| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Saturday, November 6, 2021 |
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| | New Museum Triennial explores the hidden strengths of soft power | |
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In the foreground Nothing Further Beyond, by Hera Buyuktacyan, with Untitled, by Evgeny Antufiev on the right wall, both part of the Soft Water Hard Stone, exhibit at the New Museum Triennial in New York, Oct. 30, 2021. A grab bag of forms and styles, the 2021 Triennial is that rare thing, a big contemporary survey with a cohesive mood. Charlie Rubin/The New York Times.
by Holland Cotter
NEW YORK, NY.- The New Museums fifth Triennial exhibition, titled Soft Water Hard Stone, is largely a product of lockdown. Much of the work by 40 international artists and collectives was made during the past two pandemic-strapped years. And it has, overall, a hoarded, shut-in feel. Colors are muted. Materials are scrappy, unpretty. (Concrete turns up a lot). Scale is generally small, and of the few monumental pieces, most are sculptures or installations in break-downable formats. Certain themes recur: impermanence, erosion, disease, survival. Political vibes are buzzing everywhere, but they are rarely instantly readable as such. The eye-candy suavity found in the heavily marketed current wave of figure painting seen a lot in galleries finds no place here. Nor, for that matter, does any other single look. Yet, despite being a grab bag of forms and styles, the 2021 Triennial is that rare thing, a big contemporary survey it fills three floors of the museum, plus its ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Tourists view the Enthroned Khafre (Chephren) funerary statue of the Fourth dynasty (2613-2494 BC) Ancient Egyptian pharaoh and builder of the second of the Giza Pyramids, on display at the Old Kingdom gallery in the Egyptian Museum in the centre of Egypt's capital Cairo on October 27, 2021. Amir MAKAR / AFP.
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| Workers digging gas pipes in Peru find 2,000-year-old gravesite | | The Night Watch taken down from wall for final phase of research at the Rijksmuseum | | At The Huntington, 2021 served as a banner year for American art acquisitions | 
Specialists work around ancient vasels found by a crew laying a natural gas pipe under a street in Lima, on November 04, 2021. Ernesto BENAVIDES / AFP.
LIMA.- Workers laying gas pipes on a street in the Peruvian capital Lima stumbled on the remains of a pre-Hispanic gravesite that included 2,000-year-old ceramic burial vessels, an archaeologist said Thursday. "This find that we see today is 2,000 years old," archaeologist Cecilia Camargo told AFP at the site. "So far, there are six human bodies that we have recovered, including children and adults, accompanied by a set of ceramic vessels that were expressly made to bury them." Experts believe the site in the Lima district of La Victoria may be linked to the culture known as "Blanco sobre Rojo," or "White on Red," which settled on the central coast of Peru in the valleys of Chillon, Rimac and Lurin, the three rivers that cross Lima. "So far, we have recovered about 40 vessels of different shapes related to the White on Red style," said Camargo, head of the cultural heritage department ... More | | 
Visitors in front of The Night Watch.
AMSTERDAM.- The Night Watch is removed from its usual position on the wall and placed at the front of the transparent glass chamber. This event marks the start of the final stage of the research phase of Operation Night Watch, the largest ever project devoted to the examination and restoration of Rembrandts masterpiece. The Night Watch has now been secured in a specially designed holder so that the Rijksmuseum researchers can study the back of this enormous painting. Visitors can now come closer to The Night Watch than ever before and it offers a rare opportunity to view the rear of The Night Watch, which will remain on display in this way until 23 November 2021. Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum: Whenever you remove any painting from the wall and its frame, it suddenly looks very vulnerable. This applies equally to The Night Watch, which is just a few centimetres thick. You see the canvas and the timber framework, and they seem ... More | | 
Lola Ãlvarez Bravo (19071993), Portrait of Frida Kahlo (arms crossed), ca. 1945. Gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 in. © Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Foundation. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
SAN MARINO, CA.- In 2021, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens acquired more than 50 important works of art by a wide range of artists from North America. The acquisitions contribute to a more expansive story of American art, adding hemispheric and global perspectives and diversity to the collection. Beyond the previously announced acquisitions of Thomas Coles Portage Falls on the Genesee (1839) and Kehinde Wileys A Portrait of a Young Gentleman (2021), additional works by women, Native American, African American, Latinx, and Latin American artists, among others, joined the collection. In media ranging from painting to photography to quilting, the new acquisitions span more than a century and represent an array of styles. Many of the ... More |
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| Mexico's heritage 'not for sale,' culture minister says | | Masterpieces by Georg Klimt, Josef Hoffmann, Emile Gallé, Demetre Chiparus and more at Jugendstil sale | | Julie Green, artist who memorialized inmates' last suppers, dies at 60 | 
Two hands wearing white gloves hold and present a "Figure with Candle Holder" during a handing over ceremony of a small trove of Mayan cultural artefacts being returned to Mexico and Guatemala in Berlin on November 5, 2021. John MACDOUGALL / AFP.
