| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Saturday, November 18, 2023 |
| | Largely ignored by the western world, Africa's medieval treasures shine at the Met | |
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Saint George With Scenes of His Passion and Miracles, center, on display as part of the Africa & Byzantium exhibition, in Nov. 13, 2023. North Africas influences radiated throughout Byzantium, helping to create a Golden Age. These objects are high on the beauty and rarity scale. (Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)
by Holland Cotter
NEW YORK, NY.- We like to keep history as weve learned it in a headlock, to make sure it doesnt shift or change. Standard maps are useful aids in imposing paralysis. They turn the world into a fixed field of safe-spots and blanks, an us-them weave of gates and fences. One of the many many benefits of much-maligned wokeness has been its message to relax the hold, toss the charts or, better, revise them: explore blanks, rethink fences. Its thanks to this more free-breathing approach to history, including art history, that were getting a challenger of an exhibition like Africa & Byzantium, which opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday. On the beauty-and-rarity scale its way up there: a treasure-chest of fragile and resplendent things painted books, topline textiles, gilt-flecked mosaics many on a first-time visit to New York from Africa, Asia and Europe. At the same time, as its title suggests, the show confuses ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Ron Nagle, Conniption, Modern Art Helmet Row, exhibition view, 17 November 2023 - 6 January 2024. Photo: Tom Carter. Courtesy: the artist and Modern Art, London.
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| Rijksmuseum exhibition at Schiphol Airport on 17th century dining culture | | Imagining worlds that don't exist | | Ballantine House overhaul to 'Wake It Up and Shake It Up' | 
Still Life with Fruit, Pieter Gallis, 1673. D. Franken Bequest, Le Vésinet.
AMSTERDAM.- In Setting the Table, eight paintings from the Rijksmuseum collection trace Dutch dining culture in the 17th century. These still lifes and everyday scenes by artists such as Gabriël Metsu, Abraham Mignon and Cornelis Dusart reveal what people were eating, from whom they bought their food, and from where that food came. Setting the Table at Rijksmuseum Schiphol opened on 17 November and will run for a year. This exhibition is made possible by Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and ING. The rapid growth in trade in the 17th century prompted major shifts in Dutch dining culture: wealthy citizens started using Chinese porcelain objects as centrepieces on lavishly set tables, and supplementing local produce with foodstuffs from around the world. We can clearly trace these developments in still lifes. The 1651 painting Still Life with Roemer, Flute Glass, Earthenware Jug and Pipes by Jan Jansz van de Velde III, for example, ... More | | 
Es Devlin, the scenic designer, with the hand map she drew for the Serpentine Galleries Back to Earth exhibition, at her studio in London, Nov. 8, 2023. (Kalpesh Lathigra/The New York Times)
by Roslyn Sulcas
LONDON.- Es Devlin is a British designer of memories and psychologies, ideas and dreams. She has created environments for operas, dance works and plays (her scenic design for The Lehman Trilogy won the Tony); designed concert tours for Beyoncé, U2, Kanye West, Adele and Miley Cyrus; worked on the opening ceremony of the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games and the closing ceremony of the London Olympic Games; imagined fashion shows for Louis Vuitton; and invented huge installations, centered around endangered species and endangered languages. Her cross-disciplinary work is category-defying, and so is her new monograph, An Atlas of Es Devlin (Thames & Hudson) an exquisitely produced and immersive artwork in itself, containing photographs, texts, foldouts, ... More | | 
Linda Harrison, director and C.E.O. of the Newark Museum of Art, in Newark, N.J., on Oct. 26, 2023. (Bryan Anselm/The New York Times)
by Eve M. Kahn
NEWARK, NJ.- Sumptuous gilded ornamentation still teems throughout the brick home of the Ballantine family of beer makers in Newark, built in 1885. But objects and artworks newly incorporated into the period rooms show how underappreciated strivers maneuvered in Newark society during the Ballantines heyday. The Ballantine House, long used as an annex to the adjacent Newark Museum of Art on Washington Street, is reopening to the public Nov. 17, after a two-year, $12 million restoration and rethink. The goal of the overhaul was to wake it up and shake it up, said Linda C. Harrison, the museums director since 2019. The building, she added, was not forgotten but just not able to get the attention that it deserved. Amy Simon Hopwood, the museums associate curator of decorative arts, who helped spearhead the ... More |
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| Hunter College pulls screening of film critical of Israel | | Andrew Jones to hold final 'Design for the Home and Garden Auction' on November 29th | | Jack Fischer Gallery exhibiting 'Byron Ryono: Old Friends, New Acquaintances' | 
Hunter College in Manhattan, which is part of the City University of New York, on Oct. 26, 2008. (Robert Stolarik/ The New York Times)
by Jennifer Schuessler
NEW YORK, NY.- Hunter College this week abruptly pulled a screening of a documentary film critical of Israel, creating a backlash from faculty members and students who have charged the New York schools administration with undermining academic freedom. The documentary, Israelism, investigates what it calls the uncritical love of the Jewish state inculcated in American Jews, through the stories of two young Jews who travel to Israel and the West Bank. There they encounter a different reality from the one they said they learned at their religious day schools and summer camps. Since its release in February, Israelism has won several prizes, including sharing an audience award at the prominent San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It has had dozens of screenings at ... More | | 
Hunt & Roskell clock: Fine Victorian engraved sterling silver and silver gilt travel strut clock in a fitted case in the manner of Thomas Cole; retailed by Hunt & Roskell, London, 1850 (est. $2,000-$4,000).
