| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Saturday, July 18, 2020 |
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| | Ancient Aztec palace ruins found in Mexico City | |
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Southeast corner of the viceregal room with two embedded ashlars representing the feathered serpent "Quetzalcoatl" and a headdress of feathers. Photo: Oliver Santana / Nacional Monte de Piedad.
MEXICO CITY (AFP).- The remains of an ancient Aztec palace, which later was the home of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, were discovered under a landmark building in Mexico City, the government said Monday. Basalt slab floors were found under the stately building of the Nacional Monte de Piedad, a historic pawn shop in the middle of the capital's central square, during building renovations. The floors correspond to an open area in the palace of Aztec ruler Axayacatl, who was the father of Montezuma, one of the final rulers of the empire. Experts say that "it was part of an open space of the old Axayacatl Palace, probably a patio," the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said. During excavation, archeologists also found evidence of the home Cortes had at the site after the fall of the Aztec empire. Archeologists noted that the floor was likel ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Items up for auction at the Prop Store Auction in late August are on display at the Prop Store in Valencia, California on July 15, 2020 include the helmet worn by actor Tom Cruise in the movie "Top Gun", estimated at $50,000 70,000 USD. Maverick's fighter jet helmet, Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber, Rocky's boxing gloves and an 11-foot "Alien" spaceship tipped to fetch half a million dollars will go up for auction in Los Angeles next month. The sale of hundreds of legendary Hollywood movie props will be live-streamed on August 26-27,2020 including items wielded by Indiana Jones and Clint Eastwood's Western outlaw Josey Wales. A giant model of "Nostromo," the interstellar tug-ship on which Ridley Scott's classic "Alien" takes place, tops the pre-sale estimates at $300,000-500,000. Frederic J. BROWN / AFP
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 | | The new must-have museum souvenir: Face masks | | At the Hirshhorn, a battle over plans for its sculpture garden | | Artcurial offers work by Hergé created as the initial cover design for the album Le Lotus bleu | 
Images of themed face masks, which have been big sellers at museum gift shops. Via The New York Times.
LONDON (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- On Monday lunchtime, a steady trickle of people wandered into the gift shop of the National Gallery in the British capital, browsing souvenirs to mark their first visit to a museum since Britain started emerging from lockdown. Staying socially distanced, visitors glanced around the racks that held National Gallery umbrellas, National Gallery gin and National Gallery pencil cases. But many were quickly drawn to the museums range of face masks. Theyre really cool, said Jessica Macdonald, a 16-year-old student, as she grabbed one featuring Vincent Van Goghs Sunflowers, on sale for 9.50 pounds (about $12). My mums been trying to find nice ones for ages so we dont have to wear these, she added, pointing at the blue medical mask she was wearing. Lorna May Wadsworth, 40, an artist, also bought a mask, featuring a floral ... More | | 
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Photo: Smithsonian.
WASHINGTON (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Advocates for the preservation of modernist landscapes in Washington have taken on another fight. After beating back the National Geographic Societys plan to demolish Marabar, the 1984 sculptural installation by Elyn Zimmerman on its campus, they are now battling the Hirshhorn Museums proposal to redo its sunken sculpture garden by architect Gordon Bunshaft and landscape architect Lester Collins. The Hirshhorn, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, has been advancing a design by artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto that would substantially alter its look and feel. The standoff comes at a critical time for postwar landscapes, which are reaching an age when refurbishment will increasingly be needed. Theodore Prudon, the president of the preservation organization Docomomo US, said he was concerned that modernist architecture, including ... More | | 
The director of the Artcurial auction house branch in Monaco Louise Grether poses on July 16, 2020 with an original drawing by Belgian comic artist Herge for "The Blue Lotus" (Le Lotus bleu), the fifth volume of "The Adventures of Tintin" comics series, exhibited before being auctioned next November 21 in Paris. YANN COATSALIOU / AFP.
