The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Wednesday, March 8, 2023


 
Artemis Gallery announces March 9 Exceptional Ancient, Ethnographic & Fine Art Auction

Masterfully modeled 1st century CE Gandharan stone head of young Prince Siddharta dressed in the finery of a rajah and wearing a turban-style headdress adorned with a miniature Buddha seated in a lotus with a halo. Size: 10.75in long by 8.5in wide by 16in high. Custom stand included. First time at auction. Estimate $16,000-$24,000

BOULDER, CO.- Some of the world’s finest collections of ancient, cultural and ethnographic art include impeccably curated and well provenanced pieces that were acquired through Artemis Gallery. Internationally known and frequently called upon for expert consultation, Artemis Gallery’s specialists delight in creating diverse auction selections like the one that awaits bidders on Thursday, March 9. The lineup includes many incomparable items that have never before appeared at auction. The 334-lot sale includes museum-worthy examples of classical antiquities (Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Near Eastern), Viking relics, art of the Far East, Asia and Africa. The New World is represented in the multifaceted offerings of Pre-Columbian, Spanish colonial, and Native American art and artifacts. Other categories that have become fast favorites with Artemis Gallery’s clientele ... More



The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
Installation view: Julian Opie, OP.VR@LISSON/London (27 Bell Street, London, 3 March - 8 April, 2023). © Julian Opie; Courtesy Lisson Gallery.





How to get behind the scenes at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin? Take a baking class.   Ancient DNA reveals history of hunter-gatherers in Europe   Exhibition premieres a ground-breaking new virtual reality experience by Julian Opie


Participants in a baking workshop prepare bread dough on stainless steel counters in the commercial kitchen at the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center in Wisconsin. A weekend workshop at the architect’s former home in the Wisconsin hills offers ample time to explore the grounds. (Taliesin Preservation via The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- For anyone who has fantasized about living in a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed dwelling, being told to freely explore Taliesin, the architect’s southwestern Wisconsin home, with a Spotted Cow farmhouse ale in one hand and a wedge of Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese in the other, comes pretty close. In one room of the expansive, hilltop-hugging building, with sections that resemble the region’s limestone outcroppings, I admired sculpted busts embedded in the fireplace masonry. In another room, floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to welcome the back perennial garden into the room. Sensing my enthusiasm, Caroline Hamblen, the director of programs for Taliesin Preservation, the nonprofit that manages the ... More
 

Two 14,000-year-old skulls, one male and one female, found in western Germany. DNA retrieved from the remains suggest they belonged to a population of hunter-gatherers called the Oberkassel that expanded from Italy across northern Europe as the continent warmed. (Jürgen Vogel, LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn via The New York Times)

by Carl Zimmer


NEW YORK, NY.- In the 1800s, archaeologists began reconstructing the deep history of Europe from the bones of ancient hunter-gatherers and the iconic art they left behind, like cave paintings, fertility figurines and “lion-man” statues. Over the past decade, geneticists have added a new dimension to that history by extracting DNA from teeth and bones. And now, in a pair of studies published Wednesday, researchers have produced the most robust analysis yet of the genetic record of prehistoric Europe. Looking at DNA gleaned from the remains of 357 ancient Europeans, researchers discovered that several waves of hunter-gatherers migrated into ... More
 

Installation view: Julian Opie, OP.VR@LISSON/London (27 Bell Street, London, 3 March – 8 April, 2023). © Julian Opie; Courtesy Lisson Gallery.

LONDON.- Julian Opie introduces an ambitious new series of works across Lisson Gallery’s Bell Street spaces this March. The exhibition begins with the UK premiere of a ground-breaking new virtual reality experience: the first time Lisson Gallery has presented a VR work in its 50+ year history. Using portable headsets, visitors are invited to journey through a new dimension, encompassing multiple realms spanning from intimate interactions to multi-layered experiences. The presentation also includes the reveal of a new fast-paced dance sequence, life-size and large-scale portraits, as well as landscapes and architectural works, both indoors and out. Opie is known for his distinctive distilling of imagery from everyday life into pared-back symbols, be it of people, animals or buildings, focusing on depicting our experiences, observations and sensations, remembered and then recreated. While there are familiar motifs ... More


Hake's to auction fresh-to-market pop culture collections, prototypes and rarities, March 21-22   Giovanni Bellini: Influences Crois&eacutees at the Mus&eacutee Jacquemart-Andr&eacute   From stagecoaches to monorails: Heritage presents rare artifacts from Disneyland history March 25-26


Saalheimer & Strauss (Germany) Mickey Mouse tin mechanical bank, circa 1930-1936, exhibits one of four design variations in the series. When ear is pulled, eyes move and tongue ejects to accept coin. Text on side notes: ‘By Exclusive Arrangement With The Ideal Films.” Size: 6 7/8in. Estimate $10,000-$20,000.

