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From Venice to Boca Raton for the 2021 U.S. premiere of Glasstress

Ai Weiwei with his glass installation Blossom Chandelier, created in Venice at Berengo Studio. One of 34 major artists in the U.S. premiere of Glasstress 2021 at the Boca Raton Museum of Art (photo by Karolina Sobel).

BOCA RATON, FLA.- “There is every reason this year to have a world view,” says Irvin Lippman, the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s Executive Director, as South Florida boldly ushers in the new year with the national premiere of Glasstress 2021 Boca Raton. “Three years in the making, with 2020 being such a challenging year to coordinate an international exhibition of this size and scope, the effort serves as an important reassurance that art is an essential and enduring part of humanity. This is also a tribute to the resilience of Venice’s surviving the floods and continuing to make art through the pandemic.” Most of these works in glass have never been seen elsewhere, and were handpicked by Kathleen Goncharov, the Museum’s Senior Curator who traveled to Italy in 2019. The new exhibition runs Jan. 27 through Sept. 5, 2021 and the Museum will feature online initiatives for virtual viewing. Watch the new video ... More

The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
A visitor looks at a copy of a cast of a horse from the excavation in Civita Giuliana, at the Antiquarium museum during its reopening at the archaeological site of Pompeii, near Naples, on January 25, 2021. The Antiquarium of Pompeii is the new museum space dedicated to the permanent exhibition of finds illustrating the history of Pompeii.The public will be able to visit the archaeological area as well as the new museum route: an introduction to the visit of the site through the most important testimonies of the ancient city, from the Samnite age until the tragic eruption of 79 AD. Andreas SOLARO / AFP






Paris Pompidou Centre to close for four-year refit   Pompeii shows off treasures, sorcerer's magic charms   Swiss drop Russian oligarch's case against art dealer


In this file photo taken on June 15, 2020 a man works in a corridor of the Centre Georges Pompidou modern art museum, in Paris. The Centre Pompidou (aka Beaubourg) will be closed for renovation from 2023 to 2027, French Culture Minister said on January 25, 2021. Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP.

PARIS (AFP).- The Pompidou Centre, one of Paris's top cultural attractions and home to Europe's biggest modern art collection, is to close from 2023 for four years of renovations, France's culture minister said on Monday. Designed by star architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, the Pompidou Centre opened in 1977 and is showing visible signs of ageing. "There were two options," Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot told the Figaro newspaper. "One involved renovating the centre while keeping it open, the other was closing it completely. "I chose the second because it should be shorter and a little bit less expensive," she added. Like all cultural attractions in Paris, the Pompidou Centre closed from March-June last year during the first wave of the global coronavirus pandemic and has been shuttered again ... More
 

General Director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Massimo Osanna poses at the Antiquarium museum during its reopening at the archaeological site of Pompeii, near Naples, on January 25, 2021. Andreas SOLARO / AFP.

by Alvise Armellini


POMPEII (AFP).- Decades worth of archaeological finds went on public display Monday in Pompeii, shedding further light on the ancient Roman city destroyed by a volcanic eruption nearly 2,000 years ago. One is a sorcerer's toolbox including dozens of amulets, rings, statuettes and other good luck charms made of ivory, bronze, glazed ceramics and amber -- that were clearly not enough to protect the city from doom. "It's one of the most peculiar things we found during our excavations: amulets we found in a box in a house... which seem to belong to a woman -- or a man, perhaps -- who used magic," said Massimo Osanna, the director of the Pompeii archaeological park near Naples in southern Italy. He was speaking at the inauguration of the Antiquarium, a refurbished ... More
 

AS Monaco President Dmitry Rybolovlev looks on during the French League Cup final football match between Monaco (ASM) and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP.

GENEVA (AFP).- Swiss prosecutors confirmed Tuesday they are dropping a case brought by Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev against a top art dealer he accused of swindling him out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Rybolovlev, president of the AS Monaco football club, has alleged Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier charged him inflated prices on dozens of works he acquired for more than $2.1 billion (1.9 billion euros). He has brought cases against the dealer in Monaco, Singapore and Switzerland. Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported Monday that Geneva's top prosecutor Yves Bertossa had decided to drop the Swiss side of the case, after Rybolovlev lost before a Monaco appeals court in December 2019. Bertossa's office told AFP on Tuesday the prosecution had "announced to the parties its intention to close the case". It provided no further details, but according to Le Temps, the parties have until January 30 ... More


Nile cruiser that inspired Agatha Christie sails on despite virus   Lady Mountbatten's family collection to be offered at Sotheby's   Art Museum of WVU is first stop for 'Walker Evans American Photographs'


This picture taken on January 3, 2021 shows the steam ship "PS Sudan" cruising along the Nile river. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP.

