| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Saturday, January 30, 2021 |
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| | Mona Lisa is alone but still smiling | |
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Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" in an empty gallery at the Louvre in Paris on Dec. 4, 2020. With the Louvre closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, museum officials are pushing ahead on a grand restoration and cleanup. Dmitry Kostyukov/The New York Times.
by Liz Alderman
PARIS (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- From her bulletproof case in the Louvre Museum, Mona Lisas smile met an unfamiliar sight the other morning: emptiness. The gallery where throngs of visitors swarmed to ogle her day after day was a void, deserted under Frances latest coronavirus confinement. Around the corner, the Winged Victory of Samothrace floated quietly above a marble staircase, majestic in the absence of selfie-sticks and tour groups. In the Louvres medieval basement, the Great Sphinx of Tanis loomed in the dark like a granite ghost from behind bars. Yet out of the rare and monumental stillness, sounds of life were stirring in the Louvres great halls. The rat-a-tat of a jackhammer echoed from a ceiling above the Sphinxs head. Rap music thumped from the Bronze Room under Cy Twomblys ceiling in the Sully Wing, near where workers were sawing parquet for a giant new floor. In Louis XIVs former apartments, restorers in surgical masks climbed scaffolding to tamp gold leaf onto o ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Singapore, 14 January 2021: Jamie Tan (left) and Jamie Teo (right) put the finishing touches to "Grey Areas", a triptych created in response to the theme of "hyper-horizon" for Singapore Art Week's anchor event, S.E.A. Focus 2021. The making of "As Good as Grey", the award-winning artists' second ever collaborative work, in the middle of the photo, was captured for the "Porters After Dark" video series: https://youtu.be/2ss8jUiX50Y. Photo courtesy www.artporters.com
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| The great beginning of Jules Olitski | | Hauser & Wirth London opens first ever solo exhibition in the UK of works by Charles Gaines | | Christie's "The Collection of Mr. & Mrs. John H. Gutfreund" totals $8,764,875 | 
Installation view of Jules Olitski Color to the Core, Paintings: 1960-1964.
by Roberta Smith
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In the early 1960s, Jules Olitski (1922-2007) made some of the most astounding abstract paintings of the 20th century. Many of them still astound even if the avuncular sexual innuendos and womens names in most of their titles are by now wearying, the stale artifacts of a malign, oblivious era. Both conditions are established by Jules Olitski: Color to the Core at Yares Art in midtown Manhattan. This is the largest show devoted to an important phase of Olitskis career, 1960-1964. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1958, showing thick-surfaced canvases that are called the Spackle paintings. Almost immediately, he jumped on the color field painting bandwagon and found a method of stain painting that was bold in every way. Dominated by irregular spheres of saturated color that were either very large, if not looming, or very small, these seemingly simple works mess with space and scale in a visceral, almost ... More | | 
Charles Gaines, Numbers and Faces: Multi-Racial/Ethnic Combinations Series 1: Face #16, Naoki Sutter-Shudo (Japanese/French/Swiss German) Detail, 2020. Acrylic paint, acrylic sheet and photograph, 168.9 x 140.2 x 20.3 cm / 66 1/2 x 55 1/4 x 8 inches. Photo: Alex Delfanne. © Charles Gaines. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
LONDON.- Charles Gaines is presenting his first ever solo exhibition in the UK featuring new works across both galleries at Hauser & Wirth London. Comprising two new bodies of Gaines critically acclaimed Plexiglas gridworks, the exhibition includes his institutionally heralded Numbers and Trees and Numbers and Faces series. With this exhibition, Gaines continues to engage formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and the subjective realms, as well as navigating ideas around identity and diversity. Gaines distinctive and generative approach forges a critical link between first generation American conceptualists and subsequent generations of artists who are pushing the limits of conceptualism today. The newest chapter in Gaines long-established practice comes in the form of Numbers and Faces ... More | | 
Jan Massys (Antwerp C. 1509 - 1575), Mary Magdalene. Oil on panel, unframed 37 ¼ x 28 in. (95 x 71.3 cm.). Estimate: $120,000-180,000. Price Realized: $537,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2021.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Collection of Mr. & Mrs. John H. Gutfreund 834 Fifth Avenue totaled $8,764,875 across a two-day live sale and three online sales. The collection outperformed its high estimate and demonstrated strong global demand with participation from 29 countries and an average sell-through rate of 96%. Jonathan Rendell, Christies Deputy Chairman, Head of Sales Curation, comments, It has been a distinct honor for all of us at Christies to work with Mrs. Gutfreund on this series of sales. Her deep knowledge of historical precedent and her flair for style proved to be irresistible to our clients across the globe who competed strongly in both the live sales and online sales to take home a part of this legendary interior. Christies two-day live auction of The Collection of Mr. & Mrs. John H. Gutfreund 834 Fifth Avenue totaled $6,223,875 and was 91% sold by lot and 95% sold by value, with bidders participating from 29 cou ... More |
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| Charles and Jackson Pollock on display at The Society of the Four Arts | | Sun Records, storied early rock label, sells its high-wattage catalog | | James Cohan opens an exhibition of work by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian | 
Jackson Pollock, Drawing, 1952-56, Ink on pink paper, 11 by 8.5 in. Private collection. © 2021 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
PALM BEACH, FLA.- The Society of the Four Arts presents the exhibition Charles and Jackson Pollock on display at The Esther B. OKeeffe Building from Saturday, January 30, 2021 through Sunday, March 28, 2021. Admission is $10 with no charge for members and children 14 & under. Additional information is available at www.fourarts.org. Charles and Jackson Pollock brings together, for the first time, art by two brothers: Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), the most famous and arguably the most important American painter of the 20th century, and Charles (1902-1988), his eldest brother, whose career and reputation are less well-known. The exhibition is co-curated by Four Arts President & CEO Philip Rylands and Otto Hübner, of the american contemporary art Gallery, Munich. It is underwritten by members of the Four Arts Pollock Leadership Committee and by the Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation. ... More | | 
Primary Wave Music, an independent music company in New York, has acquired the labels assets.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In the 1950s, Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, became one of the most dynamic forces in American music, releasing the first recordings by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, helping define rockabilly and rock n roll. Even its yellow sunburst label, with a crowing rooster, has become part of the iconography of early rock. Now, Sun has become the latest plum property to change hands in the music industrys catalog gold rush. Primary Wave Music, an independent music company in New York, has acquired the labels assets, including its recordings, logo and brand, from Sun Entertainment Corp., the family-run company that bought it from Sam Phillips, Suns founder, in 1969. The deal includes every recording made by Sun with the exception of Presleys releases, which are owned by Sony along with those of a handful of other small labels, like Red Bird and Blue Cat, and some songwriting copyrights. In total, about 6,000 recording ... More | | 
Installation view. © Estate of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian 2021. Image courtesy estate of the artist and James Cohan, New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- James Cohan is presenting an exhibition of work by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, on view from January 29 through March 6 at 48 Walker Street and January 29 through February 27 at 291 Grand Street. The exhibition spans both of the gallerys locations, with a presentation of three major sculptural series in Tribeca and a selection of the artists geometric drawings, related sculptures, and a nine-element installation in the Lower East Side. This is the late artists first exhibition with James Cohan. Over six decades, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (1922 - 2019) investigated the intricate geometries of her Iranian heritage, reconfiguring traditional craft techniques to explore the philosophical, poetic, and perceptual possibilities of interlocking primary forms. In her work, rigorous structure and repetition are the foundations of invention and limitless variation. Spanning mirrored mosaics, sculptural assemblage, d ... More |
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| Malmö Konsthall opens an exhibition of 140 drawings and paintings by Roma artist Ceija Stojka | | Hindman Auctions' Palm Beach Collections sale exceeds $650,000 | | Warsaw's lone palm tree comes of age | 
Ceija Stojka, Reisen in Sommer durch die Sonnenblumen, 1996. Acrylic on cardboard, 65 x 50 cm © Collection Patricia & Marcus Meier, Wien. Photo: ©Célia Pernot.
MALMO.- Roma artist Ceija Stojka (19332013) was born and raised in Styria in Austria, where her family made their living as traders. Following Nazi Germanys annexation of Austria in 1938, her family was persecuted, arrested, and sent to the concentration camps. Stojka was barely ten years old when she arrived at Auschwitz. She survived three concentration camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen. Out of her entire family of about two hundred people, only six survived: herself, her mother, and four of her siblings. It wasnt until more than forty years has passed that she finally broke her silence, and gave, as one of the first Roma women, an account of her own memories and experiences of the Holocaust. She has chronicled her childhood in several books, and in over 1,000 paintings and drawings. Her first autobiography, Wir leben in Verborgenheit (We Live in Seclusion) was published in 1988. She was encouraged by documentary ... More | | 
Jane Peterson (American, 1876-1965), Along Water's Edge. Watercolor and gouache, signed LL, 11 x 17 inches. Collection of Mrs. A. Edward Allinson. Presale Estimate: $3,000 - $5,000. Price Realized: $22,500.
PALM BEACH, FLA.- Hindman announced the success of its Palm Beach Collections sale. Bidders participating by phone, absentee bid and four online bidding platforms sent the January 25 and 26 auction sessions well past its low estimate to a total of $655,313. The Palm Beach team was thrilled to see such a strong start to its 10th anniversary year. The auction featured objects from the collection of Mrs. A. Edward Allinson of Palm Beach and Southampton, including a collection of paintings and watercolors by American female artists of the first half of the 20th century. The collection saw fantastic results in multiple categories. Outstanding results from the Allinson collection were seen in the sale of Jane Petersons artworks, with Petersons Along Waters Edge (lot 116) selling for $22,500, more than seven times its estimate and resulting as the top lot of the auction. Tiger Lilies and Zinnias (lot 117) and Two Macaws (118) by Pet ... More | | 
Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska poses in front of the Warsaw palm tree. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP.
by Anna Maria Jakubek
WARSAW (AFP).- Tropical is not a word that springs to mind when talking about the grey Polish capital. Yet, a palm tree towering over downtown Warsaw has firmly taken root in the city's landscape and affections -- and is even a popular postcard landmark. Standing aloft a busy central roundabout, the artificial tree began life 18 years ago as an art project and now provides an exotic rallying point for many a social cause. It has donned a giant nursing cap in solidarity with protesting nurses, been turned into the Greek island of Lesbos for bikini-clad LGBT activists and had its leaves plucked off by anarchists. Traffic police stationed on the roundabout are even nicknamed "Miami Vice" -- a reference to the popular US cop show set in warmer climes. Sebastian Cichocki, curator of the Museum of Modern Art which is the tree's guardian, said it may look "alien" and "like something that fell from the sky" but that was what captured imaginations and inspired people. "The palm is a living ... More |
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| Daniel Johnston memorial exhibition opens at Electric Lady Studios | | Sarah Meister named next Executive Director of Aperture | | Xavier Hufkens opens an exhibition of works by Walter Swennen | 
Daniel Johnston, Oh Lord Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, 2002. Ink and marker on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches. Courtesy of The Daniel Johnston Trust.
NEW YORK, NY.- Outsider Art Fair, the premier fair dedicated to showcasing self-taught art, art brut and outsider art from around the world, is excited to announce Daniel Johnston: Psychedelic Drawings, an exhibition of over 30 works by the late musician and self-taught artist, on view at Electric Lady Studios, the Greenwich Village recording Mecca founded by Jimi Hendrix in 1969. Curated by renowned American cartoonist, painter, designer and musician, Gary Panter, the exhibition is featured as part of the 29th edition of the Outsider Art Fair in New York, which this year is taking place from January 28th February 8, 2021 across multiple locations in Manhattan. An American singer-songwriter and visual artist, Daniel Johnston (1961-2019) was regarded as a significant figure in outsider, lo-fi, and alternative music scenes. ... More | | 
Sarah Meister. Photograph by Naima Green.
NEW YORK, NY.- Aperture Foundations Board of Trustees announced that Sarah Meister has been selected as its next Executive Director. She will begin her new role in May 2021. As Executive Director, Ms. Meister will serve as the primary creative force and public representative of Aperture, a nonprofit arts organization and preeminent publisher of photography, working closely with the Board and leading the staff of thirty-five to further the organizations distinguished legacy and set its vision for its future. She will succeed Chris Boot, who will be returning to London after leading Aperture for the past decade. Sarah is an accomplished curator and esteemed voice in the photography community and the broader art world, says Aperture Board Chair Cathy Kaplan. We are thrilled that she will bring her deep and extensive knowledge and absolute passion for photography to Aperture. Her genuine leadership and scholarly ... More | | 
Walter Swennen, As a Teenager, 2020. oil on canvas, 40.3 x 30.5 x 2.3 cm. 15 7/8 x 12 1/8 x 7/8 in. Courtesy: the Artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels. Photo: HV-Studio, Brussels.
BRUSSELS.- Walter Swennen (b. 1946). Created throughout 2020, the works have a diary-like quality and are informed as much by contemporary events as by episodes of reflection and recollection. But as is typical of Swennens oeuvre, a deeper undercurrent is at play, with each canvas also exploring some of the central issues at the heart of any creative discipline: what to make, how to make it, and why. To step inside Swennens universe is to enter a colourful and apparently illogical world, one in which enigmatic combinations of texts and images seem to beg for decipherment. Intrigued by the unusual juxtapositions, we instinctively want to know what the paintings mean, or are trying to say. While not all of the works transmit their secrets easily, a number of insights are offered in TOO ... More |
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[Porters After Dark] Jamie Tan & Jamie Teo
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| More News |
 Auction Life announces Whimsical Worldly Wonders Winter AuctionWEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- Auction Lifes upcoming Whimsical Worldly Wonders Winter Auction slated for Wednesday, February 17th, is loaded with 367 lots of fresh-to-the-market Florida finds, to include vintage and antique jewelry, art, porcelain, antiques collectibles, art glass, artifacts, sculptures, perfumes, crystal and more. The sale will begin at 4 pm Eastern time. The auction is mostly online, but with limited live seating available in the gallery (an RSVP is required). An exhibition period is to be announced, and gallery previews will be by appointment only, with strict COVID-19 protocols in place. Internet bidding will be via LiveAuctioneers.com, Invaluable.com and Auctionzip.com. Telephone and absentee (or left) bids will also be accepted. An expected headliner lot is a rare suite of ten original mixed media impressions by Salvador Dali (1904-1989), ... More  Belgian artists Tom Volkaert and Daan Gielis take over the Everyday GalleryANTWERP.- The artists and bosom buddies Daan Gielis and Tom Volkaert will be exhibiting together at the Everyday Gallery in Antwerp from 30 January to 13 March 2021. The two young Belgian artists will both get a separate space in the gallery situated in Antwerps New South development, where they will each be showing about ten new works in a variety of media. Gielis effortlessly places neon next to delicate bronze sculptures, ceramics, terracotta and textile, and puts Tintin in a puddle of his own tears. Volkaert presents brutal, seemingly unfinished sculptures made of metal, clay and resin. Although they are contemporaries and the best of friends who share a lot in common in their passions and frustrations within the contemporary (art) world, there is a different basis to their work and their respective exhibitions. The mourning for the world ... More  From Michael Lewis, a 'superhero story' about the pandemicNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In his 2018 book, The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis posed an unsettling question: What if the government agencies tasked with managing catastrophes natural disasters, climate change-induced food shortages, epidemics failed to prepare for some unanticipated, looming crisis? Many of the risks that fell into the governments lap felt so remote as to be unreal: that a cyberattack left half the country without electricity, or that some airborne virus wiped out millions, he wrote. Last year, when the coronavirus began spreading throughout the United States, Lewis called some of his government sources for The Fifth Risk. What he learned was even more disconcerting than the frightening scenario he was reading about in the news. The experts he spoke to were alarmed not just by the governments ... More  Jonas Gwangwa, trombonist and anti-apartheid activist, dies at 83NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Jonas Gwangwa, a preeminent South African trombonist, vocalist and composer who became a leading artistic ambassador for the anti-apartheid resistance, died Sunday. He was 83. The office of President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the death in a statement, but did not say where he died or what the cause was. Gwangwa had been in poor health for some time. Calling him a giant of our revolutionary cultural movement, Ramaphosa wrote, Jonas Gwangwa ascends to our great orchestra of musical ancestors, whose creative genius and dedication to the freedom of all South Africans inspired millions in our country and mobilized the international community against the apartheid system. Gwangwa died exactly three years to the day after the death of trumpeter Hugh Masekela Gwangwas classmate ... More  Cicely Tyson, an actress who shattered stereotypes, dies at 96NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Cicely Tyson, the stage, screen and television actress whose vivid portrayals of strong African American women shattered racial stereotypes in the dramatic arts of the 1970s, propelling her to stardom and fame as an exemplar for civil rights, died Thursday. She was 96. Her death was announced by her longtime manager, Larry Thompson. In a remarkable career of seven decades, Tyson broke ground for serious Black actors by refusing to take parts that demeaned Black people. She urged Black colleagues to do the same and often went without work. She won three Emmys and many awards from civil rights and womens groups, and at 88 became the oldest person to win a Tony, for her 2013 Broadway role in a revival of Horton Footes The Trip to Bountiful. At 93, she won an honorary Oscar, and was inducted ... More  For these classical musicians, it's always been about racial equityNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Last year was different. Black Lives Matter, in the national psyche for nearly a decade, crested with the killing of George Floyd and weeks of widespread demonstrations that could no longer be ignored even by classical music. Orchestras and opera companies posted statements of solidarity, however platitudinous, denouncing racism and promising a more equitable future for an industry that has historically been led by white administrators and designed to maintain a status quo that gives white artists the advantage over their underrepresented peers. Large institutions across the country announced and enacted sweeping changes. The Metropolitan Opera hired its first chief diversity officer; orchestras that remade their fall seasons under pandemic restrictions consciously programmed music by ... More  Sharon Kay Penman, whose novels plumbed Britain's past, dies at 75NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Sharon Kay Penman, a former tax lawyer whose bestselling epics about medieval England and Wales drew legions of admirers for her meticulous research and commitment to historical facts, died on Jan. 22 in a hospital in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She was 75. Her brother, William J. Penman Jr., said the cause was pneumonia. She was a giant in the field, said Margaret George, the author of historical novels like The Splendor Before the Dark, about the Roman emperor Nero. She was a diligent scholar but she was able to write accessible books that were real page-turners. Starting with her first book, The Sunne in Splendour (1982), about King Richard III, Penman loaded her novels with material she gathered from years of research, both on the ground in Britain and in the stacks at the University ... More  Online Sundance opens to virtual ovation for deaf dramaLOS ANGELES (AFP).- The Sundance Film Festival, forced online this year by the pandemic, quietly opened to a virtual "standing ovation" for deaf family drama "CODA" Thursday. Taking its title from an acronym for child of deaf adult, "CODA" follows high-school teen Ruby (Emilia Jones) as she juggles her musical ambitions with her fisherman family's dependence on her to communicate with the "hearing" world. The first in-competition film to stream for remote attendees of the prestigious indie festival, it drew immediate rave reviews, with Variety calling it "tender, lively, funny, and beautifully stirring," and Deadline praising a "breakout performance" from Jones ("Locke & Key.") "I would say it's the equivalent of a standing ovation," Sundance programming director Kim Yutani told the cast as she hosted an online Q&A immediately after its streaming ... More  Africa's largest film festival postponed by pandemicOUAGADOUGOU (AFP).- Africa's biggest film festival, which had been scheduled to run in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou from February 27 to March 6, has been postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Pan-African Festival of Cinema and Television of Ouagadougou, known by its acronym in French of FESPACO, is an eagerly-awaited showcase held every two years. Burkina's cabinet on Friday "took the decision to postpone the holding of FESPACO to a later date," government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura told a press conference. Founded in 1969, FESPACO stipulates that films chosen for competition have to be made by Africans and predominantly produced in Africa. Its top prize is the coveted Golden Stallion of Yennenga, a beast in Burkinabe mythology. The internationally-respected festival is closely followed ... More  Center for Puppetry Arts announces new DirectorATLANTA, GA.- The Center for Puppetry Arts welcomes Sarah Dylla as the new Museum Director. Sarah joins the Center for Puppetry Arts with over 11 years in the field of public humanities creating narratives about how history and the humanities intersect. We are thrilled to welcome Sarah to the Center of Puppetry Arts, and her expertise in bridging education, historical research and the creative arts will enable the Center to design a rich diversity of experiences for our audiences in Atlanta and nationally during these unprecedented times, said Executive Director, Beth Schiavo. Through her work and research in the public history field, Sarah Dylla aims to bring the history of puppets and puppetry to life for new audiences and shed light on lesser-known stories. Most recently, Sarah served as the Curator for the Atlanta History Centers current ... More  Duke Bootee, whose 'Message' educated hip-hop, dies at 69NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Edward Fletcher, who as Duke Bootee was the driving force behind The Message, the 1982 hit that pushed hip-hop from merry escapism toward chronicling the daily grind of urban poverty, died Jan. 13 at his home in Savannah, Georgia. He was 69. The cause was heart failure, said his wife, Rosita Fletcher. Fletcher started writing The Message in 1980, the same year he became a studio musician at Sugar Hill Records, which released the early work of groups like the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Fletcher toured with Sugar Hill acts, contributed to the recording of seminal tracks and occasionally composed music. We wrote the first chapter in the history of rap, he said in a 2013 interview broadcast on Channel 28 in Savannah. The sound of hip-hop was initially cheerful and upbeat, ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Mental Escapology, St. Moritz 
TIM VAN LAERE GALLERY 
Madelynn Green 
Patrick Angus
Flashback On a day like today, British painter Patrick Heron was born January 30, 1920. Patrick Heron (30 January 1920 - 20 March 1999) was a British abstract and figurative artist, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall. Throughout his career, Heron worked in a variety of media, from the silk scarves he designed for his father's company Cresta from the age of 14, to a stained-glass window for Tate St Ives, but he was foremost a painter working in oils and gouache. In this image: Susanna Heron poses with Patrick Heronâs Nude in Wicker Chair, 1951.
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