YORK, PA.- Hake’s, America’s foremost source of rare and expertly authenticated pop-culture and historical memorabilia, will launch into the 2023 auction season with a March 21-22 offering of more than 1,900 choice lots from 200+ collector categories. From Star Wars to sports, vintage toys to rock ‘n’ roll, there’s plenty to discover in the print or online catalog. Founded in 1967 with a specialty in early political memorabilia, Hake’s has set one auction record after another in that category, handling many of the finest known examples. Last March, Hake’s set a world auction record for a pinback button with the $185,850 sale of a James M Cox/Franklin D Roosevelt jugate campaign button from the US Presidential election of 1920. That heady price demolished the $70,092 previous auction ... More
 

Giovanni Bellini, Sainte Justine, 1475. Détrempe sur panneau, 128,4 x 54,5 cm. Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, Milan. Photo © Electa / Bridgeman Images.

PARIS.- This past March 3rd, for the first time in France, the Musée Jacquemart-André opened an exhibition to pay tribute to the work of the great master Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516), father of the Venetian School to which his pupils Giorgione and Titian belonged. Giovanni Bellini paved the way to the art of colour and tones that came to be characteristic of the art of the sixteenth century in Venice. Through some fifty works from public and private European collections - some of which are presented for the first time - this exhibition highlights the art of Giovanni Bellini and the artistic influences on his pictorial language. By comparing his works with those of his intellectual models, the first exhibition ever devoted to this theme in Europe will show how his artistic language has never ceased to renew itself while developing an undeniable originality. The exhibition will be organised chrono-thematically, with Bellin ... More
 

Disneyland - Skyway Park-Used Attraction Vehicle (Walt Disney, c. 1965-1994).

DALLAS, TX.- Walt Disney’s vision brought us the most enchanting theme parks the world has seen; Disneyland and Walt Disney World epitomize the endless charm and innovation brought to us by the Disney universe. Throughout the decades countless artists, designers, and engineers – Disney’s Imagineers – have been the geniuses behind the magic, the ones who have made it all come to life for the millions of visitors the Parks welcome every year. And do you remember your first trip to Disneyland or Walt Disney World? What if you could own a genuine piece of that formative experience? What if you could own a section of Disney World’s beloved Monorail, or the real blueprints for the Cinderella castle, or a bench from Disneyland’s Main Street, or a stanchion sign from Space Mountain? How about concept art and unique production prototypes from the personal collection of renowned artists who dreamed up the Parks’ look and feel, ... More



Whitney Museum reaches agreement with unionized workers   The Met explores notions of identity and place in nearly 100 works of 19th-Century Danish art   Rediscovered Cranach altarpiece to be offered at Koller


The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, March 5, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)

by Zachary Small


NEW YORK, NY.- Members of a union representing nearly 180 employees at the Whitney Museum of American Art voted by a 90% margin Monday afternoon to ratify their first contract after a negotiation period during which employees demonstrated at exhibition openings and fundraising galas to lure executives back to the bargaining table. “It was such a long-fought battle,” said Erika Wentworth, a project manager for the Whitney’s graphic design programs. Wentworth was also a member of the bargaining committee, which negotiated for more than a year. The Whitney union is part of Local 2110, a chapter of the United Automobile Workers union that represents more than 1,500 employees from nearly 20 cultural institutions. She and three other employees said large pay raises were a significant victory ... More
 

Martinus Rørbye (Danish, Drammen 1803–1848 Copenhagen), View from the Citadel Ramparts in Copenhagen by Moonlight, 1839. Oil on canvas, 11 3/8 x 9 5/8 in. (28.9 x 24.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2007 (2007.164.7). Image © Metropolitan Museum of Art.