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Andrew Jones Auctions will hold their final Design for the Home and Garden auction on Wednesday, November 29th just in time for the holidays. The sale features property from collections in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, including items from interior designer Timothy Corrigan, Inc., Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona. Andrew Jones Auctions welcomes clients to preview the sales in advance and is also open for an in-room audience on auction day. The gallery is located at 2221 South Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The auction will begin promptly at 10 am Pacific time. Online bidding will be via AndrewJonesAuctions.com, Invaluable.com and LiveAuctioneers.com. Absentee bids accepted. Property from the private collection of Nina Schwimmer will include unusual clocks and ... More | | 
Byron Ryono, This Way & That II, 2023. Bronze, 11 x 10 x 6 inches.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Jack Fischer Gallery has just opened Byron Ryonos new exhibition 'old friends, new acquaintances' at Minnesota Street Project in the Lounge on the First Floor. These pieces are unique bronzes, in a way they go against the tenets of multiples. There is something familiar yet not about the work. The shapes and forms as the work wends its way into being at Ryonos hand. We have seen these before or so we think and on closer examination it is only with the barest hint of the familiar that we then begin to slowly extract a place a sensation a figure that we have always known, but here it is in a new manner. A new manner that excites and gives us a sense that the pieces , those forms belong with us as in almost an old fetish/magic touchstone. In Byrons words: This body of work includes evolved forms of past work and a few new explorations. Those familiar with my sculpture will recognize the heritage of s ... More |
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| Abstract painter Richard Wilson featured in exhibition 'Concerning Measure' at Louis Stern Fine Arts | | Olympia Auctions to sell The Bernard Dickens Collection of English Firearms | | The Cleveland Museum of Art presents 200 object seminal survey of Chinese art | 
Moon Garden, 2020. Acrylic on canvas, 35 x 27 1/2 inches; 88.9 x 69.8 centimeters.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present Richard Wilson: Concerning Measure. For abstract painter Richard Wilson (b. 1944), simplicity is essential to his practice. Using no more than twelve colors in a painting, he strives to remove all discernible indications of his hand on the surface, creating a minimally disruptive visual transmission of form and color directly from artist to eye. Wilsons objective is a conduction of energy and sensation that will be useful to the viewer, whether through provocation of action or thought, or simply by generating pleasure. Despite his immaculately balanced compositions, Wilson uses no formal numbering system, measured ratios, or established rules to create his paintings. He works intellectually and intuitively to discover the equilibrium in his works, guided by the foundational aesthetics and mathematical harmonies which underpin the interrelated structures found ac ... More | | 
A rare 17th century South Indian mail and plate shirt, that probably originated from either Hyderabad or Golconda is estimated at £2,500-3,500
LONDON.- Thomas Del Mars forthcoming sale of Antique Arms, Armour & Militaria which will be held on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, at Olympia Auctions, 25 Blythe Road, London W14 will include 56 lots from the Bernard Dickens Collection of fine English firearms with an estimate in the region of £150,000. This is one of several collections in the sale. As Auctioneer and Expert in Charge Thomas Del Mar said: This remarkable collection has been assembled over half a century and includes firearms by some of the leading British makers from the golden age of gun making. Bernards attention to quality and condition is evident throughout, presenting an opportunity to acquire fine pieces which will appeal to the discerning collector as well as those with an interest in the applied arts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Bernard Dickens, who lives in Somerset, started collecting over 50 years ago. He commented: From early ... More | | 
Magpies (喜鵲圖), c. 173550. China, Suzhou, Qing dynasty, (16441911). Woodblock printed in black and six other colors; 30 x 37.3 cm (11 13/16 x 14 11/16 in.). Christer von der Burg Collection.
