| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, March 17, 2021 |
| | | We don't know how much art has gone missing from museums | |
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Object's from the Louvre's collection stored at a warehouse in Lens, France, Feb. 9, 2021. Museums are doing a better job of accounting for missing inventory than years ago, when they would sometimes not report thefts out of embarrassment and fear of exposing security weaknesses. Dmitry Kostyukov/The New York Times.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Should museums tell the public about missing art? Two pieces of gold and silver-encrusted Italian Renaissance armor, which had been stolen from the Louvre in 1983 and found this year in a familys private collection in France, were discovered the way that stolen art often is: An expert cross-checked the items against an online database of lost and stolen art. But museums have at times withheld information about thefts, fearing that revealing security weaknesses could make other institutions less likely to loan them art or that it could encourage other thefts, according to current and former museum officials. Art security experts say the failure to report thefts, particularly involving items stolen from storage, has prevented museums from recovering items. Philippe Malgouyres, the curator of heritage art at the Louvre, said that when he started working in museums decades ago, he heard stories of thefts and disappearances that had not been reported. Our purpose is to preserve ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Artemis Gallery will hold its Pre-Columbian | Tribal | Oceanic art sale on Thu, Mar 18, 2021 8:00 AM GMT-6. The sale features Pre-Columbian, Native American, African / Tribal, Oceanic, much more. All items have been legally acquired and are legal to sell. Rare Chavin Greenstone Metate w/ Three Legs. Estimate: $3,600-$5,400.
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| Israel unearths fragments of 2000-year-old biblical scroll | | Affordable housing earns French couple the Pritzker Prize | | How can Blackness construct America? |
Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) conservator Tanya Bitler displays recently-discovered 2000-year-old biblical scroll fragments from the Bar Kochba period, after completion of preservation work at the authority's Dead Sea conservation lab in Jerusalem, on March 16, 2021. MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP.
JERUSALEM (AFP).- Israel on Tuesday unveiled fragments of a biblical scroll dating back some 2,000 years, in what experts described as the most significant such find since the Dead Sea Scrolls. The artifacts were unearthed during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in the Judean desert, which spans parts of southern Israel and the occupied West Bank. In a site known as the "Cave of Horrors," archaeologists found fragments of a scroll with a Greek translation of the Hebrew bible, the first such find since the early 1960s. "For the first time in approximately 60 years, archaeological excavations have uncovered fragments of a biblical scroll," the IAA said. Oren Ableman, an IAA curator, told AFP parts of the same scroll from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets were first discovered in the Cave of Horrors by Bedouins in the 1950s. The Cave of Horrors took its name from the numerous skeletons found inside it and the treacherous terrain nearby. Most of the text is in ancient Greek, a wide ... More | |
The architects Anne Lacaton, left, and Jean-Philippe Vassal, winners of the 2021 Pritzker Prize. The duo, whose affordable work often aims to repurpose spaces in unstructured ways, were cited for their commitment "to a restorative architecture that is at once technological, innovative and ecologically responsive." Laurent Chalet via The New York Times.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have never demolished a building in order to construct a new one. The French architects, who are based in the Paris suburb of Montreuil, believe that every structure can be repurposed, reinvented, reinvigorated. Now, after 34 years of putting that approach into practice, they have won their fields highest honor: the Pritzker Prize. Through their ideas, approach to the profession and the resulting buildings, the jury said in its citation, they have proven that a commitment to a restorative architecture that is at once technological, innovative and ecologically responsive can be pursued without nostalgia. In a joint telephone interview, Lacaton and Vassal said they have long been opposed to taking things down. There are too many demolitions of existing buildings which are not old, which still have a life in front of them, which are not out of use ... More | |
Fabricating Networks: Transmissions and Receptions from Pittsburghs Hill District, by Felecia Davis, who is a member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. Felecia Davis via The New York Times.
