| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Sunday, February 12, 2023 |
| | The absolute Vermeer, in a show more precious than pearls | |
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The artist Johannes Vermeers only two streetscapes: View of Delft (1660-61), left, and The Little Street (1658-59), on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Feb. 6, 2023. The Rijksmuseums definitive Vermeer exhibition pares the sphinx of Dutch art to the essence: 28 gemlike paintings, writes the New York Times critic Jason Farago. (Melissa Schriek/The New York Times)
by Jason Farago
AMSTERDAM.- What is a masterpiece? Theres a kind of confidence, generous but wrong, we afford classic works of art. They have passed the test of time; they have beaten the suspicions of fashion, revealed some inner greatness no one can dispute. We look at the Venus de Milo and we quiver, just like they must have 2,000 years back; we listen to Beethovens Ninth and our breath catches, from the same notes played in Vienna in 1824. Only the history of culture screams back: It isnt true! Much of Beethovens audience never heard a note of Bach, who lay in obscurity for decades after his death in 1750. Whole centuries went by when people looked at El Grecos attenuated saints and disciples, and felt nothing. Our ancestors lived and died deaf to the achievements of Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Franza Kafka, Zora Neale Hurston. What is a masterpiece? A thing agreed on as such in time, riding high on the vicissitudes of taste but always liable to fall. On the hig ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day The Moth and The Thunderclap, Modern Art Helmet Row, exhibition view, 4 February - 18 March 2023. Photo: Michael Brzezinski. Courtesy: Modern Art, London.
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| Ronald S. Lauder reaches agreement on Klimt painting with Jewish heirs | | Christie's Classic Week totals $92M | | The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao explores Joan Miró's career between the years 1920 and 1945 | 
Mr. Lauder agreed to the restitution and repurchase of the painting from the relatives of an art collector who fled Europe in 1941 to avoid Nazi persecution.
by Colin Moynihan
NEW YORK, NY.- Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir and art collector, will continue to own a well-known painting by Gustav Klimt, which he has held for 50 years, after agreeing to restitute and repurchase the work from the heirs of a Jewish woman who had owned it before World War II. Terms of the purchase, which followed several years of research into the paintings history, were not disclosed. Lauder first bought the work, The Black Feather Hat, created in 1910, from a Manhattan, New York, gallery in 1973, and it has been displayed in several exhibits at the Neue Galerie, which Lauder founded. In 2007, it was featured on banners hung in Manhattan to promote the museums show on Klimt that opened that year. The painting had once been the property of Irene Beran, who had it until at least 1934, when she lived in the city of Brno, which is now part of the Czech Republic ... More | | 
A bound group of drawings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry for the famous Fables of Jean de La Fontaine led the sale at $2.7 million. © Christie's Images Ltd 2023.
NEW YORK, NY.- The return of Classic Week to January totaled $92,434,360 over 10 sales, seven of them live. From paintings and sculpture to works on paper, Old Masters accounted for the majority of the weeks total, realizing $76,635,088. Remastered: Old Masters from the Collection of J.E. Safra, showed the power of the no-reserve strategy, earning $18,525,600, with a bound group of drawings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry for the famous Fables of Jean de La Fontaine leading the sale at $2.7 million, almost twice its low estimate. Old Masters brought $44,251,060 in total and the top lot was Francisco de Goyas Portrait of Doña MarÃa Vicenta Barruso Valdés and Portrait of her mother Doña Leonora Antonia Valdés de Barruso, which made $16,420,000, smashing the previous record for Goya. Modern Medici: Masterpieces from a New York Collection brought $9,594,840, and two sculptures in the sale were acquired by major museums: Bronze Figure of an Ãcorché Man ... More | | 
Joan Miró, Painting (Birds and Insects) [Peinture (Oiseaux et insectes)], 1938. Oil on canvas, 114 x 88 cm. Albertina, Vienna Sammlung Batliner © Successió Miró, 2023.