PARIS.- In its Comic Strip sale on 21 November 2020, Artcurial will reveal an exceptional and highly original item: the artwork by Georges Rémi, known as Hergé, designed for the cover of the 1936 album Le Lotus bleu. Deemed too costly to reproduce with the four-colour technique used in 1936, the design was turned down by the publisher Casterman. This original artwork, new to the market, has been rediscovered today by Artcurial. The rarity of this gouache is explained by the fact that it has not been seen for over eight decades. Hergé gave it to the young son of publisher Louis Casterman. Being just seven years old, the boy had no idea of the future value of this treasure, and kept it tucked away in a drawer, ... More |
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| | Hauser & Wirth presents two exhibitions by Paul McCarthy this July | | France's cabaret queen Zizi Jeanmaire dies aged 96 | | Vietnam, where independent media is outlawed, opens press museum | 
Paul McCarthy, A&E, EGG EVA, Santa Anita session, 2020. Pencil, charcoal, mixed media on paper with video, 121.9 x 91.4 cm / 48 x 36 in. Photo: Damon McCarthy. © Paul McCarthy. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
GSTAAD.- This month, Hauser & Wirth debuts two simultaneous exhibitions with celebrated American artist Paul McCarthy that are united by the artists focus upon intractable myths, fantasies, and delusions coursing through contemporary society and consumer culture. On view 14 July, the online exhibition A&E Drawing Session, Santa Anita unveils a new series of twelve large scale drawings from McCarthys latest multidisciplinary project A&E (2019 - ). On 18 July, the exhibition Alpine Stories and other Dystopias will open at Tarmak 22, an exhibition space in Gstaad where visitors will find a selection of the artists drawings, photographs, sculptures, and video work from his acclaimed series Heidi, White Snow, Caribbean Pirates, and PROPO. Created during a series of freely improvised performances between Paul McCarthy and the German actress Lilith Stangenberg, A&E Drawing Session, Sant ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on December 1, 1961 French dancer Zizi Jeanmaire poses in her stage costume at the Alhambra music hall in Paris. French dancer Zizi Jeanmaire has died at the age of 96, it was announced on July 17, 2020. AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- French dancer and singer Zizi Jeanmaire, an iconic cabaret showgirl from the 1950s whose grace and glamour was celebrated on stage and in film the world over, died on Friday in Switzerland aged 96, her family told AFP. Jeanmaire starred in ballets, cabarets, musicals and film, mixing up styles but never compromising on the rigour of her classic training, many of her roles created by her equally famous choreographer husband Roland Petit. "My mother passed away peacefully last night at her home in Tolechenaz," a town bordering Lake Geneva, her daughter Valentine Petit said on the phone. It was her leading performance in Petit's modern interpretation of "Carmen" in 1949 that launched her name and featured the short-cropped hairstyle that became her trademark feature. The new-look production caused a sensation in Paris, London and on Broadway. Jeanmaire and Petit met in 1933, ... More | | 
Visitors read historic press articles and newspaper prints displayed at the Vietnam Press Museum in Hanoi on July 16, 2020. Vietnam's newly-opened Press Museum shows history of journalism in the communist country. Nhac NGUYEN / AFP.
HANOI (AFP).- Undeterred by its dismal ranking in media freedom and grim reputation for jailing reporters who stray from the government line, Vietnam has launched a museum dedicated to the open press. From Pulitzer Prize-winning photos from the Vietnam War to the story of the struggle over press freedom during the French colonial era, the carefully curated exhibits offer a highly selective history of journalism in the communist nation. Its opening last month in Hanoi came shortly after the arrests of two journalists critical of the government, both on anti-state charges which carry heavy jail terms. All newspapers and television are state-controlled in Vietnam. Reporters Without Borders -- which ranks Vietnam 175th out of 180 countries for press freedom -- said the reporters' arrests sent a "chilling message" ahead of the Communist Party's five-yearly congress in January. However, for museum director ... More |
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| | One family's vigil to protect the memory of Albania's dictator | | David Zwirner now represents artist Andra Ursuţa | | Cold War-era Russian M-125 cipher machine sold for $22,000 at auction | 
Sabire Plaku, 85, covers with straw a statue of the late communist dictator Enver Hoxha at the basement of a former WWII museum that commemorates the establishment of the Albanian National Liberation Army Headquarters. Gent SHKULLAKU / AFP.
