| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Saturday, October 5, 2019 |
| | | Remaking MoMA for the 21st century: To see art anew, change your vision | |
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The Studio, a new dedicated space for media and performance at the Museum of Modern Art, opens with ÂRainforest V, a sonic sculpture by David Tudor and Composers Inside Electronics, in New York, Sept. 27, 2019. The museum has undergone an extensive expansion and renovation that it hopes will lead the 90-year-old institution into the future. (Jeenah Moon/The New York Times).
by Jason Farago
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Picasso and Braque were looking a little forlorn: unsure of their new home, unsure of their new acquaintances. It was early September, six anxious weeks from the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. After three years of piecemeal renovations, the museum had shut its doors for the summer, preparing for a top-to-bottom rehang of the worldÂs finest collection of modern and contemporary art, with about 47,000 additional square feet to play with. Two senior curators were still installing the cardinal gallery, the one with ÂLes Demoiselles dÂAvignon, Pablo PicassoÂs grand, violent painting of five contorted Catalan prostitutes. For decades, MoMAÂs curators have paired the aggressive ÂDemoiselles (1907) with the smaller, perspective-shattering cubist works he and Georges Braque painted a few years later. Two of them were here, propped against the wall on foam blocks. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A scientist shows boxes with remains of Herculanum papyrus displayed at the 'Institut de France' in Paris, on September 26, 2019. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
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| | Mary Abbott, Abstract Expressionist, is dead at 98 | | Uffizi Director Rejects Vienna Job at Last Minute, Causing an Uproar | | Frieze London shows the art world has cottoned on to weaving |
Mary Abbott was one of the last living members of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1940s and 50s, and one of the few women participants.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- Mary Abbott, who was at the heart of the abstract expressionist movement in New York in the 1940s and 50s but, like other women painting in that genre, received far less recognition than her male counterparts, died Aug. 23 in Southampton, New York, on Long Island. She was 98. Thomas McCormick of the McCormick Gallery in Chicago, which represented her, announced the death. Abbott painted bold, colorful works, often inspired by nature or music, and traveled in the same circles as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and other artists who were redefining painting in the years after World War II. De Kooning in particular, 17 years her senior, became a friend, lover and protector, including from some of the other male artists. I didnt like Pollock much, Abbott related in an interview for the biography de Kooning: An American Master, by Mark Stevens and Annalyn ... More | |
Picture Gallery ©KHM-Museumsverband.
ROME (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- Less than a month before Eike Schmidt was meant to leave his post as the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to lead the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the German art historian announced Wednesday that he had changed his mind. Florence is too close to my heart, he told reporters at an impromptu news conference at the Uffizi, hastily called after Austrian news media leaked the decision and cited an angry reaction from Alexander Schallenberg, the Austrian culture minister. This last-minute cancellation is highly unprofessional and actually unprecedented, Schallenberg, who is also the foreign minister, told Die Presse, the Austrian newspaper that first reported the story. Schmidt, who was named director of the Uffizi in 2015 on a four-year contract, said he wanted to stay at the Florence museum to continue the ambitious program of change he had begun there. But his reappointment is not a done deal: Schmidt will need the endorsement of the ... More | |
Jhaveri Contemporary, Woven, Frieze London 2019. Frieze Art Fair 2019, London, UK. Photo by Linda Nylind.
LONDON (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- The Frieze London fair opened Thursday, and art dealers from all over the world have gathered for what organizers are calling the most international edition in the fairs history. In a huge white tent in Regents Park, more than 165 galleries have set up their stands, and on them, you can see art made from iron, found rocks, melted glass and old televisions, all fascinatingly inventive. But it is a more familiar, though often overlooked, material that is in focus at the fair this year. Weaving, once looked down on by the art establishment as womens work, or scorned as folksy craft, is now the subject of major exhibitions at prestigious museums. This year, the Met Breuer in New York, Tate Modern in London and MAXXI in Rome have staged large textile exhibitions; artists whose work features or is inspired by weaving, such as Sheila Hicks, Grayson Perry, Faith Ringgold ... More |
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| | The unstable artist who helped invent Expressionism | | Gagosian opens an exhibition of Cy Twombly's sculptures | | Drawings by Rembrandt travel outside of the Netherlands for first time for Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition |
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), The Russian Dancer Mela, 1911. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- You could be forgiven for drawing a connection between Ernst Ludwig Kirchners shocking color palette and his character. It would be understandable enough, considering his problems with morphine, Veronal and absinthe; the nervous breakdown precipitated by his artillery training in World War I, and his many long hospital stays afterward; his bohemian relations with women and girls; his falling-out with the three other members of Die Brücke, the Dresden club that was a driving force, alongside Munichs Der Blaue Reiter, in originating German Expressionism; the dates he altered on some paintings, to make himself seem even more innovative than he already was; his wavering ambivalence about National Socialism; and his suicide in 1938, at the age of 58, after the Nazis had denounced him and most other modern artists as degenerates. But to linger on Kirchners lurid ... More | |
Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2002. Plaster, wood, paint, acrylic, and sand, 25 ⅝ à 9 ⅝ à 8 ¼ inches (65 à 24.5 à 20.8 cm) © Cy Twombly Foundation.