by Samir Tounsi
MEXICO CITY.- Mexico's culture minister has hit out at foreign auctions of pre-Hispanic artefacts from the Latin American country, saying her nation's heritage "is not for sale." In an interview with AFP, Alejandra Frausto lamented that "cultural heritage has become an object of commerce," despite being part of "the identity of peoples." Two French auctions of pre-Hispanic pieces are the latest to anger President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's government, which says the items were obtained "illegally." "We made an appeal to the auction houses and they told us they were certain that the ownership is legitimate," Frausto said. "According to Mexican law, any piece of national heritage that is permanently outside the country, not temporarily for an exhibition or cultural cooperation, comes from an illegal act," she added. Since Lopez Obrador took office in 2018, ... More | | 
Demetre Chiparus (Dorohoi 1886-1947 Paris), Renée, Paris, c. 1925/30 bronze, golden and silver-bluish patinated; carved ivory; inscribed on the reverse Chiparus 4994; object mounted on a pyramidal onyx base; total height: 53.8 cm. estimate 18,000 - 25,000.
VIENNA.- Masterpieces by Georg Klimt, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Johann Lötz Witwe, Emile Gallé and Demetre Chiparus are up for bids online at the Jugendstil sale until 18 November 2021. There is no Art Nouveau without Klimt. In the case of the upcoming Dorotheum sale, it is Georg Klimt, one of the painters two brothers. Two reliefs with female figures by Georg Klimt will go to the highest bidder by 18 November 2021. These two works, with an estimate between 15,000 and 30,000 euros, reveal the skill of this metal sculptor who was always greatly encouraged by his brother Gustav. Works from the artists estate were recently auctioned at Dorotheum. Also well-known are the doors of the Vienna Secession building, which were executed by Georg Klimt based on designs by Joseph Maria Olbrich. Works by the multi-talented Josef Hoffmann are always among the favourites at Dorotheum sales. A highlight at the upcoming auction is an armchair ... More | | 
Julie Green with her Last Supper art project: china plates on which she paints with cobalt blue glaze the last meals of death row inmates from across the nation, in Corvallis, Ore., Jan. 19, 2013. Leah Nash/The New York Times.
by Penelope Green
NEW YORK, NY.- Six tacos, six glazed doughnuts and a Cherry Coke: That was the last meal of a man executed in Oklahoma in July 1999. Rendered in cobalt blue glaze on a white china plate the next year, it was the first in Julie Greens decadeslong art project, The Last Supper, which documented the final meals of death row prisoners around the country. To Green, who taught art at Oregon State University, their choices put a human face on an inhumane practice. Some requests were elaborate: fried sac-a-lait fish (otherwise known as white perch or crappie, its the state fish of Louisiana) topped with crawfish étouffée. And some were starkly mundane: two peanut butter cups and a Dr Pepper. She planned to paint the meals until capital punishment was abolished, or until she had made 1,000 plates, whichever came first. In September, she painted her 1,000th plate, an ... More |
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| Tomb of the Unknowns welcomes the public for first time in 73 years | | Monumental painting by Robert Colescott leads Bonhams Post-War & Contemporary Art sale | | At Hunter Biden's art show, line, color and questions | 
A member of The Old Guard watch at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. on Oct. 31, 2019. Damon Winter/The New York Times.
by Maria Cramer
NEW YORK, NY.- In 1921, a sergeant walked into a small, dark chapel in Châlons-sur-Marne in eastern France, not far from where French and English troops had pushed back against advancing Germans a few years before. Clutching a bouquet of red and white roses, the sergeant, Edward F. Younger of Chicago, 23, circled four caskets that held the remains of U.S. soldiers who died during World War I. A colonel had ordered him to choose one coffin, which would be placed inside a marble tomb at Arlington National Cemetery and represent all the U.S. soldiers killed during the war. I couldnt bring myself to make a hasty choice, he told The Decatur Daily in Alabama in 1935. Younger stopped at the coffin third from his right, placed the bouquet on it, saluted and left the room. Something seemed to stop me each time I passed that third ... More | | 
Robert Colescott, Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hommage to Victor Hugo). Estimate of $1M - $1.5M. Photo: Bonhams.
