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Converse Auctions to offer the Willis R. Michael Fine Antique Clock Collection
PAOLI, PA.- The fine antique clock collection of Willis R. Michael (1894-1969), one of the founders of the NAWCC (National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, Inc.), who also served as the groups second president from 1949-1951, will headline Converse Auctions online-only May Antique Auction on Friday, May 19th, beginning at 12 noon Eastern time. Mr. Michaels interest in clocks began in 1937, when he purchased his first grandfather clock in Lancaster, Pa. His collection grew to over 400 clocks and 225 watches. Trained as a tool-and-die maker, he owned a successful specialized tool-and-die company. He was also a Freemason and held leadership positions within the Masons, helping develop the Dudley Masonic pocket watch. The auction will also feature Modern designer and antique furniture ... More

'Azita Moradkhani: The Real Beneath' solo exhibition on view at Jane Lombard Gallery
NEW YORK, NY.- Jane Lombard Gallery is presenting Iranian-American artist Azita Moradkhanis first solo exhibition in New York, The Real Beneath. The artists work was previously shown at the gallery in last springs group exhibition say the dream was real and the wall imaginary, curated by Joseph R. Wolin. Reflecting upon her own experiences as a woman in both Iran and in the U.S., Moradkhanis practice is rooted in the personal, and inescapably, the political; her new body of work is contemporaneous with the Woman Life Freedom revolution and other movements for womens rights internationally. The exhibition will feature finely-detailed drawings in colored pencil that intertwine the lacey filigree of delicate lingerie with charged imagery. A selection of hand-painted body casts, of and by the artist, and gauzy ... More

KÖNIG GALERIE opens an exhibition of works by Monira Al Qadiri
BERLIN.- KÃNIG GALERIE is presenting the first solo exhibition at St. Agnes of Monira Al Qadiri, one of the rising voices in art from the Middle East and one of the newest faces to the program. CRUDE EYE brings together a selection of recent works that investigate one of the artists foremost concerns: the social and political history around petroleum production and energy dependence. The Berlin-based Al Qadiri originally hails from Kuwait, an epicenter of oil mining and refinement, whose discovery is relatively recent to the larger history of the Gulf Region. Al Qadiri is an artist whose work routinely brings cultural history to bear on the story of oil. Viewers are greeted to CRUDE EYE with the installation SEISMIC SONGS, which features a dinosaur singing karaoke, which despite its ludic tone, actually revisits the discoveries ... More

The exhibition 'Julian Schnabel and Italy' now on view in Milan
MILAN.- In 1977, an unknown American painter named Julian Schnabel was living in Milan and painted some Italian paintings in the basement of a residencia at via Gentilino 9 near the piazza 14 di Maggio. At the time, nobody saw them except Ruggiero Jannuzelli who owned the residencia and who bought them, and put one with a black cross in the church at his home in Voghera. Almost fifty years later, the exhibition Julian Schnabel and Italy, now presented by Robilant+Voena, pays homage to the enduring relationship between that unknown American artist and the country where he made paintings in a basement all those years ago; how Italy has influenced his creativity and how he, in turn, has reflected the rich history and culture of Italy in his art. Offering an insight into the importance of Italy for Schnabel over ... More

National Academies members demand answers about Sacklers' donations
NEW YORK, NY.- More than 75 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine demanded on Thursday that the organization explain why it has for years failed to return or repurpose millions of dollars donated by the Sackler family, including some who led Purdue Pharma. The companys drug, OxyContin, helped set in motion a prescription opioid crisis that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The New York Times reported this month that even as the National Academies advised the government on opioid policy, the organization accepted $19 million from the Sackler family and appointed influential members to its committees who had financial ties to Purdue Pharma. One report issued by the National Academies claimed that 100 million Americans were in chronic pain. The ... More

Coloring history's gray areas with moral outrage
NEW YORK, NY.- When Ãric Vuillard was an infant, his mother used to carry him down from their apartment into the streets of Lyon to wait for his father, who was participating in the student protests that were roiling France around the time he was born, in May 1968. I am both happy and proud that my date of birth coincided with these events, Vuillard said in a recent video interview from his home in Tours, central France. As a writer, Vuillard has drawn on this background of protestation and distrust of power structures to produce a succession of short, biting historical narratives, distinguished by a tone of ironic exasperation. The latest, An Honorable Exit, delves into Frances defeat in the First Indochina War (1946-1954), the colonial abuses that preceded the loss, and the American role in Frances war effort in North Vietnam ... More

Tim Hecker helped popularize ambient music. He's (sort of) sorry.
NEW YORK, NY.- Tim Hecker could not name his most streamed song on Spotify, even after several guesses. Was it Chimeras, the electronic musician guessed by phone before a recent Berlin performance, selecting a 2006 piece where prickles of electric guitar scatter like a galaxy around a lulling beat? (Not in the Top 10.) He tried Sketch 3, an 80-second piano reverie he considered an oddball. Closer, in second place. Informed that Boreal Kiss, Pt. 1 a deep cut from his obscure 2001 debut that sounds like a glass harp routed through a dial-up modem had 6 million streams, far more than everything else in the Top 10 combined, he chuckled. That is crazy, crazy, he said slowly. Back then, he was a civil servant in Ottawa, Ontario, who had just finished a masters in political philosophy and was making ... More

National Gallery of Art appoints Laura L. Lott as Administrator
WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art today announced the appointment of Laura L. Lott as administrator, leading the operational, architecture, and sustainability strategy of one of the largest and most visited art museums in the world. When Lott begins her tenure on July 3, she will become the National Gallery's eighth administrator since the museum was founded in 1937 and will succeed Sheila McDaniel, who will depart in early summer. The National Gallery's administrator is a member of the senior leadership team, overseeing the divisions of administrative support, architecture and capital improvement, facilities, horticulture, personnel, procurement, and security, which together comprise nearly one-half of the museum's staff. Since 2015, Lott has been president and chief executive officer of the Am ... More

The wild life and times of a soon-to-be former City Ballet dancer
NEW YORK, NY.- Harrison Ball, a principal at New York City Ballet, has tears in his toes. His sesamoid bone is crushed and, he said, dying. There is bone shard sticking into a tendon in his foot. His arthritis is so bad that his doctor told him it was comparable to that of an elderly person. He cant do his job if he cant pirouette. So Sunday, hes leaving his job. Hes barely 30. Such an early farewell is not the norm. But for Ball, who was promoted to the rank of principal dancer just last year, the injuries were too much. Its gotten to the point where I just cant do my job without being in an enormous amount of pain, he said. Even with that pain, Ball has been performing in new, intriguing ways. As the Poet in La Sonnambula and Puck in A Midsummer Nights Dream, both George Balanchine ballets, his seriousness ... More