| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Sunday, August 29, 2021 |
| | | Amsterdam's mayor announces talks with Jewish heirs on Kandinsky claim | |
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Wassily Kandinsky, Bild mit Häusern, 1909. Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam c/o Pictoright, Amsterdam 2004.
by Colin Moynihan
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The mayor of Amsterdam announced Thursday that she had begun discussions to turn over a painting by Russian abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky to the heirs of a Jewish couple who had owned the work before the Nazi takeover of the Netherlands. The work, Painting With Houses, was acquired during an auction in 1940 by David Röell, director of the Stedelijk Museum, which is responsible for the city of Amsterdams present-day art collection of about 95,000 works. Though it is unclear who decided to sell the painting, the auction took place just months after the Nazi invasion, and the Stedelijk has acknowledged it is possible that this had been an involuntary sale. Heirs asked for the return of the work several years ago, arguing that the sale was motivated by Nazi persecution. But in 2018, the Dutch Restitutions Commission, a national panel that handles claims of Nazi looting, said the painting could remain with the museum. A court later upheld that decision. Mor ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A film fan walks past a banner during the 55th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in Karlovy Vary on August 23, 2021. Michal Cizek / AFP
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| Judy Chicago celebrated in Nevada Museum of Art exhibition | | Egypt dig uncovers 2,300-year-old settlement in Alexandria | | 'Cancel culture' show in Warsaw stirs controversy |
Judy Chicago, Immolation from Women and Smoke, 1972. Fireworks performance Performed in the California Desert © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo courtesy of Through the Flower Archives. Courtesy of the artist; Salon 94, New York; and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco.
RENO, NV.- Beginning in 1968, artist Judy Chicago embarked on a series of ephemeral Atmospheres performances in the deserts of the American West, using colored smoke and fireworks to soften that macho Land Art scene. Long overlooked by art historians and scholars, Chicagos Atmospheres series can now be viewed as one of the most noteworthy responses to the monumental landscape interventions of artists such as Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson, effected at virtually the same moment. With Chicago continuing this vein into the present, working with a pyrotechnic team including sixth-generation Pyro Spectaculars member Chris Souza and her photographer husband Donald Woodman, the series now stands as a long-running tradition within her body of work. In 2018, the Nevada Museum of Arts Center for Art + Environment acquired Judy ... More | |
The Egyptian archaeological mission from the Alexandria Archeology area successfully detected the remains of a residential and commercial suburb of the Greek and Roman era during the fossil work in the Shattabi area. Photo: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
CAIRO (AFP).- Egypt on Friday announced the discovery of a settlement in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria dating back to at least the second century BC. An Egyptian archaeological team made the find in the city's central Al-Shatby district during nine months of excavations, a statement from the tourism and antiquities ministry said. The settlement had a "residential and commercial" function, the statement said. The head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, said initial studies showed "a main road and adjacent streets linked by a sewage network". The area was in use from the late Ptolemaic period until the middle of the period of Roman rule, covering a timeframe from "the second century BC until the fourth century AD," Waziri was quoted as saying. Archaeologists discovered a large number of wells cut into the rock and a network of water cisterns, the statement said. ... More | |
Swedish artist Dan Park attends a press conference before opening of "Political Art" exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw on August 27, 2021. JANEK SKARZYNSKI / AFP.
WARSAW (AFP).- Jewish groups have issued an open letter voicing criticism of an exhibition opening in Warsaw on Friday that includes works by the Swedish artist Dan Park, who has been convicted for hate speech. One of Park's works on display at the "Political Art" show depicts the Norwegian right-wing extremist killer Anders Behring Breivik as a fashion model for the Lacoste clothing brand. "We do not agree to support for people who spread hatred, intolerance and hostility," read the letter signed by, among others, Poland's chief rabbi Michael Schudrich and Zygmunt Stepinski, director of the POLIN museum of the history of Polish Jews. The letter said it was "astonishing and sad" that Park should be featured in an exhibition. "In Poland -- a country where as a result of Nazi policy six million citizens were killed -- the activities of such creators as Dan Park insults the feelings of all Poles," it said. Park has been convicted several times for his provocative words and actions, ... More |
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| Chinese Garden's new art gallery makes its debut with an inaugural exhibition featuring contemporary calligraphy | | Nils Stærk opens the exhibition 'Like a Force of Nature' by SUPERFLEX | | Exhibition investigates how European Gothic architecture influenced skyscrapers in the US |
Calligrapher Tang Qingnian 唐慶年 at work on a large scroll during a public demonstration in 2018. Tang was the Cheng Family Foundation Artist-in-Residence at The Huntington in 2019. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Photo by Jaime Pham.