NEW YORK, NY.- Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hommage to Victor Hugo), a monumental painting by American artist Robert Colescott leads Bonhams Post-War & Contemporary Sale on November 11 in New York expected to fetch up to $1.5M. Making its stellar auction debut, Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hommage to Victor Hugo) (1991) employs Colescotts signature references of American and European art history and literature in his exaggerated and iconic style. The painting is particularly significant within Colescotts oeuvre as it was selected by the artist for his installation at the Venice Biennale in 1997. This was a watershed moment for Colescott, who became the first Black artist to represent the United States at the international event. Andrew Huber, Bonhams Head of Sale for New York Post-War and Contemporary states: Colescotts best paintings are always equal parts controversial and enlightening using his brush to engage with incendiary top ... More | | 
The collector Georges Berges at his gallery, featuring the work of Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, in New York, Nov. 1, 2021. George Etheredge/The New York Times.
by Graham Bowley
NEW YORK, NY.- Weeks before Hunter Bidens art show The Journey Home opened at a New York gallery, marking the splashy debut of a newcomer with a famous name to the commercial art world, the White House insisted it had safeguards to ensure that no one who buys a painting will be able to use the acquisition to influence his fathers administration. The White House Counsels Office helped develop guidelines for the Manhattan gallery to keep the identity of art buyers from both the artist and the administration. The gallery could reject offers that were out of the ordinary. Ultimately, the White House said, the person who would enforce this arrangement would be Georges Bergès, the gallerist who is hosting Bidens show. In an interview this week at his gallery on West Broadway in SoHo, Bergès, ... More |
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| "Water Paintings" by Julio Valdez on view in his first solo exhibition with David Richard Gallery | | Burchfield watercolor brings $375,000 in Shannon's Fine Art Auction, Oct. 28 | | Exhibition of new work by Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera opens at David Zwirner | 
Julio Valdez, Pido Silencio II (I Ask for Silence II), 2008. Oil on linen, 42 x 41 © Julio Valdez. Courtesy David Richard Gallery.
NEW YORK, NY.- David Richard Gallery is presenting Julio Valdez, Water Paintings, in his first solo exhibition with the Gallery. The presentation includes a selection of 15 paintings created from 2012 through 2019 and one earlier painting from 2008 when the artist initially embarked on this ambitious and extensive body of work. The sizes of the paintings in this presentation range from 12 x 10.5 inches up to 54 x 76 inches. Some of the largest paintings were prepared for and included in the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale where Valdez represented the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is situated between the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Thus, water was an essential part of Valdezs upbringing. The ocean was a source of beauty as well as entertainment, livelihood, and commerce. However, as an adult, accomplished artist, and father, Valdez realized that the water and ... More | | 
Watercolor on joined two sheets of paper by Charles Burchfield (American, 1893-1967), titled January Sun (1948/57), numbered 62 lower left, 39 inches by 33 ½ inches (sight) ($375,000).
MILFORD, CONN.- Lively bidding over the phone and online drove the results at Shannons online-only Fall Fine Art Auction held October 28th. Nearly 80 percent of the 177 lots offered were sold, realizing $3.6 million in total sales. All prices reported include the buyers premium. The top lot in the auction was the cover lot, a large watercolor on two sheets of paper by Charles Burchfield, titled January Sun. The painting flew past the estimate before the bidding slowed, selling for $375,000 over the phone. A second Burchfield work, Lincoln Avenue at Main Street, Salem, Ohio, sold for $100,000. From the same collection, a Thomas Hart Benton oil study of Sugar Cane sold for $275,000 to a Midwestern institution. Modernist works in the sale were led by a Roberto Matta Untitled painting from 1965. This large-format, surrealist composition measured 80 inches by 150 inches and sold for ... More | | 
Portia Zvavahera, Ndirikukuona (I can see you), 2021. © Portia Zvavahera. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner.