LONDON.- Gagosian is presenting an exhibition of Cy Twomblys sculptures, in association with the Cy Twombly Foundation. The exhibition marks the publication of the second volume of the catalogue raisonné of sculptures, edited by Nicola Del Roscio, President of the Cy Twombly Foundation, and published by Schirmer/Mosel. Twombly made his sculptures from found materials such as plaster, wood, and iron, as well as objects that he habitually used and handled in the studio. From 1946 onward, he created many assemblages, though they were rarely exhibited before the 1997 publication of the first volume of his catalogue raisonné. Often modest in scale, they embody his artistic language of handwritten glyphs and symbols, evoking narratives from antiquity and fragments of literature and poetry. Many of Twomblys sculptures are coated ... More | |
Rembrandt van Rijn, Minerva in her Study, 1652, Collectie Six, Amsterdam.
LONDON.- A book containing two personal entries by Rembrandt traveled outside of the Netherlands for the first time since its creation in 1652, as part of Dulwich Picture Gallerys exhibition, Rembrandts Light (4 October 2019 2 February 2020). The Album Amicorum (Friendship Book) of Rembrandts influential friend and patron, Jan Six (1618-1700), is being displayed on the page showing the intricate drawing, Minerva in her Study, 1652 (Collectie Six, Amsterdam). This and Homer Reciting Verses (two pages earlier) are the only known drawings that Rembrandt dedicated to someone and have been loaned to the Gallery by a direct descendant of Jan Six. Rembrandt and Jan Six were in closest contact from the early 1640s to early 1660s and this completed work of art was made to be looked at by the magistrate and his acquaintances. Rembrandts use of light in the piece draws out the symbolism of the ... More |
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| | Kara Walker takes a monumental jab at Britannia | | Charlotte Perriand's work transformed rooms. Now it fills a museum | | Mac Conner, illustrator for ads and magazines, dies at 105 |
Kara Walker with her work "Fons Americanus" at the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London, Sept. 27, 2019. Using the Tate Modern as her stage, Walker examines the empire, the debate over memorials and the tragedy of Emmett Till (Charlotte Hadden/The New York Times).
LONDON (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- The Queen Victoria Memorial, centerpiece of the plaza that fronts Buckingham Palace, is possibly the most bombastic of this citys monuments to British grandeur. Beside Victoria, queen and empress, glowering toward the Mall, is a cascade of allegorical statuary representing Courage and Constancy, Truth and Justice, Manufacture and Agriculture, Peace and Progress, and Motherhood. Ships prows jut from the corners. Bas-relief mermaids and mermen watch over its fountain pool. Dedicated in 1911, the edifice projects the historical certainty and moral satisfaction of the Britannia that ruled the waves. Kara Walker was on her way to Heathrow Airport from her initial site visit to the Tate Modern, after being selected for the museums annual Turbine Hall commission, when she saw the ... More | |
Charlotte Perriand, Swivel armchair B302, 1927. Paris, 2019. Courtesy of Vitra Design Museum.