by Michael Kimmelman
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Whats below is a conversation with members of the Black Reconstruction Collective, which came together during the past year and a half, in tandem with an exhibition now at the Museum of Modern Art called Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. The collectives members are the 10 architects, artists and designers in the exhibition. The show includes some mind-bending, beautiful work, on view through the end of May. But the collective emerged to serve longer-term, more radical goals. It taps into a legacy of Black collectives from earlier eras. In 1893, Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass joined to publish The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the Worlds Columbian Exposition. Seven years later, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Thomas J. Calloway organized a display of charts and photographs about the African American experience to counter depictions of Black Americans ... More |
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| White Cube opens an exhibition of video works by Bruce Nauman | | Sally Grossman, immortalized on a Dylan album cover, dies at 81 | | Cowan's American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts auction realizes nearly double presale estimate |
Bruce Nauman. Photo © Jason Schmidt.
HONG KONG.- White Cube is presenting an exhibition of video works by Bruce Nauman. Widely regarded as one of the worlds most influential contemporary artists, this is the first exhibition of his work in Hong Kong. Presence/Absence features two single-channel works, from 1999 and 2001, along with three dual-screen projections made in 2013, that foreground the artists experimental approach, both in front of and behind the camera. Shot at his ranch in New Mexico, in his studio or the surrounding landscape, they are explorations of mind and matter. Employing elements of performance, labour, language, illusion and duration, the works investigate cognitive and social spheres. Nauman has said that [...] what makes the work interesting is if you choose the right questions. Then, as you proceed, the answers are whats interesting. With an economy of means, and the length of the work often determined by the dura ... More | |
The cover of Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home".
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- One of Bob Dylans most important early albums, Bringing It All Back Home from 1965, has the kind of cover that can strain eyes and fuel speculation. It is a photograph of Dylan, in a black jacket, sitting in a room full of bric-a-brac that may or may not mean something, staring into the camera as a woman in a red outfit lounges in the background. Fans became so fixated on deciphering it, the music journalist Neil McCormick wrote in The Daily Telegraph of London last year, that a rumor took hold that the woman was Dylan in drag, representing the feminine side of his psyche. She wasnt. She was Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylans manager at the time, Albert Grossman. The photo was shot in Albert Grossmans house, the man who took it, Daniel Kramer, told The Guardian in 2016. The room was the original kitchen of this house thats a couple hundred years old. Bob contributed to the ... More | |
A finely carved pine sternboard portrait bust of Daniel Webster, Sag Harbor, New York, Circa 1850. Price realized: $15,000.
CINCINNATI, OH.- On March 9 and 10, Cowans, a Hindman company, saw tremendous engagement in its American Furniture, Folk and Decorative Arts auction and realized more than $790,000. Property from the private collections of Noel and Kathryn Dickinson Wadsworth (Atlanta, Georgia); Paul M. Bentley (Oostburg, Wisconsin); Karen Tosterud (Bellaire, Michigan); and the estate of James A. Sanders (Evansville and New Harmonie, Indiana) all saw strong interest during the two-day auction. Additionally, a collection of trade signs from Arizona State University received great attention. The Wadsworth collection saw excellent engagement, including Alonzo Chappels historically iconic George Washington at Princeton, 1777 one of the artists most noteworthy works (lot 123) which ... More |
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| An homage to collage: Arturo Herrera opens exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery | | Kunsthalle Mainz opens an exhibition of works by Joachim Koester | | Denver Museum of Nature & Science hosts Stonehenge exhibition featuring 400 original artifacts and breakthrough science |
Arturo Herrera, Untitled, 2020. Mixed media collage, 50.4 x 39.6 cm. 19 7/8 x 15 5/8 in. © Arturo Herrera. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.
LONDON.- Arturo Herreras fourth exhibition at Thomas Dane Gallery, From This Day Forward, brings together a body of work created as an homage to collage, approximately a hundred years on from the practices ostensible inception. Herrera continues his examination of modernist legacies and visual culture with a group of new works alongside immersive wall painting and bookmaking. Throughout his career collage has always enabled Herrera to layer and compose raw material and fragments as though mirroring his own passion for music and musicality, allowing works to achieve real fluidity of form. Herrera draws particular attention to modernism, re-reading its vernacular interpretations and historical epochs particularly across South America, addressing the movements ... More | |
Joachim Koester: From the Secret Garden of Sleep, 2008, sepia-gefärbte Silbergelatine-Abzüge, 89,8 cm x 71,8 cm, Courtesy the artist and Jan Mot, Brüssel, nhm:mz: Dactylioceras-Bank (PWL1984/389-396), Schwefel (M1990/1388-LS), Geowissenschaftliche Sammlung.
MAINZ.- Perception, consciousness and connectedness are the crucial constant factors in Joachim Koesters thought and oeuvre. They constitute both the driving force behind his artistic work and what results from it. At a formal level, his photographs, videos, sound pieces and installations appear minimalistic, but they spread out bit by bit with their immense, interwoven spectrum of meaning. They tell of people whose bodily movements have been induced by a tarantula bite, which essentially seems to be driving them to a state of rapture; of praying mantises that virtually merge with their surroundings; of imaginary journeys that lead to a ... More | |
Stonehenge.
DENVER, CO.- "Stonehenge the exhibition will open at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on Friday, March 12, featuring 400 artifacts and the breakthrough science behind some of the latest discoveries about this prehistoric monument. Designated as a World Heritage Site and described as inspiring, magical and sacred, Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, is one of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom. The monument once consisted of rings and horseshoes of standing stones, some topped by horizontal lintels. The largest stones are around 23 feet high, nine feet wide and weigh over 50,000 pounds. Scientific analysis has revealed that some of the stones were transported an incredible distance from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, over 150 miles away, with no modern means of transportation. Much mystery and intrigue surrounds Stonehenge, Erin Baxter, ... More |
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| Spike Lee to head Cannes Film Festival jury | | Yaphet Kotto, first Black Bond villain and 'Alien' actor, dies at 81 | | Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads sale of African Americana at Swann |
In this file photo taken on June 11, 2019 US film director Spike Lee attends the premiere of "Shaft" at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City. US director Spike Lee will head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in July, organisers said on March 16, 2021, making him the first black person to take on the role. The feted New York film-maker was supposed to perform the function at last year's event, but it was cancelled due to the pandemic. Angela Weiss / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- US director Spike Lee will head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in July, organisers said Tuesday, making him the first black person to take on the role. The feted New York film-maker was supposed to perform the function at last year's event, but it was cancelled due to the pandemic. Accepting the invitation in a recorded Twitter message, Lee said he was "very humbled". "Way back in 1986, my very first film 'Shes Gotta Have It' played there and it was my introduction to the world of cinema, so Cannes will always have a deep, deep spot in my heart," he said. With Covid-19 still circulating at high levels in France, and the country making ... More | |
"Live and Let Die" film poster.
LOS ANGELES (AFP).- Actor Yaphet Kotto, who rose to fame in the 1970s fighting James Bond in "Live and Let Die" and an extraterrestrial stowaway in "Alien", has died, his agent told AFP. He was 81. In a statement Monday on Facebook, wife Sinahon Thessa described her late husband as a "legend". "You played a villain on some of your movies but for me you're a real hero and to a lot of people also," she said. Agent Ryan Goldhar confirmed his passing in an email to AFP. He did not share the cause of death. "I am still processing his passing, and I know he will be missed," he said. Born in New York to a Cameroonian immigrant father and a US Army nurse, Kotto's debut as a professional actor was in an all-Black stage performance of Shakespeare's "Othello" in Harlem in 1960. Kotto drew plaudits for roles as the first Black Bond villain -- dictator Dr. Kananga -- in 1973's "Live and Let Die", and an Emmy nomination for playing real-life Ugandan strongman Idi Amin in the TV movie "Raid on Entebbe". ... More | |
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an early draft of the Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963. Estimate $15,000 to $25,000.
NEW YORK, NY.- Printed & Manuscript African Americana is on offer at Swann Galleries Thursday, March 25. The sale will feature an exceptional offering of material with highlights from important figures and historical movements, including Frederick Douglass; slavery and abolition; the Civil Rights Movement, with items relating to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and the Black Panthers. The sale is led by an early draft of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963, at $15,000 to $25,000. Additional material related to Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement include a reel-to-reel tape recording of Dr. King speaking to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at a planning meeting for the Poor Peoples Campaign in January 1968 ($10,000-15,000); a pennant fromthe 1963 March on Washington ($2,500-3,500); an archive of NAACP correspondence from ... More |
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Degas' Delightful Depictions of Dance
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From Beijing to Badlands: how indie director Zhao won over Hollywood
LOS ANGELES (AFP).- Born in Beijing but long fascinated by the US West, "Nomadland" director Chloe Zhao has Hollywood in the palm of her hand with a string of prestigious award nominations and a Marvel superhero film on the way. The 38-year-old indie filmmaker earned four Oscar nods Monday, including best director and best picture, for her intimate road movie about semi-retired Americans living off the grid in dilapidated vans. She is the first woman ever to land four Oscar picks in a year, and the first woman of color nominated for the Academy's best director statuette -- barely two weeks after she earned a historic Golden Globe for the film. "Thank you so much to my Academy peers for recognizing this film that is very close to my heart," Zhao said in a statement to US media Monday. Set on the spectacular open road of unfamiliar and sparsely populated ... More
Tunisia film-maker hails 'historic' Oscar nomination
TUNIS (AFP).- The director of the first ever Tunisian film to be tipped for an Oscar has hailed the "historical" nomination and urged the North African country's authorities to support homegrown cinema. Kaouther Ben Hania's film "The Man Who Sold His Skin" was put forward for best foreign language film ahead of the April 25 Oscars ceremony in Hollywood. "It's a historic event, a first for Tunisia," said Ben Hania via phone from France. "It's a dream come true." The film, starring Italian actress Monica Bellucci alongside Syrian Yahya Mahyani and Belgian Koen De Bouw, tells the story of a Syrian refugee who allows a tattoo artist to use his back as a canvas in order to get to Europe. Ben Hania said she hoped the Oscar nomination would lead to more support for cinema and film-makers in Tunisia. The French-Tunisian director, 43, was born in the marginalised rural town of Sidi ... More
Andra Day earns a best actress nomination for 'The United States vs. Billie Holiday'
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Not even an Oscar nomination could curtail Andra Days productivity. The Junk Jedis had arrived to clean out her garage, and, well, Monday was as good as any. Im so sorry, she said, as she hopped on a call to talk about her best actress nomination at the Academy Awards, while offering occasional direction to her garage-cleaning wizards. Ive still got a house to uphold and a family to take care of! Just a few months ago, the 36-year-old star was still a relative unknown as an actress her starring turn as the iconic singer in the Lee Daniels-directed biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Hulu) was her first acting role in a major film. But shes making a big impression: Last month, she became just the second Black woman to win best actress in a drama at the Golden Globes. And now, she and Viola Davis are the first pair of Black ... More
Art and commerce join forces to create cultural cluster
ROTTERDAM.- BRUTUS breaks the mould of art as a gentrification accelerator. Artist Joep van Lieshout (Atelier Van Lieshout) and project developer RED Company have joined forces to build a large-scale cultural cluster with residential units, offices and services in Rotterdams up and coming M4H port area. Their cooperation heralds a new model for urban renewal that does not automatically push out creatives once neighbourhoods upgrade. BRUTUS combines culture, living and working in an area with 120 years of industrial history. At its heart lies a cultural cluster measuring at least 7,000 square metres (75,000 ft2). This will house a museum, exhibition spaces, a publicly accessible art depot, an art education unit, workshops, studios and working/living spaces for artists. The outdoor area will feature an open air cinema, a theatre and a sculpture garden. BRUTUS will be ... More
What it means to break free: A tale of detention, told in dance
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- A boy alone in his room imagines sailing the seas in a paper boat. It could be a moment from Maurice Sendaks classic Where the Wild Things Are. Except this boy is 14, and his room is a cell in a juvenile detention facility. The scene is from Wild: Act 1, a new dance film by choreographer Jeremy McQueen. An installment in a larger project, the 50-minute film (available through April 4 on McQueens website, blackirisproject.org) seeks to give voice to the experiences of young men caught in the criminal justice system. The project was in fact inspired by Sendaks book and its fantasizing protagonist, Max. Its a favorite of mine, McQueen said in an interview. I love how even though Max is in his bedroom, sent there for being a terror, hes able to use his imagination and think beyond his walls and his circumstances to create a world for himself ... More
Scholar of World War II homefront wins American history book prize
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Tracy Campbell, author of The Year of Peril: America in 1942, has been named the winner of the New-York Historical Societys Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize, which is given each year to the best work in the field of American history or biography. The book, published by Yale University Press, challenges the public memory of the war years as a time of national unity and resolve. Instead, Campbell looks at the deep fractures within American society a year after Pearl Harbor, as a series of defeats in the Pacific and the struggle to create a beachhead in Europe seemed to bring the country to the brink of military defeat and splintering from within. When the book was released in May, its resonances with the pandemic, which had struck with a Pearl Harbor-like suddenness and shock, were not lost on reviewers. George F. Will, writing in The ... More
This 1908 Little Nemo in Slumberland original art, once displayed in museums, heads to auction
DALLAS, TX.- In a letter to cartoonist Clare Briggs, Winsor McCay, the artist and animator, explained that he could no more stop putting pen to paper than he could cease filling his lungs with air. "I never intended to be an artist," McCay wrote in the earnest missive. "Simply, I couldn't stop myself from drawing. I drew for my own pleasure. I never wanted to know whether or not someone liked my drawings. I never thought about the money I would receive for my drawings. I simply drew and drew." There was acclaim to be had, of course, and money to be made, most of that long after McCay's death in 1934. More than a century after his most famous work Little Nemo in Slumberland awoke readers of the New York Herald, rare originals command six figures, most recently in March 2020, when a Sunday strip dated Sept. 6, 1908, realized a record-setting $168,000 at ... More
Alvar Aalto 2020 awarded to Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai in India
HELSINKI.- The fourteenth Alvar Aalto Medal has been awarded to the Indian architectural office Studio Mumbai and its director Bijoy Jain. In making its selection, the jury emphasized the studios skilful synthesis of architecture and craftsmanship. Studio Mumbai's work reflects an understanding of the unique geographical, climatic and social characteristics of the environment, giving insightful consideration to them in their design work. The award was presented to the medallist in February at the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi, India. The work of Studio Mumbai is grounded on several values crucial for Alvar Aalto. Within this perspective, design touches all elements of a project. The buildings created by Bijoy Jain and his collaborators display a strong connection to a specific place and landscape: geographical, climatic and social particularities of the environment around the architectures ... More
SMK opens outdoor exhibition: three artists respond to a year of COVID-19
COPENHAGEN.- One year has gone by since Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced the first COVID-19 lockdown of Denmark. The anniversary is marked by a new outdoor exhibition jointly arranged by SMK, Coop, Danish Red Cross and Hjaltelin Stahl. Here, three leading artists present three entirely new works of art created as a response to the pandemic. A giant laptop. A sentence spelled out in recycled bricks. And a video collage featuring hands, elbow bumps and socially distanced meetings. In a new outdoor exhibition, the three artists Benedikte Bjerre, Kaspar Bonnén and Sonja Lillebæk Christensen each offer their take on an artistic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition opens one year after Denmarks first lockdown due to the coronavirus and the works are displayed in the museum garden in front of SMK National Gallery of Denmark, ... More
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PhotoGalleries
Mental Escapology, St. Moritz
TIM VAN LAERE GALLERY
Madelynn Green
Patrick Angus
Flashback On a day like today, English fashion designer Alexander McQueen was born March 17, 1969. Lee Alexander McQueen, CBE (17 March 1969 - 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He is known for having worked as chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and for founding his own Alexander McQueen label. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003. McQueen died by suicide in 2010, at the age of forty, at his home in Mayfair, London. In this image: Burning Down the House, 1996 by David LaChapelle. ©David LaChapelle Studio.
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