| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Saturday, February 22, 2020 |
| | | Rome unveils tomb that may belong to wolf-suckled king | |
|
|
An ancient tomb thought to belong to Rome's founder Romulus is pictured on February 21, 2020 at the Curia - Comitium in the Roman Forum of Rome, during its presentation to the media. An ancient tomb thought to belong to Rome's founder Romulus is being presented to the world on February 21, 2020, bringing to a head months of investigation by history sleuths. The 6th century BC stone sarcophagus, with an accompanying circular altar, was discovered under the Forum in the heart of Italy's capital decades ago, but experts could not agree on whether or not it belonged to the fabled figure. Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP.
by Franck Iovene
ROME (AFP).- An ancient tomb thought to belong to Rome's founder Romulus was presented to the world on Friday, after months of investigation by history sleuths. The 6th century BC stone sarcophagus, with an accompanying circular altar, was discovered under the Forum in the heart of Italy's capital over a century ago -- but experts could not agree on whether or not it belonged to the fabled figure. According to legend, Romulus founded the city after killing his twin brother Remus. The brothers had been raised by a she-wolf -- the symbol of Rome shows them sucking at her teats -- but later fell out over where to build the new metropolis. Historians have long been divided not only over whether the pair actually existed, but if so where Romulus' body -- which was reportedly dismembered after his death by angry senators -- may have been buried. The tomb was found in the 19th century and was known to specialists at the time but was forgotten until new digs within the past year. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Martin Kippenberger The Happy End of Franz Kafka's "Amerika," 1994 Mixed media (chairs, tables, and other objects), electric cables, green base painted with white lines, two bleachers. c. 30 x 20 m Private collection. For this installation also Memphis and Private collection, Milan. On view at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti.
|
|
|
|
|
| | Ousted Cooper Hewitt Director calls investigation a 'sham' | | Peru recovers priceless Inca manuscript stolen during occupation | | The National Gallery opens the first-ever monographic exhibition devoted to Nicolaes Maes |
Judy Francis Zankel at a gala for Carnegie Hall, in New York, June 20, 2017. Rebecca Smeyne/The New York Times.
by Robin Pogrebin
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In her first public remarks since she was forced to resign two weeks ago, the former director of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum called the investigation into the circumstances of her wedding, which led to her ouster, a sham colored by sexism. This is not how we treat human beings, the former director, Caroline Baumann, said in comments released Thursday through her lawyer, Luke Nikas. Baumann, 53, stepped down as director on Feb. 7 after the Smithsonians inspector general found she had violated conflict-of-interest rules in connection with her September 2018 wedding. The reason for her forced resignation has previously been reported, but new details about the investigation emerged Thursday in an inspector generals report obtained by The New York Times. The report said that Baumann had used, or created an appearance that she had used, her Smithsonian position for private ... More | |
A conservation technician at the Peruvian National Library displays an invaluable manuscript with the memories of the ancient Inca rulers in Lima. Cris BOURONCLE / AFP.
LIMA (AFP).- Peru unveiled a priceless manuscript containing the memoirs of former Inca leaders that had disappeared during Chile's occupation of Lima during the 1879-84 Pacific War. The manuscript -- called "Memories of the Peruvian monarchy or outline of the Inca's history" -- was written in the 1830s by Justo Apu Sahuaraura Inca (1775-1853), a descendent of the Inca emperor Huayna Capac (1493-1525). "The value of this document from 1838 is incalculable. It was always considered an extremely rare jewel of a document, we don't have another of its type," Gerardo Trillo, director of the Protection of Collections at Lima's National Library, told AFP about the manuscript that was found in Brazil. Sahuaraura was a member of the indigenous nobility in Cusco, the old Inca capital, and dedicated his time to preserving the memory of the Inca empire, which lasted 100 years between the 15th and 16th centuries and covered a vast area from the south of Colombia to the center of Chile. The author ... More | |
Nicolaes Maes, Portrait of Margaretha de Geer (1583-1672), 1669. Oil on canvas, 116 à 85 cm. Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, Acquired with the support of the Rembrandt Association, Friends of the Dordrechts Museum, and an individual donor from Dordrecht, 1997 © Dordrechts Museum.
