The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Wednesday, July 6, 2022

 
Exhibition puts Mondrian's paintings to a beat to help viewers get a better feel for the works

Piet Mondrian, Victory Boogie Woogie, 1942-1944 (New York). Loan ICN, Amsterdam.

THE HAGUE.- The best way to understand the work of Piet Mondrian, said Caro Verbeek, the curator of a show devoted to the Dutch artist at the Kunstmuseum here, is to dance in front of one of his paintings. On a recent tour of the show, Verbeek said Mondrian’s work was best appreciated as a multisensory “kinesthetic” experience. If you prefer not to dance in the galleries, she said, you can try listening to music, or perhaps smelling a particularly complex scent as you gaze at his paintings. To demonstrate, Verbeek, strikingly clad all in black with bright green shoes, stopped in front of one of Mondrian’s red, yellow and blue paintings, his final masterpiece “Victory Boogie Woogie,” and began to stomp and clap. “Two people dance in complete opposition,” she explained as she moved. “That’s what interested Mondrian: opposition between lines, directions, shapes and colors.” She took a few more jaunty steps on her own before enlisting a passing ... More



The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
Artemis Gallery will hold It's a Small World | Diminutive Artifacts sale on Jul 07, 2022 11:00 AM GMT-5. Join them for a very special auction featuring art & artifacts from East to West, North to South, and everywhere in between - with one small thing in common - size! Everything in this auction is approximately 6 inches or less. Fine Teotihuacan Tecali Anthropomorphic Maskette. Estimate $10,000 - $15,000.






Discovery reveals harsh living conditions and cultural resistance of the Mexica   Smiles ahead: Heritage Auctions offers NFT of world's first graphical emoticon   Harry Benson: Persons of Interest exhibition opens at the Redwood


INAH researchers discovered four graves of children that date from 1521 to 1620, but that were still buried in the pre-Hispanic manner. Photo: Melitón Tapia / INAH.

Translated by Liz Marie Gangemi


MEXICO CITY.- After the crucial August of 1521, one of the first actions undertaken by the Spanish rulers was to create a new composition on top of the ruins of Tenochtitlan, for which they expelled the natives to the periphery, to locate the socio-political center of their nascent viceregal city there. However, far away from those foreign eyes, from their homes, the Mexica maintained multiple acts of resistance that today show themselves through archaeology. Such is the case of the recent discovery of the remains of a Mexica dwelling and four children’s graves dating from the early Colonial period (1521-1620), still carried out in pre-Hispanic fashion, according to a project of archaeological salvage being carried out on a site in the neighborhood of La ... More
 

Nicolas Loufrani (b. 1971), The First Graphical Emoticons: 42 Smileys, NFT, Non-fungible token (JPEG) 1620 x 1620 pixels. Ed. 1/1. Minted on June 22, 2022.

DALLAS, TX.- In celebration of World Emoji Day, Heritage Auctions will present an event sure to put smiles on faces. The Smiley Revolution: An NFT Auction on July 17 consists of one happy-making lot — an NFT of the world's first graphical emoticons. This set of 42 three-dimensional Smileys, conceptualized from 1997-1999 by Nicolas Loufrani — CEO of The Smiley Company, a global IP & licensing company — represents not only the roots of modern-day emojis but also a pivotal point in cultural and linguistic history: the birth of a universal language that embodied the spirit of the internet. "We are honored to be offering the first 3D Smileys at auction," says Taylor Curry, Heritage Auctions' Director of Modern & Contemporary Art, New York. "While these have existed since 1997, it wasn't ... More
 

Harry Signs Prints for Exhibit.

NEWPORT, RI.- The Redwood Library & Athenaeum, the nation’s first purpose-built library and think space, announces—as part of its 275th anniversary celebration—the opening of its second summer exhibition, Harry Benson: Persons of Interest, a succinct tracing of the life’s work of renowned photographer Harry Benson CBE. A gathering of nearly forty large-scale photographs drawn from Benson’s private collection, the show spans his more than 60-year career as a photojournalist working for such publications as Time, Vanity Fair, Paris Match and Life, yielding a body of work that in its totality cements him as one of the pivotal chroniclers of modern life. Benson is likely to be first remembered as the photographer who documented the Beatles’ 1964 arrival in France and the US, and in its presentation of a handful of his indelible images of the Fab Four the show serves as a preface to Benson’s forthcoming ... More


Ernie Barnes masterpiece to be offered at Bonhams New York on September 9   Gagosian to present second part of survey of works by Nam June Paik   They uncover new fossils, but they also bite


Detail of Solid Rock Congregation (1993), by Ernie Barnes (estimate: $500,000-700,000). Photo: Bonhams.

