| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, April 26, 2023 |
| | Making art by day, guarding it at the Met by night | |
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Greg Kwiatek, a painter, at his studio in the garment district in Manhattan, April 21, 2023. Over 25 years walking the museums midnight shift, Kwiatek learned how to look for the hidden subtleties of paintings, which helped inform his own. (Victor Llorente/The New York Times)
by Robin Pogrebin
NEW YORK, NY.- The small hours of the morning when the galleries were empty, hushed and dim were Greg Kwiateks favorite part of his 25 years as a night guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when he could spend hours looking at a single painting like El Grecos Christ Carrying the Cross, J.M.W. Turners Whalers or Johannes Vermeers A Maid Asleep. Then, shortly after sunrise, Kwiatek, now 74, went home to his rent-controlled railroad flat apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey ($557 a month) to work on his own paintings, which were often inspired by those hed guarded at the museum. Now Kwiateks work is on view, through May 14, in a small group show at Fierman Gallery on the Lower East Side. He developed a very intimate relationship with much of the collection, and a lot of that has really permeated his practice, said Alissa Friedman, who organized the show, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, wh ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Installation view of Isaac Julien's exhibition at Tate Britain, 2023. Photo: Jack Hems. © Isaac Julien, Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro.
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| Portrait of Mai jointly acquired by The National Portrait Gallery and Getty | | Lark Mason associates triple-header of Asian Art sales nears $2.8 | | 'Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is To Me' opens at Tate Britain | 
Installation view of Portrait of Mai (Omai), Sir Joshua Reynolds c 1776. Oil on canvas; 236 x 145.5cm. Image courtesy of the owner.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The innovative collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery and Getty to jointly acquire Joshua Reynolds Portrait of Mai (Omai) has been successful. The National Portrait Gallery has raised £25 million which, thanks in huge part to a grant of £10m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, an Art Fund grant of £2.5m, together with a matching amount from Getty in the US, makes up the £50m needed to acquire the painting. The National Portrait Gallery and Art Funds fundraising campaign has been made possible thanks to an extraordinary collaborative effort, including: An exceptional grant of £10m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, one of its most significant awards for saving a heritage treasure for the UK An Art Fund grant of £2.5m, the largest in its history Major contributions ... More | | 
The sale rang up $1,349,458 bringing the total amount of online sales to $2,797,079 including buyers premium.
NEW YORK, NY.- Chinese and Other Asian Works of Art, the last in a trio of sales hosted by Lark Mason Associates on iGavelAuctions.com during Asia Week New York, rang up $1,349,458 bringing the total amount of online sales to $2,797,079 including buyers premium. Says Lark Mason: This seasons series of Asian art sales included masterworks across several categories with international collectors vying for rare Chinese textiles and clothing, ceramics, and jades, many of which achieved stunning prices. According to Mason, Mainland Chinese collectors snapped up a number of items including a Pale Celadon Chinese Jade Ewer for $263,404, five times its estimate; Landscape with Beauties, a large early 20th century Chinese ink-on-paper and silk handscroll, for $231,250, ten times over its estimate; and a Pale Celadon Chinese Jade Boulder from the Qianlong ... More | | 
Isaac Julien Portrait. Photo © Thierry Bal.
LONDON.- Tate Britain presents the UKs first ever survey exhibition celebrating the influential work of British artist and filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien (b. London, 1960). One of the leading artists working today, Isaac Julien is internationally acclaimed for his compelling lyrical films and video art installations. This ambitious solo show charts the development of his pioneering work in film and video over four decades from the 1980s through to the present day, revealing a career that remains as fiercely experimental and politically charged as it was forty years ago. The exhibition presents a selection of key works from Juliens ground-breaking early films and immersive three-screen videos made for the gallery setting, to the kaleidoscopic, sculptural multi-screen installations for which he is renowned today. Together, they explore how Julien breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines by drawing from film, dance, ph ... More |
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| rodolphe janssen presents a new series of paintings made in 2022 by Alice Tippit | | valerie_traan gallery presents the work of Geert Vanoorlé in Série Discrète | | Nigerian artist Johnson Ocheja's first solo show, brings together a series of spirited paintings | 
Alice Tippit, Oubliette, 2022. Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 33 cm. 16 x 13 in.
