| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Thursday, January 7, 2021 |
| | | Art world sets plans for 2021 fairs (in pencil) | |
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The Tefaf Maastricht fair in the Netherlands in March 2020. Exhibitors and collectors are looking cautiously forward in the coming year, knowing that their schedules will be at the mercy of the coronavirus. Via TEFAF via The New York Times.
by Scott Reyburn
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Thousands of well-heeled frequent flyers browsing around yet another exhibition center, in yet another country, eager to discover the art worlds next big thing That was the fun of art fairs, the destination events that defined and fueled a global boom in recent years. In 2019, sales from the worlds art fairs reached an estimated $16.6 billion, with dealers relying on fairs to generate more than 40% of that years revenue, according to last years Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report. But the coronavirus pandemic stopped the art fair merry-go-round. Back in March, the Tefaf Maastricht fair in the Netherlands closed four days early when an exhibitor tested positive for the virus. After Tefafs closure, at least 25 participants and visitors reported having COVID-19 symptoms. Mass-attendance art fairs have been on hold ever since, replaced with limited success by less lucrative online equivalents. Now, as countries roll out vaccination programs, ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A picture taken on January 4, 2021 shows the Ramses II complex at the ancient Egyptian temple of Abu Simbel, some 1120 kms south of the Egyptian capital Cairo. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
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| Exhibition of photographs by Gordon Parks opens at both of Jack Shainman Gallery's locations | | Staff member jailed for Buckingham Palace thefts | | Top French court orders re-trial for Wildenstein art dynasty |
Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956 (detail). © The Gordon Parks Foundation. Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- Jack Shainman Gallery is presenting Gordon Parks: Half and the Whole, on view at both gallery locations. As a photographer, film director, composer, and writer, Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was a visionary artist whose work continues to influence American culture to this day. In collaboration with the Gordon Parks Foundation, this two-part exhibition featuring photographs that span from 19421970, demonstrates the continued influence and impact of Parkss images, which remain as relevant today as they were at the time of their making. The exhibition is accompanied by a short essay written by Jelani Cobb, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and Columbia University Professor, who writes of these photographs: we see Parks performing the same service for ensuing generations rendering a visual shorthand for bigger questions and conflicts that dominated the times. Bearing witness. On view at the 20th Street locatio ... More | |
A jugger runs past an empty road outside Buckingham Palace. JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP.
LONDON (AFP).- A Buckingham Palace kitchen assistant has been jailed for eight months after admitting stealing medals, official photos and other items, and selling some on eBay, police said. Adamo Canto, 37, was sentenced in court on Monday after pleading guilty to three counts of theft between November 2019 and August 2020, the Metropolitan Police said. Police said they recovered a "significant quantity" of stolen items when they searched his staff quarters in Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth's London residence, where he had worked as a catering assistant since 2015. The goods were worth up to £100,000 ($136,000, 111,000 euros) in total, and some were listed for sale on the eBay auction site for a small fraction of their worth, prosecutor Simon Maughan said. They included two prestigious medals, and a photo album showing images from the queen's state banquet for US President Donald Trump when he visited Britain in June 2019. Canto, who was reportedly desperate for ... More | |
In this file photo taken on March 2, 2018 French-US art dynasty scion Guy Wildenstein arrives at The Palais de Justice in Paris. GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- France's top court ordered a new trial on Wednesday for members of the art-dealing Wildenstein family who were cleared of tax evasion in 2018. Guy Wildenstein, the Franco-American patriarch of the dynasty, was found not guilty at the highly publicised 2018 trial where he was accused of hiding hundreds of millions of euros from French authorities. His nephew Alec Junior and his ex-step-sister Liouba Stoupakova were also cleared, as well as trust fund managers and lawyers who were put on trial. On Wednesday, prosecutors successfully appealed to the court of cassation for a re-trial, which will result in the third attempt to convict the dynasty over the management of its billions, which are held in a web of trusts and holding companies from the Channel Islands to the Bahamas. A first trial collapsed in January 2017 and prosecutors suffered their second setback in June 2018. Prosecutors had called for a four-year prison sentence and a fine of 250 million euros ($310 million) ... More |
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| The Morris Museum of Art announces the death of artist Philip Morsberger | | Cannes says film festival may be put off till summer | | Neil Young sells 50 percent stake in his music |
Philip Morsberger signing posters at the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia, September 2015.