ASWAN (AFP).- More than a century after it first cruised the glittering waters of the Nile, the Steam Ship Sudan draws tourists following the trail of legendary crime novelist Agatha Christie. The SS Sudan, which towers over the traditional wooden sailing boats in Egypt's southern city of Aswan, inspired the British author sometimes dubbed the "Queen of Crime" to pen one of her most famous works in 1937, "Death on the Nile". The whodunnit tells the story of Christie's famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, investigating murder among the well-heeled travellers as they cruise the Nile. "Agatha Christie's trip aboard the steamer, the atmosphere and its route... inspired her to begin writing the first chapters," said Amir Attia, the cruise ship's director. Built for the Egyptian royal family in 1885 and transformed into a cruise liner in 1921, the SS Sudan hosted the novelist with her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, in 1933. ... More
 

Edwina’s Evening Bag: An unusual and amusing gem-set gold mesh purse by Lacloche Frères, Paris, circa 1905 (est. £2,000-3,000). Courtesy Sotheby's.

LONDON.- The 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, great niece of Russia’s last Tsarina, first cousin to Prince Philip and the daughter of Britain’s last Viceroy of India, the late Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten was born in 1924 into a dazzling dynasty of royal and political relations. Over her eminent life at the very heart of Britain’s cultural establishment, she is known and remembered for her “unwavering perseverance and beguiling sense of humour”. The eldest daughter of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979), and glamorous heiress turned philanthropist Edwina Ashley (1900-1960), Patricia had an unconventional upbringing, from weekend parties with King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at her parents’ estate in Hampshire to evacuation on the eve of the Blitz to stay with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III in her palatial Fifth Avenue apartment in New York. ... More
 

Walker Evans, Main Street, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1931. Gelatin silver print, printed c. 1970 by James Dow. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Purchase © 2021 Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

MORGANTOWN, WV.- The Art Museum of West Virginia University is the first venue on a national tour of an installation that celebrates photographer Walker Evans’s landmark solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1938. A leading figure in the history of American documentary photography, Evans is today considered one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. The exhibition opened Jan. 22 and runs through April 25. “It is an extraordinary opportunity to bring an exhibition about Walker Evans to West Virginia, where he made iconic photographs of people and places in and around Morgantown and Scotts Run,” said Director Todd J. Tubutis. “It is also the first exhibition dedicated to photography at the Art Museum since it opened in 2015.” In the 1930s, Evans traveled extensively throughout the Eastern ... More


Zeit Contemporary Art opens online exhibition 'Painting Abstraction: 197X - Today'   Frick announces new and upcoming volumes in Diptych series   How Shanghai saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust


Gerhard Richter. Untitled (17.4.89), 1989 (detail). Image courtesy of the artist and Zeit Contemporary Art, New York.

NEW YORK, NY.- Zeit Contemporary Art is presenting an online viewing room showcasing a selection of works by innovative historical and contemporary artists who have returned to and reinvented abstraction in order to speak to the present and future world we all inhabit. Despite the erroneous belief that abstraction had been carried to its limits, artists have revisited the language and taken it in new directions, ever pushing the boundaries of art in line with abstraction’s risk-taking legacy. The works in this viewing room are alternately spare, texturally dense, or vibrantly colored. All feature distinctive mark-making: abstraction constructed by pictorial means. “In this century, technology itself has become more abstract, and it has transformed the world we live in into an abstract environment” wrote Peter Halley in his 1991 essay “Abstraction ... More
 

The Frick Diptych series is published by The Frick Collection in association with D Giles Ltd., London, sold online through the Museum Shop at www.frick.org/shop

NEW YORK, NY.- The popular Frick Diptych series continues with books on masterpieces in the collection. Since 2018, five titles have been published, each illuminating a single work with an engaging, in-depth essay by a curator paired with a contribution from a contemporary cultural figure. Connecting the Old Masters with the voices of today, the series is designed to foster critical engagement appealing to the specialist and non-specialist alike. Comments Ian Wardropper, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director, “These fresh takes on our holdings have often included close inspections and deeply personal reflections. We are delighted with the response to the first group of books, which focuses on Holbein’s Sir Thomas More, Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid, and Rembrandt’s Polish Rider, and are excited to announce upcoming titles on ... More
 

