| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Tuesday, July 9, 2019 |
 |
| | World invited to watch museum restore Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' | |
|
|
Start Operation Night Watch. Photo Rijksmuseum.
by Sara Madniette
AMSTERDAM (AFP).- Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum on Monday began the biggest ever restoration of Rembrandt's "The Night Watch", building a giant glass case around the famed painting so the world can see the work carried out live. In what has been compared to a military operation, experts at the museum in the Dutch capital will spend a year studying the 1642 masterpiece before embarking on a huge makeover that could take several years more. The multi-million-euro revamp of the tableau -- the survivor of a difficult history including several acts of vandalism and a period in hiding from the Nazis -- will also be livestreamed online. "More than two and a half million people come and see it each year. It belongs to everybody who lives in the Netherlands, and the world," Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits told reporters. "And we felt that the public has the right to see what happens to that painting." Experts hope the research could also shed more light on the mysteries of how the greatest artist of the Dutch Gold ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Queen Maxima of the Netherlands meets children as she attend the opening of the Superstraat exhibition in the World Museum, in Rotterdam on July 3, 2019. Ten Rotterdammers live and work in the fictional Superstraat, who were born, raised in the city, moved to or fled to it. They symbolize the many cultures and nationalities that Rotterdam has to offer. patrick van katwijk / ANP / AFP
|
|
|
| 
|
 | | German producer of 'Europa, Europa' Brauner dead at 100 | | British Museum announces return of looted Iraqi and Afghan artefacts | | Depardieu puts contents of Paris restaurant up for auction | 
German film producer Artur "Atze" Brauner arrives on the red carpet at the Berlinale Palace for the opening ceremony of the 68th Berlinale film festival. Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP.
BERLIN (AFP).- One of postwar Germany's most successful film producers, Holocaust survivor Artur Brauner, has died in Berlin aged 100, Culture Minister Monika Gruetters said. Brauner, a Jew born in Poland, made more than 500 pictures for the cinema and television, including masterpieces grappling with the Nazi past such as 1990's "Europa, Europa". "Germany has lost one of the most important film producers of the young federal republic," Gruetters said after Brauner's death in Berlin on Sunday. "The fact that he, as a once persecuted Polish Jew, went to the country of his family's murderers after World War II to produce films and commit himself to working toward Germany's democratic reconstruction was truly a gift for our country." Born in 1918 in Lodz as the son of a wood merchant, Brauner escaped death in the Nazi extermination camps by hiding in the Soviet Union ... More | | 
Gandharan objects © Trustees of the British Museum.
LONDON (AFP).- Looted ancient artefacts from Iraq and Afghanistan seized in Britain will be returned to their country of origin after appraisal by the British Museum, the institution said on Monday. The London-based museum revealed it has been working with law enforcement agencies including the UK Border Force and the capital's Metropolitan Police to return the works smuggled out during recent periods of conflict. "Sadly, this work is more essential now than ever," said Hartwig Fischer, its director. Among the artefacts to be sent back to Afghanistan are Gandharan sculptures illegally exported to Britain in 2002. Another important haul to be returned to Iraq features 154 Mesopotamian texts written on clay in cuneiform script -- one of the earliest systems of writing -- seized on entry in 2011. They were created between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, with many belonging to the administrative archives from a place called Irisagrig, which was unknown until artefacts referring to it first surfaced in 2003 ... More | | 
The French actor Gerard Depardieu sold his Parisian restaurant "La Fontaine Gaillon" in June and decided to auction the entire establishment on July 11, the auction house Ader announced on July 8, 2019. Tiziana FABI / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- French actor and legendary gourmand Gerard Depardieu is putting the entire contents of one of his Paris restaurants under the hammer on Thursday. Depardieu sold La Fontaine Gaillon in central Paris last month and is now putting everything inside -- including its cellar containing vintage Chateau Latour, Cote-Rotie and Meursault wines at up to 6,000 euros ($6,700) a bottle -- up for auction. The flamboyant star opened the restaurant serving hearty French classics in 2003 with his then partner actress Carole Bouquet and wine magnate Bernard Magrez. The outspoken Depardieu, who railed against the previous Socialist government's plans to raise taxes on the rich, has been selling off a number of his assets in the French capital, including a mansion, a fishmongers and a deli. "The adventure has come to an ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | | Joan Weinstein to lead Getty Foundation | | Major Botticelli and Ghirlandaio conservation unveiled at The Bass, Miami Beach | | How visions of the Moon inspired centuries of storytellers | 
Joan Weinstein. Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Trust announced today the appointment of Dr. Joan Weinstein as the new director of the Getty Foundation after an international search. Weinstein is currently acting director of the Getty Foundation, where she has been deputy director since 2007 and has served in various roles since 1994. The Getty Foundation is committed to serving the fields of art history, conservation, and museums, and there are few people who understand the professional needs in these areas more than Joan Weinstein, says Jim Cuno, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Her deep knowledge of the visual arts and of strategic philanthropy has led to the creation of meaningful initiatives that have supported groundbreaking research and exhibitions, international scholarly exchange, training for museum professionals in sub-Saharan Africa, and so much more. Joans experience is invaluable, and ... More | | 
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli, 1444/45-1510) and Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi (Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1449-1494), Coronation of the Virgin (c. 1492).