LONDON.- The National Gallery will stage the first-ever monographic exhibition devoted to Nicolaes Maes (1634 1693) in the UK. Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age will chart the career of one of the most successful artists and astute businessmen of the period, and show how a favourite pupil of Rembrandt broke away from his teacher and forged his own way through the Golden Age, paving the way for the later achievements of Vermeer. The exhibition will bring together 48 works, comprising paintings and drawings, from a range of private and public collections. Across three rooms that reflect three distinct periods in the artists career, visitors will see how Maes started out as a painter of historical and biblical scenes but soon moved on to paintings of everyday life for which he is today best known, while during the last decades of his career he became one of the most sought-after portrait painters ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | Kunsthalle Zürich and Luma Westbau open extensive retrospective of Gilbert & George | | Restart of Unseen photography fair made possible by Art Rotterdam, Westergas and GalleryViewer.com | | Exhibition dedicated to artist portraits and self-portraits opens at the Van Gogh Museum |
Gilbert & George, GUARD PLANTS, 1980. Courtesy Gilbert & George.
ZURICH.- Luma Westbau and Kunsthalle Zürich are showing an extensive retrospective of 50 years of artistic collaboration between Gilbert & George. The artists Gilbert & George have created art together for half a century. Through this an outstanding body of work has emerged that is still explosive and avant-garde today. This is now generously demonstrated in THE GREAT EXHIBITION, 19712016, which allows unique insight into their visually powerful, boundlessand sometimes provocativeartistic universe. The exhibition has been created in close collaboration with Gilbert & George. For the artists this is in fact a return to Switzerland after 25 years, for their art was exhibited at the Kunsthalle Zürich in 1992, curated by Bernhard Mendes Bürgi. Since they first met at Londons Saint Martins School of Art in 1967 Gilbert (b. 1943) and George (b. 1942) have challenged the artistic canon. As both subject and object of their ... More | |
The coming edition of Unseen will take place from Thursday 17 through Sunday 20 September 2020 at Westergas in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM.- Unseen, the photography fair that was declared bankrupt three weeks ago, has been acquired by Art Rotterdam, Westergas and GalleryViewer.com. The coming edition of Unseen will take place from Thursday 17 through Sunday 20 September 2020 at Westergas in Amsterdam. Fons Hof, director of Art Rotterdam, will take over as the director of Unseen for the coming edition. Fons Hof: "Two weeks ago, many galleries exhibiting at Art Rotterdam expressed their confidence in our organisation to continue Unseen. That confidence was crucial for us to make a bid for Unseen's assets. Unseen is a unique event that has meant a lot for photography in the Netherlands. Moreover, over the years it has become a strong brand. It would have been a shame if this had been lost." Besides Fons Hof, Unseen's new management consists of Hof's business partner, Johan de Bruijn ... More | |
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889.
AMSTERDAM.- In the Picture: Portraying the Artist (21 February - 24 May 2020) is the first exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum to focus on the genre of artist portraits and self-portraits. With more than 60 portraits from the period 1850 to 1920, the exhibition presents a multifaceted exploration of the role and significance of the artists portrait. The exhibition unites a wide selection of major names and new faces. In addition to numerous self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh, including the renowned Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889) from The Courtauld Gallery in London and Self-Portrait (1889) from the National Museum in Oslo, the exhibition also features portraits by artists including Edvard Munch, Thérèse Schwartze, Gustave Courbet, Berthe Morisot and Helene Schjerfbeck. In the Picture also presents work by modern and contemporary artists who have been inspired by Van Goghs self-portraits, and the many films devoted to the ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | There are no pictures, but this art podcast is thriving | | Rare photographs taken in Siam more than 150 years ago by John Thomson goes on display in Chester Beatty | | Jack Youngerman, distinctively Abstract artist, dies at 93 |
Talk Art hosts Russell Tovey, front, and Robert Diament in New York on Jan. 27, 2020. Christine Ting/The New York Times.
