| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Thursday, October 14, 2021 |
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| | The Prado is presenting a survey of the artistic culture of Latin America which reached Spain in the Early Modern age | |
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Image of the exhibition galleries. Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado.
MADRID.- According to Javier Solana, President of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Museo Nacional del Prado: This is a landmark exhibition for the Museo del Prado given its aim of analysing an entire artistic culture, in this case that of Early Modern Latin America, as an indissoluble part of Spains national historical narrative. The exhibition is curated by Rafael López Guzmán, senior professor at the Universidad de Granada, with the assistance of Jaime Cuadriello and Pablo F. Amador, members of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas of the UNAM in Mexico City, and with the support of Fundación AXA. A notable effort has been made to include works that were dispersed across all of Spains regions, many of them now loaned from the churches and religious houses which they originally entered centuries ago. There has also been an impressive restoration campaign encompassing 26 works: paintings, sculptures an ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Liat Nadav-Ziv presents the Byzantine-period Gazan jars found at the Tel Yavne site in central Israel on October 11, 2021, where a massive wine production facility was discovered, the largest such complex of winepresses known from the Byzantine Period. Israeli archaeologists on October 11 uncovered a 1,500-year-old industrial wine complex dating to the Byzantine-era, which produced some two million litres of the popular drink annually and was the world's "largest" such centre at the time. The facility in Yavne, a city south of Tel Aviv that was a Jewish settlement during biblical times and a key city after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, consists of five wine presses sprawling over a square kilometre. MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP.
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| Israeli archaeologists uncover 'world's largest' Byzantine-era winery | | Monumental Basquiat masterpiece to lead Christie's 21st Century Art Evening Sale | | Julie Mehretu becomes third artist to join Whitney board | 
Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Liat Nadav-Ziv presents the Byzantine-period Gazan jars found at the Tel Yavne site. MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP.
YAVNE.- Israeli archaeologists on Monday uncovered a Byzantine-era, industrial-scale wine complex which produced some two million litres of the drink annually and was the world's "largest" such centre at the time. The facility in Yavne, south of Tel Aviv that was a Jewish settlement during biblical times and a key city after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, is comprised of five wine presses sprawling over a square kilometre (0.4 sq mile). The 1,500-year-old site covers warehouses for ageing and marketing the wine, kilns for preparing the clay amphorae used to store the wine and "tens of thousands of fragments and intact earthen jars", the Israel Antiquities Authority said of the "sophisticated" site. The produce was known as "Gaza and Ashkelon wine" due to the nearby ports from which it was exported, according to IAA excavators Elie Hadad, Liat Nadav-Ziv and Jon Seligman, who said the Holy Land wine was a prized product. Fermenting grape juice into wine was a proven way in antiquity to a ... More | | 
Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Guilt of Gold Teeth (detail). Acrylic, spray paint and oilstick on canvas, 94 ½ x 165 ⅞ in. (240 x 421.3 cm.) Executed in 1982. Estimate on Request. © Christie's Images Ltd 2021.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christies announced The Guilt of Gold Teeth, a masterpiece by Jean-Michel Basquiat, will be the top lot of the 21st Century Art Evening Sale, taking place on 9 November 2021 at Rockefeller Center in New York (estimate on request). Held for a nearly quarter century in a private collection, this rare and monumental 1982 canvas was created at the peak of the iconic artists career. This stands as an incredible example of a very limited group of career-defining works that Basquiat painted during a trip to Modena, Italy in March of 1982. The eight paintings created by Basquiat in Modena in 1982 remain some of his greatest artistic achievements, with two having established record breaking results at auction. Five years ago in May of 2016, Untitled set a world auction record, selling for $57.3 million at Christies New York and Profit sold for $5.5 million at Christie's New York in 2002, establish a record for the artist a ... More | | 
The artist Julie Mehretu at her studio in Manhattans Chelsea neighborhood, March 4, 2021. Josefina Santos/The New York Times.
by Robin Pogrebin
NEW YORK, NY.- Artist Julie Mehretu has been appointed to the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the museum announced Tuesday, making her the third artist trustee in the Whitneys history and one of seven new members to join the board over the past year. Mehretu joins artist Fred Wilson on the board; Chuck Close, who died in August, was the first artist to be a trustee. The museum recently presented the most comprehensive survey to date of Mehretus career, which took over the entire fifth floor (now occupied by the work of Jasper Johns). Mehretu, who is Black, joins the board at a time when cultural institutions all over the country are making a concerted effort to diversify their leadership, staffs and programming. In addition, the Whitney has been healing from a rift with artists over the business interests of the museums former vice chairman, Warren ... More |
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| Danish artist hires lawyers to reclaim Hong Kong Tiananmen statue | | Grada Kilomba's rituals of resistance | | A pair of paintings by Sir Alfred James Munnings sell for a combined $662,500 at Andrew Jones Auctions | 
This picture shows the 'Pillar of Shame', a statue that commemorates the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing, at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in Hong Kong on October 10, 2021. Peter PARKS / AFP.