MIAMI BEACH, FLA.- The Bass Museum of Art unveiled the recent conservation of the Coronation of the Virgin (c. 1492), a Renaissance altarpiece by Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli, 1444/45-1510) and Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi (Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1449-1494), now on view through October 24, 2019. With funding from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project, the painting underwent extensive conservation efforts under the leadership of Rustin Levenson, president and founder of ArtCare Conservation, and senior conservator Oliver Watkiss to clean and repair the surface layers, and reinforce the structural integrity of the more than 500-year-old masterpiece. I think my initial impression was of the condition of the painting, ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on October 3, 2007 a technician wraps up Jules Verne's manuscript 'From the Earth to the Moon' and 'Around the Moon' before it is sent into space with the next mission at the Thales Alenia Space center in Turin, Italy. Giuseppe CACACE / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- By landing on the Moon in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin arrived at a place which, up until that point, had been the stuff of fantasy. But even after they transformed fantasy into fact, it is a place that continues to capture the imagination of storytellers, as it has for centuries. Literature, novels, cinema... from antiquity to the present, the Moon has been the object of any number of imaginary expeditions. As far back as the second century BC, the satirist Lucian of Samosata, in "True Stories", imagined a voyage to the Moon that saw the author and his fellow travellers find the King of the Moon caught up in a war with the King of the Sun. In the 17th century, French writer Cyrano de Bergerac -- the real one, not the ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | | 'Operaholic' Placido Domingo powers into record books | | Getty Museum opens 'Once. Again. Photographs in Series' | | Georgia Museum of Art features Works Progress Administration art this summer | 
Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo, 78, performs on stage during the dress rehearsal of "Spanish Night" at the 150th Choregie in Orange on 5 July, 2019. Christophe SIMON / AFP.
ORANGE (AFP).- When Peter Gelb took over New York's legendary Metropolitan Opera in 2006, one of his jobs was to organise a farewell for Placido Domingo. But 13 years later the indefatigable Spanish tenor is still "the king of opera", headlining France's oldest musical festival at Orange at the weekend. "Since it was unimaginable that he could possibly be singing for much longer after an unmatched Met career that was soon to span four decades of starring roles," Gelb told AFP, "one of the responsibilities I was preparing for was Placido's farewell." With many singers' voices withering by the time they hit their forties, the unfailingly modest 78-year-old has somehow managed to keep performing at the top level. "Instead of retiring, Placido apparently discovered his own fountain of youth, reinventing himself as a baritone," Gelb said. "This past season, we held ceremonies for Placido on several occasions in honour of his five decades of leading roles ... More | | 
Milton Rogovin, Yvonne and Daughter Sonya, 1974 (detail). Gelatin silver print, 7 1/16 à 6 13/16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles © Milton Rogovin 97.XM.43.6.1
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Artists have long used cameras to record change, documenting transformations in landscapes or intimate portraits of people at different times in their lives. Once. Again. Photographs in Series, on view July 9-November 10, 2019 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, features historical and contemporary artists who have revisited people and places to make extended photographic series, prompting reflection on the impact of the passage of timeon photographers as well as their subjects. The exhibition, drawn primarily from the collection of the Getty Museum, takes its cue from artist Gordon Parks trips to Brazil over several decades to document the life of Flávio da Silva. Parks photographs are on view in Gordon Parks: The Flávio Story, installed in the adjacent galleries of the Center for Photographs. Photographing friends and family is a familiar pastime for many, and the exhibition includes the work ... More | | 
Marie Bleck (American, 1911 1949), Muskie Fishermen, 1937 (detail). Linoleum block print on rice paper. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Transferred from the University of Georgia Libraries. GMOA 1969.2400.