NEW YORK, NY.- David Zwirner is presenting Ndakaoneswa murima, an exhibition of new work by Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera at the gallerys West 19th Street location in New York. The title translates from Shona to English as I was made to see the dark side. This is Zvavaheras first solo presentation in New York and her second exhibition with David Zwirner, and the first since the gallery announced representation of the artist earlier this year. Zvavahera gives form to emotions that manifest from other realms and dimensions beyond the domains of everyday life and thought. Her vivid imagery is rooted in the cornerstones of our earthly existencelife and death, pain and pleasure, isolation and connection, and love and loss. Zvavaheras compositions draw on particular traditions of figuration in past and present Zimbabwe, first expressed in the work of Thomas Mukarobgwa in the 1960s, while also pointing to pos ... More |
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Leonora Carrington: The Sorceress of Surrealism
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 Aspen Art Museum annonces My Dear Mountains by Gaetano Pesce for spring 2022ASPEN, CO.- Nicola Lees, Nancy and Bob Magoon Director of the Aspen Art Museum, today announced that it will unveil My Dear Mountains, a new large-scale, site-specific project by Gaetano Pesce (b. Italy, 1939), in spring 2022. Conceived especially for the Aspen Art Museum, the project will cover the museums entire façade with a monumental inflatable structure with an image of the sun setting over a mountain landscape. This ambitious outdoor project is the artists first façade intervention and will be accompanied by a display of Pesces furniture and sculptures within the museums ground-floor gallery which will further highlight the multifaceted, artistic nature of his practice. My Dear Mountains is curated by Stella Bottai and supported by the Italian Council (9th Edition, 2020), a program of the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity ... More  'Sampling the Future' opens at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV AustraliaMELBOURNE.- From 3D-printed corals and modular underwater reef structures, to robotically printed and knitted architecture, Sampling the Future, a new exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, reveals some of the extraordinary ways that advanced technologies and manufacturing are shaping our near and distant futures. Sampling the Future showcases new work by leading experimental and speculative designers whose practices bridge the worlds of design, technology, science and philosophy in order to reimagine how and why objects, structures and buildings are designed and made. These include speculative architects Roland Snooks and Leanne Zilka, Alice Springs-based designer Elliat Rich, Sydney-based duo Kyoko Hashimoto and Guy Keulemans, and Melbourne duo Georgia Nowak and Eugene Perepletchikov, ... More  Amy Winehouse's last concert dress to go under the hammerLOS ANGELES.- The dress that singer Amy Winehouse wore for her final performance will be auctioned this weekend in California, as part of a trove of memorabilia from the soul diva's life. Winehouse wore the green and black bamboo print at a concert in Belgrade in 2011. A month later, on July 23, she was dead from acute alcohol poisoning. She was 27. Her tragic death was the culmination of a lengthy -- and often very public -- struggle with alcohol and drugs. The dress is the highlight of an 800-item collection of personal effects, ranging from bras and DVDs to books and make-up that are being sold by Winehouse's parents Mitch and Janis. "It took them a long time to actually come to terms and decide to let go," said Martin Nolan of auction house Julien's, which is managing the sale. "Of course, there are fans and museums and collectors ... More  Victoria Gold Proof Pattern Crown leads Heritage's World & Ancient Coins event past $5.2 millionDALLAS, TX.- A Victoria gold Proof Pattern Crown 1887 PR62 NGC more than tripled its pre-auction estimate when it sold for $156,000 to lead Heritage Auctions World & Ancient Coins Signature® Auction to $5,283,314 in total sales October 28-29. The event drew 2,685 bidders from around the world, and produced sell-through rates of 99.3% by lots sold and 98.6% by value. The average per lot was an impressive $6,244. We are very proud of the results in this sale, said Cristiano Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of International Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. The results show that the World and Ancient Coins market remains robust, and we are very pleased to have been able to offer such an extensive array of elite coins that drew the attention of the most serious collectors. The result for the Victoria Proof Pattern Crown 1887 ... More  Alice Childress finally gets to make 'Trouble' on BroadwayNEW YORK, NY.- Wiletta Mayer walks into the theater already knowing how things will go. Smartly dressed, attractive and middle-aged (dont ask for a number, because a woman thatll tell her age will tell anything), she is a veteran actress who has played maids and mammies and knows how to cater to white directors and producers. You can call it Uncle Tomming. Or you can call it plain common sense. Either way, its a living. Until enough is enough. Alice Childress created Wiletta Mayer, the protagonist of her 1955 play, Trouble in Mind, to paint a realistic portrait of what it was to be Black in the theater industry. Or to be more accurate: She wanted to portray what it is to be Black in theater, because 66 years later, as the play opens on Broadway this month in a Roundabout Theater Company production, the words Childress wrote remain ... More  Camille Saviola, 'Deep Space Nine' and stage actor, dies at 71NEW YORK, NY.