by Rachel Felder
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- On a recent blustery weekend, gallerist Robert Diament and actor Russell Tovey, co-hosts of the British podcast Talk Art, had a deliberately untouristy agenda as they darted between three New York boroughs: recording upcoming episodes of their show, which has become one of the fastest-growing art-focused podcasts on the internet. Since its first episode in October 2018, Talk Art has steadily built a substantial following, with more than half a million downloads. But in spite of that popularity and prestigious guests like curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and artists such as Grayson Perry, Vik Muniz and Toyin Ojih Odutola the program has lost none of its initial unaffected, homespun feel. Diament, 39, and Tovey, 38, interview their guests with a wide-eyed gusto, whether they are captivated by gallery owner Sadie Coles talking about working with John Currin, or are listening intently ... More | |
Portrait of a princess, possibly a daughter of Prince Nilarat by John Thomson, 1865-66. Wellcome Collection. CC BY.
DUBLIN.- Considered a pioneer of photojournalism, and one of the most influential photographers of the 19th century, John Thomson was the first known photographer to document the people and landscape of Siam and China for publication and dissemination to the Western world. The range, depth and quality of Thomson's photographic vision mark him out as one of history's most important travel photographers. Born in Edinburgh in 1837, Thomson travelled to Asia in 1862. Over the next ten years he undertook numerous journeys across the region, spending almost a year in the kingdom of Siam (modern Thailand) where he was granted unique access to the court of King Mongkut (r. 1851-68). The photographs Thomson took in Siam include portraits and palace scenes, religious ceremonies, architecture and cityscapes. Thomson also received permission to visit Angkor Wat (then under Siam's control), becoming the first to photograph ... More | |
COENTIES SLIP, 1959. Oil on canvas, 81 x 75 in.
by William Grimes
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Jack Youngerman, a French-trained American artist whose profuse invention of abstract shapes in two and three dimensions opened up a new aesthetic vocabulary in the period immediately after Abstract Expressionism, died Wednesday in Stony Brook, New York. He was 93. Janet Goleas, his studio manager and archivist, said the cause was complications of a fall. Youngerman, like many American artists in the late 1940s, studied in Paris on the GI Bill. Unlike them, he remained there, developing a distinctive style of abstraction based on organic shapes, drawing inspiration from the woodblock prints of Jean Arp and Wassily Kandinsky and, perhaps most decisively, the ink drawings of Henri Matisse. Youngermans fluid, emblem-like shapes embraced flatness and frontal views, leaping forward to meet the viewer with bold primary colors. The shapes, vaguely floral or leafy, flirted with representation but remained aloof, floating like mysterious essences in a timeless spirit world. As he wrote in ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | Ballroom Marfa names Laura Creed as Executive Director | | The Frist Art Museum presents J.M.W. Turner: Quest for the Sublime | | The artist beneath the art forger |
Creed joins Ballroom Marfa from LAXART.
MARFA, TX.- Ballroom Marfa announced the appointment of its new Executive Director, Laura Creed. Creed joins Ballroom Marfa, the West Texas contemporary arts institution, from LAXART, where she served as director of development since 2017. Creed will join Ballroom Marfa in April of 2020 and will work closely with the current team and the Board of Trustees to support the organizations mission and expand its programming beyond Texas. I am overjoyed to be leading such a dynamic institution as it nears its 20th year says Creed. Ballroom has a unique identity that allows it a certain freedom and agilitywhich is essential at a time when cultural institutions are being questioned and reconsidered. Since its beginning, Ballroom has had an enviable track record of mounting shows that promote inclusivity and diversity. In this way, Ballroom rounds out the landscape by championing work by women, artists of color, and t ... More | |
J.M.W. Turner (17751851). Lausanne: Sunset, 184142. Graphite and watercolor on paper, 9 7/8 x 14 3/8 in. Tate: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856. Photo © Tate, 2019.