NEW YORK, NY.- A masterpiece by American artist Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) depicting a lively Sunday church service will hit the auction block this fall at Bonhams New York, following a summer tour to London and Los Angeles. A breakout star of the spring season, Barnes’ Solid Rock Congregation (1993) is another exemplary painting from his oeuvre depicting an energetic, multi-figure composition with strong emotional resonance. Barnes conveys the euphoric, rhythmic music deeply rooted in gospel churches of the American South, painting a Sunday morning church scene brimming with people singing, dancing, and playing instruments through his unique painting style capturing movement and passion. Estimated at $500,000 - 700,000, Solid Rock Congregation will be offered in a single lot live auction on September 9 in New York. The work has never been seen by the public before and has resided with American gospel singer Margaret Bell who commissioned the pa ... More
 

Nam June Paik, Untitled, 2005. Single-channel video (color, silent), acrylic and permanent oil marker on a monitor in vintage television cabinet, 18 7/8 x 19 x 18 7/8 inches, 47.9 x 48.3 x 47.9 cm © Nam June Paik Estate. © The Artist. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian.

NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian will present the second and final installment of Art in Process, a survey of works by Nam June Paik (1932–2006) spanning his career. The first part of the exhibition is on view at Gagosian’s 555 West 24th Street location through July 22, 2022, and surveys Paik’s practice as it developed over four decades through a selection of work ranging from early forays into multimedia to late paintings and video sculptures. Art in Process: Part Two is on view at Gagosian’s Park & 75 location from July 19 to August 26, 2022, and features a trio of his satellite broadcasts from the 1980s alongside a number of intimate and elegiac “late style” televisions. Art in Process is the gallery’s second solo exhibition of Paik’s work, following the 2015 presentation of The Late Style in Hong Kong. It follows The Future Is Now, a retrospective organized by Tate ... More
 

An undated photo provided by Clint Boyd shows an overhead view of the anthill, where the mammal teeth are among the darker gravel-sized particles. Clint Boyd via The New York Times.

by Annie Roth


NEW YORK, NY.- A small group of paleontologists recently discovered 10 species of ancient mammals previously unknown to science. But they had an enormous number of helpers at their dig site: thousands of tiny ants. The ancient mammals, described in a study published in May by the Rochester Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, include a pocket mouse that weighed less than a lightbulb, a rat-sized relative of the mountain beaver and an ancestor of kangaroo rats. The study sheds new light on the diversity of mammals that existed in North America around 33 million to 35 million years ago, when the climate was changing drastically. It also pays a rare homage to the insects who collected the fossils and makes a strong case for continued scientific collaboration between paleontologists and harvester ants, with which they ... More



Ursula Schulz-Dornburg donates archive to the Getty Research Institute   Hauser & Wirth opens an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by artist Zhang Enli   Simon de Pury announces a new series of curated auctions


Ursula Schulz-Dornburg (German, b. 1938), Gur-e Dokhtar Tomb, Bushehr Province, Iran, 2006. Gelatin silver print. Getty Research Institute © Ursula Schulz-Dornburg.

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Getty Research Institute has acquired the archive of artist Ursula Schulz-Dornburg. Chronicling her entire photographic work from the late 1960s to the present, the archive provides a unique understanding of the artist’s development and will support research into the political climate and changing environment unfolding in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. “Operating at the interface of archaeology, anthropology, and documentary that is grounded in substantial research, Schulz-Dornburg's conceptual practice directly aligns with the GRI’s mission to support research in the humanities, while her emphasis on early civilizations and the legacy of the trace complements both the Research Institute’s and Museum’s interest in the ancient ... More
 

Zhang Enli.

