Weekly
April 9, 2022 • View in browser
This week, news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is still dominating headlines everywhere. We reported on the US institutions that benefited from Russian oligarchs, the renaming of Degas’s “Russian Dancers” at London’s National Gallery, street murals in support of Ukraine, and Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art, which shifted gears to help Ukrainian refugees.
Scholar Erin Thompson, who wrote about the repatriation of a looted Lakshmi-Narayan sculpture back in December, now reflects on the contemporary art being produced in that Himalayan nation and how it represents a fascinating hybrid scene with lots of surprises.
We also have reviews of Jewel Ham, Betsy Kaufman, Candice Lin, A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920–2020 in London, The Printer’s Proof: Artist and Printer Collaborations in Albuquerque, and critic Lori Waxman writes about four shows in Chicago and the “art of arranging.”
— Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief
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Artist Lok Chitrakar unveiling a painting of the elephant-headed deity Ganesha, completed during the pandemic after 20 years of work (photo by Erin L. Thompson/Hyperallergic)
The Surprising Mix of Tradition and Innovation in Nepal’s Contemporary Art Scene
On a recent trip to Nepal, Erin L. Thompson finds herself drawn into Nepal’s vibrant contemporary art community.
Tradition and innovation; global connections and local roots; meditation and marketing: all these can be tools for creating better lives and communities. The different solutions and goals of artists Lok Chitrakar, Sadhu X, Birat Raj Bajracharya, and many others in Nepal show that there’s no one best path to the future of art.
SPONSORED
New Artist-run Platform LA ESCUELA___ Offers Free Programs and Open Calls
Artists from across the Americas are collaborating on this open-access platform for radical learning and collective making in public spaces. Learn more.
NEWS THIS WEEK
Ukrainian girls who had escaped the war play outside the offices of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (image by Tamuna Chkareuli)
Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art shifts its focus to aiding Ukrainian refugees, from supplying medicines to organizing stress relief workshops.
London’s National Gallery renames Edgar Degas’s “Russian Dancers” as “Ukrainian Dancers” as calls to rename the work have intensified.
The Prado Museum has collaborated with a fragrance company to create ten scents of the items seen in “The Sense of Smell.”
Thousands of boycotting Etsy sellers accuse the platform of “pandemic profiteering” after it announced a 30% transaction fee increase.
Author Heather Ann Thompson is suing New York prisons for banning her book Blood in the Water about the Attica uprising.
The Supreme Court agrees to hear a copyright infringement case over Warhol’s appropriation of Lynn Goldsmith’s photograph of Prince.
SPONSORED
Cal State Summer Arts Offers Two-Week Intensives for Emerging Artists
Undergraduate, graduate, emerging artists and advanced practitioners are invited to apply. The application deadline for the 2022 program is May 27. Learn more.
LATEST IN ART
Designs by Harout Bastajian in the Al Shokr Mosque in Jamal Abdul Nasser, Mina, Lebanon (photograph courtesy Harout Bastajian, and used with permission)
The Art of Painting Divine Domes
Hrag Vartanian highlights Harout Bastajian's career painting calligraphic and geometric designs for the domes of mosques around the world.
Nikhil Chopra, “La Perla Negra: Plaza de Armas” (2015), 60 hours performance-installation (12th Habana Biennale, Cuba) (courtesy Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge. Photography by Stephen White & Co.)
A Century of the Artist’s Studio Is a Peek Into the Artist’s Mind
Michael Glover on A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920-2020 at Whitechapel Gallery in London.
[The exhibition] is many things in one: an overview of what the idea of the studio has meant to a multiplicity of artists between 1920 and 2020; an examination of the idea of the studio as a subject for art; and a tour of the different kinds of spaces that the word “studio” can encompass.
Shining a Light on the Art of the Printmaker
Nancy Zastudil on The Printer’s Proof: Artist and Printer Collaborations at the Albuquerque Museum.
Four Chicago Galleries Explore the Art of Arranging
Lori Waxman on exhibitions at the Graham Foundation,Paris London Hong Kong, Corbett vs. Dempsey, and the Chicago Artists Coalition.
Jewel Ham, “try me better” (2022), oil and acrylic on canvas, 65 x 66 inches (image courtesy the artist and Anthony Gallery)
An Artist’s Palette Reflects Community and Adversity
Emann Odufu on Jewel Ham: i said what i said at Stony Island Arts Bank.
Each of her figurative paintings is a blend of dazzling reds, oranges, purples, yellows, and pinks. Her color choices, which tend toward deeper and darker hues, showcase the vibrance of these hues and critique a colorist interpretation of Blackness as being monolithic, lacking a multitude of colors therein.
Betsy Kaufman Puts Pressure on Geometric Abstraction
Ela Bittencourt on Betsy Kaufman: 14 Sculptures, 1 Painting at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks and Projects.
An Artist’s Multi-Species Mythology, Inspired by Her Cat
Sasha Cordingley on Candice Lin: Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.
ART PROBLEMS
(graphic Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, original photo via Koen Jacobs's Flickrstream)
How Do I Manage My Time?
In our latest Art Problems edition, Paddy Johnson offers advice on how to navigate essential tasks while prioritizing time for ourselves.
The question isn’t how to drive ourselves crazy doing all the things, but how to stay sane by doing fewer of them. Let’s start with the biggest problem of them all — stealing time from ourselves. If you don’t allocate time to yourself, you will never feel like you have it.
ALSO ON HYPERALLERGIC
From Inland Empire (2006), dir. David Lynch (image courtesy Janus Films)
With Inland Empire, David Lynch Crafted a Nightmare on Home Video
Cole Kronman revisits the famed surreal artist/filmmaker’s last feature film to date and how it can be experienced in a whole new way.
A painter by trade, David Lynch shapes the worlds of his films primarily around mood and atmosphere, less interested in verbal storytelling than he is in evoking intimate, electrifying emotions while defying conventional description... With a new 4K remaster and theatrical re-release courtesy of Janus Films, the film surfaces now as a renewed challenge for first-time viewers and ardent fans alike.