BILBAO.- The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Joan Miró. Absolute Reality. Paris, 19201945, an exhibition that explores the career between the years 1920 and 1945 of one of the most outstanding artists of the 20th century. The start of this fundamental period in Mirós oeuvre is marked by the date of his first trip to Paris, a key city in his life and work, and it closes with the year when Miró, after producing his Constellations (194041) and then hardly painting at all for some years, created a great series of works on white backgrounds that consolidated his language of signs floating on ambiguous grounds. In the 25 years of activity covered by the exhibition, there is a constant flow of new ideas ranging from his initial magic realism to his language of constellated signs. In this development, it becomes clear that prehistoric art, including rock paintings, petroglyphs, and statuettes, held a special interest for ... More |
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| Fifty years of surrealist icons at Sotheby's Paris | | Mnuchin Gallery opens an exhibition which sparks a dialogue between, Joan Mitchell and Christine Ay Tjoe | | Exhibition features artists of historically under-represented communities in the neon art form | 
Magritte, La Leçon de musique (circa 1965) (est. 2,000,000 3,000,000). Courtesy Sotheby's.
PARIS.- In March 2022, Sothebys held the first ever sale dedicated to the movement in Paris, which brought an overall total of 33 million, with all but one lot sold and a new auction record set for Francis Picabia. This March, Surrealism and Its Legacy will return in full force for a second installment, charting the history and undeniable impact of the movement. Echoing the theme of the auction, the paintings and sculptures within will unlock the story behind Surrealism, showing how these artists brought to the fore timeless themes that remain just as relevant in todays world. The sale will once again be headlined by leading proponent of the cause Francis Picabia with a seminal Dada masterpiece once owned by Marcel Duchamp and André Breton (est. 2.5-3.5 million) and René Magrittes take on the Old Masters of Vermeer (est. 2-3 million), painted fifty years apart at two key moments ... More | | 
Joan Mitchell, Mandres, 1961-62. Oil on canvas, 87 3/8 x 79 inches (222.3 x 200.5 cm). Private Collection, Courtesy of McClain Gallery. Photo: Paul Hester © Estate of Joan Mitchell.
NEW YORK, NY.- Mnuchin Gallery is presenting Joan MitchellChristine Ay Tjoe: an exhibition which sparks a dialogue between, Joan Mitchell and Christine Ay Tjoe, two trailblazers of 20th and 21st century abstraction. On view from February 9 until March 18, 2023, the exhibition features masterworks by both artists from prominent private collections. Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) moved to New York in 1949 and quickly forged a reputation as a preeminent member of the New York School, participating in the landmark Ninth Street Show of 1951. Having lived between New York and Paris for several years, Mitchell made the decision to relocate to France in 1959 and later settled in the countryside town of Vétheuil in 1968. Engaging with American and European artistic perspectives ... More | | 
Carissa Grace (American, born 1997). Comforter, 2019. Argon, glass tubing, and transformers. 108 x 96 x 24 inches. Courtesy of the artist. Photo courtesy of the artist.
TACOMA, WA.- Museum of Glass is presenting She Bends: Redefining Neon Legacy, on view until October 2023. She Bends explores the evolution of neon teaching methodologies in the traditionally male-dominated art form, and the transition of the medium from an agent of advertising and commercial signage to fine art. Redefining Neon Legacy is curated by the organization She Bends, led by co-owners Meryl Pataky and Kelsey Issel. She Bends aims to push the boundaries of neon and is dedicated to building a more equitable future for the art form through public education, curatorial projects, and artist programs. We want to tell neons story, and the stories of those who use it in their art. We want to change the narrative around neon and show that the process is becoming ... More |
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| Anna Schwartz Gallery presents a new exhibition of paintings and pencil drawings by Callum Morton | | Hauser & Wirth announes representation of Harmony Korine | | Valparaiso University proposes deaccessing works of art to fund capital expenditures | 
Callum Morton, Corner 1, 2022-23 (detail). Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 360 x 240 cm.
MELBOURNE.- CalÂlum Mortons instalÂlaÂtion and sculpÂturÂal pracÂtice is inspired by archiÂtecÂture and the built enviÂronÂment. His work has conÂsisÂtentÂly addressed the archiÂtecÂture of expeÂriÂence the moment of encounter between viewÂer and object, or viewÂer and built enviÂronÂment. Often, his works explore human interÂacÂtion with archiÂtecÂturÂal space through scale modÂels and facades of well-known buildÂings. For examÂple, MorÂton repÂreÂsentÂed AusÂtralia at the 2007 Venice BienÂnale with a scale modÂel of his childÂhood home, designed and built in the 1970s in a modÂernist style by his archiÂtect father. These six large paintings have as their starting point the exact scale of the windows in the Sirius Building in Sydney, a subject Callum Morton has been interested in for some time as part of, more broadly, a catalogue of the lost, ignored and hidden. Callum Morton said: Some of them are paintings of a window where you are inside a room looking ... More | | 
Cake Plino, 2015. Oil, acrylic, house paint, and ink on canvas, 101 x 72 in. Photo: Joseh White.