ST. MORITZ.- An exhibition of paintings and works on paper by artist Zhang Enli opens this summer season at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz. Unfolding across both floors of the gallery, ‘Zhang Enli. Looking Outwards’ showcases works from recent years, all connected through the artist’s remarkable use of line and colour. The works on view are an invitation to look beyond oneself, onto the peripheries and off centre, and inspire us to see the world anew. Coinciding with the presentation in St. Moritz is Zhang Enli’s site-specific project ‘A Cheerful Person’ (2021) in Montabone, Italy for Art Mapping Piemonte – an art project launched by the Piedmont Region with the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, produced by Fondazione Torino Musei and curated by Artissima. Using his paintings to mirror the outside world, Zhang Enli documents the more prosaic aspects of contemporary life, often representing ordinary ob ... More
 

Chloe Wise, Feelings For You. Oil paint on Linen, 36" x 48". Courtesy of the artist.

LONDON.- de PURY presents a new series of curated auctions that will be a game changing event from a market perspective. The inaugural auction, WOMEN- Art in Times of Chaos, will present artworks by contemporary women artists that have been created over the last two and a half years. An exhibition of the artworks will run from August 5 on de-PURY.com, with the auction taking place on August 25. For the first time it will be the artists themselves, and the galleries who represent them, who will receive the proceeds from an auction of works that appear for the first time on the market. The curated auction will differentiate itself from any other contemporary auctions in the following ways: • 100% of the Hammer Price will go to the artist and the gallery that represents them, according to the percentage agreement they have between themselves. • 18% Buyer's Premium, charged on top ... More


Big Ben's bongs will soon ring out again across London   A canine companion so nice it (maybe) evolved twice   White Cube now represents Canadian artist Danica Lundy


The clock face of the Elizabeth Tower, formally called the Clock Tower until it was renamed in 2012, in London on May 31, 2022. Mary Turner/The New York Times.

by Stephen Castle


LONDON.- For five years, the most famous clock tower in Britain was hidden behind an ugly fortress of scaffolding, and its hourly bong was rendered mute. But the restoration work is done, and this summer, a sound familiar to Londoners for more than 1 1/2 centuries will again ring out across the British capital — Big Ben is back. The clock tower — officially known as the Elizabeth Tower since 2012 when it was renamed in honor of the queen’s diamond jubilee — stands tall over the Palace of Westminster, which houses the British Parliament and is one of the world’s most instantly recognized constructions. But it is the nickname of the biggest bell in the belfry that draws the most name recognition: Big Ben. During the past five years, the ... More
 

A Basenji, a dog breed that originated in Africa and the Middle East, in New York, Feb. 11, 2013. Two different ancient wolf populations contributed DNA to modern dogs, according to a new study. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times.

by Emily Anthes


NEW YORK, NY.- For years, one of the most confounding questions in science — alongside “What is dark matter?” and “Why do we sleep?” — has been one that many pet owners may have found themselves casually pondering: Where did dogs come from? Scientists generally agree that humanity’s best friend descended from gray wolves, scampering into our lives at least 15,000 years ago. Virtually everything else is a matter of debate. “When and where did this happen and with whom — with what human group?” said Pontus Skoglund, a paleogeneticist at the Francis Crick Institute in London. “It’s really a mystery.” Studies have turned up widely divergent answers, variously concluding ... More
 

Portrait of Danica Lundy © the artist. Photo © Erin Pollock. Courtesy White Cube.

LONDON.- White Cube announced representation of Canadian artist Danica Lundy (b. 1991, Salt Spring, Canada), who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. ‘Stop Bath’, her first exhibition at the gallery, takes place at White Cube Bermondsey from 8 July – 11 September 2022. Danica Lundy’s sensorial, figurative paintings are compositionally complex and slow to reveal their nature. Describing her language as ‘a visceral hyper-reality that shows everything at once’, she exploits painting's potential for panoptical vision, using multiple perspectives, hybrid forms and differing scales in her complex tableaux. ‘A painting can become a poem, a nightmare, a construction site; a lived-in arena for testing out the limits of one’s own power’, she has stated. Lundy’s figuration plays out in densely crowded narrative scenes. Alive with incident, autobiography yields to larger themes in polyphonic narrative ... More




What we celebrate in Stradivari is his boldness of expression. That begins with the Hellier.



