LONDON.- Twenty-five landscape drawings reattributed to Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) will go on display for the first time in an exhibition Young Gainsborough: Rediscovered Landscape Drawings, travelling to York Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Ireland and Nottingham Castle in 2021 and 2022. Produced in the late 1740s when Gainsborough was in his early twenties, the drawings offer an intimate glimpse into the early career of one of Britain’s best-loved artists. The drawings were previously believed to be by the painter Sir Edwin Landseer, having been acquired by Queen Victoria from his studio in 1874. They were then housed in the Print Room at Windsor Castle, bound in an album titled 'Sketches by Sir E Landseer'. In 2013, the art historian Lindsay Stainton identified one of the drawings as a study for Gainsborough’s most celebrated landscape painting, Cornard Wood (c.1748), leading to the reattribution of the drawings to Gainsborough. This discovery represents a major contri ... More
Laura Aguilar, Stillness #24, 1999 (detail). Gelatin silver print, Edition 7/10, 9 x 12 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Lipman Acquisition Fund. 2020.10.02. Image courtesy of The Laura Aguilar Trust of 2016.
SAN JOSE, CA.-The San José Museum of Art announced the acquisition of 86 works by a diverse roster of 27 artists. Acquired through purchase and gifts from generous donors from July 2020 through June 2021, these recent additions demonstrate SJMA’s collecting strategy in action by focusing on gender parity, cultural diversity, and artistic innovation. Many of the works are by women artists, artists of color, or artists with connections to the Bay Area. Also included are major gifts from Californian art collectors Eileen Harris Norton and David Hoberman, and from the estates of artists Sonya Rapoport and Brett Weston. “I am grateful to our generous Acquisitions Committee and curatorial team for their thoughtful strategy on these important acquisitions. These influential artists not only reflect the innovative spirit of ... More
CHICAGO, IL.-The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is presenting the first solo museum exhibition of multidisciplinary Chicago-based artist Caroline Kent, featuring a new, site-specific installation that transforms the MCA galleries into an immersive domestic environment with Kent’s large paintings as the centerpiece, and colorful walls, architectural features, and everyday objects such as furniture and houseplants. The exhibition takes as its starting point a fictional set of identical twins who communicate telepathically across the two distinct rooms using a secret language of repeating geometric shapes and abstract forms. The twins are united by the language they share, with traces of their conversation traveling across the surfaces of paintings and walls and into three-dimensional space. Kent’s invented language encourages visitors to explore their own codes and conventions for describing the world around ... More
Giovanna Garzoni, A portrait of the Ethiopian traveler Zaga Christ, 1635.
OBERLIN, OH.- The Allen Memorial Art Museum’s gallery of 17th- and 18th-century European art has been reimagined to reveal global stories of encounter and exchange. Central to the new installation is a significant acquisition: a portrait of the Ethiopian traveler Zaga Christ by the Italian artist Giovanna Garzoni. Made in 1635, when the two met at the court of the Duke of Savoy in Turin, Italy, Portrait of Zaga Christ is the earliest known European portrait miniature to depict a Black sitter. “At a time when most European images of Africans reverted to stereotypes, it is striking for its sympathetic and individualized portrayal,” says Assistant Curator of European and American Alexandra Letvin. She curated the installation Mobility and Exchange, 1600–1800, which is on view through August 14, 2022. “The acquisition of this important miniature expands the Allen’s ability to tell vital stories about race, gender, and cultural exchange in the early modern period,” said ... More
A bodypainted man prepares to perform an Aztec dance at the Zocalo square in Mexico City on July 31, 2021. CLAUDIO CRUZ / AFP.
by Jean Luis Arce
MEXICO CITY(AFP).- Traditional healers and dancers resplendent in feather headdresses and body paint perform ancient rites in the heart of Mexico City, keeping the Aztec spirit alive five centuries after the Spanish conquest. On Friday, the Mexican authorities will commemorate the 500th anniversary of the "fall" of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan to the conquistadors and their indigenous allies. But Sergio Segura Octocayohua and others like him who strive to preserve Aztec culture plan their own celebrations the day before in honor of the "heroic defense" of the city. "Despite being distorted, our identity, philosophy and history live on," Octocayohua said during a break from overseeing healing rituals in the heart of the capital's historic district. "We no longer fight with weapons. Now we fight with ... More
Au Hoi Lam (b. 1978), The Cradle, 2004. Acrylic on linen, 152 x 122 cm; (59 7/8 x 48 1/8 in.).
HONG KONG.-Ben Brown Fine Arts is presenting the exhibition Ze/Ro at the Hong Kong gallery, from July through August 2021. The exhibition is organised by Hong Kong-based curator Shirky Chan as part of the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association's (HKAGA) Summer Programme. Fostering the local arts community with a focus on young talent, the HKAGA's Summer Programme actively builds a bridge between its member galleries, emerging artists, curators and writers within this vibrant city. Chan has curated a contemplative and topical group show featuring the work of five artists living and working in Hong Kong, each of whom addresses notions of identity, gender, society and self, framed by social constructs and desired dissolutions of gender. Chan explains: Gender is a social construct. Culture and tradition are often used to shape the contents of gender stereotypes to prescribe regulatory social regimes. In this sense, the representation of female ... More
Hoda Afshar with her work Agonistes, Ramsay Art Prize 2021, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo: Saul Steed.
ADELAIDE.- Tehran-born, Melbourne-based artist Hoda Afshar has won the People’s Choice for this year’s Ramsay Art Prize 2021 with her work Agonistes, an installation comprised of a video and a series of nine photographic portraits that explores the experiences of whistleblowers. In her winning work, Afshar photographs 3D printed busts that resemble classical statutory, heroicising individuals who have spoken out and endured an inner struggle as a result. Whether whistleblowing on matters to do with the military, intelligence services, immigration detention, youth detention, or aged and disability care, Afshar’s subjects have spoken out for those whose voices are not heard. Afshar says, ‘Being a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize and winning the People's Choice with my series Agonistes is a humbling and beautiful moment in my career. But, even more so, it's a testament to the ability of the arts to engage people with ... More
Royal piano restorer David Winston poses for a photograph with a Square Piano, made by Erard in Paris, dated 1798, at his workshop in Biddenden in south-east England on August 6, 2021. TOLGA AKMEN / AFP.
by Anna Malpas
BIDDENDE(AFP).- There's little to distinguish the farm building in Kent, southeast England, from others nearby, except for one thing: the royal warrant over the door. "By appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, conservators and restorers of pianos," it reads. Inside the building in Biddenden, near Ashford, is a treasure trove of 26 quirky and rare pianos, amassed over a lifetime by Californian David Winston. Winston's entire collection is now being sold off at auction, with estimates that some individual instruments could go for up to Ł60,000 ($83,000, 71,000 euros) each. "I'm nearly 71 now, it's kind of time," Winston, who initially trained as a violin ... More
La Traviata, 2018. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.
AUSTIN, TX.- The archive of award-winning lighting designer Kevin Adams has been established at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, a key research destination for the study of theater and performance history. Adams, an alumnus of UT’s College of Fine Arts, has received four Tony Awards for his lighting designs of “Spring Awakening” (2007), “The 39 Steps” (2008), “American Idiot” (2010), and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” (2014), as well as nominations for “Hair” (2009), “Next to Normal” (2009), “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical” (2018), and “The Cher Show” (2019). “Kevin Adams has been at the forefront of lighting design for decades,” said Eric Colleary, the Ransom Center’s curator of performing arts. “Rather than resisting changes in new lighting technologies like LEDs or fluorescents, he saw their potential to r ... More
Folkerts has curated numerous solo and international group exhibitions.
STOCKHOLM.-Moderna Museet expands its team and welcomes Hendrik Folkerts to Stockholm. “Our museum has a long-standing history of hosting international artists for groundbreaking exhibitions, performances, and other presentations, as well as through its world-renowned collection. In his role, Folkerts will be important in bringing this legacy into the future,” director Gitte Řrskou states. “I am not exaggerating when I say that Moderna Museet has always been a beacon for me, integral to my practice as an art historian and a curator,” says Folkerts. “As I join the incredible team of this museum and the rich and diverse communities of Stockholm, I consider the great work ahead of us—at a time when artists and museums are uniquely positioned to address and give form to the questions that will define our future. It is humbling and invigorating at the same time, and I cannot wait ... More
Hulda Guzmán in the studio, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 2020.
