The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, March 2, 2023


 
Kandinsky painting sells for $44.9 million at auction

Tonight at Sotheby’s London, Wassily Kandinsky’s Murnau mit Kirche II (Murnau with Church II) sold for £37.2 / $44.9 million - establishing a new auction record for the artist. Early works by Kandinsky rarely come to the market, with the lion’s share residing in major museum collections across the world. Courtesy Sotheby’s.

by Scott Reyburn


LONDON.- A painting by pioneering Russian-born modernist Wassily Kandinsky sold for 37.2 million pounds, or about $44.9 million, at Sotheby’s in London on Wednesday evening during a marquee week of auctions that were the year’s first major test of confidence levels at the top end of the international art market. Estimated to sell for at least $45 million, “Murnau With Church II,” painted in 1910, was one of the largest of an admired series of works edging toward abstraction that Kandinsky made while staying at an artists colony in Bavaria, Germany. After a 12-year legal wrangle, the canvas had recently been returned by the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, to the heirs of prominent Berlin collectors Johanna Margarete Stern-Lippmann and Siegbert Samuel Stern. The Kandinsky, the star work of Sotheby’s 36-lot sale of modern and contemporary art, sold to a single telephone bid from a buyer that was its third-party guarantor. ... More



The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
David Hockney viewing the model box containing "August 2021, Landscape with Shadows" Twelve iPad paintings comprising a single work © David Hockney. Photo credit: Mark Grimmer.





Cincinnati Art Museum acquires painting by Kehinde Wiley   Thomas Dane Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Lynda Benglis   The Museum of Russian Icons opens 'Icons & Retablos: Images of Devotion'


Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977), The Two Sisters, 2012. Oil on canvas, framed 106 3/8 x 82 in. (270.2 x 208.3 cm), Cincinnati Art Museum; Gift of the Ragland Family, 2023.1
© Kehinde Wiley.


CINCINNATI, OHIO.- The Cincinnati Art Museum has acquired The Two Sisters, a monumental double portrait made in 2012 by Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977), thanks to a generous gift from the Ragland family, longtime supporters of the museum. Wiley is among the most recognizable and acclaimed contemporary artists, working across the globe in sculpture, stained glass and his primary medium, oil painting. He is redefining the art of portraiture for today’s world, portraying contemporary African American and African figures with virtuosic technique, in poses inspired by the conventions of historical European art. Wiley’s renown has grown in recent years, following his commissions for the official presidential portrait of Barack Obama in 2018 and the monumental bronze equestrian statue Rumors of War for ... More
 

Lynda Benglis, Power Tower, 2019. White tombasil bronze, 228.6 x 179.4 x 172.2 cm. 90 x 70 3/4 x 67 3/4 in. © Lynda Benglis. Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy the artist, Pace Gallery and Thomas Dane Gallery.

LONDON.- Throughout her career spanning more than 50 years, Lynda Benglis (b. 1941, Lake Charles, Louisiana) has had an incomparable ability to connect places, people, sensations, memories and emotions with her revolutionary approach to material. Brought together at Thomas Dane Gallery, and seen in London for the first time, the combination of works in this exhibition articulate Benglis’ fascination with using ‘things’ in ways that they are not typically used – fragile materials to express solidity and solid materials to express fragility. Sitting directly on the floor of the gallery, Benglis’ new bronze sculptures might be mistaken for relics from another world, preserved in time. The frozen gestures of knots, bows, twists and jagged edges reflect distortions of the surrounding space and whomever may be in it. These ... More
 

Soul of Mary (Our Lady of the Incarnation) Anonymous, Mexico, Nineteenth Century, Collection: NMSU/UAM University Museum of Art.

