Artdaily.cc - The First Art Newspaper on the Net

Cantor Art Gallery commissions large-scale painting by Justine Hill to mark the opening of its new home
WORCESTER, MASS.- The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery announced that it has invited Brooklyn-based artist and College of the Holy Cross alumna Justine Hill 08 to create the inaugural installation for the Cantor Window Commission space located in the soon-to-open Prior Performing Arts Center (PAC) on the College of the Holy Cross (Holy Cross) campus. The PAC will be in active use as of the start of the Fall 2022 semester. An official dedication celebration will be held in December. The work that will be on display at the Cantor is titled The Travelers, and is a monumental painting comprised of twelve shaped canvases. According to Hill, the title and imagery push us to think outside of our present understanding, and are intended to stretch the imagination and move the voyage into a less restrictive, fantastical reality. It will be installed in the new Cantor Window space above t ... More

Trisha Brown on the beach: Catch a wave of dancing bliss
NEW YORK, NY.- The dancers were sinking. Even the softest of waves were too much for their feet strong as they were to hold their own in the soggy late-afternoon sand at Rockaway Beach. Leaning Duets II, a work by choreographer Trisha Brown from 1971, is a classic partnering experiment in balancing while being counterbalanced. In pairs, the dancers faced each other bound by a paddle contraption a piece of wood on each of their lower backs, looped together with a rope as they planted their feet and leaned backward. The aim? To create opposing diagonal lines, sort of in the shape of a V. And then to keep moving. A beach, it turns out, poses certain challenges for such a task. There was a steady breeze. The surf was loud. And that sand! Before the dancers could even start to drift and swirl the sort of delicate micro movements ... More

There's a new billboard in town, and you can walk in
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Those billboards that blight much of the American landscape are, along the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, the landscape itself a dense, linear forest of sizzling images advertising the hottest stars and the latest albums and movies. By the time motorists in rush hour have run the 2-mile gantlet of these glamour tapestries, some of them digital, they have learned just whos who and whats what in Americas now culture. For decades, billboards along this stretch of Sunset have been status symbols coveted by artists and studios, but since the advent of the smartphone, the widescreen cinematic format echoing Hollywoods theatrical movie screen has instead transformed itself into a vertical format echoing the little screen in everyones palm. ... More

A conductor comes into his own in the opera pit
SANTA FE, NM.- I was skeptical, James Gaffigan said while waiting for huevos rancheros during a recent lunch here, where his run conducting a taut Tristan und Isolde at Santa Fe Opera ends Tuesday. Skepticism is not normally the emotion you hear expressed, or at least admitted, when interviewing conductors about their next big post. But Gaffigan, 43, is a congenial, quick-talking musician who is more honest and open than many of his peers. And the post in question the one he was initially skeptical of is at the Komische Oper Berlin, where he takes over as general music director next year. Already doing a similar job at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain, where his first season included Wozzeck and a Romeo Castellucci staging of Mozarts Requiem, it seemed absurd, he said, to take on a second opera house ... More

Abdul Wadud, cellist who crossed musical boundaries, dies at 75
NEW YORK, NY.- Abdul Wadud, a distinctive cellist who crossed genres and was a key collaborator with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis, died Aug. 10 in Cleveland. He was 75. His son, R&B singer Raheem DeVaughn, said the death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of multiple recent illnesses. Wadud converted to Islam while in college but continued to use his given name, Ronald DeVaughn, when playing with classical ensembles, as he did with the New Jersey Symphony in the 1970s. He also performed in Broadway pit bands and with Stevie Wonder. But he is best known for his work with Davis, saxophonist and composer Julius Hemphill, and others who were central to the development of American composition and improvisation in the late 20th century. Skilled at eliciting variations of instrumental color with a bow, Wadud ... More

A Ukrainian orchestra speaks with quiet intensity
NEW YORK, NY.- Johannes Brahms Fourth Symphony doesnt mean anything. Like much of the classical music repertory, it has no text, no plot. It elicits emotions but not in a rigidly defined way. At a concert, your neighbors experience of it, her explanation of its effect, will almost certainly be different from yours. Its also, like much of the repertory, chameleonic a different piece if youve suffered a heartbreak or celebrated a joy. On Thursday, when the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra performed the symphony at Lincoln Center, the notes were the same as ever. But, played by dozens of Ukrainian musicians on a mild evening in Damrosch Park, the score took on an air of calm but implacable defiance, what French poet Arthur Rimbaud once called burning patience. There was no hysteria to this Brahms, just resolute intensity. Although the performance, ... More

