborative proclivities resonate with the wide-ranging character of art today.
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 | | David Zwirner to represent the Paul Klee Family | | 'Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future' most-visited exhibition in Guggenheim Museum's history | | In war-torn Syria, an ancestor of Notre-Dame still stands | 
Paul Klee, La belle jardinière, 1939, 1237. Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern. Courtesy Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Image archive © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- David Zwirner announced its exclusive collaboration with the Klee Family. The gallery is planning a solo exhibition of works by Paul Klee entirely from the Klee Family collection for September 2019 in New York. This spring, a one-artist presentation of works by Klee will be the focus of the gallerys booth at TEFAF, New York. A pioneering modernist of unrivaled creative output, Paul Klee (18791940) counts among the truly defining artists of the twentieth century. An artist, teacher, writer, and thinker, Klee explored and expanded the terrain of avant-garde art through work that ranges from stunning colorist grids to evocative graphical productions. Klee taught for a decade, from 1921 to 1931, at the Bauhaus, the famed German art and design school, and the novelty of his art and ideas established him as one of the institutions foremost instructors. He has often been associated with some of the most ... More | | 
Hilma af Klint, Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece (Grupp X, nr 1, Altarbild), 1915 from Altarpieces (Altarbilder). Oil and metal leaf on canvas, 237.5 x 179.5 cm. The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm. Photo: Albin Dahlström, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
NEW YORK, NY.- The exhibition Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future has attracted more than 600,000 visitors since its opening, making it the most-visited show in the history of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The survey of Hilma af Klints work is the first major solo exhibition in the United States devoted to the Swedish artist. For me, the 201819 art season will always belong to the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (18621944). I say this simply as a measure of the psychic and historical shift caused by the Guggenheim Museums extraordinary full-dress retrospective of her nearly 40-year career. Roberta Smith, The New York Times The concurrent and related exhibition, R. H. Quaytman: + x, Chapter 34, featuring new works by contemporary artist R. H. Quaytman, is also on view through April 23. For the final days of Hilma af Klint Paintings for the ... More | | 
A picture taken on April 18, 2019 shows the entrance of the 5th century basilica in Qalb Lozeh village in northwestern Syria. OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP.
QALB LOZEH (AFP).- An arched entrance flanked by two towers, elaborate carvings and a broad-aisled nave: a 5th century limestone church in northwestern Syria is the architectural forerunner of France's famed Notre-Dame cathedral. Hemmed by the village of Qalb Lozeh (Arabic for Heart of the Almond), the cathedral which goes by the same name is widely hailed as Syria's finest example of Byzantine-era architecture. And it is believed to have been the source of inspiration for Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals in Europe, including the Paris landmark Notre-Dame. "It is the earliest known example of the twin tower facade flanking a highly elaborate arched entrance, the precursor to what became known as the Romanesque style," says Middle East cultural expert Diana Darke. Romanesque architecture evolved into the Gothic style that defines Notre-Dame, she tells AFP. The layout of the church in northwestern Syria has many similarities with Notre-Dame, ... More |
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| | | Exhibition celebrates museum's excellent collection of postwar abstract art | | Academy Museum to offer free admission to visitors under 18 | | MoMA appoints Beverly Adams as the new Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art | 
Ellsworth Kelly (American, 19232015). Red Blue, 1963. Oil on canvas. Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Museum purchase, Washington Gallery of Modern Art Collection, 1968.155.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA.- Opened today, Friday, April 19 on the Oklahoma City Museum of Arts third floor, Postwar Abstraction: Variations celebrates the Museums excellent collection of postwar abstract art through 31 works including paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints. The original exhibition, curated by Dr. Roja Najafi, spans from 1952 to 1996 and includes popular works by Sam Francis, Ellsworth Kelly, Paul Reed, Gene Davis, Howard Mehring and Leon Polk Smith, among others. The half-century or so following the end of World War II was one of the most fertile periods in the history of abstract painting, said Najafi. The works featured in Postwar Abstraction: Variations highlight a period of remarkable creativity, when ideas of abstraction and the nature and limits of artistic mediums were being hotly contested by artists. The works on view in these galleries ... More | | 