CLINTON, MASS.- The Museum of Russian Icons presents Icons & Retablos: Images of Devotion, March 2—August 27, 2023. This exhibition, created in collaboration with New Mexico State University, will explore the beauty and spirituality of Orthodox icons and Mexican retablos, devotional works of art with similar themes but different materials, styles, and iconographies. Orthodox icons, typically made with egg tempera on wood panels, feature a stylized representation of the divine against a golden background, symbolizing the intangible and mysterious world of heaven. Icons, an integral part of worship in the Orthodox Church, offer us a glimpse of the divine and transcend ordinary, earthly reality. Retablos, on the other hand, are religious images painted in oil on industrial pieces of tinplate. They depict an idealized likeness of the divine against blue skies, symbolizing truth and heaven, and facilitating a human connection ... More


Rhona Hoffman Gallery presents DERRIC ADAMS "...and friends." in exhibition exploring educational TV programming   Nationalmuseum acquires self-portrait by Lié-Louis Périn-Salbreux   The Fabric Workshop and Museum presents 'Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange'


Derric Adams, That's Music To My Ears, 2023. Acrylic and collaged fabric on wood panel
25 x 25 inches.


CHICAGO, ILL..- For Derrick Adams’s sixth solo exhibition with Rhona Hoffman Gallery, the artist created a limited series of mixed media paintings in the artist’s frame as well as a singular functional sculpture. The exhibition began on February 24th, and will continue through April 1st, 2023. Each intimately-sized acrylic and collaged fabric painting is rendered in Adams’s signature color- block geometric style, depicting imagery of jovial children, their puppet compatriots, and contemporary cultural phrases. A vibrant palette is paired with multicolored and patterned fabric, adding texture and energy to the cast of fun loving characters invented for this new body of work. For this exhibition Adams was—now more than ever—eager to revisit previously explored themes centered on the power of media influence, both overt and concealed. ... More
 

Louis-Lié Périn-Salbreux, Self-Portrait. Black crayon, stumped and elevated with white crayon, on paper. NMB 2819. Photo: Anna Danielsson/Nationalmuseum.

STOCKHOLM.- Nationalmuseum has acquired a self-portrait by Lié-Louis Périn-Salbreux, a French miniaturist. The piece is one of the artist’s later works and, unlike many of his other self-portraits, is unusually modest and largely free from affectation. Périn was heavily influenced by the Swedish artist Peter Adolf Hall and enjoyed his greatest success during the years immediately before and after the French Revolution. Lié-Louis Périn-Salbreux (1753–1817) was born in Reims, the son of a wool manufacturer. At the age of 19, he arrived in Paris to be a pupil in the studio of Jean-Baptiste Vien. By the following year, 1773, he had already been admitted to the academy of fine arts as a student, as Vien was the academy’s director. There, Périn encountered other influential artists, including Alexander Roslin, the Swedish-born portrait ... More
 

Project assistant Franco Andrés weaves fabric into a chain link fence. © Henry Taylor, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. Nothing Change, Nothing Strange, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Carlos Avendaño.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Fabric Workshop and Museum is pleased to present Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange, on view from March 2 to July 23. The result of an 18-month residency, the exhibition features an immersive sculptural environment that Taylor created through his continued exploration of painting and sculpture alongside his first experimentation with textiles. Nothing Change, Nothing Strange exemplifies many of the themes that run through Taylor’s practice and investigates the boundaries that have historically divided painting and sculpture. During his residency, Taylor collaborated with the FWM studio team to assemble materials sourced from the Recycled Artists in Residency program (RAIR)––a ... More



Parrasch Heijnen opens the gallery's first exhibition with Brooklyn-based artist EJ Hauser   Haus der Kunst opens the first survey exhibition in Germany of the work of Katalin Ladik   GR Gallery opens a duo exhibition featuring the latest production of artists David Olatoye Babatunde and Victor Olaoye


EJ Hauser, Orchard Thinking, 2022, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches.

LOS ANGELES, CA.- EJ Hauser’s work is defined by its percussive mark-making, layered and scraped, connecting with impressions of natural world phenomena. There is an urgency carried throughout Hauser’s distinct painting style translated through repetition, reflection, and revision. The artist’s process develops from an intuitive stratified ground to overlaid, offset gestures of methodical consideration. In a duet with herself, Hauser synchronizes drawing with painting, eventually superimposing the two in digitized and analog notation. The inherent connection between her foundational drawings and her painting is fully realized as she interweaves both in this exhibition. Using varying scales and dimensions, both modes reflect automation and swiftness along with an interplay of poetic form and recognizable figures. In a cross-pollination, the works grow with one another, literally and cohesively, each thought enhancing the next with added layers of embedded meaning. ... More
 

Katalin Ladik, Androgyn 3., 1978. Gelatin silver print fehér szegély nélkül 28x18,1 cm. Courtesy of the artist and acb Gallery.