This photo taken on December 8, 2020 shows people visiting an exhibition hall at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum on the day the museum reopened to the public after an expansion project in Shanghai. STR / AFP.

by Peter Stebbings


SHANGHAI (AFP).- As an infant Kurt Wick escaped almost certain death in a Nazi concentration camp by taking refuge in Shanghai, a little-known sanctuary for thousands of Jews fleeing the Holocaust. Now 83, he has spent the last two decades spreading the word about how the Chinese city became an unlikely safe haven from Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution". "They saved 20,000 Jews and if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to talk to you now," says Vienna-born Wick, who was taken by his parents on a ship from the port of Trieste for the long voyage east. "I would have been one of the ashes in Auschwitz, like my other family." Wednesday is International Holocaust Remembrance ... More


An organ recital, with a coronavirus shot   Paula Cooper Gallery opens an exhibition by Sol LeWitt   Arkansas Arts Center becomes Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts


John Challenger, 32, the assistant music director at the Salisbury Cathedral, which is being used as a vaccination center, at the cathedral in England, Jan. 23, 2021. Tom Jamieson/The New York Times.

by Alex Marshall


SALISBURY (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- On a recent Saturday afternoon, Margaret Drabble, 83, sat beneath the soaring arches of Salisbury Cathedral, swinging her legs back and forth under her chair like a schoolgirl. Minutes earlier, in a booth near the cathedral’s entrance, she had received her first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus. But that wasn’t why she was looking so happy, she said. Instead, it was from the elaborate organ music gently reverberating in the cathedral’s interior. “Oh, I just love the organ,” said Drabble, a former schoolteacher. “It’s so beautiful, it almost makes me cry every time I hear it.” “I’ve always wanted to play it,” she said, wistfully. Then, she looked toward the organ’s 4,000 pipes at the front of the cathedral and sat up straight to listen. She had been told to stay put for 15 minutes, ... More
 

Installation view, Jennifer Bartlett: Grids & Dots, Paula Cooper Gallery, 243A Worth Avenue, Palm Beach, FL, January 16 – February 7, 2021. Photo: Michael Lopez with Zachary Balber. © Jennifer Bartlett. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, and The Jennifer Bartlett 2013 Trust.

PALM BEACH, FLA.- “Sol LeWitt: Cubic Forms” explores the artist’s use of the cube as the base unit for a prolific body of work including structures, drawings, prints, and photographs. In the early 1960s, opposed to the subjectivity of Expressionism, LeWitt turned to systematic geometry by devising basic sets of rules that governed the execution and design of a work of art. “The cube,” LeWitt boldly asserted in 1966, “is the best form to use as a basic unit for any more elaborate function, the grammatical device from which the work may proceed.” In LeWitt’s iconic series of “open structures,” framed white cubes act as the common denominator, which are then programmatically altered or combined to form the final composition. On view in the exhibition, Modular Wall Structure (c. 1965) is among the earliest and finest examples ... More
 

View toward MacArthur Park from the atrium, which connects AMFA’s new programming areas. © Studio Gang.

LITTLE ROCK, AR.- Trustees and leadership of the Arkansas Arts Center today announced that this historic institution in the capital of Little Rock, currently in the midst of a $142 million transformation, will now be known as the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA), reaffirming its leading role in cultural life throughout the state. Redesigned as a thoroughly new experience by the MacArthur Foundation “genius award” winners Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects and Kate Orff of SCAPE Landscape Architecture with an increase in space of almost 50 percent and the addition of 10 acres of new grounds, the reinvented Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts is scheduled to open in spring 2022. AMFA leaders revealed that the capital campaign supporting the building project has now secured $135,944,426, surpassing the costs of construction, and that the fundraising goal is being increased to $142 million to ensure additional support for operations ... More




Disrupting the algorithm around "America" | Introducing Virtual Views: Garrett Bradley's "America"



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Moss Arts Center's newest exhibition reflects the Earth's beauty and vulnerability
BLACKSBURG, VA.- Visually engaging, powerful, and at times even beautiful, the Moss Arts Center’s newest exhibition, “Unbearable Beauty,” presents works of art that depict the devastating ways human activity impacts the environment. The exhibition includes photographic work by nationally and internationally recognized artists Edward Burtynsky, Chris Jordan, and Daniel Beltrá; a stunning film installation of one of the largest arctic glacier calving incidents to date by James Balog; and Steven Norton’s arresting soundscape of animal species that are now extinct. “Unbearable Beauty” is currently on view at the Moss Arts Center, located at 190 Alumni Mall, Blacksburg, Virginia, through April 24, 2021. The center’s exhibitions and all related events are always free and open to the public. Population growth and the need for expanding agricultural production, ... More