by Su Xinqi and Jerome Taylor
HONG KONG.- The Danish artist behind a Hong Kong sculpture mourning those killed in Tiananmen Square has instructed a lawyer to secure his work and bring it overseas after the city's flagship university ordered its sudden removal. The eight-metre (26-feet) high "Pillar of Shame" by Jens Galschiot has sat on the University of Hong Kong's (HKU) campus since 1997, the year the city was handed back to China. It features 50 anguished faces and tortured bodies piled on one another and commemorates democracy protesters killed by Chinese troops around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. Last week Hong Kong's oldest university ordered it to be removed by 5pm on Wednesday citing "legal advice" as authorities crack down on dissent. Galschiot told AFP he had hired a local lawyer and requested a hearing with the university over ... More | | 
Grada Kilomba, the Portugese artist, writer and psychoanalyst, at the Amant Foundation in Brooklyn, which is presenting her U.S. exhibition debut, Sept. 13, 2021. Jasmine Clarke/The New York Times.
by Siddhartha Mitter
NEW YORK, NY.- Grada Kilomba is discreet when it comes to describing her past work counseling war victims. It was a long time ago, the Portuguese artist and writer, who trained in clinical psychology and psychoanalysis, told me on a recent visit to New York. At a hospital in Lisbon, Portugal, and later in Berlin, where she moved in the mid-2000s, Kilomba met refugees from various countries experiencing fresh trauma. People were arriving directly from war situations, she said. She worked in particular with women and children. What stayed with her were the stories and how they were told. Above all, I was fascinated by the stories I was listening to, and by the images that were appearing to deal with them, to stage them, she said. And this is what appears also in my work. Kilomba, 53, is a noted visual artist whose work blurs disciplinary lines, involving art and ritual; film, sculpture and ... More | | 
Oil on canvas painting by Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S. (British, 1878-1959), titled Making a Polo Ground at Princemere, 25 ¼ inches by 30 ¼ inches ($162,500).
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Fine art, Chinese porcelain and fine silver were standout highlights in the online-only White Glove auction of the collection of Lady Victoria White held October 10th by Andrew Jones Auctions. A pair of paintings by the acclaimed British equestrian artist Sir Alfred James Munnings sold for a combined $662,500 in a sale that grossed nearly $1.8 million. All prices quoted in this report are inclusive of the buyers premium. The oil on canvas by Munnings (1878-1959), titled The Kilkenny Horse Fair (1922), measuring 20 inches by 24 inches, sailed past its pre-sale estimate of $200,000-$300,000 to knock down for $500,000; while another oil on canvas, titled Making a Polo Ground at Princemere, 25 ¼ inches by 30 ¼ inches, changed hands for $162,500 against a pre-sale estimate of $100,000-$150,000. On the other end of the artistic spectrum, a unique screen print by Andy Warhol ... More |
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| Exhibition of works by the American photographer Matt Black on view at The Magnum Gallery | | Choreographer Deborah Hay's archive goes to the Harry Ransom Center | | Researchers say fossil shows humans, dogs lived in C. America in 10,000 BC | 
For American Geography, Matt Black travelled from 2014 to 2020 over 100,000 miles, through 46 states, finding that he could cross the country without ever crossing above the poverty line.
LONDON.- The Magnum Gallery is presenting American Geography, an exhibition of works by the American photographer Matt Black, presented at its 63 Gee Street location and online, from 23 September to 17 December 2021. Premiering in the UK, American Geography explores themes of inequality against the backdrop of the American Dream. The exhibition coincides with the launch of Blacks eponymous book by Thames & Hudson this Autumn. For American Geography, Matt Black travelled from 2014 to 2020 over 100,000 miles, through 46 states, finding that he could cross the country without ever crossing above the poverty line. Visiting communities with a poverty rate above 20 percent, each two hours or less away from each other, he created an alternate map of the U.S. exposing its deep and prevalent inequalities. What began as a story of individual, isolated communities ... More | | 
A selection of Deborah Hays journals. Harry Ransom Center.