Shirley Temples tap shoes from the stair-steps routine in The Little Colonel (1935). The shoes were a gift from Bill Bojangles Robinson and are inscribed To Shirley from Uncle Bill. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Gift of Shirley Temple Black and Family, 201315. Photo by Joshua White, JWPictures/©Academy Museum Foundation.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Kerry Brougher, Director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, today announced the George Lucas Family Foundation has provided a transformative grant in support of the Academy Museums educational mission. The Academy Museum will use the funds to create an endowment underwriting free admission to the Museum in perpetuity for visitors ages 17 and younger. The George Lucas Family Foundation established the generous grant in honor of Sid Ganis, former President and current Vice President of the Academys Board of Governors and Chair of its Museum Committee. Brougher also announced the appointment of the Museums inaugural Director of Education and Public Engagement, Amy Homma, ... More | | 
Beverly Adams. Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art announced the appointment of Beverly Adams as the new Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art. The endowed curatorial position was created in 2006 in order to help shape the Museums collection and exhibition activities. Adamss responsibilities will include the installation of collection galleries, the development of special exhibitions and catalogues, and participating in the Museums acquisitions and research programs for Latin American art. She will join the Museum in the Department of Painting and Sculpture on September 1, 2019. In this role, Adams will add to the expertise of the existing curatorial staff as one of two curators devoted to Latin American Art. As part of the Museums commitment to the region, the Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art will work closely with Inés Katzenstein, Curator of Latin American Art and Director of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros R ... More |
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| | | Kelly Akashi is now represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York | | $110,700 prototype Coke bottle tops Morphy's $3M Las Vegas auction | | 18th century weapons of war are the focus of new exhibition at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg | 
Kelly Akashi, Be Me (Excorporated), 2019. Hand-blown glass, stainless steel 7, 1/2 x 6 x 6 inches; 19.1 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles.
NEW YORK, NY.- Material tactility, its possibilities, limitations, and transformation form the core of Kelly Akashi's practice. Originally trained in analog photography, traditional processes and the materiality of documents continue to inform and fuel her sculptural explorations. Working in a variety of media, such as wax, bronze, fire, glass, silicone, copper, and rope, Akashi investigates the capacity and boundaries of these elements and their ability to construct and challenge conventional concepts of form. In her sculptural practice, Akashi utilizes indexical materials to emphasize the impressionability and physicality of objects. Often pairing delicate hand-blown glass or hand-made wax candles with bronze casts of her own hands, the artist captures momentary gestures, casting them into perpetual existence. Her interest in the mapping of time has led her to study fossils from extinct species in order to locate humankind amongst other consciousness that have thrived along the earths geologi ... More | | 
In remarkable condition with no chips, cracks or case wear, this 1915 modified prototype Coca-Cola bottle was designed by Earl R. Dean of the Root Glass Company. It is the only intact example of its type known to exist and sold within estimate for $110,700 on April 14 at Morphy Auctions Las Vegas. Image courtesy of Morphy Auctions.
LAS VEGAS, NEV.- An effervescent six-figure winning bid drove an extremely rare Coca-Cola prototype bottle to the top of prices realized at Morphys April 12-14 auction in Las Vegas. The elite three-day offering of antique coin-op and gambling machines, Old West relics, and antique advertising chalked up more than $3 million, with $110,700 of that total attributable to the early-20th-century soft drink bottle. A bona fide American treasure, the modified prototype bottle was created by the Root Glass Company in 1915 and submitted to Coca-Cola executives for consideration as the design for their standard Coke bottle. After remaining out of sight for more than a century, the bottle was discovered in the collection of a retired Coca-Cola employee who also had previously worked for Root Glass. According to Morphy Auctions president Dan Morphy, the test bottle is one of only two of its ... More | | 
Silver Hilted Smallsword, London, England and America, 1765-1770. Silver, iron/steel, wood, enamel and traces of gilding. Museum Purchase and Partial Gift of Patty Voght in memory of Thomas G. Wnuck, 2008-7.