Julia Stoschek Collection opens an exhibition of works by Jeremy Shaw
DUSSELDORF.- Jeremy Shaw’s Quantification Trilogy consists of three parafictional short films: Quickeners (2014), Liminals (2017), and I Can See Forever (2018). The works are set in the future and explore how marginalized societies confront life after a scientific discovery has mapped and determined all parameters of transcendental spiritual experience. This is known as “The Quantification.” Employing aesthetics and outmoded media of the 20th century to depict the future, Shaw’s alchemical combination of cinema verité, ethnographic film, conceptual art, and music video invites the viewer to suspend their disbelief in the story, and provides a series of critical perspectives on systems of power. The Quantification Trilogy examines fringe culture, theories of evolution, virtual reality, neurotheology, esotericism, dance, the representation ... More

Swann to offer curated sale focused on the artists of the WPA
NEW YORK, NY.- On Thursday, February 4 Swann Galleries will offer the auction: The Artists of the WPA. The multi-departmental sale will feature paintings, prints, photographs, posters, books and related ephemera by artists whose careers were sustained by the Works Progress Administration. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and its related agencies represented an unprecedented investment in art and artists, setting the scene for the twentieth century’s art movements, and establishing the careers of diverse creatives, including women, Black artists, photographers, and muralists. The sale includes a run of works that served as studies and preparations for murals. Highlights include: Louise Emerson Ronnebeck’s Singers, tempera and color pencils, circa 1937, a detail of what would ... More

"Our Louisiana" now on view at Louisiana Art & Science Museum
BATON ROUGE, LA.- Our Louisiana, on view until January 14, 2024, explores Louisiana’s history and culture through objects from LASM’s permanent collection. Featuring artwork in a variety of media by Louisiana-born and Louisiana-based artists, the exhibition is divided into the categories of Nineteenth Century Art; Modern Art; Contemporary Art; Baton Rouge Art; and Self-Taught Art, Folk Art, and Craft. Organized by the Louisiana Art & Science Museum and curated from its collection, Our Louisiana is on view on the first floor of the main gallery. “We are excited to present Our Louisiana to our community,” stated Serena Pandos, LASM President & Executive Director. “This exhibition will not only resonate with residents of our beloved state, but will also educate and engage out-of-town visitors on the gumbo of culture that is uniquely ‘Our ... More

Bonhams' first stand-alone Western Art sale in Los Angeles features important American works
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Isleta, New Mexico, by the German-born American Western artist Walter Ufer, leads Bonhams' first stand-alone Western Art sale in Los Angeles on Friday, February 26, 2021. It is estimated at $125,000 - 175,000. For the past 40 years, Bonhams Californian and Western Art department has consistently realized top results for a variety of Western artists, including early American Frontier painters, Taos Society Artists, and many members of the prestigious Cowboy Artists of America. Building on recent successes selling the Collection of L.D. “Brink” Brinkman, The Eddie Basha Collection, and Western works from the Estate of Barron Hilton, Bonhams will now conduct stand-alone sales of Western Art. The inaugural stand-alone sale is being led by Katherine Halligan, Bonhams’ newly appointed specialist in Western Art. Commenting ... More

Ketterer Kunst announces exhibition and auction: 100 Years of Joseph Beuys
MUNICH.- It will surely be on of the most significant recent Beuys auctions when in June Ketterer Kunst in Munich will call up more than 20 works by the likewise radical and influential artist. As the interest is already strong, the house is going to show a range of works, some acquired directly from the artist, in the special exhibition “Wo ist Element 3?” at its Berlin branch as of March 26. Consignments are accepted until early May. “Top quality pieces by Joseph Beuys are very rare on the current art market. Thus I am all the more happy that we are able to make this great offer to our clients on occasion of the artist‘s 100th birthday“, says Robert Ketterer, auctioneer and owner of Ketterer Kunst. “Both the exhibition and the auction will move into the focus of scores of art lovers and Beuys experts around the world.“ Creative, complex and controversial - best describes Joseph Beuys. In his creatio ... More