PARIS (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- If you ask decorators, architects and other aesthetes to name their favorite modernist, French designer Charlotte Perriand comes up more often than not. Perriand lived from 1903 to 1999, nearly spanning the 20th century, and she made the most of her decades, designing buildings, furniture, rooms and objects at an impressive clip. She found a way to match the strict modernist demand for utility and practicality with the elusive quality known as good taste. Many of her works remain influential reference points today: her colorful Nuage cabinet (imagine a 3D version of a Mondrian painting); the sleek chaise longue she designed with the cousins Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (better known as Le Corbusier) and Pierre Jeanneret, which was covered in a chic pony skin; her later collaborations with architect Jean Prouvé; and the lodgings she created in the 1960s and 70s for the Les Arcs ski resort in Savoie, France. Hers was a big career, and now she is getting an exhibition to match her stat ... More | |
In an undated photo from Mac Conner, an illustration by Conner captured the novelty of television for the story "Veni, Vedi, Video" in a 1949 issue of Collier's. Conner, a prodigious illustrator whose realistic, colorful and often dramatic paintings for major magazines and advertisers helped lend a distinctive look to postwar popular culture, died on Sept. 26, 2019, at his home in Manhattan. He was 105. (Mac Conner via The New York Times)
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- Mac Conner, a prodigious illustrator whose realistic, colorful and often dramatic paintings for major magazines and advertisers helped lend a distinctive look to postwar popular culture, died on Sept. 26 at his home in Manhattan. He was 105. His death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman. Conner thrived as an artist from the late 1940s to the early 60s, when magazines still prized illustrations for short stories and advertising agencies on Madison Avenue valued artwork over photography to pitch clients products. Conners illustrations, largely in gouache, appeared in major magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook ... More |
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| | Mary Lee Bendolph stitches together quilts and civil rights | | The Ackland Art Museum displays "All the Rembrandt Drawings!" | | Jeff Koons' controversial 'Bouquet of Tulips' unveiled in Paris |
Mary Lee Bendolph, Dashiki, 2003. Cotton, 90 x 97 inches.
ATHENS, GA.- Born in rural Alabama and an active participant in the civil rights movement, quilt maker Mary Lee Bendolph has said she can make a quilt out of anything that inspires her. An exhibition of her work, Mary Lee Bendolph: Quilted Memories, will be on view at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia October 5 December 29, 2019. The exhibition will include 17 large quilts by the renowned Alabama artist, who is descended from generations of quilt makers. Bendolph was born as Mary Lee Mosely in 1935 in Gees Bend, Alabama, a small, rural community recognized for its dedication to the tradition of quilt making. The town got its name from Joseph Gee, who established a cotton plantation along the Alabama River in the early 19th century. Half a century later, the plantations enslaved people were liberated as a result of the Civil War, but many of the freedmen ended up staying on ... More | |
Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669), Studies of a woman and two children, c. 1640. Pen and brown ink, 5 3/8 Ã 5 3/16 in. (13.6 Ã 13.2 cm) The Peck Collection, 2017.1.64.
CHAPEL HILL, NC.- Today, the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill opened an unprecedented exhibition of all seven of the Museum's drawings by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), a singular genius in the history of world art. "All the Rembrandt Drawings!" marks the 350th anniversary of the artist's death in 1669. The brief exhibition runs through Sunday, Oct. 20. The Ackland is the only public university art museum in the United States to own a collection of Rembrandt's drawings. In hosting the exhibition of these seven drawings from the Museum's Peck Collection, the Ackland celebrates the legacy of Rembrandt alongside institutions such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. "This special presentation of Rembrandt drawings from the ... More | |
This file photo taken on November 06, 2012 shows the artist Jeff Koons poses with his sculpture "Tulips, 1995-2004" in New York City. Jamie McCarthy / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- A controversial work by American pop artist Jeff Koons, aiming to symbolise US solidarity with France in the wake of the 2015 jihadist attacks, was unveiled in Paris Friday after becoming mired in years of controversy. Onlookers cheered and applauded as a white sheet was lifted to reveal a massive "Bouquet of Tulips" -- a sculpture of a human hand grasping a multicoloured bunch of flowers. Koons created the monumental work after being asked to come up with something to represent America's solidarity with France after the 2015 Paris attacks carried out by Islamic State jihadists, which left 130 people dead. But the proposed site for the 12-metre (39-feet) work -- outside the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum, on an esplanade facing the Eiffel Tower -- quickly ran into resistance. A site was finally ... More |