WILLIAMSBURG, VA.- Warfare is complex and sophisticated today, but in the 1700s, during the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars, weaponry and combat was far less so. The arms used by the combatants on all sides of these North American conflicts were an international jumble of firearms and bladed weapons. In To Arm Against an Enemy: Weapons of the Revolutionary War, opening on April 20, at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, one of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, visitors will gain a deeper understanding of these instruments of war as the weapons take center stage. The exhibition, which will remain on view until January 2, 2023, will feature approximately 70 muskets, carbines and rifles, bayonets, pistols and swords as used by Loyalists, American patriots, Hessians and British red coats in battles on land and at sea. To Arm Against an Enemy opens to coincide with the anniversary of ... More |
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| | | Property deaccessioned by the Virginia House Museum achieves 98% sell-through rate | | Christo documentary to have U.S. theatrical premiere at Film Forum | | MIT Computer DSKY that saved Apollo 14 Moon landing sold for $210,261 at auction | 
Top price was achieved just over eight hours into the marathon auction by Lot 406: A book of various types of Ottoman dress.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- On Wednesday, April 10, Freemans auctioned nearly 500 lots from the Collection of Ambassador & Mrs. Alexander Weddell, deaccessioned by the Virginia House Museum to benefit future preservation, acquisitions and care of collections. With an impressive 98% sell-through rate and unprecedented registration from online bidders, the single-owner sale nearly doubled its pre-sale high estimate, totaling $1.57 million. Though originally chosen to describe the diverse contents that were collected by the Weddells during their personal and professional foreign travels, the auctions overarching title: Across Continents equally befits the strong international interest that the sale ultimately generated. After a comprehensive marketing campaign targeted to a global audience, both new and established bidders from around the world actively participated in the sale, vying ... More | | 
Walking On Water will open Friday, May 17 for an ongoing engagement at Film Forum. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.
NEW YORK, NY.- Film Forum is pleased to present the US theatrical premiere of Andrey M Paounovs Walking on Water beginning Friday, May 17. Christo and his late wife/partner Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) created some of the most visually breathtaking art installations of the postwar era, including Running Fence in Sonoma and Marin counties (1976), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1995), and The Gates in Central Park (2005). The Floating Piers an ambitious effort to create the effect of walking on water via a 3-kilometer walkway over Lake Iseo in Northern Italy is Christos first large-scale project since Jeanne-Claudes passing (the two conceived of the idea together). Bulgarian filmmaker Paounov has rare access to Christos process, from inception to completion. Thorny negotiations with local officials, engineering challenges, crowd control (1.2 million visitors), logistical nightmares, and the sheer force of nature are ... More | | 
The DSKY unit from the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, used by Don Eyles and Sam Drake to verify the software patch needed to avoid an abort during the Apollo 14 lunar landing sequence.