- Camille Saviola, an actress and singer who made an impression in the musical Nine on Broadway, in assorted cabaret spoofs and on television in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and other series, died Oct. 28 in a hospital in North Bergen, New Jersey. She was 71. Alyssa Romeo, a great-niece, said the cause was heart failure. Saviola frequently drew comparisons to Ethel Merman for her big voice, which she liked to use to comic effect. One character she played in more than one cabaret show received the Ten Commandments of Soul from James Brown, earning her something of a nickname: the Italian Godmother of Soul. Onstage, she was best known for originating the role of Mama Maddelena, a spa manager, in the original production of Nine, the Arthur Kopit-Maury Yeston musical about a film director having a midlife crisis, ... More  ABBA return with new album after 40-year hiatusSTOCKHOLM.- Swedish pop sensation ABBA made a comeback on Friday with their new album "Voyage", nearly 40 years after they split up, delighting fans but leaving critics divided. Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid -- forming the acronym ABBA -- have not released any new music since their split in 1982, a year after their last album "The Visitors". "Voyage" went live at midnight Thursday in various time zones, to the delight of longtime fans worldwide. "We are just in disbelief... that it's something that we could experience again in our lifetimes," longtime ABBA fan Jeffrey de Hart, 62, said at a listening party in Stockholm for the Swedish band's much-anticipated release. At the ABBA museum in Stockholm, eager fans had also arrived, hoping to experience a rekindling of the magic of the group. "I grew up with ABBA so for me the music and ... More  Drums, cake and milk as Indian cinemas dance back to lifeMUMBAI.- Indian film fans banged drums, danced and ate cake outside Mumbai cinemas on Friday to celebrate Bollywood's first big-budget release since the pandemic began. Cinemas shuttered in March 2020 under a strict lockdown when Covid-19 first hit the country, and then enjoyed a brief reprieve before closing after a massive virus surge in April. India's media and entertainment earnings slumped by a quarter to $18.7 billion last year, according to accounting firm EY. Dozens of small cinemas went bust and multiplex chains suffered major losses. The industry is hoping for a rebound with theatres back in business across the country, most recently in Mumbai, capital of Bollywood, the world's most prolific film industry. First out of the blocks on Friday, just in time for the Diwali festival weekend -- traditionally a time for blockbuster releases -- was ... More  Paintings by Kikuo Saito and Constantin Kluge fly past estimates at Neue Auctions' saleBEACHWOOD, OH.- An oil painting by the Japanese-American artist Kikuo Saito (1939-2016), a colorful Parisian street scene by Constantin Kluge (French, 1912-2003), and a large stoneware vessel by Claude Conover (American, 1907-1994) all finished well above their high estimates in Neue Auctions online-only Fine Art & Antiques auction on Saturday, October 30th. The Saito painting, titled Summer Ghost (1997) was the sales top lot, finishing at $14,760 against an estimate of $7,000-$10,000. The work, 50 inches by 57 ¾ inches (sight, less frame), was signed, titled and dated. Saito was an abstract painter with ties to the Color Field movement and Lyrical abstraction. His paintings infused saturated colorscapes with delicately drawn lines. There were two Kluge oils on offer. The Parisian cityscape, titled Place de la Madeleine, signed and 40 inches ... More  William Conway, who re-imagined America's zoos, is dead at 91NEW YORK, NY.- William G. Conway, an animal conservationist who redefined (but failed to rename) the Bronx Zoo in New York, and who helped recast Americas urban wildlife parks into crowd-pleasing natural habitats designed to generate support for endangered species worldwide, died Oct. 21 in New Rochelle, New York. He was 91. His death, in a hospital, was announced by the Wildlife Conservation Society, where he had spent virtually his entire career. He joined the society in 1956 as an assistant bird curator and retired in 1999 as president and general director. Conway single-mindedly transformed the societys signature attraction in the Bronx from a famous but fusty cloister for neurotic caged specimens into a collection of lush natural environments where the animals presumably felt more at home, and where visitors benefited ... More  Ronnie Wilson, founder of the Gap Band, dies at 73NEW YORK, NY.- Ronnie Wilson, founder of the Gap Band, which rode a funky party sound to success on the R&B charts in the late 1970s and throughout the 80s, died Tuesday. He was 73. The death was announced on Facebook by Wilsons wife, Linda Boulware-Wilson. She did not say where he died or what the cause was. The Gap Band topped the R&B charts four times and placed 15 songs in the R&B Top 10 from 1979 to 1990; two of its singles, Early in the Morning and You Dropped a Bomb on Me, reached the pop Top 40 in 1982. Ronnie Wilson primarily played keyboards but also contributed horn and percussion parts in a rotating vocal and instrumental arrangement with his two younger brothers, Robert, who mainly played bass, and Charlie, the lead singer. Hits such as Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me) (1980) defined ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
RIBA 
The Kingâs Animals 
DOMENICO GNOLI 
Karlo Kacharava
Flashback On a day like today, Italian artist and designer Harry Bertoia died November 06, 1978. Harry Bertoia (b. March 10, 1915 in San Lorenzo, Pordenone, Italy. d. November 6, 1978 in Barto, Pennsylvania, United States), was an Italian-born artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer. In this image: Bertoia's "Textured Screen" caused much controversy when it was unveiled for the Dallas Public Library in 1954.
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