NEW YORK, NY.- Hauser & Wirth announced its representation of American artist and filmmaker Harmony Korine. Over the last thirty years, Harmony Korine has cultivated a multidisciplinary art practice that resists categorization and is admired internationally for the improvisation, humor, repetition, nostalgia and poetry that unite the disparate aspects of his output. Working in recent years primarily with painting and photography, his practice is built upon tireless experimentation and a trial-and-error path that produces what he calls Mistakist Art. Inspired by material culture, Korine often incorporates everyday itemssqueegees, house paint, steak knives, old VHS tapesinto his compositions, which are frequently embellished with distorted language and intentionally misspelled words. Korines oeuvre is both deliberate and erratic, figurative and abstract, and, like his films, blurs boundaries between ... More | | 
Caleb Kortokrax (American, b. 1987), Portrait of Richard H.W. Brauer, 2015. Oil on canvas, mounted on wood (43¾ x 35 in.) Brokington/Reeve Endowment Purchase, Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, 2015.03
NEW YORK, NY.- The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG), and the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) have issued the following statement on Valparaiso Universitys proposal to deaccession works of art to fund capital expenditures: Our organizationswhich represent North Americas leading art museumsare strongly opposed to plans announced by Valparaiso University to deaccession several works of art from the collection of the Universitys Brauer Museum in order to fund capital investments on campus. College and university art museums have a long and rich history of collecting, curating, and educating in a financially and ethically responsible manner on par with the worlds most prestigious institutions ... More |
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| The Hammer Museum opens exhibition dedicated exclusively to Bridget Riley's drawings | | A major new exhibition, Irish Gothic by Patricia Hurl, is now open at IMMA | | Cooper Hewitt announces curatorial team for 2024 Smithsonian Design Triennial | 
Bridget Riley. Blue Landscape, 1959. Collection of the artist. © Bridget Riley 2022. All rights reserved.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Hammer Museum is presenting Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artists Studio, the first and most extensive American museum exhibition dedicated exclusively to Rileys drawings in over half a century. Organized in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artists Studio is on view at the Hammer from February 5 through May 28, 2023 and includes more than 90 sheets from Rileys private collection. Drawings have long been part of Rileys dynamic studio practice, and many will be seen for the first time. Hammer director Ann Philbin remarked, Although she is best known known for her remarkable abstract paintings, drawing is an essential aspect of Bridget Rileys artistic practice. This is of particular interest to the Hammer, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Morgan Library & Museum, all of which have a deep ... More | | 
Patricia Hurl, Act of Union (Once upon a time), 1986 (detail). Oil on canvas, 152 x 182cm. Collection IMMA, Donation the artist. Image copyright the artist.
DUBLIN.- IMMA is presenting Irish Gothic, a major retrospective exhibition by one of Irelands most accomplished and respected artists Patricia Hurl. Hurls work is of its nature, political and traverses the disciplines of painting, multi-media and collaborative art practice. The exhibition is the first major exhibition of Patricia Hurls work spanning over 40 years and features over 70 of the artist's paintings and drawings. Since the 1980s, Patricia Hurl has created work in a range of media that deals with loss, pain, frustration and loneliness. The exhibition features over 70 works mainly drawn from her early paintings in which she exposed the suburban home as less than perfect. The exhibition demonstrates Hurls characteristic use of highly expressionistic and layered brushstrokes that tend to blur distinctions between the figurative and abstraction ... More | | 
(L-R) Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator of architecture and design at the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture; Christina L. De León, associate curator of Latino design at Cooper Hewitt; and Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar at Cooper Hewitt. Photo: Ann Sunwoo © Smithsonian Institution.