AUGUSTA, GA.- The world lost a great artist with the death of Philip Morsberger on Sunday, January 3, 2021, of complications due to COVID-19. Philip Morsberger was blessed with many giftshis extraordinary curiosity and creativity, both of which sustained his skills as an artist, were only the most obvious, so, naturally, they are the immediate focus whenever his name comes up. But his interests were protean and encompassing, said Kevin Grogan, director of the Morris Museum of Art. He could speak with the same knowledgeability and enthusiasm about the film scores of Alfred Newman (only the greatest film composer who ever lived!) and the novels of Charles Dickens, which he read over and over again with devotional rapture. Old movies, radio dramas from the thirties, comic strips from Smokey Stover to Prince Valiant (Hall Foster was a genius!) fired his imagination ... More | |
File photo of Olivier Assayas, director of "Clouds of Sils Maria," and the actress Juliette Binoche, center, at the film's first screening at the 67th Cannes Film Festival in France, May 23, 2014. Arnaud Brunet/The New York Times.
PARIS (AFP).- The Cannes Film Festival, the world's biggest, may be pushed back to the summer this year from its usual May date because of the Covid crisis, organisers said Wednesday. The festival, scheduled for May 11 to 22, "will certainly take place in 2021", a spokeswoman told AFP, but could be postponed to a time between the end of June and the end of July. The festival was cancelled last year, while rival European events in Berlin and Venice went ahead under strict health restrictions. Organisers still need some time "to evaluate the situation at the start of the year" before making a decision, the Cannes spokeswoman said. The Berlin Film Festival, which usually kicks off in February, said last month it would run this year's edition in two stages, an online offering for ... More | |
In this file photo Canadian rock musician Neil Young performs during the headline slot on the Pyramid stage on the first "official" day of the annual Glastonbury festival near Glastonbury, on June 26, 2009. LEON NEAL / AFP.
NEW YORK (AFP).- Neil Young is the latest high-profile musician to cash in on his song rights, selling a 50 percent stake in his music to British investment company Hipgnosis. The company said it acquired half of Young's global copyright and income interests of his catalog, which includes 1,180 songs. Hipgnosis did not disclose terms of the deal. The writer of hits including "Heart of Gold", "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Cowgirl in the Sand," Young has remained famously guarded and outspoken against the commercialization of music. Merck Mercuriadis, founder of Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited, described himself as a lifelong fan of Young's and vowed the music would be used tastefully. "We have a common integrity, ethos and passion born out of a belief in music and these important songs," he ... More |
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| Pioneering photographer Ruth Orkin celebrated in Bonhams New York Photographs sale | | Finest Brasher Doubloon, 1804 Plain 4 Eagle poised to make history at Heritage Auctions | | Exhibition at The Met showcases the important role of European textiles in traveling exhibitions |
Albert Einstein at Princeton Luncheon. New Jersey, 1955. Photo: Bonhams.
NEW YORK, NY.- In 1951, the young American photographer Ruth Orkin was sent from New York to Israel, on assignment for LIFE magazine. From there she travelled to Italy, where she met Ninalee Craig, known at the time as Jinx Allen, a fellow American who was also travelling alone. It was a photograph of Jinx, being starred at as she passed through a group of men, which was to become Orkins most recognizable image, An American Girl in Italy. Orkin included the photograph as part of a series, later published in Cosmopolitan magazine, entitled Dont be Afraid to Travel Alone. By this stage in her career Ruth Orkin had established herself as a pioneering female photographer in a world largely dominated by men. The Photographs of Ruth Orkin: A Centennial Celebration will take at Bonhams New York on February 2, 2021 and will offer a selection of works that showcase Orkin's impressive and versatile career, with ... More | |
1787 DBLN New York-Style Brasher Doubloon, EB on Wing, MS65★ NGC. CAC. W-5840.
DALLAS, TX.- "The World's Most Famous Coin" and a selection of seven-figure rarities could make numismatic history in Heritage Auctions' Jan. 20-24 U.S. Coins Auctions held in Dallas and on HA.com. "We expect nothing short of a new world record amongst the rarest and most valuable issues in the history of American coinage," said James Halperin, Co-Founder of Heritage Auctions. "These auction events are unlike anything we have ever offered." The auctions were scheduled to be offered during the Jan. 7-10 Florida United Numismatics Convention, which was cancelled due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. Heritage moved its U.S. Coins auctions to Dallas and rescheduled them for Jan. 20-24. Heritage is offering 14 important private collections among the more than 2,280 lots presented this season. Poised to make numismatic history, the finest known, 1787 New York-Style Brasher Doubloon, W-5840, ... More | |
Cut and Uncut Polychrome Voided Satin Velvet, ca. 16751725.