BRUSSELS.- rodolphe janssen is presenting Zero eroS, the first solo show at rodolphe janssen of Chicago- based artist Alice Tippit, whose work fluctuates between figurative and abstract realms. The exhibition, which takes place from April 19th to May 20th 2023, presents a new series of paintings made in 2022. The paintings and drawings in this exhibition owe much to windows as a metaphor for paintings, television, and other media. While developing my work I consider not only traditional painting precepts of color, shape, scale, figure, and ground, but also poetic conventions such as metaphor, simile, rhyme, and symbolism. My interest in language as a vehicle for communication, a container of meaning, and an agent of misunderstanding leads me to make images that have the clarity of appearance we associate ... More | | 
Geert Vanoorlé, Study for Jeanne (2), 2023.
ANTWERP.- We often use the term minimalist to refer to paintings of geometric composition and, even more so, for works that tend toward what is less, or almost nothing, or not much
works which are not marked by excess. Though the term evokes the primarily American artistic movement of the 1960s whose shadow still lingers over our contemporaneity it tends to mean, in everyday language, reduced, simplified to the strict minimum. But what would the strict minimum of painting be? What is its ideal reduction like for a sauce? Without hesitation, I would say: the surface. Such are the questions in the exhibition Série Discrète now on view at valerie_traan Gallery until June. Geert Vanoorlés painting is on the surface, purely and simply. No illusionist depth, nothing in front, nothing behind, merely the pictorial surface. Yellow, red, blue, green, grey ... More | | 
Stand Therefore.
LAGOS.- Lagos-based African Artists Foundation, a non-profit organization and art space, unveils A Pilgrims Journey; Through the Shades of Yellow, the latest series of works by emerging Nigerian artist Johnson Ocheja. Marking his first-ever solo exhibition following a two-week artist residency at AAF Headquarters in April 2023, the exhibition is on view from April 22 May 20, 2023, at the Alliance Française de Lagos and the AAF Headquarters, Lagos, Nigeria. Curated by Princess Ayoola, the exhibition echoes the artist's creative journey and immortalization of his reoccurring subjects through a vibrant explosion of yellow hues. This exhibition aligns with AAF's artist development initiatives, directly supporting the foundation's mission of fostering and aiding emerging African artists through solo exhibitions. The dual-location exhibition showcases 12 large-scale paintings by Ocheja and ... More |
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| Ed Mell, John Nieto, Fritz Scholder among Western & Native American artists to anchor May auction | | Elizabeth Xi Bauer opens an exhibition of new works by Theodore Ereira-Guyer and Thiago Barbalho | | Harry Belafonte, 96, dies; Barrier-breaking singer, actor and activist | 
Ed Mell, Quiet Distance.
DENVER, CO.- A dynamic group of contemporary Western & Native American artwork will take center stage at Hindman during its May 4th auction, highlighted by works by Ed Mell, John Nieto, Fritz Scholder and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Property from an estate, being sold to benefit the Wichita Art Museum, elevates the selection of both historic and contemporary Western paintings in the sale with works by Edward Borein, Leon Gaspard and a selection of paintings by Richard Schmid. Another important collection to be offered is property from the Estate of Harry M. Cornell, Jr., a renowned Missouri businessman whose collection also features both historic and contemporary Western art. A group of quintessential panoramic Ed Mell works from the Smith Collection, Scottsdale, Arizona will be an anchor of the auction. Highlights include Mells Vaulting Clouds (lot 170; estimate: $50,000 - 70,000) and Quiet Distance (lot 169; estimate: $40,000 - 60,000) ... More | | 
Theodore Ereira-Guyer, Untitled (on wall), 2022. Bronze, 30 x 29 x 5 cm., and Falcon (foreground), 2022-23. Etching into plaster, stones, 56 x 76 x 18 cm.