NEW YORK, NY.- Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art examines the period formerly known as the Danish Golden Age, a name that belies the economic and political hardships Denmark experienced in the 19th century. Yet this turmoil is what gave rise to a vibrant cultural and philosophical environment with a close-knit community of Danish artists inspired to explore notions of place, identity, and belonging in their work. Opened on Janury 26th at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beyond the Light places the drawings, oil sketches, and paintings created by these artists firmly in this period, one that witnessed the transformation of a once-powerful Danish kingdom into a small, somewhat marginalized ... More
 

A fabulous folding triptych by Lucas Cranach and his Studio. (lot 3014, CHF 800 000 / 1 200 000)

ZURICH.- Hidden in a private collection for decades, a fabulous folding triptych by Lucas Cranach and his Studio was rediscovered by Koller’s specialists and will be offered in the 31 March Old Master Paintings auction in Zurich. Dating from circa 1515, it shows a tender depiction of the Annunciation on its central panel, flanked by panels with Saints Barbara and Catherine. As the central panel would have been exposed to view only on special feast days, the side panels close to reveal Christ as the Man of Sorrows and Mary as the Mother of Sorrows. This work, of extreme rarity, is likely one of the last surviving German Renaissance altarpieces available for purchase (lot 3014, CHF 800 000 / 1 200 000). Further highlights among the Old Masters include a sumptuous ‘Allegory of the five senses’ by Flemish artist Jan Cossiers, circa 1640 (lot 3045, CHF 400 000 / 600 000), and an important still life from the Dutch Golden ... More


In the papers of Yiddish novelist Chaim Grade, clues to his lesser fame   Desert X finds roots in the region   National Gallery of Art announces new acquisitions


A letter from Chaim Grade to Inna Grade, dated July 7, 1970, it is in transliterated Yiddish. Scholars say Grade’s personal papers, now online, detail how his tempestuous marriage explains, in part, why he never reached the wider audience of Isaac Bashevis Singer. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research via The New York Times)

NEW YORK, NY.- Like Isaac Bashevis Singer, author Chaim Grade has long been embraced as one of the 20th century’s preeminent writers of Yiddish fiction, a standing he reached through novels and poems that vividly evoked the Jewish world destroyed in the Holocaust. But Grade never achieved the crossover celebrity that the Nobel Prize-winning Singer did. The reasons are often traced by scholars to the painful shortcomings of his tempestuous second marriage. Now the pitfalls of the marriage, a union marked by apparent affairs on both side, and the impact it had on Grade’s legacy are becoming clearer and more nuanced as a result of the cataloging and digitization of a vast collection of the Grades’ letters, manuscripts, photographs and books. The materials were retrieved from the clutter of their Bronx apartment after the death of Inna Grade, his wife, in 2010, but only recently have been made available online ... More
 

The Native artist Gerald Clarke stands in the middle of his artwork, “Immersion,” at the Desert X biennial in Palm Springs, Calif., March 2, 2023. (Coley Brown/The New York Times)

by Jori Finkel


PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.- Desert X, a young and scrappy biennial, has been prone to last-minute cancellations of major art projects. This year, it had a last-minute addition instead. Moving faster than most cultural organizations would or could, its curators arranged within a month to devote a series of large billboards to photographs by Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man in Memphis, Tennessee, who was fatally beaten by the police in January. Nichols’ shots of Memphis, including images of glowing sunsets and bridges spanning calm waters, tend to be serene and hopeful. They become more pointed through their placement on roadside billboards along a busy desert thoroughfare — a reminder that Nichols died during a traffic stop. From its start in 2017, Desert X has featured outdoor art projects scattered in and around Palm Springs. But this is the first time that almost all the artworks in the show are socially engaged and site-specific, and it’s hard to imagine ... More
 

Marie Watt, Antipodes, 2020. Vintage Italian beads, industrial felt, and thread. Overall: 162.56 cm (64 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of Funds from Sharon Percy Rockefeller and Senator John Davison Rockefeller IV 2022.32.1 Image courtesy of the artist, Photograph by Kevin McConnell.

WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art has acquired Fog Bank (2020), a mixed-media work by Emmi Whitehorse (Diné, b. 1957). It is the first by this highly respected Native American artist to join the collection. Whitehorse’s artwork embodies the natural harmony she observes in the landscape at her home near Santa Fe, New Mexico. It conveys her intimate knowledge of a place, in keeping with Navajo philosophy. To make the color-saturated ground for this work, Whitehorse used her hands, as well as brushes, to rub pastel onto paper attached to a canvas. The ethereal ground in Fog Bank reads as an expansive atmospheric backdrop of sky or water. The first layer comprises ground chalk applied by hand, over which a fixative is applied. Whitehorse then used a turpentine wash, and a thinned oil stick application working on two, side by side, sheets of paper. Following years of observation of the desert and intuition, the artist draws ... More