NEW YORK, NY.- Between 1933 and 1942, The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized one of its especially noteworthy landmark educational initiatives to bring the Museum's collection to as many New Yorkers as possible. Called the Neighborhood Circulating Exhibitions, the series consisted of small, thematic displays of select artworks presented in New York Public Library branches, high schools, city universities, and settlement houses. The effort, which was developed in response to an inquiry from a high school teacher, reached more than two million visitors and is the focus of the exhibition Art for the Community: The Met's Circulating Textile Exhibitions, 19331942, on view October 31, 2020, through June 13, 2021, in honor of The Met's 150th anniversary. Art for the Community showcases the important role of European textiles in these traveling exhibitions, with a selection of seven textiles ... More |
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| Strong 2020 rare coin & banknote market despite pandemic, reports Professional Numismatists Guild | | Online exhibition explores Scottish environments close to home during lockdown | | Sworders' Design sale to be held 'live online' on January 26 includes a collection of work by Art Deco giant Jules Leleu |
The most valuable U.S. rare coin sold at auction in 2020 was this 1804-dated silver dollar for $3,360,000. Photo courtesy of Stacks Bowers Galleries.
TEMECULA, CA.- It was the year of pandemic-related cancelled coin shows, but 2020 still resulted in one of the strongest U.S. rare coin and paper money markets in recent years, according to a year-end survey of major auction houses conducted by the Professional Numismatists Guild, a nonprofit organization composed of many of the countrys top rare coin and paper money dealers. Based on responses to a PNG questionnaire, the aggregate prices realized for U.S. rare coins sold at major public auctions in 2020 totaled nearly $369 million. The aggregate total was $325 million in 2019; $345 million in 2018; and $316 million in 2017. Major auction sales of U.S. banknotes in 2020 totaled $50.6 million bringing the combined aggregate auction sales of rare U.S. coins and paper money the past year to over $419 million. This was the first year PNG included banknotes in its annual survey. With most of the ... More | |
Philip Braham, Blue December, Torlum Hill, 2019 (detail). Oil on linen, 81 x 101 cm.
EDINBURGH.- 2021 at The Scottish Gallery opened with an online exhibition of new work by renowned Scottish artist Philip Braham. In this new collection of paintings and photographs, he explores the landscape around his new home and studio in the marches between the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands, discovering ancient disputed lands, rich in human history - agricultural, religious and violent. This haunting body of work interrogates the natural environment, inviting us to contemplate the beautiful indifference of the passing seasons dictating the rhythms of farming, social life, warfare, and death. Brahams paintings of the snowy landscape of Strathearn unify land and sky, removing the usual colours from the landscape, turning trees into silhouettes and fences into merely dynamic lines. This sense of serenity pervades many of his paintings and photographs as they offer meditations on stillness. But, some also hold a narrative meanin ... More | |
The ten lots in the sale arrived in Stansted Mountfitchet from the Mediterranean just before Christmas.
STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET.- The ten lots represent one of the largest groups of pieces by Leleu to come to market in recent years. They have been consigned to Sworders by the Greek descendants of Celestine Galani, the wife of shipping magnate John Galani who was a friend of Jules Leleu. Based less than a mile away from the Maison Leleu which was at 65 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt in Paris, Celestine commissioned him in to decorate her entire apartment at 81 Avenue Marceau in the 1940s. Born into a family of artisans and artists in Boulogne-sur-Mer in Northern France, Jules Leleu was one of the fathers of French Art Deco design. He exhibited at the prestigious Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in 1925, the event that gave Art Deco its name and designed the chairs for the Grand Salon and the Music Room. His commissions included the ocean liners Ile de France and the famed and ill-fated Normandie plus a dining room for the Elysée Palace, and the Grand Sal ... More |
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Break for Art | Sheaves of Wheat by Vincent Van Gogh | #DMAatHome
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Eric Jerome Dickey, best-selling novelist, dies at 59
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Eric Jerome Dickey, who mixed saucy, sexy and savvy into a formula that regularly landed his novels on bestseller lists and made him one of the most successful Black authors of the past quarter-century, died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 59. His publisher, Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, said the cause was cancer. Dickey lived in Los Angeles. After experimenting with careers as a software developer and a stand-up comic, Dickey drew considerable attention in 1996 with his first novel, Sister, Sister, the intertwined stories of three Black women told from each characters point of view. Fresh, in-your-face and always outrageous, Jane Henderson wrote in The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Sister, Sister depicts a hard-edged reality in which women sometimes have their dreams shattered, ... More
Grey Flannel presents elite game-used sports memorabilia in stellar winter auction closing January 20
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.- More than 850 generously illustrated, premium-quality lots of major league sports memorabilia featured in Grey Flannels January 20, 2021 auction are now available to peruse and bid on at www.GreyFlannelAuctions.com. Throughout the selection, the emphasis is on provenance, authenticity and rarity. Auction Lot #1 is the late Hall of Famer Kobe Bryants 2009 NBA Finals game-worn jersey. In that series, Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games, with Bryant capturing his first Finals MVP award. Bryant wore this road jersey on June 9, 2009 in Game 3, scoring 31 points while adding eight assists and three rebounds. The jersey has been authenticated by Photo-Match.com and comes with a letter of authenticity from the NBA. A rare offering from one of the NBAs all-time greats, Lot 1 has a current ... More
Exhibition at ClampArt includes a selection of Brian Buckley's new wet photograms
NEW YORK, NY.- ClampArt is presenting Brian Buckleys second solo show with the gallery. Titled Uncertainty, the exhibition includes a selection of the artists new wet photograms. Artists thrive in the state of uncertainty. It is the space in which new work is often produceda realm where ideas are explored and solutions are sometimes found. Brian Buckley actively seeks out uncertainty, from which he draws creative inspiration. It defines the darkroom techniques he employs and helps explain the purpose of his artistic practice. Buckley began his newest body of work in early 2020, purposely exploring the concept of uncertaintyespecially in relation to his own life and abrupt changes brought on by the pandemic. Reflecting specifically on personal relationships, issues of intimacy, and more widely on his own notions of the nature ... More
Greek film festival founder Dimitri Eipides dies aged 82
ATHENS (AFP).- Dimitri Eipides, founder of the Montreal and Thessaloniki film festivals, died on Wednesday at the age of 82, the Greek culture ministry said. Athens-born Eipides, who studied theatre and cinema in the United States and Britain, founded the Montreal Film Festival in 1971 and headed it for 14 years. He subsequently founded the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival in 1999. "Dimitri Eipides taught us how to watch documentaries, how to discover film-makers. Cinema was his life," the TIFF wrote in a statement. "He convinced viewers that documentary is a love affair that surpasses its own art and becomes part of our life. We will always remember him in front of a screen, watching a film, explaining passionately why it is ideal for a festival, ideal for our soul. We express our sincere condolences to his family," the statement said. Eipides was ... More
ART X Lagos consolidates its position as West Africa's premier international art fair with digital fair
LAGOS.- 2020 saw the 5th edition of West Africas leading international art fair which over the previous 4 years had 30,000 guests witness the best of African contemporary and modern art from 300 artists. With the 2020 transition to a digital platform, the art fair hosted a vast international audience from 101 countries over eight days from 2nd 9th December. For ART X Lagos, 2020 was a year like no other. In the face of COVID-19 ART X Lagos announced West Africas first ever digital art fair with the theme Present States; Shared Futures. Then just as the fair was due to launch the #EndSARS protests took place in Nigeria. In response to this unrest, ART X Lagos launched a support initiative for 100 photographers who worked at the frontlines and put out a call for works documenting the historic civil uprising. A selection of these photographs and ... More
Taymour Grahne Projects opens an online solo exhibition by artist Polina Barskaya