LONDON.- Elizabeth Xi Bauer presents Phantom Dance, an exhibition of new works by Theodore Ereira-Guyer and Thiago Barbalho. Though the artists are friends and nourish an intellectual exchange for many years, it is the first time that their works will be exhibited together. For this exhibition at Elizabeth Xi Bauer, the two artists works dialogue through varying mediums. Multiple double-sided stacks of large format etchings by Ereira-Guyer will be installed so that they hang from the gallery ceiling to form a false wall which will intersect the space. Created using different hues and densities of green, these etchings have been sewn onto silk and stitched together to create objects with architectural qualities. Exhibited with this will be two sizeable drawings by Barbalho along with a selection of smaller drawings by the artist which will be hung on the walls around the larger ... More | | 
The singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte speaks at a news conference in New York on March 3, 1986. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)
by Peter Keepnews
NEW YORK, NY.- Harry Belafonte, who stormed the pop charts and smashed racial barriers in the 1950s with his highly personal brand of folk music, and who went on to become a dynamic force in the civil rights movement, died Tuesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 96. The cause was congestive heart failure, said Ken Sunshine, his longtime spokesman. At a time when segregation was still widespread and Black faces were still a rarity on screens large and small, Belafontes ascent to the upper echelon of show business was historic. He was not the first Black entertainer to transcend racial boundaries; Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and others had achieved stardom before him. But none had made as much of a splash as he did, and for a few years ... More |
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| Museum of the Home celebrates unprecedented rise in visitor numbers | | Material about Elissa Aalto's life's works published on Finna | | Inside the scramble to make a half-million ants feel at home | 
Museum of the Home has seen visitor numbers rise more than 22% [147,000] above their ambitious forecast of 120,000 visitors.
LONDON.- Museum of the Home has bucked the trend widely reported in March 2023 which outlined the UKs leading attractions seeing visitor numbers down 25% on 2019 pre-Covid levels. In 2022/2023, Museum of the Home has seen visitor numbers rise more than 22% [147,000] above their ambitious forecast of 120,000 visitors. This is also more than 33% up on 2017/2018, the last year of operation before the Museum closed for their major capital project, before reopening in June 2021. The Museums delivery of a truly inclusive Winter Festival across 2022 and 2023 celebrated cultures and faiths from around the world, reflecting communities across Hackney and Greater London. With targeted community engagement, innovative ... More | | 
Elissa Aalto´s villa design, student project. Drawing © Alvar Aalto Foundation.
HELSINKI.- The Alvar Aalto Foundation has published a selection of architectural drawings and photographs illustrating the lifes work of Elissa Aalto (1922−1994) on the Finna search service. Elissa Aalto (née Elsa Mäkiniemi), Alvar Aaltos second wife, worked in Aaltos architects office in 1949−1994. The material now being published on Finna includes both built and unbuilt plans. The earliest are practice pieces that Elissa Aalto made as a student and the latest are from her time at Alvar Aalto & Co, Architects. Also viewable are previously unpublished personal snapshots from different decades, taken on ordinary visits to building sites and on trips abroad for work and leisure, says Alvar Aalto Foundation Curator Anni Saastamoinen. The material published on Finna comprises 32 drawings and 15 ... More | | 
Ryan Garrett, a self-described ant wrangler, installs a pole shortcut to help the ants get to and from the foraging area in an exhibit set for the new insectarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, April 18, 2023. The museum had to scramble to help a half-million ants feel at home. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times)
NEW YORK, NY.- When the American Museum of Natural Historys new insectarium opens on May 4, a half-million leafcutter ants will share the title of star attraction. The ants are biological marvels, living in enormous colonies that function as a single superorganism. They are sophisticated farmers, collecting leaves that they use to nurture sprawling fungal gardens, which provide food for the colony. Creating the new leafcutter exhibit was a six-year journey that took the museums team and the ants from a farm in Trinidad, where the tangerine-size colony was collected, to a lab in Oregon, where it grew large enough ... More |
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Sotheby's Spotlight: The Coronation Sale