More News

Toledo Museum of Art appoints Lanisa Kitchiner as Consulting Curator of African Art
TOLEDO, OH.- The Toledo Museum of Art has named Lanisa S. Kitchiner consulting curator of African art. In this role, she will manage the continued growth of the Museum’s collection of African objects and develop innovative exhibitions in support of the Museum’s ambitious curatorial program. Kitchiner previously served as director of education and scholarly initiatives, a senior-level role at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art. In this capacity, she developed educational and curatorial initiatives that strengthened and diversified the intellectual, curatorial and outreach efforts of the museum. She oversaw implementation of the largest grant in the history of the unit and established a foundation for acquiring, interpreting and exhibiting under-represented objects in African art. Notably during her tenure, she developed ... More

Duke Riley's "DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash" now open at the Brooklyn Museum
BROOKLYN, NY.- DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash, a critical, provocative look at the ecological impact of capitalism across centuries, connects the history of American maritime art to current themes of environmental justice. The exhibition presents a suite of new works by Brooklyn-based artist Duke Riley (American, born 1972). Many are shown in the Museum’s seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American period rooms known as the Jan Martense Schenck and Nicholas Schenck houses, which will be open for visitors to step inside for the first time. This immersive display emphasizes the exhibition’s historical context and creates a vivid dialogue between past and present environmental devastation. The artist has also selected examples of nineteenth-century scrimshaw from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection to draw further parallels ... More

Peter Brook, celebrated stage director of scale and humanity, dies at 97
NEW YORK, NY.- Peter Brook, whose ambitious, adventurous and endlessly creative stage work ranged across seven decades on both sides of the Atlantic and earned him a place among the greatest theater directors of the 20th century, died Saturday. He was 97. His death was confirmed by his son, Simon, who did not specify where he died. “Peter is the quester,” director Peter Hall once said, “the person out on the frontiers, continually asking what is quality in theater, where do you find truth in theater.” He added: “He is the greatest innovator of his generation.” Peter Brook was called many other things: a maverick, a romantic, a classicist. But he was never easily pigeonholed. British by nationality but based in Paris since 1970, he spent years in commercial theater, winning Tony Awards in 1966 and 1971 for the Broadway transfers ... More

Now open: British Tattoo Art: Reclaiming the Narrative at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall
FALMOUTH.- The National Maritime Museum Cornwall opened its new temporary exhibition: British Tattoo Art: Reclaiming the Narrative, which will run in Falmouth until 16th April, 2023. Featuring 14 pieces of newly commissioned work created by 14 Black and POC tattoo artists, all working in the UK today, these new artworks represent a celebration of contemporary tattoo art on Black and brown skin. The installation forms a powerful artistic response to the museum’s critically-acclaimed 2017 exhibition Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed, which was the largest gathering of real objects and original tattoo artwork ever assembled in the UK. Reflecting on the original exhibition approach, which was groundbreaking in challenging deeply held cultural stereotypes about tattoos and tattooing in terms of class and gender, the installation responds ... More

In Athens, creativity in art, food and more rises
ATHENS.- Here’s a surprise: While Athenians were locked down because of the pandemic, a flurry of creative and entrepreneurial activity was underway. The outcome? A total of 272 new restaurants, according to the local industry association, as well as hundreds more cafes and bars. The city also acquired 34 new hotels, offering 1,982 rooms over the last two years. And its cultural landscape blossomed, with major national projects coming to fruition. “We’ve witnessed a cultural revival and a growing gastronomical scene that showcases the new dynamism of the city,” said Vassilis Kikilias, Greece’s tourism minister. Adding in the construction of new hotels and the upgrading of older ones, Kikilias said, made him “optimistic for the season.” As of May, the number of foreign visitors to the city was still below 2019 levels, but only by about ... More

The old whaling capital of New Bedford looks ahead
100 MILES FROM … BOSTON.- “I have some folks here who are painting the other side of the house,” my Airbnb host messaged me before a road trip to New Bedford, Massachusetts. “The guys are really quite awesome/talented artists, lots of good vibes.” Indeed, when Aaren, my travel partner, and I turned off County Street to find our home for two nights — a one-bedroom apartment in an 1855 Victorian that was once apparently rented by Herman Melville’s sister — three painters were industriously updating the house’s exterior with cream, orange, blue and warm gray colors. These days, the entire city, approximately 60 miles from Boston, seems to be getting a fresh coat of paint. Signs of rejuvenation are everywhere, from a park honoring abolitionists to new murals on old buildings. Once the world’s wealthiest city per capita and a powerhouse ... More