J. Garrett Auctioneers announces Part 2 of items from T. Boone Pickens collection
DALLAS, TX.- A second round of period antiques, fine art and personal items from the late Texas and Oklahoma oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens (1928-2019) will be auctioned in a two-day, online-only event slated for September 10th and 11th by J. Garrett Auctioneers, based in Dallas. It was almost exactly two years ago, in September 2020, that J. Garrett held the Part 1 auction. Nearly 1,000 lots will come up for bid over the two days, with highlights that include rare signed ebeniste pieces, designer jewelry, important marble sculptures, sterling silver, fine rugs and memorabilia pertaining to the iconic financier. Also offered will be a wonderful collection of antiques from the German castle Schloss Hafenpreppach, plus many fine private consignments. Some of Mr. Pickens personal items include cufflinks owned and worn by the oil tycoon, engraved ... More

Columbia names a new Dean for its Architecture School
NEW YORK, NY.- Architect AndrÃ©s Jaque, 51, the founder and principal of the Office for Political Innovation, based in New York and Madrid, will be the new dean for Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The universitys president, Lee Bollinger, announced the appointment Thursday. Jaque has taught at the graduate school since 2013 and leads the Master of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design. He succeeds Amale Andraos, who was appointed to advise Bollinger on the recently formed Columbia Climate School. Jaques firm, founded in 2003, has developed works with an expansiveness and exuberance of form and color that address social inclusiveness and environmental responsibility, such as in an early project converting a Catholic seminary into a home for older priests, and a nearly ... More

Art Gallery of NSW unveils new 20th-century galleries
SYDNEY.- The Art Gallery of New South Wales today opens its newly refurbished and completely re-installed 20th-century galleries which reveal the original architecture of the space and where, for the first time, audience favourites from the Australian and international collections are displayed together over two floors. The driving concept behind this new installation is that Australian artists are international artists and that their art is best appreciated in context with their international peers. The revitalised displays also reveal the Art Gallerys commitment to recognising the work of women artists, the importance of the arts of Asia and the Pacific to our understanding of global art and our place within it, and the centrality of Aboriginal art to our identity. These key tenets are amplified by works which speak to urgent social issues such as gender, race, migration, ... More

Steve Jobs' Apple-1 Computer prototype sold for $677,196 at auction
BOSTON, MASS.- Steve Jobs' Apple-1 Computer prototype sold for $677,196, according to Boston-based RR Auction. In 1976, Jobs used this prototype to demonstrate the Apple-1 to Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world. The demo resulted in Apple Computer's first big order and changed the course of the companywhat Jobs and Woz had conceived as part of a $40 do-it-yourself kit for hobbyists became, at Terrell's request, a fully assembled personal computer to be sold at $666.66. Wozniak later placed Terrell's purchase order for fifty Apple-1s in perspective: 'That was the biggest single episode in all of the company's history. Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected.' The board has been matched to Polaroid photographs taken by Paul Terrell ... More

Apollo Art Auctions presents connoisseur's selection of expertly vetted ancient and Islamic art, August 28
LONDON.- An extraordinary selection of ancient and oriental art, including early Islamic treasures, will be offered by Apollo Art Auctions on Sunday, August 28, starting at 12 noon BST (7 a.m. US Eastern Time). The 417-lot sale, with beautiful and interesting objects to please even the most sophisticated collector, will be conducted live at Apollos elegant central London gallery, with international participation cordially welcomed by phone, absentee bid, or live online through LiveAuctioneers. The generously illustrated catalogue is divided in two parts. The Islamic section, which opens the sale, includes early pottery, glass and bronze works, as well as textiles, manuscripts and paintings that reflect Nishapur, Seljuk, Mamluk, Safavid and other Middle Eastern origins. The Ancient Art section features an enviable array of rare Greek, Etruscan, ... More