ATHENS, GA.- During the Great Depression, the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration served as a jobs program, hiring artists to produce work. The result not only created new inspiration for the public, but also allowed artists to feel as though the importance and relevance of their work was equal to the work of others. President Franklin Roosevelts jobs programs for artists produced an immense number of murals that were created for various locations around the nation. The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is showcasing three exhibitions that focus on art from this era this summer: Celebrating Heroes: American Mural Studies of the 1930s and 1940s from the Steven and Susan Hirsch Collection, organized by the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and on view July 6 through ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | | Small step, giant memories: Neil Armstrong's moonwalk remembered | | DeCordova announces new artwork in Sculpture Park | | 'The Fabric of India' explores the history and vitality of textiles | 
In this file photo taken on July 06, 1969 British Formula One driver Jackie Stewart negociates a curve in his Matra MS80 during the 55th French Formula One Grand Prix at the circuit de Charade in Clermont-Ferrand on July 6, 1969. Bertrand ROSENTHAL / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- Half a century has passed -- but the moment Moon pioneer Neil Armstrong took his historic first step on the lunar surface is etched in the memories of those who tuned in. The grainy pictures coming back on the night of July 20, 1969, from a quarter of a million miles (380,000 kilometres) away fascinated viewers young and old. AFP spoke to some, who recalled their joy and emotion, including Dafydd Williams, now a Canadian astronaut with NASA who has twice been into space -- in 1998 and 2007 but who was a schoolboy back then. "It was a pretty remarkable day. The sixties was this decade of exploration and the highlight of the decade was humans walking on the surface of the Moon. "If you were alive at that time, everybody remembers where they were. "I was fifteen years old at the time, at home watching it with my family glued to the television ... More | | 
David Nash, Spiral, 2014, bronze, 39 2/5 x 22 4/5 x 20 ½ inches, Courtesy of Private Collection. Photo: Galerie Lelong.
LINCOLN, MASS.- DeCordova is pleased to announce several new artworks in the Sculpture Park. The sculptures range from small-scale bronze pieces in the lush Alices Garden, to large-scale commissions on the Parks main lawns, to two monumental pieces that will be installed by the community in collaboration with a visiting artist. All sculptures are on loan and temporary, allowing deCordova to offer a constantly evolving landscape of art and nature for visitors. This summer DeCordova continues its robust program of diverse loans and commissions by major contemporary artistssome in generous collaboration with institutions, such as The Studio Museum in Harlem, says Senior Curator Sarah Montross. We are also proud to continue our ongoing PLATFORM program which gives emerging artists the rare opportunity to develop artwork outdoors and test new methods of fabrication and design. Four of the sculptures were inst ... More | | 
Houndstooth Sari. Designed by Abraham & Thakore. Woven in the workshop of Shri Govardhana Puttapaka, Telangana (sari), and Noida, Uttar Pradesh (shirt), 2013. Silk, double ikat. 453 x 117 cm. Given by Abraham &Thakore. V&A: IS.3-2013. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
SARASOTA, FLA.- Textiles are and have been a defining force in Indias culture and history, so much so that in ancient Greece and Babylon, India was shorthand for cotton. The Fabric of India, The Ringlings first major exhibition of Indian art, showcases the variety, technical sophistication and adaptability of Indian textiles from the 15th to the 21st century. The Fabric of India, on view July 7-Oct. 13, 2019, features more than 140 examples drawn from the internationally-renowned holdings of Londons Victoria & Albert Museum and international partners. Historical dress, carefully preserved fabrics and cutting-edge current fashion will be displayed, giving visitors an opportunity to explore not just the superior craftsmanship of the textiles, but the story they tell about the social, economic and political exchanges that drove their ... More |
|
The World Was Gripped by the Apollo 11 Launch
|
|
| |
| | More News |
