The Whitney Museum’s 1966 Brutalist-style building by Marcel Breuer, which the museum has sold to Sotheby’s auction house, in New York, Dec. 23, 2014. The auction house will move its Manhattan headquarters to the architectural icon on Madison Avenue in 2025. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)
by Robin Pogrebin
NEW YORK, NY.- Confirming rumors that had the art world abuzz this spring, Sotheby’s said Thursday that it has purchased the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1966 brutalist building by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue and will move its headquarters there from York Avenue in 2025. The purchase price of the Breuer building was not disclosed, but two people involved in the deal, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to publicly discuss it, put the figure at about $100 million. “It’s bittersweet,” Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, said about parting with the building permanently. “I know every square inch of it and think it’s one of the great art monuments out there. It’s a masterpiece of modern architecture.” Charles F. Stewart, Sotheby’s CEO, called the Breuer building “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we couldn’t pass up,” adding that “the location couldn’t be more ideal for our clien ... More
Samuel Fosso at his exhibition “Tati 1997” at Galerie Christophe Person in Paris, May 16, 2023. (Matthew Avignone/The New York Times)
by Scott Reyburn
PARIS.- In February 2014, in the war-torn Central African Republic, Christian fighters were rampaging through a predominantly Muslim district in the capital, Bangui. Renowned Cameroonian-born portrait photographer Samuel Fosso had already fled. While looters stripped the corrugated iron roof off Fosso’s vacated studio, three men tried to save his abandoned archive. “It was very chaotic,” said one of them, Peter Bouckaert, a Belgian environmental activist who was working for Human Rights Watch at the time. “I remember going up to a bunch of guys to tell them to go away, and then seeing one had grenades in his hand. So I decided to leave them alone.” During the previous day of mayhem in the city, Jerome Delay, a French-born photographer working for The Associated Press, had recognized some prints from Fosso’s 2008 “Africa Spirits” series, in which the artist portrays himself as Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali and other inspirational figures of Africa ... More
An undated photo provided by Engelschiøn et al. PLOS ONE shows the fossil of a 240 million-year-old ichthyosaur found in Svalbard, Norway. Scientists were able to unlock the identity of an ichthyosaur that had been reduced to a two-dimension jumble of bones. (Engelschiøn et al. PLOS ONE via The New York Times)
by Jack Tamisiea
NEW YORK, NY.- While exploring an Arctic mountaintop in 2008, paleontologists unearthed a small skeleton that resembled a coiled sea serpent imprinted into a slab of 240 million-year-old rock. The remarkably complete skeleton, nicknamed Oda, was deposited in the collection of the University of Oslo’s Natural History Museum. It was clear that Oda was an ichthyosaur, but no one could say if it was a known species of the marine reptiles, which were like a mashup of a crocodile and a dolphin. While most of its skeleton remained, eons under a muddy seafloor had squeezed Oda into a two-dimensional jumble of bones. To identify the reptile, paleontologists stuck the perplexing patient under an X-ray machine to piece together the petrified puzzle. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One, the researchers described ... More
SAN GIMIGNANO.- Carlos Cruz-Diez is one of the main protagonists of contemporary art. His work and his writings make him the last great thinker of the 20th century in the field of colour. On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, Galleria Continua welcomed, for the first time in its exhibition spaces in San Gimignano, a solo exhibition by the French-Venezuelan artist, which will end on September 10th. Pioneer of kinetic art and undisputed master of colour, he proposed the latter as an autonomous and evolutionary reality in which the implication of our senses reveals chromatic events as they develop. “The Euphoria of Colour”, as the title of the exhibition, presents the highlights of the artistic career of Carlos Cruz-Diez, exploring the artist’s colour theory, through some of his most iconic works, including an installation in San Gimignano’s historic city centre. A rich ... More
Marie: Nude Black woman lying on a couch (Marie: Femme noire nue couchée)” by Mickalene Thomas on display at “It’s Pablo-Matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby,” at the Brooklyn Museum, May 30, 2023. Picasso and his complicated legacy, according to the Australian comedian-turned-curator Hannah Gadsby. (Vincent Tullo/The New York Times)
NEW YORK, NY.- If you studied art history or another of the humanities in the 1990s or 2000s — say, if you are around the age of the Australian comic Hannah Gadsby, 45 — you may remember the word “problematic” from your long-ago seminar days. Back then it was a voguish noun, borrowed from French, that described the unconscious structure of an ideology or a text. Soon, though, like so many other efforts to think critically, “the problematic” got left behind in this century’s great shift from reading to scrolling. These days we encounter “problematic” exclusively as an adjective: an offhand judgment of moral disapproval, from a speaker who can’t be bothered by precision. A whole cast of professional art workers — conservators, designers, ... More
Mary Cassatt (1844–1926; born Allegheny City, PA; died Le Mesnil-Theribus, France), Little Girl in a Large Red Hat, ca. 1881. Oil on canvas; 43.8 × 38.7 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund (2021-12).