SAN MARINO, CA.- Postponed for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the highly anticipated opening of the Chinese Gardens new art gallery is now taking place this summer at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, with an exhibition of Chinese calligraphy as its inaugural installation. A Garden of Words: The Calligraphy of Liu Fang Yuan 書苑流芳園典藏書法作品 opened Aug. 28, 2021, in the Studio for Lodging the Mind 寓意齋. The exhibition will be presented in two rotations of 20 works each; the first installation continues through Dec. 13, 2021, and the second runs from Jan. 29 through May 16, 2022. Words are everywhere in the Chinese Gardenknown as Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance. Names for the ... More | |
Installation view.
COPENHAGEN.- The exhibition Like a Force of Nature features two artworks that explore the almost ecstatic disorientation produced by the intricacy of the natural world and the dizzying economic systems that are rapidly altering that world in immeasurable ways. Today, when many rituals of surrender have been lost, surrendering to nature or economy can feel like a mystical experience, an encounter with the ungraspable. Like a Force of Nature is a sculpture based on the Fibonacci sequence, which is a mathematical formula that appears in many kinds of natural growth, from sunflower seeds to tree branches to fish skin colorations. In around 300 BCE, Indian mathematicians first discovered this recurring sequence of numbers in Sanskrit poetry. It was later introduced to Western Europe by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Nearly psychedelic in its spiraling complexity, the formula functions as one of natures blueprints for expansion. The sculptures in Like a Force of Nature are lined with ceramic ... More | |
Childe Hassam (American, 18591935), Skyscraper Window, 1934. Oil on canvas, 59 1/4 x 47 1/4 in (150.5 x 120 cm). The Peabody College Collection, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, 1979.0228P.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.- The Fralin Museum of Art premieres the first exhibition to investigate how European Gothic architecture was used to create a new language of skyscrapers in the United States in the first three decades of the 20th century. Architects and the general public embraced medieval Gothic as an effective expression of the skyscrapers height and the dynamism of the modern age. However, prominent buildings such as the Woolworth Building in New York and the Chicago Tribune Building were often dismissed by some critics for their Gothic elements. Skyscraper Gothic charts the evolution and influence of this critical, but overlooked, phase in the stylistic development of the tall office building in the United States. Through prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, sculptures, furniture, textiles, toys, models, illustrations and decorative ... More |
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| Columbus Museum of Art reopens Pizzuti Collection of CMA | | Asian Art Museum presents first major exhibition of Korean portraiture in U.S. | | Egyptians discover fossil of new amphibious whale |
Nina Katchadourian, installation of Family of Dorado, 2020. Room 1 of 2 at Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco. Photo: John Janca.
COLUMBUS, OH.- The Columbus Museum of Art announced the reopening of the Pizzuti Collection of CMA in the citys Short North district. The Pizzuti Collection of CMA was temporarily shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. It reopened to the public on Saturday, Aug. 28 with new operating hours of 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday. The reopening features two new exhibitions, along with the installation of a favorite work from the CMA Collection, Nocturne Navigator by Alison Saar. On the third floor, the Museum features Bruce Robinson: Flutterby, a solo presentation of painting and sculpture by the long-standing Columbus-based artist and educator. The exhibition presents a range of the artists shaped plywood paintings and assemblages that address movement and the body, drawing especially on African American history, accomplishments, and experience. The main level of the Pizzuti Collection of CMA features a solo exhi ... More | |
High School Uni-Face: Girl, 1997, by Do Ho Suh (Korean, b. 1962). Chromogenic print. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchasefunds provided by the Friends of the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Photograph © Do Ho Suh.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Drawing a line from centuries of Confucian tradition to todays selfie-culture, Likeness and Legacy in Korean Portraiture presents exquisite traditional draft and finished paintings alongside innovative sculptures, mixed media, and paintings from recent decades. Likeness and Legacy is exclusively at the Asian Art Museum from Aug. 27 to Nov. 29, 2021. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a series of portraits of Bunmu (renowned military) meritorious officials from the Joseon dynasty (13921910) initially commissioned in 1728 by King Yeongjo (reigned 17241776) as a reward for quelling an armed rebellion that threatened his young regime. These portraits are incredibly valuable studies that showcase the care, craft, and precision of official Korean ... More | |
Egypt's environment ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the species of whale "was the most ferocious and ancient in Africa".
CAIRO (AFP).- Egyptian scientists have discovered the fossil of a new species of amphibious whale that dates back 43 million years, a member of the research team said. "This is a species that was not known" previously, said Hesham Sallam, an Egyptian palaeontologist from the team. "This is the first time that an Arab research team, specifically an Egyptian one, is in charge of documenting such a discovery," he said on television late Thursday. The fossil was found in the Fayum region, a part of Egypt that was once covered by sea and is home to Whale Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The newly discovered species, which was more than three metres (10 feet) long and weighed about 600 kilograms (about 1,320 pounds), has been named Phiomicetus anubis. Egypt's environment ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the species of whale "was the most ferocious and ancient in Africa". "The whale had both the ability to walk on land and ... More |
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| Exhibition explores the myriad ways to document important and complex aspects of contemporary life | | End of the line looms for hawkers, rough sleepers at Bangkok station | | From the shadows: the secret, threatened lives of bats |
Annesta Le, Feely, 2021. Marker on paper, 12 x 9 in. 30.5 x 22.9 cm. © Annesta Le.
BROOKLYN, NY.- Yi Gallery is presenting a group exhibition, Embraces, featuring works by Annesta Le, In Kyoung Chun, Kate Casanova, Ashley Lyon, April Key, MaryKate Maher and Juanita Lanzo. Inspired by the human body and the built environment humans construct and inhabit, the artists in Embraces explore the myriad ways to document important and complex aspects of contemporary life. Through depictions and abstractions of the physical and psychological conditions defining the human body - how it occupies and interacts with spaces - each artist transforms the physical experience into her unique aesthetic and conceptual language. Curvilinear and architectonic forms evoke pain and pleasure, as well as exposing vulnerability and a calling for a deeper connection to the self. Inspired by how light can affect an atmosphere and create a mood, Annesta Le utilizes neon non-pictorially. At a glass studio in Brooklyn, Le handmakes all her neon related ... More | |
This photo taken on August 27, 2021 shows commuters waiting for a train on the platform at Bangkok Railway Station, more commonly known as Hua Lamphong, in Bangkok. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP.
by Lisa Martin and Pathom Sangwongwanich
BANGKOK (AFP).- An uncertain fate awaits the hawkers, drivers and rough sleepers who have made a second home under the ornate arched ceiling of Bangkok's century-old central railway station. The elegant Italianate columns and stained glass windows of the station at Hua Lamphong will soon echo no more to the constant rattle of trains arriving and departing. The vast majority of services will move to a new rail hub on the capital's northern outskirts later this year, with plans for eventual fast services to China through neighbouring Laos. The coronavirus pandemic has already bought a year's reprieve for the current station, near the city's Chinatown district -- its replacement is almost finished but currently being used as a vaccination centre. But movement ... More | |
This file photo taken on June 30, 2020 shows a juvenile Pipistrelle bat laying in a human hand at the Natural Museum History of Bourges. GUILLAUME SOUVANT / AFP.
by Amélie Bottollier-Depois
NOYAL-MUZILLAC (AFP).- It could be a scene from a bad horror movie: Torchlights slice through the darkness inside a church in western France as the building echoes with the shrieks of hundreds of bats. But these creatures of the night are scaring no one. They are having their annual check-up, as scientists try to unravel the secrets of an animal whose fiendish reputation has eclipsed its many gifts to the world. Dozens of Greater Mouse-eared bats are passed from hand to hand -- gloved to avoid a bite -- by volunteers and scientists in Saint Martin's church at Noyal-Muzillac, in Brittany. Each bat is painstakingly examined, its sex, height and weight noted, its blood taken, teeth checked for wear, translucent wings stretched out and inspected. A male pup, born just a few weeks ago in the church ... More |
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Bronzino's Poetics of Painting | Insider Insights
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Exhibition offers a critical look at the history of the Korean War
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Perpetual war and peace. These two concepts may sound antithetical, yet, in Korea, they are not mutually exclusive. Since 1953, the year when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, all hostilities in Korea by all armed forces ceased immediately and the Korean peninsula attained the peace it longed for. However, the agreement did not actually end the war. It was merely an indefinite, temporary pause. Coexisting with the peace is now fearlooming over the region like a suspenseful tune from a movie. Helen J Gallery is presenting Humming to the Sound of Fear, a group exhibition that traces the roots of this fear and tension. Featuring four artists working within Los Angeles and South Korea, the exhibition offers a critical look at the history of the Korean War and the subsequent sociology of fear and tension in present-day ... More
An artist night train travels from Norway to Whitechapel Gallery
LONDON.- The dreams, nightmares and twilight landscapes of 35 international artists are brought together in This is the Night Mail, an artist-curated display by Ida Ekblad (b. 1980, Norway). Drawing from the personal collections of Christen Sveaas and that of the Christen Sveaas Art Foundation, the exhibition creates a densely-packed mise-en-scène featuring painting, photography, sculpture and drawings. This is the Night Mail is the first line of W.H. Audens 1936 poem describing a train journey across a sleeping Britain as it carries the nations mail. It accompanied a documentary film commissioned by the General Post Office with a propulsive soundtrack by a young Benjamin Britten. The slumbering mystery of Audens verse inspired Ekblads selection of works in the Collection, which the artist arranges across three imagined train compartments. ... More
Installation presents works created by 26 artists and cooperatives based in Ukraine
NEW YORK, NY.- Art at the Institute is presenting A Radically Different Society, an installation of contemporary video works created by 26 artists and cooperatives based in Ukraine during the years spanning Euromaidan and the war in Donbas 2014 to present capturing Ukrainian society through a dramatic period in its history. Presented by guest curator Lesia Kulchynska, PhD, this exhibition ventures to engage a western audience to encounter slivers of political and social daily life comingled with the blinks of dream-state desires and fears the auteurs bring to normal existence. Kulchynska, the curator, raises the question whether the exhibited artists dreamscapes are also a space(s) of potentiality, where unseen life forms grow, nurture and spread their seeds for a new societal body and existence. Kulchynska states, The dream for a society that might ... More
Exhibition reveals the variety of fascinating roles women played on land and at sea
CHATHAM.- Whether they were real-life action conquerors of the high seas, in the mould of Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Nelson, or fictional characters such Moonfleets John Trenchard and Captain Horatio Hornblower, we tend to think of our naval heroes as men. Now, a new exhibition at the Historic Dockyard Chatham challenges such preconceptions and reveal the variety of fascinating roles women played on land and at sea. Hidden Heroines: The Untold Stories of Women at the Dockyard uses a mixture of photographs, fascinating archive materials, extraordinary objects and soundscapes, to reveal the fascinating, behind-thescenes stories from the Spinning Room and Sail and Colour Loft, to tales of stowaways, transvestism, and the extraordinary women whose impact leave a lasting legacy for us today. The exhibition also explores what women ... More
Exhibition raises awareness of climate crisis and endangered ecosystems
CHICAGO, IL.- Hilton | Asmus Contemporary is presenting a specially curated exhibition of images from the archives of acclaimed National Geographic photographers, filmmakers and marine biologists Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier. ORIGINS, features works from Nicklen and Mittermeier, co-founders of leading ocean conservancy organization Sea Legacy and partners with nearly 9 million combined followers on Instagram. ORIGINS runs through Saturday, October 2. From ice diving with leopard seals, studying the horizon with lions in Africa, and battling the sub-zero temperatures of the arctic, Canadian born Paul Nicklen has spent the last 20 years documenting both the beauty and the plight of our planet. As one of the worlds most prominent nature photographers, TED Talks favorite (with almost 2.5 million views), Nicklen has used his art to spotlight ... More
Exhibition of new works by the artist Wes Lang opens at Almine Rech Aspen