Reimagining a Hub for Netherlandish Art



More News

"Approximate Joy" by Christopher Anderson now on view at Danziger Gallery in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Danziger Gallery (Los Angeles) opened this past March 4th “Approximate Joy” by Christopher Anderson. Following in the honored photographic tradition of Walker Evans’ “Subway Series” and Harry Callahan’s “Women Lost in Thought” the primary element these series have in common is that the subjects of the photographs are unaware of being photographed. While this is a common occurrence in photography, it asks moral and ethical questions of the photographer, the viewer, and the curator and requires decisions on what to photograph, what to view, and what to show. As the owner and director of the gallery, where one draws the line is of great importance and for me Anderson’s work is respectful, insightful, humanistic, and beautifully modern. As with Arne Svenson’s “The Neighbors” photographs with ... More

Review: In 'The Best We Could,' the players follow directions
NEW YORK, NY.- A bare stage is like a blank canvas; it’s all potential until the artists begin to shape their work. Life can follow a similar logic, in that every move is a foreclosure of possibility, narrowing both the focus and the way forward. Ella (Aya Cash), the drifting millennial daughter in “The Best We Could (a family tragedy),” which opened at New York City Center on Wednesday, has cycled in and out of enough careers (modern dance, a museum gift shop) that she’s written a children’s book about giving up on your dreams. (She also teaches chair yoga.) We learn all this from a narrator called Maps (Maureen Sebastian), who welcomes the audience to the Manhattan Theater Club production, introduces each character in bitingly specific detail and dictates plot and dialogue before it happens. It’s an apt mode of giving directions, as the play’s ... More

A24, an indie film studio, buys New York's Cherry Lane Theater
NEW YORK, NY.- A24, an independent film and television studio barreling into next weekend’s Academy Awards with a boatload of Oscar nominations, is making an unexpected move into live performance, purchasing a small off-Broadway theater in New York’s West Village. The studio, which until now has focused on making movies, television shows and podcasts, has purchased the Cherry Lane Theater for $10 million and plans to present plays as well as other forms of live entertainment there, in addition to the occasional film screening. A24, whose films include leading Oscar contender “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” is not the first film studio to make such a move: The Walt Disney Co. has been presenting stage productions at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater, which it leases from the state and city, since 1997. But Disney, of course, ... More

The Other Art Fair, London, presents guest exhibition from female refugee artists at its March edition
LONDON.- This March 9th through 12th, The Other Art Fair will showcase a powerful guest exhibition created by female refugee artists at the London edition of the artist-led Fair. Refugee Art Works (RAW) is presented by the Fair’s charity partner KarmaBank and features artworks created by women artists originally from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. RAW is a new multinational collective of female refugee artists & craft makers, drawn together for mutual support & creative development. Through RAW, KarmaBank provides micro grants to help displaced artists fleeing war and other abuses re-establish themselves. KarmaBank helps people in need through inspiring creative projects, food & wellbeing support, advocacy, emergency response, & working collaboratively with partners for maximum social impact. Amongst the represented ... More

A photographer focuses on her African roots - and the continent's future
NEW YORK, NY.- Aida Muluneh is an Ethiopian-born photographer based in Ivory Coast whose focus and inspiration come from her African roots. A graduate of Howard University, she was a freelance photographer for The Washington Post from 2001-02, working in Washington, D.C., and also in Ethiopia. In 2010, she founded the Addis Foto Fest, the first international photography festival in East Africa. Last year she launched the Africa Foto Fair, a virtual magazine and festival running through March 26 that use images to serve as “a platform to connect Africa to the world and the world to Africa.” This month the Public Art Fund, a nonprofit group that brings contemporary art to public spaces in New York and elsewhere, is displaying 12 of her photos on bus shelters in New York, Boston, Chicago and Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the first time ... More

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art & Museum of the African Diaspora announce joint curatorial position
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the African Diaspora announced today the creation of a joint curatorial position as part of a broader partnership that will support scholarship and public engagement with African Diasporic art and culture. SFMOMA and MoAD first collaborated in 2015 on the exhibition Portraits and Other Likenesses and have since sought opportunities to deepen their connection and share expertise and resources. The establishment of this position, titled Assistant Curator of the Art of the African Diaspora, solidifies the institutions’ partnership in support of a shared ambition to elevate artistic and curatorial talents, especially in the Bay Area, and will result in the creation of a robust range of co-created exhibitions, artist projects and public programs. In addition to expanding ... More