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 'Daniel Gordon: Free Transformation' to open at Kasmin GalleryNEW YORK, NY.- Daniel Gordon: Free Transform opening Thursday, April 27th at Kasmin, presents a new series of richly-detailed, large-scale photographic prints alongside the debut of the artists three-dimensional vessel sculptures. Spanning the exhibition is the seven-panel Panoramic Still Life (2023), which extends 23 feet in width and functions as a single site-specific installation while allowing for its alternate presentation in individual works or groupings. Pushing the limits of both scale and dimensionality, Gordon expands the viewers visual experience to allow for an immersive ambulatory exploration of the exhibition space and, by extension, his constructed universe. As his subjects and objects glitch through multiple mediums, Gordon occasions a slippage that speaks to the cameras capability to transform as well as document. ... More  'Panta Rhei: Everything Flows', works by five artists on Japanese Washi PaperNEW YORK, NY.- On view from April 27th through May 17th, Ippodo Gallery presents selected washi artworks in the exhibition 'Panta Rhei: Everything Flows' by five Japanese artists KAKU, Mami Kato, Yasue Maetake, Ryuji Taira, Kaori Teraoka working with traditional paper in diverse modes. Panta Rhei: Everything Flows unveils new perspectives in Japanese paper, transforming the medium into voluminous crafted planes. Washi is a medium in flux, intertwined with Japanese cultural memory and each artists sensibility. Washi (fibers of gampi, mulberry kozo and mitsumata, and the hemp mashi, among many others) is treasured for its longevity, as the extraordinarily long, thin fiberswhich are both durable and flexibleare slow to degrade. Japans paper tradition has maintained a broad and profound influence on art, cult ... More  24/7 - A new site-specific audiovisual artwork by Esmeralda Conde RuizDRESDEN.- The internationally renowned composer and visual artist Esmeralda Conde Ruiz, 2022 resident artist at the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden, is now presenting the results of her artistic research on artificial intelligence as part of the festival Dresden Days of Contemporary Music (April 19 to May 7, 2023) at HELLERAU European Center for the Arts. Advances in information technology represent some of the most decisive ethical challenges of our time. During Esmeralda Conde Ruizs 2022 residency at the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden, dealing with artificial intelligence and sound led her to explore the places where personal data is stored, the vast and often hidden server farms which contain the sonic traces of our digital footprints. Institutional server farms are usually inconspicuous, industrial-looking buildings whose outer shel ... More  On his podcast 'Wine and Hip Hop,' Jermaine Stone aims to bridge culturesNEW YORK, NY.- Jermaine Stones first exposure to wine occurred by happenstance, when he took a job in the warehouse of Zachys, the Westchester County, New York, wine retailer and auction house, to put himself through college. An aspiring rapper from the Wakefield section of the Bronx, Stone, now 38, rose rapidly in wine, forging a career as a fine-wine administrator and auctioneer, first at Zachys and then at Wallys in Los Angeles. Now, as an independent wine consultant and social media entrepreneur, he is using hip-hop as a vehicle for bringing wine to cultures and communities historically ignored by the industry, while working with major components of the trade to broaden and diversify their consumer base, as many promised to do after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. On podcasts, through videos and with his company, Cru ... More  'Good Night, Oscar' review: Sean Hayes with Demerol and cadenzasNEW YORK, NY.- Oscar Levant, the troubled midcentury musician and wag, often said hed erased the fine line between genius and insanity. He says it again, or a version of it, in Good Night, Oscar, the unconvincing biographical fantasia that opened Monday at the Belasco Theatre. But on the evidence of the character as written, and especially as impersonated by Sean Hayes in a gloomy if accurate performance, Levant doesnt erase the line so much as fudge it. Certainly the play, by Doug Wright, fails to make much of a case for the genius part of the joke. Instead, it offers a spray of Levants most famous quips, like the one about Elizabeth Taylor: Always a bride, never a bridesmaid. And instead of dramatizing how marvelous Levant was, it just says so repeatedly. Americas greatest wit. A goddamn lion. A Horowitz at the piano with a g ... More  A highlight of the Old Master Paintings sale to be held at Dorotheum is by Fede GaliziaVIENNA.- Fede Galizias masterpiece, in which the Old Testament heroine Judith holds the head of the tyrant, her sword still aloft, is signed in red, as if painted in the blood of the decapitated Holofernes. Judith, who seduced and then beheaded the invading general threatening her homeland, is at the centre of the painting, an important lot included in the Old Master sale on 3 May 2023 at Dorotheum Vienna. Its definitely about her, about the heroism, the strength of the woman, says Mark MacDonnell, Old Master specialist. It could be argued that this is a very female interpretation of the subject. Fede Galizia, the daughter of a Lombard painter, is one of a number of early female artists whose works are offered for sale in this auction and who have only been recently reappraised. The first monographic exhibition dedicated to Fede Ga ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Gabriele Münter 
TARWUK 
Awol Erizku 
Leo Villareal
Flashback On a day like today, French painter Eugène Delacroix was born April 26, 1798. Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 - 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. In this image: A man looks at the painting "Jeune tigre jouant avec sa mere" during a press visit of the exhibition "Delacroix (1798-1863)" at the Louvre Museum in Paris on March 27, 2018. The exhibition on French artist Eugene Delacroix will run from March 29 to July 23. PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP.
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