ASPEN, CO.- Almine Rech Aspen is presenting Endless Horizons, an exhibition of new works by the artist Wes Lang. This is Lang's second solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from August 27 to September 12, 2021. The eight canvases in Endless Horizons were all carried out in the late spring and early summer of this year, as the blunt force of the pandemic had begun to wane, leaving us to decide what lessons we will carry with us out of the scorching trauma and into the rest of our lives. I only had about two meltdowns while painting these, Wes told me over the phone, laughing. I was searching for what to talk about and one late night in the studio, I painted over everything for the last time and these things started really clicking. The succinct, mantra-like phrases in these works imbue the space with an air of optimistic wonder towards ... More
The Halsey Institute's new exhibition explores the fluid visual identity of the African diaspora
CHARLESTON, SC.- The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston presents an exhibition of work by Swiss-Guinean photographer and art director Namsa Leuba entitled Crossed Looks. The exhibition is on view from August 27 to December 11, 2021 at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Arts galleries. Crossed Looks is the first solo exhibition of Swiss-Guinean artist Namsa Leuba in the United States. The show features over 90 works from the photographers projects in Guinea, South Africa, Nigeria, and Benin, and it premieres new work created in Tahiti. As a photographer working across documentary, fashion, and performance, Namsa Leubas images explore the fluid visual identity of the African diaspora. With a dual heritage between Guinea and Switzerland, Leuba draws inspiration from her own experience ... More
Venice film fest returns with another blockbuster lineup
PARIS (AFP).- The Venice Film Festival returns Wednesday with an ultra-glitzy lineup, including the world premiere of sci-fi blockbuster "Dune" and Kristen Stewart's turn as Princess Diana, cementing its status as a serious rival to Cannes. After a low-key event last year due to the pandemic, La Mostra is raising the stakes once again in the battle for film fest supremacy with the sort of lineup that has drool running down the chins of red carpet gawkers and pretentious film critics alike. The world's oldest film festival has embraced Hollywood in recent years and its 78th edition, running September 1-11, is no exception. "Dune" brings hot young things Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya to the Venice festival, while Ridley Scott's "The Last Duel" marks the bromantic return of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, writing and starring together for the first time since ... More
Xie Qi's first solo exhibition at Galerie Urs Meile presents powerful works on canvas
BEIJING.- Galerie Urs Meile is presenting Xie Qis latest solo exhibition, The Summer Heat Has Been Gone For Years. Artist Xie Qis first solo exhibition at Galerie Urs Meile presents powerful works on canvas dating back to 2019. The body and portraits have long been important motifs in Xie Qis painting, appearing throughout her various creative periods. Drawing on a sweeping imagination and rich perceptions, artist Xie Qi bestows on these shifting figures the warmth of emotion, the tension of desire, and tones of gloom. She sources her subjects of depiction from friends, everyday objects (portrait-bearing banknotes, plants resembling human organs), candid photographs and classic themes, capturing and depicting them in an approach akin to psychological profilingthe artist refines the components of the image through observation ... More
The guerrilla street artist stumping for Larry Elder
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Every now and again over the past couple of decades, the right-wing street artist Sabo has popped up, aggravating Los Angeles liberals. Westside residents may recall the billboard for the movie Parasite that he altered to depict 2020 Democratic presidential contenders under the movie title. Or Meryl Streep denying his accusation that she knew about Hollywood sexual harassment, plastered on posters around town during the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Over the years, Sabos Facebook page has been taken down, his Twitter account has been blocked and his Instagram feed has been disabled. Even Sen. Ted Cruz, the hard-line Texas conservative whom Sabo supported during the 2016 presidential primaries, distanced himself after The Texas Tribune put a spotlight on the artists inflammatory social ... More
Magic Johnson's jersey worn during Lakers' legendary 1980 NBA finals win scores $1.5 million
DALLAS, TX.- Yes, you can believe in Magic. A signed jersey worn by Earvin "Magic" Johnson during one of the greatest games in his storied career as a Los Angeles Laker sold early Sunday morning for $1.5 million at Heritage Auctions. The jersey was worn that magical May 1980 night in Philadelphia, when Johnson racked up 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists to lead the Lakers to the team's first title since 1972. Fittingly it's now one of most valuable NBA jerseys of all time. Not surprisingly, Johnson's jersey also led the field in Heritage's all-star-studded two-night Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, which closed early Monday morning and saw 2,600 bidders drive the event's final tally to more than $25 million. And four of the event's top five items were historic artifacts signed and used by fabled names, proving collectors still seek sports' ... More
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PhotoGalleries
Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art
Arcadian Feedback
Goya
French Impressionism from MFA
Flashback On a day like today, French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born August 29, 1780. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (29 August 1780 - 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest legacy. In this image: The Envoys of Agamemnon, 1801, oil on canvas, Ãcole des Beaux Arts, Paris.
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