 New exhibition by the Glasgow-based artist Mick Peter on view at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary ArtGATESHEAD.- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art is presenting a new exhibition by the Glasgow-based artist Mick Peter running from 21 June to 27 October. Peters playful installations incorporate imagery influenced by illustration and commercial art. His sculptures are often enlarged drawings, used to animate the narrative of his exhibitions. To Me, To You is a new commission for BALTICs Level 4 gallery based on a story that presents the processes of commissioning, making and exhibiting an artwork. The installation begins with an office-space before moving into consecutive studios where an artist creates a new abstract sculpture. Two art handlers arrive to collect it and so begins a farcical journey to move it to its final destination an unfamiliar version of BALTIC in a semi derelict high street. Peter references how abstract modern sculpture ... More Rare carved English oak 'thank you' to God for being spared the Plague for sale with Halls AuctionsSHREWSBURY.- A 17th century carved vernacular oak panel portraying the facade of God's Providence House, 9 Watergate Street, Chester, left untouched by the Plague which decimated the town. It is estimated to sell for £800 to £1,200. A 400-year-old commemorative oak panel from a family home in Chester that was leapfrogged by the Plague in 1647, when everyone in every other house in the street was killed, is for sale with Halls Fine Art on July 17th in Shrewsbury. It is estimated to sell for £800/1200 (+BP) That seemingly miraculous event motivated the gracious thank you carving to God for being spared a dreadful and all too common fate, one that cost 2,000 live on this occasion. On the panel the words 'Gods Providence Is Mine Inheritance' are inscribed below an image of the house that was spared. Jeremy Lamond, Director of Halls Fine ... More Ex-French leader Hollande finds second career -- on stageAVIGNON (AFP).- Former French president Francois Hollande made the first tentative step into what may or may not be a second career this weekend when he trod the boards at one of the world's biggest theatre festivals. The Socialist leader -- who was forced from political stage by his one-time acolyte Emmanuel Macron in 2017 -- appeared for 15 minutes in a play at the Avignon theatre festival in the South of France. With acting skills often cited as one of the key qualifications for a career in politics, Hollande acquitted himself rather well in his 15-minute surprise appearance in a sprawling meditation on the state of Europe by one of France's most acclaimed novelists, Laurent Gaude. All the more so since he was playing himself and had to face a residual scepticism that saw him struggle with the lowest approval rating in French political history ... More 1891 Cy Young cabinet card, Babe Ruth 1916 Red Sox Championship pocket watch lead auctionSCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.- More than 1,000 generously illustrated, premium-quality lots from Grey Flannels Summer Games Auction closing July 17 are now available to peruse and bid on at www.GreyFlannelAuctions.com. All major sports are represented in this exciting sale, with an emphasis on provenance, authenticity and rarity throughout. Opening the auction is one of only two known 1891 John H. Ryder Cy Young cabinet cards. It was discovered recently in an album that had been found in a factory almost 65 years ago. The consignor was unaware of either the albums contents or the great rarity of the Cy Young cabinet card. The rookie-era cabinet photo of Young is possibly the first image ever produced of the pitching legend in a major league uniform. This specific image of Young has been seen on a rare 1891 Cleveland Spiders team composite baseball ... More Chinese shadow theatre fights against dying of the lightBEIJING (AFP).- Shadow puppets flitting across screens and reliving age old stories have fascinated Chinese people for some 2,000 years, but with falling audiences troupes are having to be creative to stay on the stage. On a translucent screen in a Beijing classroom, a child with a cosmic ring takes on the son of the dragon king, attacking him with huge thrusts of his lance. Behind the screen, puppeteers use rods to move the figures, to the joy of the schoolchildren watching. The legends of the past are the bedrock of shadow theatre -- a tradition still popular in the countryside, though it has lost much ground in large cities over the last few decades. Shadow theatre was celebrated up until the 1960s when it was targeted as part of the Cultural Revolution. It had something of a renaissance in the 1980s and in 2011 was included on UNESCO's Intangible ... More Malawi's albino busker ready for world stageLILONGWE (AFP).- Like scores of other buskers, Lazarus Chigwandali plies the streets of Malawi's capital Lilongwe hoping for a few coins from appreciative passers-by. But Chigwandali is not your usual street musician. He is an albino, releasing a professional album, and the star of a documentary produced by Madonna. Albinos are often targeted in brutal attacks in Malawi and other southern African countries because they have white skin due to a hereditary condition that causes lack of pigmentation. Killings, abductions and gruesome dismembering of body parts for witchcraft are all real dangers. Despite the risks, Chigwandali, 39, has been out in front of the public for years playing his upbeat tunes on a homemade banjo and a drum that he hits with a pedal operated by his right foot. His big break came just last year when a tourist took a video ... More Giuliana Rosso's 'Only now, lost, they become real to me' curated by Treti Galaxie at on view at VEDAFLORENCE.