AUSTIN, TX.- Award-winning choreographer Deborah Hay has established her archive at the Harry Ransom Center, a major destination for the study of dance and performance at The University of Texas at Austin. A founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, Hay is recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of post-modern dance. The archive constitutes more than 60 boxes of material spanning the full breadth of her life and career, including films, music, letters, diaries, photographs, production files, dance scores, interviews and manuscripts for her published books. Born in New York City in 1941, Hay first learned to dance from her mother, Shirley Goldensohn. In addition to her work with the Judson Dance Theater, she toured Europe with Merce Cunningham in 1964. In 1980, she formed the Deborah Hay Dance Company. Her works, including The Man Who Grew Common in Wisdom, The Match, If I Sing to You and ... More | | 
Costa Rican researcher Guillermo Vargas, who is working on identification documents of a dog jaw fossil, poses in San Jose on September 21, 2021. Ezequiel BECERRA / AFP.
by David Goldberg
SAN JOSE.- The fossil of a jaw bone could prove that domesticated dogs lived in Central America as far back as 12,000 years ago, according to a study by Latin American scientists. The dogs, and their masters, potentially lived alongside giant animals, researchers say. A 1978 dig in Nacaome, northeast Costa Rica, found bone remains from the Late Pleistocene. Excavations began in the 1990s and produced the remains of a giant horse, Equus sp, a glyptodon (a large armadillo), a mastodon (an ancestor of the modern elephant) and a piece of jaw from what was originally thought to be a coyote skull. "We thought it was very strange to have a coyote in the Pleistocene, that is to say 12,000 years ago," Costa Rican researcher Guillermo Vargas told AFP. "When we started looking ... More |
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| Ruthie Tompson dies at 111; Breathed animated life into Disney films | | Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue celebrates 90th birthday | | Author vetoes Hebrew translation over Israeli 'apartheid' | 
Ruthie Tompson at work. One of a cadre of women who in the 1930s and 40s worked at Disney in indispensable anonymity and one of its longest-lived members Disney via The New York Times.
by Margalit Fox
NEW YORK, NY.- If Snow White looked suitably snowy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, if Pinocchios nose grew at just the right rate and if Dumbo was the correct shade of elephantine gray, all that is due in part to the largely unheralded work of Ruthie Tompson. One of a cadre of women who in the 1930s and 40s worked at Disney in indispensable anonymity and one of its longest-lived members Tompson, who died Sunday at 111, spent four decades at the studio. Over time, she worked on nearly every one of Disneys animated features, from Snow White Disneys first, released in 1937 to The Rescuers, released in 1977. A Disney spokesperson, Howard Green, said she died at the Motion Picture and Television Funds retirement community in Woodland Hills, California, where she had been a longtime resident. Tompson joined Disney as an inker and painter. She later trained ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on May 25, 2013 a full moon sets behind the Christ the Redeemer statue on top of the Corcovado hill in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP.
RIO DE JANEIRO.- The iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer that towers over Rio de Janeiro celebrated its 90th birthday on Tuesday, with a Mass, a new song and a Brazilian brandy label dedicated to it. The religious ceremony was initially slated to take place at the foot of the giant statue, but because of bad weather it was performed at the Metropolitan Cathedral in central Rio. "We Cariocas are used to looking to Christ who is often hidden in the clouds, but we know he is there," city archbishop Orani Tempesta said during the Mass, referring to Rio de Janeiro residents. "We are still going through the pandemic, but with an optimistic outlook thanks to vaccination. The dark clouds of last year are dissipating," he added. Brazil has the second worst death toll in the world from Covid-19, with over 600,000 people killed. Before the outbreak, the 38-meter (125-foot) statue located at the top of Corcovado hill and known as one of the Seven Wonders of the modern world, attracted nearly two ... More | | 
Sally Rooney in Merrion Square in Dublin on July 24, 2021. The author of Beautiful World, Where Are You turned down an offer from an Israeli publisher to translate the novel to Hebrew, citing her support for Palestinians in their struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Ellius Grace/The New York Times.