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John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal
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Trailblazing performer Diahann Carroll dies at 84
LOS ANGELES (AFP).- Diahann Carroll, the first black woman to star in her own primetime show and who later gained international acclaim for her role in the 1980s series "Dynasty," died Friday. She was 84 years old. The performer died at her Los Angeles residence after a years-long battle against breast cancer, according to her publicist. The Oscar-nominated actress -- who won a Tony Award for her star turn in Broadway's "No Strings" in 1962 -- was known for her chic elegance as well as her trailblazing performance in 1968's "Julia." Born July 17, 1935 in New York's Bronx borough, Carroll proved a gifted singer from a young age, and worked as a model as well as in musical theater before being cast in the 1959 screen adaptation of "Porgy and Bess." It was "Julia" that catapulted her to celebrity -- nabbing her a Golden Globe award and an Emmy ... More
Beatriz Cortez wins the inaugural Frieze Arto LIFEWTR Sculpture Prize
LONDON.- Beatriz Cortez is the winner of the inaugural Frieze Arto LIFEWTR ® Sculpture Prize, a new large-scale outdoor commission by an emerging artist. The prize was established to enable an artist to create a new work unveiled as part of Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, New York: a program of works by leading international artists, curated by Brett Littman that will open on 22 April and coincides with Frieze New York. Applicants to the prize were judged on the innovative nature of their idea and its potential for realization. The announcement was made during a special event hosted at the Arto LIFEWTR lounge at Frieze London, attended by Cortez and with remarks by Loring Randolph (Director of Frieze New York) and Natalie Redford (Marketing Director, Arto LIFEWTR). Cortez said: I am excited to have the opportunity to make this ... More
Holburne Museum opens a focused exhibition of around twenty works by Henri Matisse
BATH.- One of the undisputed masters of 20th century art, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is renowned for the exquisite delicacy of his drawn line as much as for the intense brilliance of his colour. His etchings are remarkable for the fact that they preserve the vivacity and clarity of his drawing, giving them an immediacy that is especially striking in dialogue with the etchings of Rembrandt a selection of which are on display in the exhibition Rembrandt in Print, running concurrently at the Holburne (opened 4 October). In the year we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Matisses birth, the Holburne Museum has created a focused exhibition of around twenty works. Central to the show is a group of etchings drawn together by the legendary London collector and dealer John Kasmin. The selection offers a concise and intense immersion into the achievements of ... More
Major Marcel Broodthaers retrospective opens at M HKA in Antwerp
ANTWERP.- The exhibition Soleil Politique, organised by the M HKA, is the first retrospective of the Belgian key artist Marcel Broodthaers in his own country for a decade. In recent years, Broodthaers' work has been on display in top museums as part of a travelling exhibition, organised by the MoMA and the Museo Reina SofÃa. The M HKA however, consciously chooses to present this body of work as a project in its own right, just as it did before with artists Joseph Beuys and James Lee Byars. Soleil Politique focusses on Broodthaers from an Antwerp perspective, in which the strongly anchored Wide White Space Gallery functions as a key element in Broodthaers' rapidly growing international success. The exhibition aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the breadth of themes, media and presentation strategies Broodthaers engaged with. It presents, ... More
BOZAR opens an exhibition dedicated to Constantin Brancusi
BRUSSELS.- Brancusi (Hobita 1876 Paris 1957) is one of the fathers of modern sculpture. He remains an unclassifiable artist and one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. The festivals flagship exhibition, Brancusi: Sublimation of Form illustrates the uniqueness of this artist, who tried to grasp the essence of human beings and objects through the creation of pared-down forms, free of outside influence. Brancusi used his sculptures to embody the radical transformations that painting had undergone half a century earlier. His innovative work succeeded in establishing itself in an environment which had just begun to open up to modernity, inspiring several generations of artists. The exhibition first focuses on Brancusis journey: born deep into the Romanian countryside, he studied at the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts and later at the Bucharest School ... More
Walker Art Center presents 'Carissa Rodriguez: The Maid'
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- New Yorkbased artist Carissa Rodriguez (US, b. 1970) creates photography, sculpture, and moving image works that examine how art gets made, reproduced, collected, and consumed. In doing so, Rodriguez uncovers the complex and at times personal dynamics between artist, artwork, audience, and institution. The Maid is a short film that focuses on six sculptures residing in various locationsan auction house, museum storage space, and the homes of art collectors. Through the camera's meditative gaze, Rodriguez invites viewers to closely attend to the works, highlighting the extraordinary care given to these objects. The film borrows its title from a 1913 short story by Robert Walser (18781956). In the paragraph-long tale, a maid spends 20 years searching for a lost child once in her care. When she finally finds her, the maid dies of joy. ... More