NEW YORK, NY.- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the next Smithsonian Design Triennial, set to open in fall 2024, will be organized by Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar at Cooper Hewitt; Christina L. De León, associate curator of Latino design at Cooper Hewitt; and Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator of architecture and design at the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture. Focused on diverse contemporary perspectives on home, HomeSmithsonian Design Triennial marks the first time curators from two Smithsonian museums will collaborate on this flagship exhibition series. ... More |
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Sargent and Spain: Curators in Conversation
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| More News |
 Museum of the City of New York inks first look development agreement with Lisa Cortés/Cortés FilmworksNEW YORK, NY.- Lisa Cortés (Little Richard: I Am Everything, Invisible Beauty) today announced a new global development agreement with the Museum of the City of New York for shaping intellectual property from museum exhibitions for documentary production. The first look deal initiated by producer Jon Sechrist builds a creative pipeline from MCNYs 100 years of exhibitions to the screen. Targeted IP includes projects in the food, social justice, and music genres. Cortés will develop and produce through her Cortés Filmworks, the New York based production company in partnership with Blue Ant Studios. Past winner of Best Museum in Time Out New Yorks Best of the City 2021, the Museums exhibitions included Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off, which invited bakers from every borough to design New York City-inspired gingerbread creations ... More  Jack Shainman Gallery announces Odili Donald Odita book launchNEW YORK, NY.- Odili Donald Odita is a comprehensive monograph which spans thirty years of his artistic practice - from his early mixed media collages - to his current painting installations, and more. Odilis vibrant abstract paintings blur the borderlines of American, African, and Western European traditions, which according to Rob Storr, has led him to rejuvenate abstract painting 100 years after its invention and in the process create a culturally syncretic idiom that is all his own. The books discreet black and white cover betrays a striking panoply of colors, papers, and formats that make up the books 400+ pages. Mixing and layering drawings, geometric studies, paintings, installations, and texts creates momentary connections between different images - echoing Oditas thirty year artistic pursuit of fusing disparate and separate colors into spiritually unified spaces. ... More  Hatton Gallery Newcastle celebrates the artist Wilhelmina Barns-GrahamNEWCASTLE.- A large-scale exhibition that explores the work of the celebrated Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, from her early works inspired by the Cornish landscape through to the abstract canvases she made during the 1960s and early 1970s, opens this weekend at Newcastle Universitys Hatton Gallery. It is the most significant exhibition of the artists work in recent years and a chance to engage with works including those rarely seen before by the public in a solo museum presentation for over 30 years. In particular, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Paths to Abstraction charts the crucial period of artistic progress during the first half of the artists career which saw her development from figuration to abstraction. The exhibition features around seventy paintings and drawings dating from 1935 to 1972, highlighting Barns-Grahams significant contribution to British ... More  Shown for the first time in Switzerland: The Horn CollectionDAVOS.- The new exhibition at the Kirchner Museum Davos opens on February 12th, 2023. Some 120 works of art from the renowned Horn Collection are on view. This private collection from Germany holds a unique set of works by Expressionist artists: from Emil Nolde to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to Käthe Kollwitz. Combined with the works of the Kirchner Museum Davos, they offer a many-faceted look at one of the most radical and innovative art movements of the twentieth century. The outstanding collection of Expressionist art of the Rolf Horn Foundation is coming to Switzerland for the first time. In more than sixty years of collecting, Bettina and Rolf Horn have focused on the work of the Brücke artists and their contemporaries. Their collection comprises hundreds of works by well-known artists such as Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexej von Jawlensky, Käthe Kollwitz ... More  Smithsonian's Hirshhorn tries reality TV to find 'the Next Great Artist'WASHINGTON, DC.- One of you will show your work at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and will take home $100,000. At least thats the promise made by Dometi Pongo, the host of a new reality television series, The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist, about the making of an art star. The first season is six episodes, produced by the Smithsonians Hirshhorn together with MTV and the Smithsonian Channel. The program, which starts March 3, focuses on seven rising artists from around the country who were selected by Hirshhorn curators. Each week, the artists are commissioned to make a themed work such as an exploration of gender that is evaluated by Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorns director, and a team of guest judges (artists Adam Pendleton, Kenny Schachter and Abigail DeVille are among them). This TV partnership was really about an expansive idea of art ... More  Honolulu Museum of Art announces collaboration with guest curator to reinstall Arts of Hawai'i GalleryHONOLULU.