- Treti Galaxie, hosted by VEDA, is presenting the solo show of Giuliana Rosso Only now, lost, they become real to me. Through a painting style made with fragile materials such as spolvero paper, chalks, charcoal and papier-mâché, Giuliana Rosso creates a composite installation that celebrates the fragility of the individual through a contemporary reinterpretation of universal themes related to art history and popular culture. In the show, a painted and flipped over vault takes the place of the gallery floor, collapsed during the 1966 flood of the Arno. The intervention looks like the image of an ideal frescoed ceiling reflected on the surface of the water that once flooded the space. The overturning also affects the subject of the painting, which concerns a particular interpretation of the Assumption where Mary Magdalene takes the place of the Virgin Mary. The installation is ... More Springfield Art Museum boasts third year of record-breaking attendanceSPRINGFIELD, MO.- The Springfield Art Museum announced its third straight year of record-breaking attendance, welcoming 63,379 visitors since last July. Continuing a trend begun in 2017, the Museum is routinely serving 10,000 more patrons annually than the previous record set in 2004 when the Museum hosted a touring exhibition of Ansel Adams photographs. Museum Director Nick Nelson notes, These attendance figures demonstrate consistent, day-to-day use of the Museum as a valuable educational resource. These figures arent tied to some outside blockbuster show or event. We are proud that our visitors are making real connections with our collection, in addition to all the exciting traveling exhibitions and community events happening at the Museum. The continued growth in activity-based attendance helps demonstrate the need for the Museums ... More Fondazione Morra Greco reopens to the public with exhibition of works by Jimmie DurhamNAPLES.- The founding position of the art of Jimmie Durham, a Cherokee artist and therefore a native American, is nomadism, the continuous shift towards ones own boundary, towards the inevitable fracture of every balance of language. And this happens through the difference of the work, which refuses to homologate to the other works and lives the solitary condition of its own superb discontinuity. The rapacious time, by Hölderlin, robs things in its vortex and scatters them at the foot of the angel of history, stunned by so much rubble. Only art can stop such collapses, only the angel of art can resist shattering and create a mould, a wedge insinuating between fragments and founding a persistence, a resistance and an armistice. But this does not mean paralysis or concealment, it does not mean balsam or phà rmakon, but rather responding to the dusty ... More Sharjah Art Foundation opens Summer 2019 exhibitionsSHARJAH.- Sharjah Art Foundation opened its summer 2019 exhibition programme, featuring the first solo exhibition of painter Andrew Stahl in the region, including an intensive community painting workshop with the artist; the seventh iteration of SAFs annual photography open call exhibition, recently expanded to include international applicants; and an exhibition exploring surface as an interface between artists and their surroundings; all opened 6 July 2019. Surface Tension features works in video, painting, drawing and sculpture that explore surface as a dynamic interface between artists and their surroundings. Although the notion of surface can conjure associations with the inconsequential or the everyday, the slick or the superficial, the works in this exhibition play on these associations in order to elaborate on knowledge, relationships and informal gestures ... More Crescent City Auction Gallery announces Important Summer Estates Catalog AuctionNEW ORLEANS, LA.- An early 20th century four-piece sterling tea and coffee set by Whiting, a patinated bronze bust of Napoleon I done in 1885 by Renzo Colombo, a 1920 still life oil on board by Armenian-born American painter Hovsep Pushman, an oil portrait by Hungarian artist Pal Fried and a 1909 sculpture proof by Russian artist Boris Oskarovich Frodman-Cluzel will all come up for bid in Crescent City Auction Gallerys next auction slated for July 19th, 20th and 21st. The three-day, 1,207-lot Important Summer Estates Catalog Auction is being held online as well as in Crescent Citys gallery at 1330 St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, at 1 pm on Friday, July 19th (lots 1-162), and 9 am Saturday (lots 163-800) and Sunday (lots 801-1,207), July 20th-21st. All times are Central. Internet bidding is provided by LiveAuctioneers.com and ... More |
|
Flashback On a day like today, English artist David Hockney was born July 09, 1937. David Hockney, OM, CH, RA (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. An important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. In this image: David Hockney, "Walk Around the Alcazar", 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 72" (hexagonal). No. 17A20 © David Hockney. Photo: Richard Schmidt.
|
| |
|
|