'Growing Up Getty' shakes the dust off a family's aristocratic name
NEW YORK, NY.- How cheap was the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, once known as the richest man in the world? So cheap that his mistress had to eat canned sardines for dinner while she was living in New York during the Depression waiting to become his fourth wife — even while receiving invitations to Condé Nast’s penthouse parties. So cheap that in the early 1960s, Getty installed a pay phone in the cloakroom of his newly acquired mansion outside London for the “convenience” of his guests. So cheap that, most notoriously, he refused to pay ransom when his oldest grandson, John Paul Getty III, was abducted by members of an Italian crime syndicate in 1973, saying in a statement: “I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay a penny of ransom, I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” Well, yep, nope and not exactly, writes James Reginato, in “Growing ... More

Lisa Sutcliffe named Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the appointment of Lisa Sutcliffe as Curator in the Department of Photographs, where her principal focus will be post-1960s photography and time-based media. Sutcliffe will also develop and oversee the regular rotation of works in The Met collection on view in the Museum's Menschel Hall for Modern Photographs. She joins The Met from the Milwaukee Art Museum, where she served as Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Art. "The Met has an exceptional collection of contemporary photography and time-based media and we look forward to the great knowledge and expertise that Lisa Sutcliffe will bring to this important role," said Max Hollein, the Museum's Marina Kellen French Director. Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs, ... More

Yearlong exhibition of new work by Leslie Hewitt opens at Dia Bridgehampton this June
BRIDGEHAMPTON, NY.- Dia presents a new body of work by Leslie Hewitt conceived for Dia Bridgehampton. The exhibition opened on June 24, 2022, and will be on view through June 5, 2023. Exploring ideas of light, sound, and inertia, Hewitt has realized an array of  low-profile sculptures that are laterally distributed within and outside the gallery, as well as a diagrammatic score composed in collaboration with artist Jamal Cyrus. Hewitt and Cyrus invited artists Rashida Bumbray, Jason Moran, and Immanuel Wilkins to interpret the score at venues in New York City and on the East End of Long Island throughout the yearlong run of the show. The exhibition’s expansive sensorium puts forth an alternative corporeal, spatial, and sonic mapping of the site.    “These new works by Hewitt extend Dia Bridgehampton’s long-standing engagement ... More

Tickets are on sale now for Manhattan's new cultural center for digital art
NEW YORK, NY.- Culturespaces, France’s leading private manager of museums and cultural heritage sites, and IMG, a global leader in events, media and fashion, announced today that tickets are now on sale for Culturespaces’ first North American property, Hall des Lumières, a permanent center for custom-designed immersive digital art experiences, which opens in New York City September 14, 2022. Culturespaces is the creator and producer behind numerous digital art centers around the globe which marries its exhibitions to historic places that it redesigns and reimagines as permanent destinations, including the famed Atelier des Lumières in Paris, which welcomes 1.4 million visitors a year. Hall des Lumières will be located at 49 Chambers Street, inside the elaborate former teller hall and vault level of the historic, landmarked Emigrant Industrial ... More

Towering and timeless, 'Stanford Columns' expands the campus arts district
STANFORD, CA.- Standing among the stately California oaks and walking paths at the outer edge of Stanford’s vast arboretum stands a new public artwork acquisition by Beverly Pepper (1922-2020). Installed last month across Lomita Drive from the Anderson Collection, The Stanford Columns, 2022, is a gift from the Fisher Family in honor of Doris Fisher, ’53, and her lifelong friendship with the artist. Pepper’s celebrated international career includes an International Sculpture Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013 acknowledging her contribution to sculpture. Previous recipients include Louise Bourgeois, Frank Stella, and Anthony Caro. Stanford’s Public Art Committee has been actively transforming the campus landscape with site-specific outdoor works, including Pars Pro Toto by Alicja Kwade in the Science and Engineering Quad and Hello by ... More


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Brandywine Workshop @ Harvard Museums

Set It Off

Frank Brangwyn:

Marley Freeman


Flashback
On a day like today, Belarusian-French painter Marc Chagall was born
July 06, 1887. Marc Zakharovich Chagall (6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 - 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic format, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. In this image: Marc Chagall, Paradise, 1961. Oil on hardboard. H: 43.5 cm, W: 58 cm. Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Marc Chagall) / Gérard Blot / ADAGP, Paris - SACK, Seoul, 2018.

  
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