BOSTON, MASS.- A historically significant Apollo Guidance Computer Display and Keyboard (DSKY) sold for $210,261 according to Boston-based RR Auction. During Apollo 14, a loose ball of solder floating inside the abort switch of the Lunar Module Antares caused an intermittent short circuit, threatening to accidentally activate the switch and rocket the module back into orbit during its landing sequence. In order to prevent that scenario, MIT computer programmer Don Eyles, a developer of the AGC's source code, was asked to hack his own software to find a workaround. This represented the most dramatic moment for MIT's programmers throughout the entire Apollo program, as they had just three to four hours to work out a fix, test it, and relay it to the astronauts in time for Powered Descent Initiation. Eyles accomplished his task in just two hours, ... More |
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The Birth of Modern Business | Luca-Pacioli's 'Summa de Arithmetica'
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 Miller & Miller announces results of its Advertising & Nostalgia AuctionNEW HAMBURG.- A scarce, circa 1929 Johnson Sea-Horse outboard motor store display, made in America, with a tin litho frame and topper and lithographed paper insert, displaying excellent color and gloss, sold for $8,850 at an Advertising & Nostalgia Auction held April 6th by Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd., online and in the firms gallery at 59 Webster Street. Headlining the event was the lifetime collection of Ryan McNabb, a lifelong, dedicated collector out of Sudbury, Ontario. His collection with fresh-to-the-market additions featured country store advertising, petroliana, vintage toys and premium nostalgia. The auction was packed with general store signs, gas and oil signs, coin-ops, radios, cars and motorcycles and rare nostalgia. Advertising as a category remains strong, and gas-oil reigns king in that category, said Ethan Miller of Miller & Miller Auctions. Ltd. Records were set on early En-Ar ... More Pollock-Krasner Foundation announces $3.1 million in grants & awards for 2018-2019NEW YORK, NY.- The Pollock-Krasner Foundation announced today it has awarded $3,168,000 to 111 artists and 12 organizations during its 2018-2019 grant cycle. The 124 grants provided invaluable support to national and international artists and not-for-profit organizations. This years grantees and award recipients include artists from 18 states, Puerto Rico, and 17 countries. These grants provide critical professional support to artists around the globe, enabling them to create new work, offset living expenses, and prepare for exhibitions. The Foundation has also provided Emergency Relief Grants to artists affected by recent hurricanes and California wildfires. Since its inception in 1985, the Foundation has awarded more than 4,510 grants in 77 countries, for a total of nearly $74 million. At the core of the Pollock-Krasner Foundations mission is fostering ... More Shin Gallery opens first overview of Carla Prina's work in the United StatesNEW YORK, NY.- Shin Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition of works by Italian artist Carla Prina, a long-underrecognized leader in the Italian abstract art movement. This is the first overview of Prinas work in the United States and highlights her bold and vibrant geometric pieces. The exhibition features paintings spanning four decades, from the 1950s to 1980s. A founder of the Group of Abstractionists of Como in Italy, Carla Prina began her journey with abstraction in the late thirties and forties. She is recognized for her dynamic color resolution and placement of geometric shapes within space. Her work never seeks three-dimensionality, but rather is effortlessly spread onto the canvas in natural equilibrium. Prinas paintings have been exhibited throughout Europe including, the Venice Biennale in 1942 as well as the Quadriennale Rome in 1955 alongside ... More Chisenhale Gallery presents a new commission by Mandy El-SayeghLONDON.- Chisenhale Gallery presents a new commission and first solo exhibition in an institution by London-based artist Mandy El-Sayegh. El-Sayeghs large-scale paintings, works on paper and object-based installations move between linguistic, material and corporeal registers, often creating double meanings that signal a breakdown in everyday systems and orders. El-Sayeghs Chisenhale Gallery exhibition brings together principle elements from an ongoing series of works to explore themes relating to representation, abstraction and subjectivity. Comprising painting, drawing, print and sculpture, Cite Your Sources addresses the process of constructing meaning through the production and circulation of images and materials. Pages from The Financial Times are applied directly onto areas of the gallery space, disrupting the neutrality of the otherwise ... More Laura de Santillana's solo exhibition, "Moon. From Kyoto to New York.," is now on view at Ippodo GalleryNEW YORK, NY.- Laura de Santillanas solo exhibition, Moon. From Kyoto to New York., opened on Thursday April 18, and will be on view through May 24! For this show, de Santillana conceived a series of small format tablets in which metal leaf is incorporated or applied to the surface, suggesting the perception of the moon in a night sky. Within strict geometric forms exist dreamy worlds of jewel tones, shimmering hues, and translucent glass in a color range of deep blues, blue greys and silvery greys. "The glass tablets are envelopes in which the light lives and refracts; there is the surface work, a skin. This light that is incorporated in the object becomes the body of the object. Light is not outside, it's inside, a liquid frame between the inside and the outside." - Laura de Santillana "In last autumns exhibition in Kyoto, Lauras work was displayed together ... More Michel de la Chenelière appointed Chair of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Board of TrusteesMONTREAL.