NASHVILLE, TENN.- The Frist Art Museum presents J.M.W. Turner: Quest for the Sublime, an exhibition of extraordinary oil paintings, luminous watercolors, and evocative sketches by Joseph Mallord William Turner (17751851), a central figure in the Romantic movement widely recognized as Britains greatest painter and among the most highly regarded landscape painters in Western art. Selected from Tates Turner Bequest and organized in cooperation with Tate, the exhibition made its sole U.S. appearance in the Frists Ingram Gallery from February 20 through May 31, 2020. Long admired for his ingenuity, originality, and passion, Turner strove to convey human moods and the feeling of awe aroused by natures immensity and powerits palpable atmospheres, pulsating ... More | |
Mark Forgy, at the Hillstrom Museum, with Portrait of Mark Forgy, 1969. Jenn Ackerman/The New York Times.
by Max Horberry
ST. PETER (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Mark Forgys home on the outskirts of Minneapolis looks like a museum. Works of art hang floor to ceiling. They hang in stairwells, in closets and behind doors. In the living room, a bronze bust of the artist who made all these pieces smirks slightly from the corner, admiring his work: a Matisse, a Modigliani, a handful of Picassos. Forgy owns the largest collection of work by Elmyr de Hory, one of the most notorious art forgers of the 20th century. In the 1950s and 60s, de Hory is believed to have forged over 1,000 works by major artists. Many have been removed from museums. Others, some experts say, have not. Forgy has spent years dedicated to the memory of de Hory. He has written a book, gives talks and ... More |
|
The Cathedral of Chartres, 1970 | From the Vaults
|
|
| |
| | More News |
Culture war rages amid the glitter at Rio carnival
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP).- The sanctuary at her evangelical mega-church in Rio de Janeiro is where Eleonor Teresa Sousa comes to feel closer to God, and farther from the sin of a city gearing up for carnival. Sousa, 75, proudly counts herself among the conservative Christians in Brazil who condemn the show planned this year by the reigning champions of Rio's world-famous carnival, the Mangueira samba school. Mangueira will parade Sunday in the first of two nights of flesh-flaunting, sequin-studded spectacle by 13 samba schools vying to be this year's champions. Worse, to the fundamentalists, is the story all those glittering bodies will tell. In a Brazil deeply polarized by President Jair Bolsonaro's far-right politics, Mangueira is planning a show with a message: It will depict Jesus returning to Earth in one of the city's impoverished favelas, ... More
Fondazione Prada opens the exhibition "K" in its Milan venue
MILAN.- Fondazione Prada presents the exhibition K in its Milan venue from 21 February to 27 July 2020. This project, featuring Martin Kippenbergers legendary artwork The Happy End of Franz Kafkas Amerika accompanied by Orson Welles iconic film The Trial and Tangerine Dreams late electronic album The Castle, is conceived by Udo Kittelmann as a coexisting trilogy. K is inspired by three uncompleted and seminal novels by Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Amerika (America), Der Prozess (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle) posthumously published from 1925 to 1927. The unfinished nature of these books allows multiple and open readings and their adaptation into an exhibition project by visual artist Martin Kippenberger, film director Orson Welles, and electronic music band Tangerine Dream, who explored the novels subjects and atmospheres ... More
Cardi Gallery Milan presents a major solo exhibition by the Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto
MILAN.- Cardi Gallery Milan presents a major solo exhibition by the Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto (Osaka, 1928-2013). This exhibition, which features a significant number of works, aims to highlight the late production of the artist, which Rosanna Chiessi, founder and president until her death of the Shozo Shimamoto Association, helped make possible through the organization of many of the performances that have made the master famous all over the world. Shozo Shimamoto was co-founder with Jiro Yoshihara of the Gutai movement (which means concreteness). In 1954 the movement grew out of a series of upheavals in Japan that sparked a process of radical rethinking of the artistic tradition, painting in particular. Gutai looked at Western culture, the European avant-garde movements, abstraction, Minimalism, and Rationalism, then attempted to move ... More
A arte Invernizzi gallery opens a solo exhibition of works by Pino Pinelli