DUBLIN.- Irish writer Sally Rooney said Tuesday that she declined an Israeli publisher's bid to translate her latest novel into Hebrew as part of a cultural boycott over the state's treatment of Palestinians. Rooney said she "did not feel it would be right" to accept a contract with an Israeli company "that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the UN-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people". In a statement, the 30 year-old author of three novels said "it would be an honour" for her latest book "Beautiful World, Where Are You" to be translated into Hebrew. "But for the moment, I have chosen not to sell these translation rights to an Israeli-based publishing house," she added. The decision to block an Israeli translation has attracted criticism from some quarters. Gitit Levy-Paz, a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), said "Rooney has chosen a path that is anathema to the artistic essence ... More |
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Surrealism Beyond Borders Virtual Opening | Met Exhibitions
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 At Bessie Awards, dancers gather to celebrate pandemic artNEW YORK, NY.- The pandemic brought much of the performing arts world in New York to a halt starting last year. But it could not stop dancers from pursuing their passion: at home, in parks, on rooftops and on street corners. Independent artists, choreographers and performers gathered on Monday night for the annual Bessies, or New York Dance and Performance Awards, to celebrate the dance of the pandemic. At a virtual ceremony, they recognized performers across genres, including hip-hop and flamenco. The pandemic, which left many dancers unemployed or struggling to make a living, was a recurring theme during the 90-minute ceremony. Being a part of this great army fighting to keep dance alive and thriving during this extremely long pandemic year felt and still feels so necessary, Hope Boykin said, in accepting the award for outstanding ... More  Why 'Jesus Christ Superstar' the album has always rockedNEW YORK, NY.- Im here to spread the good word of Jesus Christ Superstar, the album. Its a little odd that a record so rapturously received, at least in the United States in the early 70s, is now mostly left off best album lists and didnt secure a lasting place in the rock music canon. Then again, perhaps it was inevitable that Superstar the album would end up eclipsed by Superstar the stage show, which followed a year later. Its natural to think of the album as an artifact of the theatrical experience rather than as a singular artistic vision in its own right, because thats the way it usually works. It can be tough for new listeners to hear the music for the theater. Maybe its just that no serious rock connoisseur wants to admit to digging the guys who did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Excuse me, for a moment, if I come off as ... More  'Letters of Suresh' review: Returning to the foldNEW YORK, NY.- We live in the age of the reboot: an era of re-imaginings, spinoffs and sequels upon sequels upon sequels. Theater, with its dependence on adaptation and revival, got there first. But this impulse now extends to new plays, too A Dolls House, Part 2, Zoom installments of the Apple Family Plays, the way that Pass Over riffs on Waiting for Godot. So its surprising, yet not surprising at all, to sit down at Rajiv Josephs Letters of Suresh, which opened Tuesday night at Second Stage Theater, and discover a follow-up to Animals Out of Paper, his petite and practically perfect dramedy from 2008. A three-character play originally produced as part of Second Stages uptown series, Animals Out of Paper traced the relationships among Suresh, a teenage origami prodigy who is mentored by Andy, his calculus teacher, and Ilana, ... More  Paddy Moloney, Irish piper who led the Chieftains, dies at 83NEW YORK, NY.- Paddy Moloney, the playful but disciplined frontman and bagpiper of the Chieftains, a band that was at the forefront of the worldwide revival of traditional Irish music played with traditional instruments, died on Monday in Dublin. He was 83. His daughter Aedin Moloney confirmed the death, at a hospital, but did not specify the cause. For nearly 60 years the Chieftains toured extensively, released more than two dozen albums and won six Grammy Awards. They were particularly known for their collaborations with artists like Van Morrison, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Nanci Griffith and Luciano Pavarotti. Over the Sea to Skye, the Chieftains collaboration with flutist James Galway, peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard classical album chart in 1996. Our music is centuries old, but it is very much a living thing, Moloney told The Philadelphia ... More  Neil LaBute seeks 'The Answer to Everything' in GermanyAUGSBURG.- If all you know about Neil LaButes new play The Answer to Everything is that its an artistic response to #MeToo and cancel culture, you might brace yourself for an upsetting evening at the theater. A tightly coiled chamber piece about three women who plot vengeance on the men whove wronged them, The Answer to Everything is the prolific and polarizing playwrights first full-length stage work since How to Fight Loneliness in 2017. Since then, hes fallen from grace in the rarefied world of New York theater. LaBute has long been a diagnostician of dark, uncomfortable aspects of human relationships. A number of his best-known plays (several of which hes adapted and directed for the screen, including In the Company of Men,) are unsettling examinations of cruelty that can leave viewers wondering whether LaBute ... More  A biography of W.G. Sebald, who transformed his borrowings into lasting artNEW YORK, NY.- W.G. Sebald is probably the most revered German writer of the second half of the 20th century. His best-known books The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz, published here between 1997 and 2001 are famously difficult to categorize. Carole Angier, author of a new biography, Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald, likes to refer to them, borrowing from writer Michael Hamburger, as essayistic semi-fiction. I prefer a comment from one of Sebalds students, who said that his otherworldly sentences resemble how the dead would write. His themes the burden of the Holocaust, the abattoirlike crush of history in general, the end of nature, the importance of solitude and silence are sifted into despairing books that can resemble travel writing of an existential sort. His are fogbound fictions that leave themselves open ... More  Tiffany Oriental Poppy Lamp lights up Tiffany, Lalique & Art Glass auctionDALLAS, TX.- As if to prove the lesson we all learned in early science classes that in order to grow, plants need water and light a spectacular Tiffany Studios Leaded Glass and Bronze Oriental Poppy Lamp will shine brightly at Heritage Auctions Tiffany, Lalique & Art Glass: Including Art Nouveau & Art Deco auction Oct. 28. What sets one Tiffany Studios lamp apart from others of the same model is the aesthetic choices made by the Glass Cutter, who selected glass pieces from the studios massive repertoire and then carefully cut each tile to be incorporated into the design. The Oriental Poppy is a highly sought-after model due its complex, dynamic composition, and the example we offer is among the finest due to the glass selection, said Samantha Robinson, Consignment Director of Decorative Arts and Design. Vibrant blossoms in a variety ... More  Institute and Museum of California Art announces appointment of Katlyn Heusner as Executive Director of DevelopmentIRVINE, CA.- Kim Kanatani, Museum Director of UCI Institute and Museum of California Art, today announced the appointment of Katlyn (Kate) Heusner as the Executive Director of Development, a new position, effective October 25, 2021. Heusner will work in close coordination with Kanatani, IMCA Interim Deputy Director Anne Bergeron, and the UC Irvine Advancement team to lead IMCAs development program with a goal of securing philanthropic investments to support its mission and vision. Kanatani said, With her deep experience working in the visual arts in a range of capacities that include fundraising, grants management, curatorial activities, artists liaison, and more, Kate is uniquely qualified to serve as IMCAs inaugural ... More  1870-CC Double Eagle, 1934 $10,000 Federal Reserve Note lead $15 million Long Beach Coins and Currency AuctionsDALLAS, TX.- More than 5,100 global bidders engaged in eager bidding to drive the total result for the Long Beach Expo US Coins Signature® Auction and US Currency Signature® Auction to $15,787,609 in combined sales. A historic 1870-CC $20 XF40 PCGS soared to $360,000 to lead the coins event to $8,393,786 in total sales at Heritage Auctions Oct. 7-10, while a Fr. 2231-G $10,000 1934 Federal Reserve Note. PMG About Uncirculated 50 doubled its pre-auction estimate at $240,000 to lead the Expos currency event to $7,393,823. In all, 5,116 bidders 2,893 for coins and 2,223 for currency took part in the events, each of which produced exceptional sell-through rates of 100% by value and by lots sold for coins, and 99.8% ... More  Martin Sherwin, prize-winning biographer of Oppenheimer, dies at 84NEW YORK, NY.- Martin J. Sherwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atom bomb, and a scholar who plumbed the history and impact of the nuclear age, died Wednesday at his home in Washington. He was 84. The cause was complications of lung cancer, said his wife, Susan Sherwin. A history professor and prodigious researcher, Sherwin had devoted two decades to his Oppenheimer book before joining forces in 2000 with Kai Bird, a friend and author. Together they completed the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), which won the Pulitzer for biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2006. Sherwin also wrote A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies (1975) and Gambling With Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette ... More  A temporary concert hall hopes for a permanent audienceMUNICH.- It was an unusual sight last Friday: the denizens of this wealthy city lifting the hems of their gowns and adjusting their bow ties as they stepped into a rough-around-the-edges industrial space for one of the premier cultural events of the fall. They were entering the lobby of the Isarphilharmonie, a new concert hall far from the old-fashioned grandeur of the Bavarian State Opera or the Herkulessaal, inside the former royal palace and far from the city center, where most of Munichs high-profile classical music performances take place. The new hall is a rarity: an ephemeral, prefabricated venue designed with top-level acoustics and built for 40 million euros (about $46 million) in only a year and a half, all as a renovation stopgap. A temporary replacement for the ungainly and unremarkable concert hall at the Gasteig, which is closing for a multiyear ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Mark Rothko 
Royal Academy of Arts 
Maryan 
Ho Kan: Geometric Calligraphy
Flashback On a day like today, American fashion designer Ralph Lauren was born October 14, 1939. Ralph Lauren (born Ralph Lifschitz, October 14, 1939) is an American fashion designer and business executive, best known for his Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand. In this image: Designer Ralph Lauren walks the runway to audience applause after his fall 2010 collection was presented in New York, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010.
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