OLD LYME, CONN.- This summer, from June 3 through September 10, 2023, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, presents a traveling exhibition organized by the Princeton University Art Museum. Object Lessons in American Art: Selections from the Princeton University Art Museum presents more than seventy examples of Euro-American, African American, and Native American art created between the eighteenth century and today. Together these works pose fundamental questions about artistic significance and how meaning changes across time, place, and context. “We are thrilled to be one of only three stops in the country, and the only one in the northeast, for this inspiring show,” states Executive Director Joshua Campbell Torrance. “It’s a unique opportunity for our audiences to see works by these marquee ... More
Drew Sawyer, Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography. Photo Courtesy of The Whitney Museum.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Whitney Museum of American Art has appointed Drew Sawyer as the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography to oversee the Museum's collection of photography from 1900 to the present and lead its photography acquisition committee. In his new role, Sawyer will organize exhibitions, write accompanying scholarly publications, cultivate relationships with artists, and develop ways in which artworks and archives can be interpreted through exhibitions, publications, events, and digital channels. Sawyer begins his new position in July 2023. In addition to directing the Whitney’s photography program, Sawyer will collaborate with members of the Museum’s curatorial team broadly across mediums and disciplines. He will partner with Kim Conaty, the Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints, for the program of the Sondra Gilman Study Center, which houses the majority of the Whitney’s over 19,000 prints, drawings, and photographs. ... More
Conrad Ricamora in “Here Lies Love,” in New York, April 30, 2014. A labor union representing musicians is challenging David Byrne’s next Broadway show, “Here Lies Love,” saying it opposes plans to stage the production with recorded instrumental tracks instead of a live band. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
by Michael Paulson
NEW YORK, NY.- A labor union representing musicians is challenging David Byrne’s next Broadway show, “Here Lies Love,” saying it opposes plans to stage the production with recorded instrumental tracks instead of a live band. The musical — an immersive, dance-driven spectacle about Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines — is scheduled to start previews June 17 and to open July 20 at the Broadway Theater. Byrne co-wrote the music with Fatboy Slim. The musical has previously been staged off-Broadway, in London and in Seattle, each time with a singing cast accompanied by recorded music. There are a few ... More
STOCKHOLM.-Bonniers Konsthall is currently presenting until June 18th the artist Tarik Kiswanson’s largest solo exhibition in Sweden to date. In the last few years, Kiswanson has emerged as a seminal voice on the international art scene. In January 2023 he was nominated for the prestigious French Marcel Duchamp Prize. Despite his international presence, Kiswanson’s art has not been acknowledged here in Sweden until recently. The exhibition Becoming at Bonniers Konsthall presents Tarik Kiswanson’s exceptionally multidimensional practice, which employs sculpture, writing, drawing, performance, and video to explore subjects relating to memory, heritage, time and belonging. Notions of rootlessness, regeneration and renewal form the core of his art, subjects that he constantly comes back to regardless of expressive means. A central theme in the exhibition, which features several new works, is the idea of levitation, which he expl ... More
A photo provided by Claire Brassil/Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts shows a pottery workshop last month at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. (Claire Brassil/Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts via The New York Times)
NEW YORK, NY.- The challenge: Make 10 small clay objects in 18 minutes — one minute each for the first five pieces, two minutes for the next four and five for the last one. Ariela Kuh, a ceramic artist with a bright demeanor and a yellow apron, set a timer on her iPhone as she explained the drill to the 14 of us attending her workshop in April at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. “Remember what it was like to touch clay as a kid,” she advised. As I prepared 10 tangerine-size balls of clay, images from childhood flashed through my mind: the blue shelves at my after-school pottery program, the bulbous terra-cotta vase my mom made at one of the countless cancer facilities in the months before her death, the small elephant at the center of a red ceramic plate that my tiny hands had ... More
Craig Calderwood, How's Your Jesus Christ Been Hanging?, 2018. Dimensional paint, thread on upholstery fabric. Image courtesy the Artist and George Adams Gallery, New York.
NAPA, CA.- Figure Telling, on display at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art from June 3 - September 17, 2023, highlights an intergenerational group of Bay Area artists using the human figure to produce works grounded in narrative, storytelling, and personal memory. Northern California artists have once again embraced the figure – but contemporary Bay Area figuration has a radically different feel. In the last decade, figuration has roared onto the local art scene, with human figures inundating Bay Area galleries and art fairs. This exhibition highlights six local artists – Sydney Cain, Craig Calderwood, John Goodman, Afsoon Razavi and Heather Wilcoxon – who use the figure to tell stories that are distinctly personal and honest. Working in a variety of media from graphite and paint to textile, pen and ink, they use figuration to evoke individual, family, and community histories. “These artists use visual storytelling to convey ... More
Dorothea Lange (American, 1895–1965), Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936, 1936 negative; posthumous print 1967, gelatin silver print. Bank of America Collection.
CINCINNATI, OHIO.- The Taft Museum of Art welcomes a bold exhibition that explores the diverse perspectives of women since photography’s inception, from early pioneers to photographers still working today. On view June 3 to September 10, 2023, Modern Women/Modern Vision: Photography from the Bank of America Collection features approximately one hundred radically inventive photographic images at each phase of modern history, on loan through the Bank of America Art in our Communities® program. Though not always credited, women have played a vital role in framing the modern experience through the camera lens. Histories of photography have long ignored or underrepresented women’s contributions to the medium’s development as both fine and applied art. Photography has been one way women have negotiated waves of social, political, and economic change. Challenging longstanding constraints placed on social behavior and gender ... More
Raúl de Nieves. Communidades Visibiles: The Materiality of Migration installation at Albright-Knox Northland (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Company Gallery, New York.
Headshot photography by Rafael Martinez.
BALTIMORE, MD.-The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has named Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) as the second artist to receive the Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Biennial Commission. The commission was established in 2018 to foster the creation of new works by international contemporary artists, cultivate aspiring curators from underrepresented backgrounds through a parallel fellowship, and activate the BMA’s two-floor East Lobby with publicly accessible art. De Nieves is a multimedia artist, performer, and musician who often creates joyful, interactive installations that investigate notions of beauty and transformation. His new work for the BMA will engage with ideas of metamorphosis in the natural world through a 27-pane faux stained-glass window, a multi-tiered chandelier, light box installations, and opulently decorated figurative sculptures. Together, these vibrant works will immerse audiences in de ... More
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Marc Jancou Contemporary presents Marta Naturale NEW YORK, NY.- From the 3rd of June to the 2nd of July, Marc Jancou Contemporary presents the first solo show of Marta Naturale in Switzerland, which follows her exhibition Portfolio at the Museo di Roma, Palazzo Braschi as part of the 2023 Quadriennale of Rome. Drawing on her everyday surroundings and the spaces she encounters daily, the artist presents a series of new paintings and drawings of silent, domestic interiors devoid of human presence. Zooming in on specific aspects of rooms and interior fittings and furnishings, Naturale’s images are reminiscent of cropped film stills, characterised by a sense of interiority and containment. The world beyond is also present, albeit tenuously, on the other side of thresholds, usually doors and windows, peering in through the curtains and shutters, and conditioning the experience of the space ... More
Fotohof opens an exhibition of works by Inge Morathor for her 100th birthday SALZBURG.-Inge Morath has become famous for her impressive black and white portrait photographs and reportages of large cultural areas. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, FOTOHOF is showing an exhibition of her color works for the first time. Like many of her Magnum colleagues, she also took color photographs on slide film throughout her life. This was primarily for publication in illustrated magazines; however, she also repeatedly used individual color photos in her b&w picture books. She herself has said that she shoots color where she sees color. For a long time it was very difficult and expensive to produce high quality exhibition pictures from 35mm slides. Only since the possibility of digitizing slides and printing them on baryta paper has a quality been achieved that has its place on gallery walls. In addition, the color works of Inge Morath ... More
Inhotim exhibits works by Mestre Didi and Mônica Ventura BRUMADINHO.- As part of the 2023 artistic program, two new exhibitions are opening at Inhotim featuring matters of ancestry and religiosity among Afro-Indigenous peoples Brumadinho, Minas Gerais – Instituto Inhotim is opening two temporary exhibitions on Saturday, May 27, at Galeria Praça. Mestre Didi - “os iniciados no mistério não morrem” [Mestre Didi - “The Initiated Into The Mystery Do Not Die”], curated by guest curator Igor Simões, along with Inhotim's curatorial team, and A noite suspensa ou o que posso aprender com o silêncio [The Suspended Night Or What I Can Learn From The Silence], by Mônica Ventura; they have a dialogue with matters of ancestry and religiosity among Afro-Indigenous peoples. The exhibitions are sponsored by Shell, at the Master level, through the Federal Law of Incentive to Culture. A noite suspensa ou o que ... More
I Am Not Your Mexican: curated by Eduardo Egea now on view at Ruiz-Healy Art NEW YORK, NY.-Ruiz-Healy Art has opened I Am Not Your Mexican, two concurrent group exhibitions, at our San Antonio and New York City galleries. The exhibitions are curated by writer Eduardo Egea and feature artists Jesse Amado, Mathias Goeritz, Hersúa, Willy Kautz - Jippies Asquerosos, Fernando Polidura, and Teresa Serrano. The exhibitions will include historical works by Goeritz, Hersúa, and Serrano. I Am Not Your Mexican opened at our New York City gallery on Wednesday, May 24th, and the exhibition will open at our San Antonio gallery on Wednesday, June 7, with an opening reception from 6:00 - 8:00 PM. Eduardo Egea notes, “Western Art built an artistic canon that influenced the rest of the world. Minimalism is one of the Post-War movements whose influence continues; within this movement the artist Eva Hesse created a Post- ... More
Review: In 'Grey House,' talk about an extreme case of cabin fever NEW YORK, NY.- Four strange girls, somewhere between 12 and 200 years old, live in an isolated cabin in the woods. Don’t they always? Marlow (Sophia Anne Caruso) is the alpha, bossing the others around — and also bossing the stranded outsiders, because of course there are stranded outsiders in a play that trades on the tropes of a million horror tales. In “Grey House,” the prime trope is coy creepiness. Of the small knife she occasionally brandishes, Marlow, who gives Wednesday Addams vibes, comfortingly says, “If I put it in your eye, it wouldn’t even hit your brain.” Good to know — and basically true of the play itself. “Grey House,” at the Lyceum Theater, is certainly an in-your-face assault, more in the manner of John Carpenter movies than anything seen onstage since the age of melodrama. It is so expertly assembled from spare parts by playwright ... More
Fergus Linehan to lead Carriageworks as its next Chief Executive Officer SYDNEY.-Carriageworks today named respected international arts administrator Fergus Linehan as its next Chief Executive Officer. Fergus is known across the world for his success leading the Edinburgh International Festival, Sydney Festival, Vivid Live at the Sydney Opera House and the Dublin Theatre Festival. He curated Carriageworks’ inaugural performance, ‘Zero Degrees’ by Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, in January 2007, when he led the Sydney Festival.“We are thrilled to have attracted such a respected international figure to lead Carriageworks into its next chapter,” Carriageworks chair, Cass O’Connor, said today. “We were determined to appoint such an accomplished leader because of the scale of our ambition. Carriageworks has both history and potential at a time our arts and cultural sectors spark back to life. Importantly ... More
Javier Calleja 'Still on time' on view at Almine Rech in London LONDON.- Javier Calleja's expressionistic children with their pale pink cheeks are not as naïve as they seem. Over the last several years, the Spanish artist has been portraying them in paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations where they have the rare ability to instantly transmit a feeling, emotion, or state of mind to the viewer. But what these characters and their short missives tell us either candidly or mischievously is about our particular place in the world. As they adapt to the contemporary environment, they subtly jeer at the absurdity of our time through poeticized quotidian scenes. Though he has a major exhibition at the Centro Cultural Fundacion Unicaja (Palacio Episcopal) in his native Malaga since March 2023, Javier Calleja here at Almine Rech London presents some twenty new paintings and drawings, thoughtfully assembled to offer a rich and exhaustive ... More
Lotus Laurie Kang at Chisenhale Gallery LONDON.-Chisenhale Gallery opened this June 1st its major new commission and first institutional exhibition in Europe by Lotus Laurie Kang, which will continue until July 30th. Rooted in an enduring concern with the body and the forces that shape it— political, affective and otherwise—Kang references biology, feminist theory and science fiction to stage richly layered, site-sensitive installations. Unfolding across drawing, sculpture and installation, swarms of fermentation vessels and scattered casts of vegetal matter might be found nestled under flex-track walls, skinned with swathes of unfixed, continuously developing photo paper and film. Kang’s visceral works begin with the permeability and vulnerability of bodies, identities and personal histories, states of flux echoed in the artist’s use of unstable and persistently sensitive materials. For her Chisenhale ... More
The Sounds of the Astor Chinese Garden Court, 1981 | Met ASMR
Flashback
On a day like today, French painter Raoul Dufy was born
June 03, 1877. Raoul Dufy (3 June 1877 - 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter, brother of Jean Dufy. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events. He was also a draftsman, printmaker, book illustrator, scenic designer, a designer of furniture, and a planner of public spaces. In this image: A woman looks at artworks by late French painter Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) exhibited at the Beaux-Arts museum of Nice, on June 18, 2015, as part of the cultural event "Nice 2015. Promenade(s) des Anglais".