MILAN.- The A arte Invernizzi gallery is presenting a solo exhibition by Pino Pinelli. Created especially for the gallerys space, the project includes works that highlight the desire to experiment with materials and supports, as well as the distinctive choice of chromatic reduction, that has guided the artists research ever since the 1970s. The "Pitture" ["Paints"] (1987) on display in the first and second room on the upper floor guide the visitor on a journey with a defined and yet open rhythm, in which the paint emerges as an entity freed from the constraints of the canvas support. These works are the natural evolution of an artistic investigation that started in the 1970s. Already in the monochromes made between 1973 and 1975, some of which are on show on the upper floor of the gallery, Pinelli goes against any expectation of uniformity in the painted surface and atomises ... More
Sir David Adjaye and Cai Guo-Qiang to receive 2020 Isamu Noguchi Award
NEW YORK, NY.- The Noguchi Museum has selected architect Sir David Adjaye OBE and artist Cai Guo-Qiang as recipients of the 2020 Isamu Noguchi Award, conferred on individuals who share Noguchis spirit of innovation, global consciousness, and commitment to Eastern and Western cultural exchange. Widely recognized as one of the leading architects of his generation, Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye OBE has received international acclaim for his impact on the field. Adjaye, who was born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents in 1966, cites influences ranging from contemporary art, music, and science, to African art forms and the civic life of cities. Like Noguchi, he has collaborated with a variety of influential art world and cultural figures. In 2000, he founded Adjaye Associates, which today has projects spanning the globe. ... More
M Leuven presents first Belgian solo show by Kiluanji Kia Henda
LEUVEN.- A solo exhibition by the Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda opened at M Leuven on 21 February. In two rooms Kia Henda shows a four-channel video installation, photography and a sculptural installation filling an entire room. Social criticism, humour and poetic imagery come together seamlessly in this exhibition. Kiluanji Kia Henda (1979, Luanda, Angola) explores issues of todays society in a unique and engaging manner, encouraging critical thinking. His work encompasses a wide range of themes such as politics, identity and the complex relationship between Africa and the West, often evoked in a poetic or satirical manner. The artist mostly uses photography, video and installation, all of which are present in this first Belgian solo exhibition. Having grown up in Angola during the civil war following the independence, Kia Hendas art is grounded ... More
John Akomfrah presents three film installations at Vienna's Secession
VIENNA.- The filmmaker and screenwriter John Akomfrahs atmospheric films probe the structure of memory, the diasporic experiences of migrants, and the historical, social, and political roots of postcolonialism. A founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective (19821998), he continues to work with his long-term creative partners David Lawson and Lina Gopaul. Early on in his career, he established the multifaceted visual style of his filmic essays, for which he combines archival material from different periods of history, writings from literary and classical sources, and newly shot sequences in distinctive and poetic montages. His editing consistently defies monolithic narratives and historical chronology. Many of the artists immersive video installations are multichannel visual compositions, unfolding contrasts and dialogues ... More
Vienna ballet chief 'heading to Milan's La Scala'
PARIS (AFP).- The director of the Vienna Ballet, Manuel Legris, is to be appointed to the world-famous La Scala in Milan "in the coming months," a source close to the Italian opera house told AFP on Friday. Frenchman Legris, a former "etoile" dancer in Paris, has been credited with putting ballet back on the map in the Austrian capital since taking over there in 2010. But the head of the prestigious Vienna State Opera, compatriot Dominique Meyer who is moving to La Scala next month, has decided to take Legris with him, the source said. While La Scala officially denied that any formal decision had been taken, the source said that "there are no particular obstacles and it is likely that the appointment will be announced in the coming months". Meyer will formally take up the reins at La Scala on March 1, "and after that there is an administrative procedure that must ... More
Kunsthalle Bern presents Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Dear Valérie...