- This spring, the John Dominis and Patches Damon Holt Gallery of the Arts of Hawaii at the Honolulu Museum of Art will undergo a major reinstallation that reflects the varied landscapes of Hawaii and its people. HoMA has invited Rory Padeken, Denver Art Museums Vicki and Kent Logan curator of modern and contemporary art, to be the guest curator in collaboration with Tory Laitila, HoMAs curator of textiles and historic arts of Hawaii. Celebrating the dynamic visual culture of Hawaiʻi, the installation will open in spring 2023 and feature works from HoMAs permanent collection and loans across a variety of media and expressions. The thematic installation will reflect the ever-changing geological, political, cultural and social landscapes of Hawaii, amplifying some of the diverse stories and cultural identities of individuals who call the Islands home ... More  Laraaji conjures a baptism in soundNEW YORK, NY.- Laraaji, a pioneer of ambient music, barely remembers recording most of Segue to Infinity, a four-disc trove of his early studio sessions. In the decades since he started recording, Laraaji has made dozens of albums and cassettes, both solo and collaborative. He has played concerts, festivals, webcasts, collaborations with musicians and dancers, yoga classes, meditation gatherings and more. The collection, due Friday, reissues Celestial Vibrations, the small-label 1978 debut album that Laraaji made under his birth name, Edward Larry Gordon, and adds six extended tracks each the length of an LP side from the same era. Its recordings were rediscovered by Jake Fischer, a college student who bought them on eBay in 2021 for $114.01; they were acetate recordings that had been found in a storage locker. Many tracks on Segue to Infinity ... More  Archives of 'Lion King' choreographer are acquired by Library of CongressNEW YORK, NY.- The 82-year-old founder of Garth Fagan Dance, a company that includes dancers ranging in age from their teens to their early 70s, shared the secret to a successful multigenerational troupe: not just physical toughness, but also spiritual and intellectual wellness. You get youngsters with all their bounce and carrying on, and adults who are just making it work with great difficulty, Fagan said. Fagan, a Jamaican-born choreographer known for threading ballet training and discipline into his Afro-Caribbean movement, is also the longest-running Black choreographer in Broadway history because of his work on The Lion King. His choreography for that musical won a Tony Award in 1998. His expansive work captured the attention of the Library of Congress, which announced this week that it had acquired a collection documenting Fagans legacy ... More  Eugene Lee, set designer for Broadway and 'SNL,' dies at 83NEW YORK, NY.- For decades it was possible for Saturday night theatergoers in New York to get a double dose of Eugene Lees work, although its likely that few would have realized they were doing so. They might have taken in Sweeney Todd, Ragtime, Wicked or other Broadway shows whose striking sets were designed by Lee, then could arrive home in time to tune into Saturday Night Live a show for which he served as production designer when it began in 1975, and on which he was still working this season. Lee, an inventive and remarkably prolific set designer who was also known for his decades with Trinity Repertory Company, a respected regional theater in Providence, Rhode Island, died Monday in Providence. He was 83. His family announced the death, after a short illness that was not specified. Lee won or shared three Tony Awards for his Broadway sets ... More  Voorlinden presents Herwig Ilegems's 'Still Head to Head (2022)'WASSENAAR.- In Head to Head, Herwig Ilegems (1962) has a literal tête-à -tête with various animals. He care- fully places his forehead on the beak, nose or forehead of an animal. Will it allow this? Ilegems has no idea. He does not want to force the animal, so he first tries to establish a relationship of trust. In the endearing short film, you see how he allows himself to be comforted by an ostrich, rubs noses with an alpaca and tries to avoid the horns of a bull. Head to Head is a touching spectacle by well-known Flemish actor and director Herwig Ilegems who approaches different animals from a position of equality. He does not show a dominating human being and a tamed (domestic) animal, but without words turns the traditional hu- man-animal relationship upside down. With each animal he starts at the same eye level, he seeks eye contact ... More  Castellani Art Museum's latest exhibitions explore local Armenian traditions and NU Theatre's rich historyNIAGARA UNIVERSITY, NY.- Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University celebrates two powerful exhibition launches. Survive, Remember Thrive, Armenian Traditions in Western New York is on view from Feb. 2 to May 7, and a closing reception will be held on its final day. Imaginary Worlds: Behind the Scenes with Niagara University Theatre is on view from Feb. 9 to Aug. 13, and a reception will be held on Feb. 23 from 4:307 p.m. Survive Remember Thrive: Armenian Traditions in Western New York is an interactive exhibition highlighting the resiliency of community and culture in the face of conflict, genocide, and displacement. This exhibition features a short documentary of the same title filmed by the Buffalo Documentary Project and a 13-video short documentary series produced by the CAM featuring members of the local Armenian community ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
TARWUK 
Awol Erizku 
Leo Villareal 
Lucio Fontana
Flashback On a day like today, French photographer Eugène Atget was born February 12, 1857. Eugène Atget (12 February 1857 - 4 August 1927) was a French flâneur and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to modernization. In this image: Eugène Atget, Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, June 1925. Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print, 6 11/16 x 8 3/4? (17 x 22.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden.
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