Two gold specimens, Dragon's Lair and Ausrox Nugget, come to the Perot Museum of Nature & Science
DALLAS, TX.- With a combined weight of more than 110 pounds, two exquisite and rare gold pieces originally unearthed in Australia are now on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. The largest piece – dubbed the Dragon’s Lair – tips the scales at 63 pounds making it one of the largest and most remarkable specimens to come out of the richest gold finds in Australia. This is the first time Dragon’s Lair has been on view at any museum. Its smaller lustrous companion – known as the Ausrox Nugget – weighs in at a whopping 51.29 pounds and is about the size of a basketball. “For thousands of years humans have treasured gold for its beauty and abundant properties. I remember panning for gold as a child and being excited to take home a tiny vial of flakes, so to see the lustrous beauty and sheer size of the Dragon’s Lair and Ausrox ... More

Swedish playwright Lars Noren dead from Covid-19 at 76
STOCKHOLM (AFP).- Swedish playwright Lars Noren, a pillar of Sweden's theatre scene, died Tuesday from complications owing to Covid-19, his publisher said. He was 76. "The importance of Lars Noren as an author and dramatist is almost impossible to convey at the moment in a couple of sentences, but he was one of the greats of our time," Eva Bonnies, editor at his publishing house Albert Bonniers Forlag, said in a statement. Famous both at home and abroad he was seen as following in the footsteps of renowned Swedish author August Strindberg (1849-1912) and film director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). He started with poetry in the 1960s before honing in on theatre in the late 1970s, as both a writer and director. In addition to directing plays at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, he also worked abroad including at the Comedie- ... More

Rome's Villa Borghese welcomes clone of 17th-century tree
ROME (AFP).- A plane tree with roots in the 17th century and a Greek god as an ancestor is now taking pride of place in one of Rome's most beloved parks. The six-year-old "Platanus Orientalis" is a clone of a rare specimen planted over 400 years ago by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who built extensive gardens around his art-filled villa in Rome. The tree lovers behind the project told AFP the clone now planted in the Villa Borghese public park -- alongside the plane tree that gave it life -- represents a real botanical feat that they hope will ensure the longevity of Rome's majestic trees. "This important result represents a key first step for the protection, reproduction and conservation of the genetic heritage of ancient trees in Rome," said Laura Fiorini, head of green spaces for Italy's capital. The tree was grown from a branch bearing a solitary leaf ... More

Dancing for many cameras, in the round: 'It's Muybridge on steroids'
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Midway through 2020, Herman Cornejo, one of the best male dancers of his generation, lost his mojo. The company he dances for, American Ballet Theatre, had to close its studios because of the pandemic. He was tired of training at home, by himself, on a 5-by-7-foot square of vinyl flooring provided by Ballet Theatre. “If I do a single grand jeté” — one of the powerful, spacious jumps he is known for — “I end up next to the wall,” he said at the time. “I was pushing myself to keep going, until I realized that pushing myself was just making it worse,” he said more recently. So for the first time since he started dancing, when he was 8, he allowed himself to take a break. It was then that he realized what he needed was to create something of his own, he said. In-person performances were not an option. The dance ... More

Paintings by Lois Dodd, Mercedes Carles Matter and Gillian Ayres sell for a combined $150,000
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.- Original oil on canvas paintings by Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927), Mercedes Carles Matter (American, 1913-2001) and Gillian Ayres (UK, 1930-2018) sold for a combined $150,000, and a beautiful black ebony Bosendorfer grand piano played a sweet tune for $53,125 in a live and online auction held Jan. 16 by Ripley Auctions, based in Indianapolis. The Estate Art & Antiques auction was headlined by items from the estate of the legendary British conductor and composer Raymond Leppard (1927-2019), a Grammy-winning recording artist and scholarly revivalist of 16th and 17th century baroque operas. Also offered were fine items pulled from prominent estates and collections in the Indianapolis area – 325 lots in all. In addition to the Raymond Leppard items, the auction catalog was packed with Italian and American studio glass, ... More


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Flashback
On a day like today, Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp was born
January 27, 1585. Hendrick Avercamp (January 27, 1585 (bapt.) - May 15, 1634 (buried)) was a Dutch painter. Avercamp was born in Amsterdam, where he studied with the Danish-born portrait painter Pieter Isaacks (1569 - 1625), and perhaps also with David Vinckboons. In 1608 he moved from Amsterdam to Kampen in the province of Overijssel. Avercamp was mute and was known as "de Stomme van Kampen" (the mute of Kampen). In this image: Hendrick Avercamp, IJsgezicht met jager die een otter toont. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

  
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