BERN.- The art of Marc Camille Chaimowicz is rich in nuances. It oscillates in the specific, but at the same time appears abstract and, indeed, other-worldly. Emotional, yet cool. Intimate, yet foreign. His art is cheerful and melancholic. Tasteful, at times almost artificial, but simple. Even the boundaries between public and private space present themselves as soft shades. But his art is not autobiographic or authentic. The way we furnish our living environments, the way spaces are decorated remains, to some extent, a construction and metaphor. Just as the things we wear on our bodies, our personal furnishings can provide stability. At the same time, however, they are invariably stage and costume in the script of life. Chaimowicz does not limit himself to the realms of the private: reference to public life is made on a continuous basis. Actions and objects ... More
Palais de Tokyo opens new exhibition by Ulla von Brandenburg
PARIS.- For this new exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, Ulla von Brandenburg (born in 1974 in Karlsruhe, lives and works in Paris) has imagined a total, evolving project, inspired from the theatre, as well as its imaginary and conventions. Around the notion of ritual, understood as the possibility to explore the relationships between individuals and groups, and to create or not to create something in common, the artist invites the public to take part in an immersive and renewed experience of the themes, forms and motifs that feed into her work: movement, the stage, colours, music, textiles, installations, sculptures, performances and films specially conceived for the exhibition answer to one another and tangle together to form an open narration, between authenticity and artifice, the natural world and human activities, the interior and the exterior, ... More
New Visions presents recent experimental developments in photography and camera-based art
HÃVIKODDEN.- In line with the avant-garde legacy of the Henie Onstad, a new Triennial showcases recent experimental developments in photography and camera-based art more generally, says Susanne Ãstby Sæther, the Curator for Photography and New Media at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway. The exhibition foregrounds practices that acknowledge the fluctuating and networked condition of contemporary photography and society more generally. It also articulates a keen sensitivity towards the history of photography and art. Abstraction, digital and manual collage, new configurations of still life and the human body are key tendencies. Produced within the scope of our digital culture, several of the works exemplifies the dissolution of the distinction between the still and moving image and the dimensional and material expansion of the image. ... More
Kunstmuseum Den Haag opens a major exhibition about the artistic rivalry between the painter friends
THE HAGUE.- In the spring of 1892, Isaac Israels (1865-1934) stood face to face with a beautiful snow-covered cityscape in the window of an art gallery in Amsterdam. It was a painting by George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923) and it made a devastating impression on him. I thought to myself: I give up, its pointless competing with such work, Israels wrote to a friend. But previously the roles had been reversed. Breitner, seven years older than Israels, had been forced to observe enviously from the sidelines as the child prodigy made his entrance into the art world at the tender age of sixteen. With his faultless technique, the son of Jozef Israëls was seen as the crown prince of Dutch painting. But as Israels tried to break free from his famous father, he aspired to the looser touch with which Breitner had begun to achieve success. The mutual rivalry between ... More
|
|
PhotoGalleries
Asian Art Museum
Grayson Perry
Jacob Lawrence
Science Museum
Flashback On a day like today, American painter and curator Rembrandt Peale was born February 22, 1778. Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 - October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style was influenced by French Neoclassicism after a stay in Paris in his early thirties. In this image: Rembrandt Peale (American, 1778-1860), George Washington, circa 1856. Oil on canvas, 36-1/2 x 29 in.
|
|
| |
|