by Briseida Mema
LABINOT MAL (AFP).- Sabire Plaku gets short of breath when she climbs the hill that leads to the last intact statue of Albania's communist former dictator Enver Hoxha. Every morning, the 85-year-old checks that nobody has touched the effigy, which depicts him as a warrior. Hoxha ruled with an iron fist for 45 years until his death in 1985, persecuting and executing many thousands. When the communist regime fell six years after his death, dozens of Hoxha's statues did not survive the anger of his countrymen. In Labinot Mal, a village nestled in mountains in central Albania, the more than two metres (6.6 feet) tall bronze effigy remains intact and hidden, ... More | | 
Andra Ursuţa, 2020. Photo by Jason Schmidt.
NEW YORK, NY.- David Zwirner announced the global representation of the Romanian-born, New Yorkbased artist Andra Ursuţa. Over the past decade, Ursuţa has gained recognition for her inventive sculptural work that mines the darker undercurrents of contemporary society. Drawing from memory, nostalgia, art history, and popular culture and employing a variety of media, the artist merges traditional sculptural processes and new technologies to transform commonplace objects and materials into viscerally evocative sculptures and installations that give new, redemptive forms to subjective experience. As Ali Subotnick has written, Memory, death, the human condition, and the absurdity and irony of life are all inspirations for the artist. Her work is ripe with emotion and contradictionspathos and humor, melancholy and hope, raw and refined, hard and soft, aggressive and tender. Its at times vulgar and political, ... More | | 
The Fialka is an electromechanical, wheel-based code-generating and decoding machine.
BOSTON, MASS.- An original Cold War-era Russian M-125 cipher machine, codenamed 'Fialka,' sold for $22,000 according to Boston-based RR Auction. The Fialka is an electromechanical, wheel-based code-generating and decoding machine. Its development came after World War II and was based loosely on the German Enigma machine, with rotors moving to a new position each time a key is pressed, creating a new electrical circuit and an alphabetic substitution for the letter pressed. However, the Fialka incorporates a number of different features from the Enigma that made it a much more daunting cipher-generating machine. These features include the use of 10 rotors (each with 30 contacts), wheels rotating in opposite directions, and more frequent wheel stepping. In addition, the rotors could be quickly rewired in the field, and input and ... More |
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| | Visitors can now explore the Rubin Museum's collection online | | albertz benda opens Felipe Pantone's most ambitious New York exhibition to-date | | 303 Gallery reopens with a new thematic group exhibition | 
Incense Burner. Kham Province, Eastern Tibet (possibly Derge area); 15th century. Damascened iron. Rubin Museum of Art C2005.16.67a-b (HAR 65490).
NEW YORK, NY.- With a globally renowned collection of nearly 4,000 objects spanning more than 1,500 years from the Himalayan region, the Rubin Museum of Art launches a new and improved online collection database today. A total of 381 objects from the Rubin Museums permanent collection are now available at collection.rubinmuseum.org. This marks the first phase of an initiative to make the Rubin Museum collection accessible to visitors, students, teachers, and scholars alike around the world. More objects will be added continually, with the goal of eventually publishing the entire collection. This project showcases the Rubin Museums growing and concerted efforts to place Himalayan art at the center of global scholarship, says Executive Director Jorrit Britschgi. By providing access, accurate data about each object, and high quality images to the public and scholars, the database allows us to share the breadt ... More | | 
Installation view. Photo: Casey Kelbaugh.
NEW YORK, NY.- albertz benda is presenting Felipe Pantone: CONTACTLESS, the artists most ambitious New York exhibition to-date, on view from July 16 through August 28, 2020. In recent years, Pantone has been exploring manipulatable sculptures and paintings. The interactive aspect stems from the artist's observation that information no longer flows in a linear fashion from established sources to consumers, but rather splinters into multiple channels. For example Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and other user generated content now informs traditional news and entertainment media, and vice versa. Many of the works that Pantone created for CONTACTLESS were intended for the viewer to touch and reshape by hand. Adapting to support health guidelines that preclude physical interaction, Pantone has developed digital copies of the works on a WebGL app. This technology allows users to access accelerated 3D animations directly on standard browsers, wit ... More | | 
Doug Aitken, I'll be right back...: Aperture series, 2019. Chromogenic transparency on acrylic in aluminum lightbox with LEDs, 46 inches (116.8 cm) diameter, 7 1/2 inches (19.1 cm) depth. Edition of 4.