Highest-graded Zanzibar note ever offered at auction heads to Heritage World Paper Money event
DALLAS, TX.- A rare banknote from an African nation that produces some of the most famous and desirable in the world will be the highest-graded note from the country ever offered at auction when it crosses the block in Heritage Auctions’ World Paper Money Signature® Auction March 23. The Zanzibar Government 1 Rupee 1.9.1920 Pick 1 PMG Extremely Fine 40 (estimate: $40,000+) is the smallest denomination from the series, but its importance and desirability among collectors is considerable. “This is a magnificent note,” Heritage Auctions Vice President of Currency Dustin Johnston said. “Issued in 1920, it features only one date, while all other denominations were issued first in either 1908 or 1916. In addition, it was printed by Thomas de la Rue, while all other denominations were printed by Waterlow & Sons, meaning it is possible that this ... More

Translating the music of trees into the sounds of opera
NEW YORK, NY.- Musical themes abound in the work of novelist Richard Powers, often intertwined with science and social issues. The parallel decoding of Johann Sebastian Bach and DNA (“The Gold Bug Variations”), the saga of an interracial family of classical performers unfolding against the events of the Civil Rights era (“The Time of Our Singing”): A signature of Powers’ novels is the virtuosity with which he weaves these strands into narratives that seem both surprising and inevitable. With his 12th novel, “The Overstory,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019, Powers draws on the findings of dendrology (the study of trees) and contemporary environmental anxieties to hint at a music that is always present but largely unrecognized — that of nature itself, as represented by the lives of trees. Powers said in an interview that his “preoccupation ... More

David Lance Goines, who shaped the counterculture aesthetic, dies at 77
NEW YORK, NY.- David Lance Goines, a graphic artist and printmaker whose evocative posters helped define the counterculture aesthetic of Berkeley, California, beginning with his sensuous images for Chez Panisse, an artisanal French restaurant opened by Alice Waters, a former girlfriend, died Feb. 19 at his home in Berkeley. He was 77. The cause was complications of a stroke, said a niece, Hannah Hoffman. Goines’ signage for Chez Panisse, starting with the flame-haired woman with the plume of feathers he created for the poster announcing the now-storied restaurant’s opening in 1971, became emblematic of its visual identity and earthy, bohemian ethos. He said the woman was nobody in particular: an embodiment of romance drawn from his imagination. His distinctive images and lettering, inspired by German art nouveau and Japanese ... More

New lightworks and sculptures, more personal than ever, prove cultural disparaties between the Philippines and the U.S.
NEW YORK, NY.- Silverlens New York will present its first solo exhibition with James Clar, opening March 9, 2023. Titled By Force of Nature, the exhibition tracks the American artist’s trans-pacific move to his parents’ home country, the Philippines. Confronting the “American Dream,” the show addresses disparities between Filipino and American cultures, honing in on geo-political power dynamics, cross-cultural (mis)translations, and individual versus communal identities. Lightworks and sculptures will be featured alongside new video installations and pieces made in collaboration with Olympian Hidilyn Diaz. In 2020, Diaz won the first-ever Gold Olympic Medal for the Philippines and has since become one of the nation’s ... More

Dallas Museum of Art appoints Chief Curator & Asst. Curator of European Art
DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art has announced two key curatorial appointments: the promotion of Interim Chief Curator Dr. Nicole R. Myers to the inaugural position of Chief Curatorial and Research Officer, and the hiring of Anabelle Gambert-Jouan as the Lillian and James H. Clark Assistant Curator of European Art. These appointments bolster the Museum’s exceptional curatorial, conservation, and research programs, as well as its European Art department, which spans painting and sculpture from Greco-Roman antiquity through mid-20th-century modernism. Myers has served as the DMA’s Interim Chief Curator since June 2021, and has held curatorial roles within the Museum’s European Art department since 2016, most recently as the Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art, a position she will continue to hold. In her ... More


PhotoGalleries

Gabriele Münter

TARWUK

Awol Erizku

Leo Villareal


Flashback
On a day like today, English sculptor and illustrator Anthony Caro was born
March 08, 1924. Sir Anthony Alfred Caro OM CBE (8 March 1924 - 23 October 2013) was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects. His style was of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moore early in his career. He was lauded as the greatest British sculptor of his generation. In this image: Anthony Caro, Paper Like Steel, installation view.

  
© 1996 - 2021
Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez