| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Saturday, December 24, 2022 |
| | Lucio Fontana, a sculptor but so perverse | |
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An undated photo provided by Thomas Barratt/Hauser & Wirth shows Lucio Fontanas Harlequin, 1948-1949, in the foreground, and glazed terra cotta works on the wall. In terra cotta, clay, metal and concrete, the Argentine Italian artist overhauled the history of European sculpture. (Thomas Barratt/Hauser & Wirth via The New York Times)
by Martha Schwendener
NEW YORK, NY.- In 1961, the Argentine Italian artist Lucio Fontana, famous in Europe for slashing and puncturing his canvases, made his North American debut at the Martha Jackson and David Anderson galleries. It did not go well. American critics thought the canvases, festooned with pieces of colored glass, were too decorative basically kitsch. Now Fontana returns to the exact same building at 32 East 69th Street where that 1961 show took place. Lucio Fontana Sculpture is the second in a trilogy of shows dedicated to his work, organized by the art historian and curator Luca Massimo Barbero in collaboration with the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, and it is terrific. (The first exhibition, in Los Angeles, was dedicated to Fontanas spatial environments the darkened rooms with illuminated sculptural forms or neon tubing that served as precursors to light works by James Turrell and todays ubiquitous immersive environments. That show opened in Februar ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Artemis Gallery will hold its "Charity Auction Benefit Community Food Share" sale on Dec 25, 2022 1:00 PM CST. Join them Christmas Day for a very special fundraising auction to benefit Community Food Share, a Feeding America Food Bank that serves Boulder and Broomfield Counties in Colorado. 100% of the buyer's premium - of all lots sold - will be donated to Community Food Share. $1.00 provides 3 meals, which means that a winning bid of $100 will provide over 70 meals! This is an online only timed auction event - live phone bidding is not available. 1808 Denon "Viaggio nel Basso ed Alto Egitto" 2 Vols. Estimate $3,600 - $5,400.
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| The role of women as promoters and patrons of the arts at the Museo Nacional del Prado | | Getty announces acquisition of a group of photographs by Kamoinge artists | | Pera Museum opens "Istanbuls Today": A thousand facets of the megacity Istanbul | 
Queen Anna of Austria (copy of an original by Anthonis Mor) Bartolomé González Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado.
MADRID.- The Museo Nacional del Prados thematic routes are devised with the aim of encouraging a fresh viewpoint. With this proposal in mind they regularly count on the collaboration of external experts working in disciplines other than those normally associated with the Museum. The intention is thus to foster a different but rigorous perspective on the collections, focusing on themes and subjects other than the habitual ones, in this case making women the centre of attention. This is the case with The Female Perspective, an important and topical route devised with the academic supervision of Professor Noelia GarcÃa Pérez. Through 32 works it draws our attention to the women who commissioned, collected or inspired some of the most important works of art in the Museums collection. As such, the route encourages us to explore new narratives and discover unique and surprising accounts in which women are subjects ... More | | 
Untitled, about 1960s, Louis Draper. Gelatin silver print, 9 3/16 à 6 9/16 in. Getty Museum, 2021.10.7. © Louis H. Draper Preservation Trust, courtesy Bruce Silverstein Gallery.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired 60 photographs by nine artists affiliated with the Kamoinge Workshop: Anthony Barboza, Adger Cowans, Louis Draper, Albert Fennar, Ray Francis, Herbert Randall, Herb Robinson, Ming Smith, and Shawn Walker. Additionally, the Getty Research Institute acquired 14 portraits by Anthony Barboza picturing members of the Kamoinge Photographers Workshop. The photographs acquired by the Getty Museum capture aspects of urban life at mid-century, the civil rights movement, and the Black experience abroad from throughout each artists career. The GRI acquired a complete set of unexhibited vintage prints of a series of portraits made by Anthony Barboza of each member of the Kamoinge Workshop in 1972. He compiled the portraits and prints to create accordion-bound books, which he gave to each ... More | | 
Erdem Varol, Rastgele İstanbul serisinden, From the series Rastgele İstanbul, 2017-2022. İndigo baskı | Indigo Print, 50x70 cm 70x50 cm. Sanatçının izniyle | Courtesy of the Artist.
ISTANBUL.- In its newest exhibition Istanbuls Today, the Pera Museum collates contemporary visual narratives of Istanbul into a creative visual interpretation of the city today. The exhibition, which opened on December 23, features the work of 11 photographers who live in Istanbul and offer striking snapshots of the city in their unique styles. The exhibition catalogue is enriched with articles penned by writers who work, study, contemplate, and fictionalize the same topics explored in the exhibition, inspired by the works of the featured artists. Curated by Refik Akyüz and Serdar Darendeliler, Istanbuls Today will run until April 30, 2023. The new exhibition of the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum, Istanbuls Today brings together the recent works of 11 photographers under various themes. Featuring the works of Silva Bingaz, Osman Bozkurt, Ci Demi, Kıvılcım S. Güngörün ... More |
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| To save a ruin, send in the sheep | | Two historic covers featuring Marvel's Mutants ring in the New Year at Heritage Auctions | | Cathedral of St. John finally solves a 100-year-old problem | 
Pompeii maintenance workers from left to right: Lorenzo Diglio, Pasquale Lombardi, Giuseppe Mingo, Mario Caracciolo and Antonio Mariano Siepe, at the archaeological site in Pompeii, Italy, on Dec. 19, 2022. If the sheep didnt trim the grass, Lombardi said, Wed have to. (Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times) .
POMPEII, ITALY.- On a bright morning in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, a stout shepherd with a wool sweater stretched over his belly whistled and clicked and steered his flock of sheep to a grassy slope above Pompeiis frescoed ruins. He glanced a few feet down at a house destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago under a fiery rain of volcanic rock and tapped a grazing ewe with his crook to make sure it didnt get too close and take a tumble. It can happen, the shepherd, Gaspare de Martino, said with a shrug. In recent years, the vast archaeological park of Pompeii, a city buried alive by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, has turned to high-tech options to maintain its excavated ruins. A surveillance drone makes a monthly flight over the sites roughly 10,000 exhumed rooms. Artificial intelligence ... More | | 
Dave Cockrum X-Men #98 Cover Original Art (Marvel, 1976).
DALLAS, TX.- Dave Cockrum did not create the team of mutants called the X-Men; that credit, of course, belongs to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the latter of whom once said he fashioned the title in 1963 to show mortals and mutants could all live together. Cockrum merely saved the X-Men a decade after their birth, once readers abandoned Charles Xaviers team of young evolutionary marvels in the 1970s, and their stale books filled with reprinted stories languished on spinner racks. By the time Cockrum, an artist from Oregon whod spent time in the Navy, got his ink-stained hands on the X-Men in the mid-1970s, they were waiting only for Marvel to tell them they had evolved to extinction. Cockrum knew plenty about getting electricity out of a dead socket. At DC Comics, he brought Superboys 30th-century buddies, the Legion of Super-Heroes, into the future after a few too many years stuck in the 60s. Cockrum ditched their dull, square looks for wavy hair and groovy new threa ... More | | 
The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, Dec. 2, 2022. (Victor Llorente/The New York Times)
by Jane Margolies
NEW YORK, NY.- It cracked. It creaked. It leaked. Ever since famed Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino designed the enormous dome in the early 20th century at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, in the Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights, it has been a source of wonder. It has also been a cause for worry and woe, requiring seemingly endless repairs. But now, after a painstaking three-year, $17 million rehabilitation and just in time for Christmas festivities the domes 113-year-old aches and pains have been tended to. Its striking terra-cotta tile has been repaired, and a new copper exterior has been added. The new roofing could easily last 50 to 100 years, and theres no reason it couldnt last for centuries with good maintenance, said Kevin Seymour, associate principal of Ennead, the architecture firm ... More |
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| UCCA opeens Zhang Ruyi's largest institutional solo exhibition to date | | Chrysler Museum's Photography Gallery explores American portraiture | | Former Juilliard chair put on leave amid sexual misconduct investigation | 
Zhang Ruyi, Matted Substance-2, 2019, concrete, rebar, construction debris, 90 Ã 20 Ã 20 cm. Courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York.
BEIJING.- From December 23, 2022 to April 9, 2023, UCCA presents Zhang Ruyi: Speaking Softly. As Zhang Ruyis (b. 1985, Shanghai) largest institutional solo exhibition to date, the show features more than 20 new works commissioned by the museum. These pieces offer a systematic overview of how the artist has adopted cacti, concrete, grids, and other elements as symbols through which to explore the relationships between people and society, people and architecture, and the natural and industrial worlds. Speaking Softly also offers the first focused presentation of Zhangs use of glass, plastic films, and other standardized, transparent materials, reflecting on transparencys myriad connotations. Zhang Ruyi: Speaking Softly is curated by UCCA Curator Neil Zhang. Over the past decade, Zhang Ruyi has used her precise grasp of sculptural materials and keen perception of everyday life to create ... More | | 
Mike Disfarmer (American, 18841959), Man in coveralls and cowboy hat, diamond border, 1936. Gelatin silver print. Chrysler Museum of Art, 2022.22.4, Gift of Michael P. Mattis and Judith Hochberg.
NORFOLK, VA.- The Chrysler Museum of Art is pleased to present Facing Ourselves: Mike Disfarmer and the American Portrait, an exhibition of photographs and prints centered around the work of rural town photographer Mike Disfarmer, which will open on December 16, 2022. Facing Ourselves is the debut exhibition of Chelsea Pierce, Ph.D., the recently named McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. This exhibition features six Disfarmer prints newly acquired by the Chrysler Museum and invites close scrutiny of the personal dynamics within this genre of photography. Disfarmers work provides a starting point for us to ponder, What makes a portrait? Unlike documentary photography, which captures fleeting moments, people and places, portraiture records a deliberate meeting between a photographer and their subject. The individuals choice of demeanor ... More | | 
The Juilliard School, in New York, Oct. 4, 2016. The Juilliard School has placed a professor on leave on Dec. 16, 2022, and commissioned an independent investigation after a magazine article said he had sexually harassed students while chair of the New York conservatorys composition department, a role he held from 1994 to 2018. (Sam Hodgson/The New York Times)
NEW YORK, NY.- The Juilliard School has placed a professor on leave and commissioned an independent investigation after a magazine article said he had sexually harassed students while chair of the New York conservatorys composition department, a role he held from 1994 to 2018. A spokesperson for the school said that Juilliard had conducted investigations of the professor, Robert Beaser, in the late 1990s and a few years ago but that recent reporting by VAN, a magazine about classical music, brought new allegations to its attention. Juilliard declined to say what its previous investigations concluded, and the spokesperson, Rosalie Contreras, said that further comment ... More |
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| Exhibition presents an exclusive selection of preparatory sketches made for the Torre de la Parada painting collection | | Lehmann Maupin presents an exhibition in memory of renowned painter Suh Se Ok | | The Wichita Art Museum gives the gift of free general admission to all visitors all year long | 
Cupid and Psyche, c. 1636. Oil on panel.
BILBAO.- The Guest Work programme is on this occasion a very special event featuring one of the most important painters in history through an exclusive selection of preparatory sketches for one of the most formidable painting collections of its time, that of the Torre de la Parada. In addition to this is another large preparatory sketch for one of the 20 tapestries destined for the Descalzas Reales monastery in Madrid. Finally, with regard to the sketches by Rubens on loan from the Bonnat-Helleu Museum in Bayonne, three reproduction etchings by Paulus Pontius (Antwerp, 16031658), belonging to a private collection, can also be seen. Towards the end of his life, Rubens received the most important commission of his career from Philip IV: a series of around 115 large-scale paintings to adorn the Torre de la Parada ... More | | 
Suh Se Ok, Self-Portrait, 197080s. Collection of Seongbuk Museum of Art, Seoul. Photo by Tagsu Jeon.
SEOUL.- Lehmann Maupin presents Three Generations, an exhibition in memory of renowned painter Suh Se Ok (1929-2020). The show includes works made in response to the artist by three generations of the Suh family. Featuring seven of Suh Se Oks groundbreaking ink paintings and drawings, the exhibition commemorates the life and work of the artist, who could not be fully honored at the time of his death due to COVID-19 restrictions. Reflecting on the expansive creative space that Suh Se Ok, along with his wife Minza Chung, created for their sons, artist Do Ho Suh and architect Eul Ho Suh, this deeply personal project ruminates on themes of connectivity, place, and memory. Celebrating the open and experimental approach to creativity that has been passed down to a third generation ... More | | 
Installation image of WAMs Elizabeth S. Navas Gallery (named for the museums founding curator) from the exhibition Storytelling: Highlights and Insights from the Wichita Art Museum Collection.
WICHITA, KS.- Today, the Wichita Art Museum, located in Wichita, Kansas, USA, announces its gift of free general admission to all visitors, all year long. Visitors will no longer be charged general admission to view artwork in the galleries that showcase WAMs permanent collection, which is owned by the City of Wichita. The museums founder, Louise Caldwell Murdock, wanted Wichita to have an art museum, and her will established the collection of art by American painters and sculptors as a gift to the city. We want everyone to have access to this incredible collection every day the museum is open, said WAM Director/CEO Anne Kraybill. Visitors will no longer pay general admission ... More |
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LIVE from London | Hotung & Old Masters Evening Auctions
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 Laguna Art Museum reimagines California Cool with 41st Annual Auction, Benefit & BashLAGUNA BEACH, CALIF.- Laguna Art Museum announces the 41st Annual California Cool Art Auction, Benefit & Bash taking place February 18 to March 4, 2023. Bidding for the annual auction will open online on February 18. The auction will feature works from over 125 California artists, on view to preview in person at Laguna Art Museum with paid admission, February 18 through March 4. The auction will culminate with an exclusive Benefit & Bash at the museum on March 4 beginning at 6:30 p.m, connecting artists, collectors and the community in a celebration of California culture. The museums largest fundraiser of the year has been reimagined to offer the preeminent California Cool experience, with a creative California-inspired culinary and cocktail experience, a special performance by musical guest and Laguna local, Grammy-nominated, Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats ... More  Hudson River Museum elects artist Julia Santos Solomon to its Board of TrusteesYONKERS, NY.- Hudson River Museum announced the election of Julia Santos Solomon to its Board of Trustees. She was elected by unanimous decision at the December 15, 2022 Board meeting; she will serve from January 1, 2023-June 30, 2026. Julia Santos Solomon is an accomplished, interdisciplinary American artist, creating paintings, sculpture, and digital media for more than forty years. Born in the Dominican Republic, her vision has shaped generations of successful LatinX artists. Santos Solomons art-making is fueled by cultural heritage, transforming a personal narrative into the universal for the next generation. "I am truly excited to join the Board of Trustees at the Hudson River Museum," stated Julia Santos Solomon. "As an artist whose practice and career has been rooted in community and representation, I am proud of the ways that the HRM invites people ... More  Getting close to Sondheim: New books try to capture his essenceNEW YORK, NY.- Roughly a decade before Stephen Sondheim died in November 2021, he added a surprising new occupation to his multi-hyphenate career: autobiographer. His two memoirs-through-lyrics, Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat, offered beguiling insights into the life of a man who had long cultivated a reputation for sphinx-like reticence. The year since his death has seen bookshelves sag with an array of books offering further glimpses; D.T. Maxs Finale: Late Conversations With Stephen Sondheim is the most recent, with several more on the horizon. Here is a look at some of those titles. Many of the current crop of works can be classified as either ... More  Oscar White Muscarella, museum 'voice of conscience,' dies at 91NEW YORK, NY.- Oscar White Muscarella, an archaeologist who argued vociferously that antiquities collectors and museums including his longtime employer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art were fueling a market in forgeries and encouraging the plundering of archaeological sites, died on Nov. 27 at his home in Philadelphia. He was 91. His son, Lawrence, said the cause was complications of lymphoma, vascular disease and COVID-19. Muscarella spent decades in the department of ancient Near Eastern art at the Met, participating in excavations in Iran and Turkey and writing dozens of scholarly papers and catalogs, as well as several books. But his tenure at the Met, which had begun in 1964, turned contentious in the early 1970s when he sounded alarms about the museums acquisitions practices, especially its purchase of pieces of unclear origin ... More  Miyako Yoshinaga presents a solo exhibition "Watchers" by Hitoshi FugoNEW YORK, NY.- Miyako Yoshinaga is presenting a solo exhibition Watchers by Hitoshi Fugo on view from November 2 to January 7, 2023. Hitoshi Fugos photography not only captures his subjects with surrounding realities but also inspires a new set of perspectives through his conceptual approach. This exhibition features the artists lesser- known color series entitled Watchers consisting of a series of head-and-shoulder portraits of an anonymous person watching a scenic view from a distance. Viewed from behind, Fugos camera focuses on the persons back, leaving the scenery blurry and abstract. Between 1994 and 2008, Fugo photographed these portraits in universally attractive sceneries such as a waterfall and a cityscape. The former were shot in Kegon Falls in Japan and Niagara Falls in Canada in the same year (1994) and the latter at the Empire State ... More  Elite private collections and Australian gold will shine at Heritage Auctions' NYINC World & Ancient Coins Event DALLAS, TX.- Several elite collections, including one of the finest troves of German coins ever assembled, will shimmer in the spotlight at Heritage Auctions NYINC World & Ancient Coins Platinum Session and Signature® Auction - New York Jan 9. The 239-lot collection of elite German coins is the Cape Coral Collection, Part II. The first part of the collection was sold in Heritage Auctions World & Ancient Coins Platinum Session and Signature® Auction Chicago in August 2022. We feel very grateful that Heritage Auctions was selected to offer this extraordinary collection, says Cris Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of International Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. Years of study and collecting led to the assembling ... More  LnS Gallery opens an exhibition featuring works by Rafael SorianoMIAMI, FLA.- LnS Gallery presents Transcendentalism, Distilled a solo exhibition of the influential and timeless modern artist, Rafael Soriano. This exhibition highlights the final prolific decade in Sorianos reputable career which spanned over 60 years, and will be the first comprehensive exhibition discussing his paintings completed in the 1990s. Transcendentalism, Distilled is on view at LnS Gallery located at 2610 SW 28th Lane in Miami, through February 25, 2023. The accompanying catalogue features an exhibition essay by Alejandro Anreus, Ph.D., a chronology by Carol Damian, Ph. D., and a poem by US Poet Laureate Richard Blanco. The amalgamation of literature, both scholarly and artistic, is a facet of the exhibition that demonstrates the scope of Sorianos influence beyond the visual arts. The artworks reproduced in the publication and displayed in the exhibition ... More  Yippee Ki Yay: 'Die Hard' comes to the Christmas stageLONDON.- Every year in the run-up to Christmas, Richard Marsh wraps presents while watching Die Hard, the 1980s action movie in which Bruce Willis, playing the cop John McClane, single-handedly takes down a terrorist group in a Los Angeles tower block on Christmas Eve. But this year, Marsh said, he might have to give the ritual a miss. Since the end of November, the poet and playwright has been the star of Yippee Ki Yay, a one-man retelling of Die Hard at the Kings Head Theater in London. Over 75 minutes, Marsh re-creates the film, with the help of just a few props. Speaking mainly in verse, he embodies all the movies major characters including McClane and the evil Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). He has had to rewatch the movie to perfect his accents, he said, and so watching it in his free time might be a little much. But who knows, Marsh said in a recent interview: ... More  Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky is leaving American Ballet TheaterNEW YORK, NY.- Alexei Ratmansky, one of the greatest living ballet choreographers, is leaving the American Ballet Theater after 13 years as its artist-in-residence, the company said Thursday, noting that it was losing a towering figure who had been a profound creative force. Alexeis extraordinary vision of dance has propelled ballet to heights far beyond what we thought was possible 20 years ago, Susan Jaffe, the incoming artistic director of American Ballet Theater, said in a statement, adding that his works had brought ballet into a new era. The company said Ratmansky would leave in June. During his long career, Ratmansky, 54, has been lauded for his energy, wit and technical virtuosity, as well as for the eclecticism of his interests, from the revival of forgotten works including Shostakovichs ballet The Bright Stream for the Bolshoi Ballet to the creation of ballets ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk 
Freedom of Movement 
Gabriella Boyd @ GRIMM 
Fondazione Elpis
Flashback On a day like today, American painter Ad Reinhardt was born December 24, 1913. Adolph Frederick "Ad" Reinhardt (December 24, 1913 - August 30, 1967) was an abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered on the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as abstract expressionism. In this image: View of the exhibition Hard to Picture: A Tribute to Ad Reinhardt, 17.06.2017 â 21.01.2018, Mudam Luxembourg © Estate of Ad Reinhardt; courtesy of David Zwirner, New York/London. Photo: Rémi Villaggi/ Mudam Luxembourg.
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