NEW YORK, NY.- 303 Gallery announced their reopening and a new thematic group exhibition, entitled Alien Landscape. The exhibition is on view in the gallerys physical space and simultaneously presented as an online Viewing Room, with an extended selection of works. Alien Landscape brings together a variety of contemporary approaches to depicting the natural world and beyond. The artists in this exhibition confront the vastness of their subject matter by directing our attention toward a particular vista, phenomenon, plant or creature to be considered anew. Conspicuously absent are people themselves, though traces of human intervention and technology appear. Rendering terrain both observed and invented, these works reframe our perspective, while in turn cultivating a heightened awareness of ourselves as just a small part of a big planet one that requires our attention ... More |
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Summer Talks | Artist Kehinde Wiley and The Duke of Devonshire
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 Innovative new technology will connect the art world in a radical wayLICHFIELD.- The coronavirus social distancing rules have severely disrupted the ability of artists, art fairs, institutions and their patrons to engage in a purposeful way. But now, by harnessing the latest technology in the form of cutting-edge virtual reality, there is a way to create a truly immersive experience and ensure meaningful connections, even when travel isnt possible in these uncertain times. This goes beyond anything currently available and is far more powerful than a simple online platform, it is world-class custom content delivered in an innovative way. For almost 10 years, Arts & Travel has operated internationally; connecting artists, galleries and art fairs with collectors, museum directors and curators. They have seen the devastation that the pandemic has caused to performers and artists, and by partnering with Art World VR have ... More Opera can no longer ignore its race problemNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In late May, shortly after the killing of George Floyd, mezzo-soprano JNai Bridges was invited by Los Angeles Opera to give a virtual recital. As much as I wanted to, I wasnt in the right emotional space to present myself in that way, she later recalled in an online discussion with tenor Lawrence Brownlee. So she made a counteroffer: What if she assembled a group of fellow Black singers for a panel on race and inequality in opera? The company said yes, and as Black Lives Matter protests raged across the country, Bridges moderated a nearly 90-minute conversation of striking scope and candor by turns a group-therapy session and an improvised manifesto for the future of an art form that historically has elevated select singers of color while remaining overwhelmingly white offstage, from the rehearsal room ... More Eye of the Collector reschedules inaugural London edition to 2021LONDON.- Due to the current Covid 19 pandemic, Eye of the Collector has regretfully had to take the difficult decision to reschedule their inaugural London edition to 2021. Eye of the Collectors priority has always been to ensure an immersive and enjoyable experience for their guests and participants and, although there have been encouraging signs of late, unfortunately the uncertainty around live events remains too high. For this reason, and with the health and safety of all as the principal consideration, Eye of the Collector will be scheduling new dates. Nazy Vassegh, Founder and CEO - This has been an incredibly difficult decision and, whilst we had very much hoped to launch the physical edition this autumn, the situation unfortunately remains too precarious with too many potential uncertainties and associated risks". "Our objective continues ... More To make orchestras more diverse, end blind auditionsNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- During the tumultuous summer of 1969, two Black musicians accused the New York Philharmonic of discrimination. Earl Madison, a cellist, and J. Arthur Davis, a bassist, said they had been rejected for positions because of their race. The citys Commission on Human Rights decided against the musicians but found that aspects of the orchestras hiring system, especially regarding substitute and extra players, functioned as an old boys network and were discriminatory. The ruling helped prod American orchestras, finally, to try and deal with the biases that had kept them overwhelmingly white and male. The Philharmonic, and many other ensembles, began to hold auditions behind a screen, so that factors like race and gender wouldnt influence strictly musical appraisals. Blind ... More Lyman Allyn Museum displays oversized, hyperrealistic sculptures of sweet treats by Peter AntonNEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum announced the opening of a tasty new exhibition on July 18 highlighting the works of iconic sculptor and installation artist Peter Anton. The exhibition entitled Sweet Dreams: Confectionery Sculpture, which will be on view through October 18, showcases oversized sculptures of sweets using scale and intensity to lure, charm, ease, disarm and surprise viewers during a time of global distress. The exhibition, spread through three gallery rooms, will include 35 wondrous, mouth watering creations. This delightful environment will feature some new pieces created specifically for the exhibition, along with some of Antons most notable work. It also will offer a colorful and glorious array of festively decorated donuts with sprinkles, an awe inspiring giant jelly roll, delectable ice cream cones and giant cakes on pedestals, ... More Biennale Architettura 2021: Catalonia unveils details of pavilion and research projectVENICE.