CLEVELAND, OHIO.- The Cleveland Museum of Art is hosting 'Chinas Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta', a landmark exhibition that explores the historical and cultural riches of a pivotal region known as Jiangnan. The exhibitionthe first in the West to focus on this areafeatures more than 200 objects relating to Jiangnan which has remained one of Chinas wealthiest, most populous, and agriculturally fertile lands. Chinas Southern Paradise, shown exclusively at the Cleveland Museum of Art, opened earlier this fall, and is on view through January 7, 2024, in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall. Through major loans from more than 40 institutions around the world and selections from the Cleveland Museum of Arts world-renowned collection of Chinese art, Chinas Southern Paradise explores the coastal region ... More |
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| P⋅P⋅O⋅W opened Carolee Schneemann's 'Of Course You Can / Don't You Dare' yesterday | | Tropical plants and Brazilian landscapes subject of exhibition by Santídio Pereira in Paris | | Swedish artist 'Monica Sjöö: The Great Cosmic Mother' on view at Modern Art Oxford | 
Carolee Schneemann, Self Portrait, 1957. Oil stick on paper, 14 1/2 x 12 1/2 ins., 36.8 x 31.8 cm.
NEW YORK, NY.- Yesterday, P·P·O·W started the presedntation of 'Of Course You Can / Dont You Dare', an exhibition of historic mid-twentieth century works by Carolee Schneemann. This presentation marks the artists seventh solo exhibition with the gallery, and the first major display of her work in New York since her death in 2019. The paintings, drawings, assemblages, and film on view highlight Schneemanns visual investigation into gesture, movement, and materiality from 1957 through the mid-1960s, while simultaneously pointing to the artists contemporaries, whose work and advice Schneemann strategically saw as both inspiration and anti-influence, a coinage Schneemann applied to her utilization of the often-contradicting guidance offered at the start of her artistic career. Opening the exhibition is a series of rarely seen drawings depicting Schneemanns then partner, experimental composer ... More | | .jpg)
SantÃdio Pereira, Untitled, 2023. Woodcut print on 100% cotton paper, 196 x 174 cm | 77.16 x 68.50 in, Framed: 210 x 187 cm | 82.67 x 73.62 inches.
PARIS.- Xippas for the first time in its Parisian space, opened an exhibition by Brazilian artist SantÃdio Pereira. The show will bring together a selection of recent works, including monumental woodcut prints, wooden objects and monotypes. Over the past five years, the artist has focused on the representation of tropical plants and Brazilian landscapes. SantÃdio Pereiras artistic project reclaims and revitalizes the significant tradition of Brazilian woodcut, carried by renown artists such as Oswaldo Goeldi, Manoel Messias and Anna Maria Maiolino. These artists share a common approach where the woodcut technique is used to depict images of contingent reality within a refine and minimal aesthetic. In this sense, the formal synthesis enabled by the woodcut technique connects SantÃdio Pereiras work to the scientific tradition of botanical illustrations (which began to develop in the 6th century) where plant species are typically pla ... More | | 
Monica Sjöö, Aspects of the Great Mother, 1971. Courtesy: Monica Sjöö Estate and Alison Jacques, London © Monica Sjöö Estate.