Cincinnati Art Museum features Sohrab Hura in "The Levee: A Photographer in the American South"
CINCINNATI, OH.- Contemporary Indian photographer Sohrab Hura receives his first solo museum exhibition, organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum, from October 5, 2019February 2, 2020. The Levee: A Photographer in the American South presents an 83-picture suite titled The Levee, in which Hura explores themes of connection, perspective and place. Exhibited in its entirety for the first time outside of India, the suite has been acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum through the generosity of the artist and Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata. The Cincinnati Art Museum is the first American museum to exhibit Huras work and the first public institution to collect his photographs. The exhibition is accompanied by an exhibition cataloguethe first substantial book publication about the artist. While The Levee consists primarily of black and white ... More
Roy Lichtenstein's iconic Nude with Blue Hair to highlight Bonhams Sale of Prints & Multiples
NEW YORK, NY.- Roy Lichtensteins Nude with Blue Hair, 1994, one of the artists most iconic prints, highlights Bonhams sale of Modern & Contemporary Prints & Multiples on November 1, which has been in the same US collection for twenty years (estimate: $450,000-550,000). Roy Lichtensteins Nude with Blue Hair, 1994, currently holds the world auction record as the artists most expensive graphic on paper. Created in 1994 together with his Nudes Series prints, Lichtenstein returns to his early Pop vocabulary but with an updated twist. With the expertise of master printer Kenneth Tyler, the artist employed innovative printing methods to enhance the volume of his cartoon-like female figure, adding diagonal stripes to his signature Benday dot patterns, and employing relief printing to create depth. His cartoon woman is now life-sized, gazing directly at the ... More
Chazen Museum of Art names Chief Curator
MADISON, WIS.- Katherine D. Alcauskas has been named to a new position, Chief Curator, at the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of WisconsinMadison. She began her tenure on September 23, and is tasked with shaping the research, acquisition, management, display and interpretation of the museums unique permanent collection. She will also oversee an active exhibitions program that includes both traveling and in-house curated projects of all sizes. We are thrilled that Ms. Alcauskas is joining the Chazen curatorial team, said Amy Gilman, director of the Chazen. Her experience as a curator and leader in both large collecting institutions and academic galleries positions her perfectly to help develop our curatorial strategy. As we explore what it means to be a university museum in the 21st century, searching for new and innovative ways to showcase ... More
Tate Britain opens an ambitious new exhibition by Mark Leckey
LONDON.- Tate Britain presents O Magic Power of Bleakness, an ambitious new exhibition by Mark Leckey. Returning to the gallery for the first time since he won the Turner Prize in 2008, Leckey presents an immersive installation combining new and existing works which unfold over time to create a son et lumière (sound and light) experience. Recognised as one of the UKs most important artists working today, Mark Leckey merges art and subcultures to explore ideas of youth, class, memory and nostalgia. For this major solo exhibition, Leckey fills the entire gallery space at Tate Britain with a life-sized replica of a section of the M53, a motorway flyover close to his childhood home on the Wirral where he used to play with his friends. Here it intersects the gallery as though the M53 runs directly through Tate Britain. Underneath this bridge Leckey premieres ... More
The Arkansas Arts Center holds a Groundbreaking Ceremony for its stunning new facility
LITTLE ROCK, ARK.- The Arkansas Arts Center held a mid-morning Groundbreaking Ceremony today to commemorate the beginning of construction of its stunning, reimagined Arts Center. Upon completion in 2022, the current facility will be entirely transformed through an exciting design by renowned architect Jeanne Gang and her practice, Studio Gang. The project also includes a landscape design that will connect the AAC with the surrounding MacArthur Park, by award-winning designer Kate Orff and SCAPE. Both Jeanne Gang and Kate Orff are MacArthur Fellows who have received prestigious Genius Grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. As we gather to commemorate the beginning of construction, today marks a major step forward toward ensuring that the Arkansas Arts Center is an important and flourishing ... More
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PhotoGalleries
James Rosenquist
Fondazione Prada
Modern Primitives
Mississippi Museum of Art
Flashback On a day like today, Italian painter Francesco Guardi was born October 05, 1712. Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (October 5, 1712 - January 1, 1793) was a Venetian painter of veduta, a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of painting. In this image: Sotheby's employee Maria Sheremeteva studies Francesco Guardi's Venice, a view of the Rialto Bridge.
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