MUNICH.- Haus der Kunst München is presenting “Ooooooooo-pus”, the first survey exhibition in Germany of the work of Katalin Ladik (b. 1942, Novi Sad). Her radical approach to concrete and visual poetry, performance, and sound established her as a key figure in Central and Eastern European art. Ladik was born in 1942 in Novi Sad, a city in former Yugoslavia (now Serbia) that has long been a conduit between the Balkans and parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The multilingual demographics of Novi Sad – being majority Serbian and Hungarian – shaped Ladik’s visual approach to language and poetry. Over the course of the 1960s, Ladik became an integral part of the Novi Sad literary and artistic avant-garde. She positioned herself at the intersection of various established and new performance traditions engaging in happenings, rituals, and photo-performance. Ladik, who was also successful ... More
 

David Olatoye and Victor Olaoye, 'Just like Sisters', Acrylic, dyes, pastels, pen and fabric collage on canvas, 60 x 40 in.

NEW YORK, NY.- GR Gallery is presenting “Times Are Changing”, an extensive duo exhibition featuring the latest production of Nigerian artists David Olatoye Babatunde and Victor Olaoye, integrated in the same event for the first time. The show will reveal 18 acute artworks, executed with the artists signature techniques and expressly created for this occurrence, designed to guide the visitor into a rare cultural journey represented by noble characters, inspired by the artists’s personal involvements and akin by colorful and aesthetically sophisticated traditional ensemble. Olaoye Victor and Olatoye David have been good friends for very long time and almost grew up together, they’ve been influencing each other practice during the years and this close relationship strongly inspired the duality of the show. They have been working closely, almost together, for about one year in the preparation ... More


International African American Museum sets opening for June after sudden delay   Asya Geisberg Gallery and New Discretions present a solo exhibition by Gabriela Vainsencher   Where the lion and the witch met the Hobbit


The focus spans centuries and continents, from the global impact of slavery and the diaspora to contemporary conversations about race and social justice.

by Zachary Small


WASHINGTON, DC.- On Tuesday, the much-delayed International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, announced a new opening date for the institution — June 27 — and officials have their fingers crossed that this date will stick. The museum was due to open in January on the weekend after Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, but those plans were scrapped in December when officials recognized problems with the center’s humidity and temperature controls. Those issues have been resolved, according to Tonya M. Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO. “We have had a year’s worth of doors opening and closing doors,” Matthews said in an interview, explaining how the museum tested its climate controls to ensure that its permanent collection of ... More
 

Gabriela Vainsencher, "Blood Moon", 2022. Porcelain, glaze, underglaze, acrylic, 12h x 12w x .2d in.

NEW YORK, NY.- Asya Geisberg Gallery and New Discretions present "Epic, Heroic, Ordinary", a solo exhibition by Gabriela Vainsencher. You walk into an ancient ruin and there is a hideous creature, some sort of serpentine dragon slithering across the wall, flaunting a hideous tail and a tangle of arms, riddled with a myriad of ears. But wait, is that a frying pan? A tote bag? And on closer inspection, perhaps her head is not that of a Medusa, but that of a worried woman. And there are pacifiers, a toy, and maybe those talons are combing a child’s hair rather than wringing its neck. Welcome to the world of Gabriela Vainsencher, where motherhood meets mythology. Her work is rich with allegory, pulling inspiration from heroic tales, ancient Greek ceramics and Roman frescoes, as well as her experience as a mother. It all makes sense. Vainsencher has been referencing archaeology and anatomy for close to a decade. Her “Back Dirt ... More
 