OXFORD.- The first major retrospective of Swedish artist, activist, writer and eco-feminist Monica Sjöö (1938-2005) opens at Modern Art Oxford this November. Art, politics and spirituality are inseparable in Sjöös work, in which she advocates for gender justice, eco-feminism, matriarchy and social equity. The Great Cosmic Mother presents over 50 artworks from her 40-year career inspired by her deep commitment to womens rights and environmentalism from the late 1960s to early 2000s, as well as political posters and banners, drawings and archival material. An unwavering advocate of freedom from oppression in all its forms, Sjöö was an influential figure in the Womens Liberation Movement in the UK. This exhibition showcases her large-scale paintings created in response to the womens issues and political groups she campaigned for in the late 1960s to early 1980s. These include consciousness-raising ... More |
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| More News |
 Crystal-clear and shimmering trompe-l'œil water pearls subject of exhibition by Kim Tschang-Yeul at Almine RechPARIS.- Almine Rech Paris is now hosting Disparitions, Kim Tschang-Yeul's third solo exhibition with the gallery. It was twilight when Kim Tschang-Yeul, then aged 42, discovered the droplet while sprinkling water over one of his canvases. This decisive moment marked the beginning of his ongoing research into this motif, whose countless variations the Korean artist obsessively explored until the end of his life. Crystal-clear and shimmering, these trompe-l'il water pearls, which he had mastered to the subtlest detail, seem to evade time in their pristine perfection. The artist shattered the illusion of artifice, however, by exploring the tracks and traces behind his droplets beginning in the early 1970s. This previously ... More  'Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America' comprises over 200 paintings, sculptures drawings, and moreSINGAPORE.- Starting today, National Gallery Singapore unveils its highly anticipated show, Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America, which represents the first large-scale museum exhibition to take a comparative approach between artistic expressions from both regions, united by their struggles against colonialism. Tropical spans the 20th century, tracing how artists from Southeast Asia and Latin America forged connections and nurtured solidarities, defiantly reclaiming their place within the story of art. Over 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, performances, and sensorial installations will be displayed through radical exhibition designs the Gallery developed in close collaboration with an acclaimed ... More  François Ghebaly opening exhibition 'Poseuses' by Sascha BraunigLOS ANGELES, CA.- François Ghebaly is now opening Poseuses, a solo exhibition by Maine-based artist Sascha Braunig, starting in downtown Los Angeles today. Sascha Braunig's paintings aim to warp, deform, deconstruct, and reconfigure hierarchical modes of representation to the point of disorientation. Undulating forms elbow their way to the surface of Braunig's taut compositions, appearing both frozen and kinetic, occupying multiple temporal and spatial dimensions at once. One senses hidden worlds stirring in the dark pits of Braunig's cut-out forms, energy lurking in the creases of a skirt, taunting and tracing the perforated edge of a hole. Jaws (2023), a sculpture depicting a toothy sinister smile, is pinned to the wall, its ear-to-ear grin stretching and sagging like a thorny sugar-coated mouth yearning to devour and digest. ... More  Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs set to conquer Sydney (SYDNEY, AU).- In Australia for the very first time, will showcase 182 exquisite antiquities direct from the pyramids and museums of Egypt, together with their extraordinary stories. Its a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see treasures of these ancient wonders, right here in Sydney. Ancient Egypt, the land of pharaohs, extraordinary art, cultural splendour, and home to the only remaining Ancient Wonder of the World: the pyramids, has captivated the imagination of people across the globe and across generations. The name of its legendary pharaoh - Ramses the Great, has also endured. Now, visitors to Sydney can discover the legacy of Ramses the Great and the treasures of the ancient pyramids for themselves. Director and CEO, Australian Museum, Kim McKay AO said that Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs is the most prestigious cultural ... More  Deep Inside the Blues: Photographs and InterviewsMISSISSIPPI.- Deep Inside the Blues collects thirty-four of Margo Coopers interviews with blues artists and is illustrated with over 160 of her photographs, many published here for the first time. For thirty years, Cooper has been documenting the lives of blues musicians, their families and homes, neighborhoods, festivals, and gigs. Her photographic work combines iconic late-career images of many legendary figures including Bo Diddley, Honeyboy Edwards, B. B. King, Pinetop Perkins, and Hubert Sumlin with youthful shots of Cedric Burnside, Shemekia Copeland, and Sharde Thomas, themselves now in their thirties and forties. During this time, the Burnside and Turner families and other Mississippi artists such as T-Model Ford, James Super Chikan Johnson, and L. C. Ulmer entered the national and international spotlight, ensuring the ... More  Philip Glass' piano etudes: A diary of an influential lifeNEW YORK, NY.- Philip Glass wanted to become a better pianist. He didnt study the instrument in earnest until he was 15. And by the time he was 30 and founding an ensemble to perform his pathbreaking music of repetitive structures he needed to be good enough to keep up with his colleagues. So Glass turned to Charles-Louis Hanons classic The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises. Eventually, he took a crack at writing some études himself. They were totally about my own limitations, in pursuit of technique, he told public radio personality Ira Glass, his cousin, in an interview for a new collection, Studies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass. I was not trying to compose like Scriabin or Rachmaninoff, who were demonstrating the techniques they already had, Glass added, characteristically underselling himself. ... More  Eric Clapton's The Fool Guitar sold for world record $1.27 million at Julien's Auctions Hard Rock Cafe NashvilleNASHVILLE, TENN.- Juliens Auctions kicked off its blockbuster three-day music auction event Played, Worn and Torn: Rock N' Roll Iconic Guitars and Memorabilia in high gear with the highly anticipated sale of one of the worlds most famous and important guitars of all time, Eric Claptons The Fool guitar. This circa 1964 Gibson SG electric guitar, first stage-played by the legendary guitarist while touring the United States with iconic rock band Cream, and famously known as Claptons Fool, sold for $1.27 million, the first time a Clapton guitar has sold for seven figures at auction and setting a world record for the sale of a Clapton guitar. The guitar was acquired by The Jim Irsay Collection in Indianapolis ... More  'Spamalot' review: And now for something completely similarNEW YORK, NY.- Even the coconuts get entrance applause. If youve seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the 1975 movie spoof of all things Arthurian and many things not, you know the coconuts I mean. And if youre enough of a Python fan to have also seen Spamalot, the 2005 Broadway musical lovingly ripped off from the film, youve probably memorized the whole bit. Thats the one in which Arthurs trusted patsy, Patsy, slaps coconut halves together so the deluded king can pretend he has a horse. Call it a filly à deux. But the coconuts, whether or not they came to medieval England strung between two migratory African swallows, have stiff competition for beloved silliness in the blissful Broadway revival of Spamalot that opened Thursday at the St. James Theater. They are by no means the only old favorites greeted with entrance ... More  John Morris, who brought rock legends to the stage, dies at 84NEW YORK, NY.- John Morris, who brought an element of spectacle to the rock explosion of the 1960s as a coordinator and master of ceremonies for the era-defining Woodstock festival, and who also helped run the storied rock venues Fillmore East in New York City and the Rainbow theater in London, died Friday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 84. The cause was complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease following treatment for lung cancer, his longtime partner, Luzann Fernandez, said. A New York native, Morris got his start as a lighting designer first for theater productions in his home city and on Londons West End, and later for rock concerts before he began producing concerts himself. He gained prominence in 1967 when he organized a free concert by Jefferson Airplane in Toronto that drew ... More  Robert Battle, artistic director of Alvin Ailey Company, resignsNEW YORK, NY.- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater announced Thursday that Robert Battle, its artistic director since 2011, is resigning from the position, citing health concerns. Battles sudden departure comes on the cusp of the companys annual holiday season at New York City Center, which begins Nov. 29. Matthew Rushing, Aileys associate artistic director, will lead the company until the board of trustees completes a search for a new director. Battles resignation is effective immediately, though he will remain available to the board of trustees through the end of the year. Robert Battle has served the Ailey organization with talent, verve and distinction over the past dozen years, Daria Wallach, chair of the Ailey board of trustees, wrote in a statement. We offer him our warmest gratitude. Battle, 51, declined a phone interview but ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Gabriele Münter 
TARWUK 
Awol Erizku 
Leo Villareal
Flashback On a day like today, French photographer Louis-Jacques Daguerre was born November 18, 1787. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (18 November 1787 -10 July 1851) was a French artist and physicist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography. Though he is most famous for his contributions to photography, he was also an accomplished painter and a developer of the diorama theatre. In this image: "Boulevard du Temple", taken by Daguerre in 1838 in Paris, includes the earliest known photograph of a person. The image shows a street, but because of the over ten minute exposure time the moving traffic does not appear. At the lower left, however, a man apparently having his boots polished, and the bootblack polishing them, were motionless enough for their images to be captured.
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