LONDON.- Taymour Grahne Projects is presenting Time Passing, an online solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based Russian artist Polina Barskaya, now on view virtually. Barskayas confessional portraits have a diaristic quality to them. Working from photographs, but allowing for artistic liberties, Barskaya depicts herself, her child and her husband within a domestic space. These portraits are either in the artists home in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn or in various accommodations visited throughout her frequent travels (ranging from Upstate, NY to Venice, Italy). Mired in quotidian details, each psychological drama is charged with longing, sexuality and self-reflection. Barskayas paintings hone in on the psychological intensity of their subjects. Within enclosed spaces, Barskaya often uses windows and light to create a sense of disconnect and isolation. Quiet, ... More
2021 highlights at Greenwich's Old Royal Naval College
GREENWICH.- The Old Royal Naval College will safely welcome visitors back in 2021 once they are allowed to reopen, with amazing events, from the return of sell-out sculptural installation Gaia to an art and illustration exhibition by Nick Ellwood and the extension of Black Greenwich Pensioners. After a sell-out display in Summer 2020, UK artist Luke Jerrams monumental sculpture Gaia will return in 2021. Made using NASA imagery, this internally-lit sculpture is a scale replica of Earth, which will slowly rotate in the magnificent Painted Hall, instilling a sense of the Overview Effect on viewers. The 7-metre-tall art installation will inspire awe and allow audiences to view the planet as though from space. Uncovering the rich and fascinating past of Black mariners in the Royal Navy and Greenwich, Black Greenwich Pensioners, which was ... More
Frozen towers and palaces stun visitors at Harbin ice festival
BEIJING (AFP).- Giant snow mazes, illuminated frozen towers and crystal palaces etched from vast blocks of ice greeted visitors to China's annual ice festival in Harbin. The frozen dreamscapes have drawn millions of visitors over the years to the wintery northeastern city, which opened the festival on Tuesday despite small Covid-19 outbreaks across China. Preparations for the annual winter celebration begin weeks in advance, with workers mining millions of cubic feet of ice from the surface of the Songhua river over long, gruelling shifts. Walls of ice carved into the shape of a giant flower were lit up on Tuesday night as the festival opened. The 2022 Beijing Winter Games have inspired a push across China to promote winter sports and tourism, with the number of Chinese snow resorts increasing nearly fourfold in the past decade. China ... More
Suzi Analogue wants Black women in experimental music to never compromise
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 put renewed pressure on the music industry to scrutinize its long-troubled relationship with race. Its a business that has relied on Black talent onstage without investing in Black executives behind the scenes, a space where Black artists have been nudged into specific genres and ways of creating, a place where women and LGBT people of color have been even further marginalized. None of this was news for Suzi Analogue. The 33-year-old Miami-based producer and label owner, born Maya Shipman, has spent most of her career carving out her own path and offering alternatives to others looking to avoid being put in a box. Chatting from her multimedia studio filled with widescreen monitors, tape decks and keyboards in Faena Forum, where shes an artist-in- ... More
Kohn Gallery announces representation of Nir Hod
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Kohn Gallery announced the representation of New York-based artist Nir Hod. Over the last 20 years the artist has exhibited internationally in Europe, Asia, Israel and the United States, and has established a reputation for intrinsically beautiful works, from figuration to abstraction, that belie a deeper, fundamental meaning. Last July, Kohn Gallery debuted Hods first West Coast solo exhibition of paintings and sculpture titled The Life We Left Behind. Known for his reflective, abstract paintings, Hod often begins his process with heavily-labored gradient beneath paintings adding a chroming technique first developed by the U.S. Navy in 1939, then degrading this finish application via water, ammonia, air pressure and various acids to create a surface tension between newfangled industrial applications and age-old oil technique. ... More
Monica King closes Tribeca space and launches new venture for 2021
NEW YORK, NY.- Monica King announced Monica King Projects, a newly-formed initiative which includes two new endeavors for 2021, a future series of traveling exhibitions in response to declining travel and art fairs, alongside an artist-in-residency based on a two-acre forested retreat in Litchfield County, Connecticut. The program also announces the addition of seven new artists to the artist roster including Hyun Jung Ahn, Chellis Baird, Lauren Ball, Kharis Kennedy, Aleksandra Stone, Michael Wolf, and Mie Yim. As we navigated uncharted waters of how to exhibit and view artwork during the pandemic, it became clear to us that we needed to create a new path forward, states gallery founder Monica King. We envisioned a new model for a gallery that is creatively fluid and can bring our diverse exhibitions to cities around the world where our collectors ... More
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Anne Truitt Sound
Islamic Metalwork
Klaas Rommelaere
Helen Muspratt
Flashback On a day like today, English painter and educator Thomas Lawrence died January 07, 1830. Sir Thomas Lawrence PRA FRS (13 April 1769 - 7 January 1830) was a leading English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. In this image: Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 - 1830) Portrait of the Hon. Emily Mary Lamb (1787-1869), 1803. ©The National Gallery.
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