- The Institut Ramon Llull presents Catalonia in Venice - air/aria/aire, a Collateral Event of the Biennale Architettura 2021 and an exhibition curated by architect Olga Subirós. The project reflects upon the central theme of the Biennale, How will we live together?, with an investigation into air as a common asset upon which our survival depends. Under the name Aire, the exhibition highlights the role of architecture and urbanism within the context of two interconnected global crises: the climate emergency and the public health crisis. This curatorial project aims to seek solutions to these interconnected crises through an investigation into air pollution and how it directly affects people. The exhibition offers an immersion into the radical experience of air contamination through a large, multisensory installation. Catalonia in Venice - air/aria/aire is based on the study of the city throug ... More Three centuries and thousands of sports cards line up for Heritage Auctions' massive July 30-31 eventDALLAS, TX.- Perhaps it's cliché to say of sports cards that they're history art and artifacts that fits neatly into the palm of your hand. But that doesn't make it any less true as you browse the nearly 2,200 lots available in Heritage Auctions' Summer Sports Card Catalog event July 30-31. The massive sale is a trip through time, a sojourn spanning centuries from little-seen trading cardboards made in the 1870s to modern-day offerings signed by legends in the making. In between are highly valuable, deeply coveted offerings many of them, from high-grade singles to shrink-wrapped boxes filled with unknown treasures, fresh to the hobby. All of them feature the titans, greats and men who long ago morphed into mythic figures. "This auction contains material that spans the full history of our card-collecting hobby, and I suspect that even the most ... More Eddie Gale, deeply spiritual jazz trumpeter, dies at 78NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Eddie Gale, a spiritually minded jazz trumpeter and educator who performed with avant-garde giants Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra, and who saw the music he made with his own bands as a conduit for communicating the richness of African American life, died July 10 at his home in Northern California. He was 78. The cause was prostate cancer, his wife, Georgette Gale, said. On his recordings as a leader including two significant albums for the Blue Note label in the late 1960s, Eddie Gales Ghetto Music and Black Rhythm Happening Gale drew on the Black church, his Cub Scout marching band, astrology, street-corner funk and African polyrhythms to concoct a densely layered urban stew. Its his whole life, his younger sister Joann Stevens, who sang and played guitar with him, said in an interview. ... More Early-career artists selected for FLAMIN Fellowship schemeLONDON.- Six early-career artist-filmmakers have been selected for the third edition of Film Londons FLAMIN Fellowship scheme, a development programme offering mentoring, seed finance and professional development alongside access to audiences, curators and established artist advisors. Between them, the selected artists work across a range of moving image formats, including digital animation, hand-developed film, Virtual Reality and diaristic smartphone footage. New works being supported through the programme include experimental documentaries spotlighting queer loneliness and interdependence between people with complex needs and their carers. The Fellowship will also support artists working with communities, with one project which aims to archive Londons under-documented Ghanaian diaspora, and another which explores ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, Italian artist Caravaggio died July 18, 1610. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 - 18 July 1610) was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque school of painting. In this image: A photographer and a cameraman take a picture of Caravaggio's painting "The calling of Saints Peter and Andrew" in Rome, Monday, Nov. 20, 2006. The painting, owned by Queen Elizabeth II, languished for years in a dusty storeroom before being identified as the work of Italian master Caravaggio, on show at the Gate Termini Art Gallery in Rome.
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