- The Board of Trustees of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts announced that Michel de la Chenelière, the MMFA's Vice-President since 2017, has been appointed Chair of the institution. Mr. de la Chenelière becomes the Board's 33rd Chair, succeeding Jacques Parisien, who joins Brian Levitt and Fernand Lalonde as Honorary President. The MMFA Board's Nominating Committee, presided by the Honourable Serge Joyal, has also named Roger Fournelle and Michaela Sheaf as Vice-Presidents. A pioneer in French-language education publishing in North America, and preeminent patron of education at the MMFA, Michel de la Chenelière is an entrepreneur who dedicated his career to education and promoting the French language with publications that bear his name. Through his Foundation, he is continuing his mission to encourage education, ... More Athens installs Alexander the Great statue after 27-year delayATHENS (AFP).- Athens on Friday installed its first Alexander the Great statue, a project mired in bureaucratic delays for nearly three decades. The 3,50-metre (11.5-foot) equestrian statue of a young Alexander, cast in bronze, was erected in central Athens opposite a statue of Lord Byron. According to the city of Athens, it was completed in 1972 and acquired by the state in 1992, at a time of intense nationalist feeling over a bitter name dispute with the newly-independent former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis insisted Friday the move had "nothing" to do with the Macedonia dispute. "The decision to erect the statue was taken in 2015. This is a mark of the delays of Greek bureaucracy," Kaminis told AFP. The fourth-century BC warrior king, born in today's northern Greek region of Macedonia, is a hero figure to Greeks. For decades, ... More Exhibition highlights Keith Hernandez's contemporary views of urban environmentKANSAS CITY, MO.- For nearly 50 years, photographer Anthony Hernandez has used his camera to document the social landscape in and around his native Los Angeles. Anthony Hernandez: L.A. Landscapes, drawn completely from the permanent collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, highlights Hernandezs mid-to-late career achievements and features 40 photographs. The exhibition opened April 19. The incredible breadth and depth of our photography collection allows us to present exhibitions of internationally recognized artists like Anthony Hernandez for our Kansas City audiences, said Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO & Director of the Nelson-Atkins. These compelling works straddle abstraction and social documentation in a unique and fascinating way. The earliest projects ... More VisionQuesT 4rosso Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Alessandra CalòGENOA.- VisionQuesT 4rosso Gallery recently launched KOCHAN, a new exhibition showcasing Alessandra Calòs latest works. KOCHAN is a photographic project that Calò began in 2016. Inspired by her discovery of the New York Public Librarys extensive online archival documents, she would spend entire days surrounded by geographical maps, manuscripts and letters. But, it was the maps that she was most attracted to - their signs and traces inspired her to translate them into a series of self-portraits. The word Kochan, is the name of the protagonist of Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, 1949. Mishimas work is a sort of travel diary, which accompanies the reader as they discover fragments of the protagonists life and identity. In this very elegant and intense personal "journey"- where maps and archival materials overlap with areas of the body ... More Controversial novelist Houellebecq picks up France's top honourPARIS (AFP).- President Emmanuel Macron has awarded the country's top honour to the controversial top-selling French novelist Michel Houellebecq, a scourge of the establishment for his bitter denunciations of modern France. Macron bestowed the Legion d'honneur on Houellebecq at a ceremony late on Thursday, the Elysee Palace said. The discreet ceremony was attended by high-ranking guests from the world of publishing and politics, including former president Nicolas Sarkozy, participants said. Also present was the singer Jean-Louis Aubert, who set Houellebecq's poems to music, and the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. Macron hailed Houellebecq, 63, as a "romantic in a material world" and argued that his novels were not pessimistic but full of hope in a society whose pillars, like culture and religion, had become fragile. Recently married, Houellebecq ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, French painter Odilon Redon was born April 20, 1840. Odilon Redon (born Bertrand-Jean Redon (April 20, 1840 - July 6, 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.In this image: Odilon Redon, The beasts of the sea, round like leather bottles, (detail). Plate 22 of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1896. Lithograph. The Kirk Edward Long Collection, 2010.60.22. Plate size: 8-3/4" x 7-1/2".
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