Magdalen College Chapel in Oxford, England, Jan. 15, 2023. (Max Miechowski/The New York Times)

by Will Higginbotham


NEW YORK, NY.- When Clive Staples Lewis arrived in Oxford, England, in 1916, he was enchanted by the city’s Gothic stone buildings and spires reaching skyward. “The place has surpassed my wildest dreams: I never saw anything so beautiful, especially on frosty moonlit nights,” he wrote in a letter to his father. Lewis, an 18-year-old Irishman who went by Jack, was visiting Oxford University to take the entrance examination. The city that made an enchanting first impression maintained its effect on him for a lifetime. Oxford was the backdrop to his student days, and to his career as an academic and as the author known as C.S. Lewis, and it’s where he found Christian faith, friendships and domestic happiness. It is also where he, along with J.R.R. Tolkien — the future author of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” — and others founded the Inklings, a literary group, 90 ... More




Persian Carpets and Women’s Creative Work



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A polarizing French philosopher chooses war zones over salons
NEW YORK, NY.- In his new documentary film “Slava Ukraini,” Bernard-Henri Lévy, France’s most famous public intellectual, dodges Russian sniper fire in Ukraine, nonchalantly wearing a khaki bulletproof vest over a chic bespoke suit. He climbs onto a Ukrainian naval vessel in Odessa that is sweeping the Black Sea for Russian mines, his mane of graying hair blowing gently in the wind. And he surveys blown-out apartment blocks in Kyiv, descends into trenches with Ukrainian soldiers in Sloviansk and comforts a mother whose young son is so traumatized by war that he has stopped speaking. It can be easy to dismiss Lévy — and plenty do — as a 74-year-old reckless war tourist, an heir to a timber fortune playing action hero as Russian missiles rain down on Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol. But instead of spending the past year in his art-filled home ... More

Review: In an airlifted 'Seagull,' it's Moscow near the Hudson
NEW YORK, NY.- With so many Anton Chekhov adaptations on the market, it’s fair to wonder whether the Dramatists Guild requires playwrights to crank them out as a condition of membership. If so, “The Seagull” is apparently the recommended source — appearing more often than “The Cherry Orchard,” “Three Sisters” and “Uncle Vanya” combined. The 1896 tragicomedy about the hopelessness of love and theater has set off a flock of homages and spoofs, often in one booby-trapped package. That most of the adaptations don’t stick doesn’t matter; since opening night, little has been heard from “Drowning Crow,” “Stupid ____ Bird,” “A Seagull in the Hamptons” or even “The Notebook of Trigorin,” Tennessee Williams’ 1981 stab. What counts, at least as far as selling the show is concerned, is the mashup of a classic title with a modern sensibility, ... More

Clusterduck, Jim C. Nedd and Lina Pallotta: Winners of the Paul Thorel Prize 2023 announced
NAPLES.- The Paul Thorel Prize, designed to reactivate the workspaces and tools of artist Paul Thorel (1956-2020), is one of many initiatives designed by the Foundation by the same name to remember his pioneering work in the field of photography and the digital image, in line with the generous spirit of his life. The prize, which will be awarded annually, consists of a one-month residence in Paul Thorel’s Neapolitan studio for the production of an unprecedented artistic project, financed by the Foundation. At the end of the residences of the three winning artists, the Foundation will run an exhibition of the projects in 2024 in collaboration with the Intesa Sanpaolo’s Gallerie of d’Italia, partners in the Prize, and will produce documentation in the form of a catalogue. The winners of the first edition of the Prize are Clusterduck (a collective of five Italian-German artists ... More

John Moran Auctioneers announces "Jewelry from the Estate of Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree"
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.- John Moran Auctioneers will offer the exquisite fine jewelry collection of one of Santa Barbara’s most prolific and best-known philanthropists, Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree for their auction to take place on Wednesday, March 29th, 2023 at 10:00am PST. Jewelry from the Estate of Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree will offer 85 lots including necklaces, earrings, bracelets, brooches and rings, featuring very fine gemstones including, large diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls, and emeralds—and some being from prominent jewelry designers including Van Cleef & Arpels, David Webb, Tiffany & Co., Henry Dunay, and Boucheron. Along with being recognized as a philanthropist, “Lady Leslie” was a highly successful businesswoman and well-known art connoisseur. Early in her career, she was the director of a community center on New York City’s Westside ... More

Exhibition of vintage photographs by Dave Heath opens at Galerie Miranda
PARIS.- For its spring 2023 programme, Galerie Miranda presents an exhibition of vintage photographs by Dave Heath (1931-2016, US/Canada), the first European gallery exhibition of Dave Heath's work. Entitled Alone, together, the exhibition at Galerie Miranda presents emblematic works that express Heath's central themes of loneliness and alienation in modern society. Influenced by W. Eugene Smith, in whose workshops he participated, as well as the photographers of the Chicago School including Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, Dave Heath worked mainly on the streets while living in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York, seeking to capture the fractures and growing unease in booming American post-war society, prior to the rise of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. His seminal publication A ... More

Carnegie Hall's new season: What we want to hear
NEW YORK, NY.- The threats facing democracy will be a central focus of Carnegie Hall’s coming season, the presenter announced Tuesday, with a festival devoted to the flourishing cultural scene in Germany between the two world wars. From January to May, Carnegie will host “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice,” an exploration of creative expression during the fragile democracy in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The festival will feature ensembles such as the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s performing works by composers of the time, including Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill. “We’re seeing the challenges to democracy more and more clearly, and it’s all the more reason we have to treasure it,” Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s executive and artistic director, said in an interview. “We want people to ask ... More

'Create, share, unite': A French choreographer's vision
PARIS.- Mehdi Kerkouche was born in the Cité Jardin neighborhood of Suresnes, on the western edge of Paris. It’s not terribly far from the Palais Garnier, the city’s gilded opera house, but it might as well have been on another planet for a small boy growing up in modest circumstances in a public housing complex. And yet, in a video made in 2021, there he is, threading his way across the elaborate mosaic-patterned floor of a circular gallery at the Palais Garnier with his distinctive movement style — tiny nods of the head, sudden swerves of the torso and ceaselessly gesticulating hands. It’s an introduction to a piece he created for the Paris Opera Ballet, a commission from its then-director, Aurélie Dupont, that surprised him as much as anyone else. “Are you sure you mean me?” Kerkouche said, describing his encounter with Dupont ... More

'Fall River Fishing' review: So she dated an axe murderer
NEW YORK, NY.- There will be blood. And meat sauce. And dancing corpses. And Sharon Tate. Clarity? Not so much. Though, to be fair, if you aren’t ready for madness, perhaps a play about Lizzie Borden, presented by a theater company named Bedlam, isn’t your best bet. “Fall River Fishing,” written by Zuzanna Szadkowski and Deborah Knox, who also star, is a Rube Goldberg machine of a play: an entertaining spectacle of seemingly disparate parts that are actually interconnected. Yet this ornate display winds up feeling like a lot of show for an unimpressive payoff. But let’s begin with Lizzie Borden (Szadkowski), the woman from the gruesome children’s rhyme, who in 1892 took an ax and served 40 whacks in a double parricide that claimed the lives of her father and stepmother. Well, not an ax exactly, but a hatchet, as Bridget (Knox), the ... More

An unlikely fiddler's dream
NEW YORK, NY.- Michael Cleveland had been 13 for five days the first time he picked with bluegrass demigod Doc Watson — in a backstage bathroom, no less, at an awards show in Kentucky. It was September 1993. Peter Wernick, the first president of the International Bluegrass Music Association, had assembled a band of young hotshots to provide a pointed rebuttal to a Washington Post feature that argued kids didn’t care about antiquated mountain music. The teenage quintet electrified its audience, sprinting through a Bill Monroe standard with verve that suggested these sounds were vital to fresh generations. After the triumphant ceremony, John Cleveland ushered his son — born blind, with one eye; almost deaf in his left ear and partly deaf in his right — to the bathroom. They found Watson, Wernick and a cadre of other genre giants laughing ... More


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Flashback
On a day like today, French painter Berthe Morisot died
March 02, 1895. Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (January 14, 1841 - March 2, 1895) was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt. In this image: Berthe Morisot, Grain field, c.1875, Musée d'Orsay.

  
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