NEW YORK, NY.-Alexander Berggruen announced their representation of Danny Fox, Hulda Guzmán, and Paul Kremer. Danny Fox (b. 1986, St. Ives of Cornwall, England) blends domestic imagery with influences from his natural surroundings to create eerily striking articulations of the human psyche. Using photography as source material enables Fox to extract the lines, forms, and layers that comprise the simplest rendering of his subjects’ lives and spirits, and to synthesize them to their core essence. Alexander Berggruen has shown Fox's paintings in a solo show Danny Fox: The Sweet and Burning Hills (January 12-February 26, 2021) and in the gallery’s group shows Animal Kingdom (June 26-August 29, 2020) and Words (October 11-November 26, 2019). Fox has exhibited internationally at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA; Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA; The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Alexander Berggruen, New York, NY; Zidoun-Bossuyt G ... More
ESSEN.- From 13 August to 14 November 2021 Museum Folkwang is devoting a major interdisciplinary exhibition to dance and its links to the fine arts, fashion design and performance art: "Global Groove. Art, Dance, Performance and Protest" looks back across 120 years of dance and art history, and beyond Europe and North America to Asia. The focus is on those trailblazing moments when artists from Western and (South) East Asian societies meet and new forms of artistic expression arise. From the early performances by Asian dancers in Europe around 1900 to the pioneers of Modern Dance, and on to the first Happenings by Japanese Butoh dancers, the "Global Groove" exhibition explores a West-East cultural history of contact – right up to contemporary collaborations. The linkages between the Western and Eastern avant-gardes are portrayed using the history of contact between choreographers, ... More
Julia Becker in her Root Orbit Studio at the Columbus Center in Great Falls, MT.
GREAT FALLS, MT.-Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art invites Julia Becker, a recognized multimedia artist, and Professor of Fine Art at University of Providence in Great Falls Montana, to present a solo exhibition titled Body of Land. Becker’s exhibition is a multi-layered experience which participates in and responds to EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, a cross-border multimedia environmental intervention and project of the CODEX FOUNDATION. Becker and the museum are pleased to take part in the EXTRACTION movement via the curatorial direction of Nicole Maria Evans, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections. EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, is an event created by collaborators and founders Peter Koch, Edwin Charles Dobb (1950-2019,) and Sam Pelts, which is taking place throughout 2021. Their passion and knowledge about global environmental matters and an understanding that art moves people towards ... More
Quote There is no must in art because art is free. Wassily Kandinsky
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VanDerBrink Auctions to offer the lifetime collection of Neil Krinke SCRANTON, ND.- Classic car collectors, rod project enthusiasts, barn find buffs, vintage tractor fans and folks looking for rare old car parts (mostly Ford) and wonderful vintage gas station and oil signs, gas pumps and gas globes need to mark their calendars for Saturday, September 18th, for the sale of the lifetime collection of Neil Krinke, at his farm in Scranton. “The auction will be held live at the Krinke’s family ranch,” said Yvette VanDerBrink of VanDerBrink Auctions, which is conducting the sale. “There won’t be any cell phone reception, but there is high-speed Internet to the residence and online bidding is available. But it’s best to come in person and spend a beautiful weekend on the high plains of gorgeous western North Dakota. There’s more than enough to finish off that man cave or score a hot rod or collector car.” Internet bidding is available via the VanDerBrink website. The Kri ... More
Royal Ontario Museum announces appointment of Associate Curator, Japanese Art & Culture TORONTO.- Josh Basseches, Director & CEO and Dr. Chen Shen, interim Co-Deputy Director of Collections and Research of the Royal Ontario Museum announced the appointment of Dr. Akiko Takesue as Bishop White Committee Associate Curator of Japanese Art & Culture. In this role, Dr. Takesue will develop and implement strategies to build, manage, and interpret the ROM’s world-class collection of Japanese art and culture through exhibitions and public programs. “We are delighted to welcome Dr. Akiko Takesue to the ROM,” says Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. “With extensive curatorial and research experience in Japanese art and culture, she will be responsible for raising the calibre and profile of the Museum’s extraordinary collection—one of the largest of its kind in Canada—as well as offering fresh perspectives on the impact ... More
Southbank Centre appoints new artistic director LONDON.- Mark Ball has been appointed the new Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre. Currently Creative Director at Manchester International Festival (MIF), Mark will join the multi-arts centre in January 2022 and will have overall responsibility for the artistic direction of the largest cultural centre in the UK, leading the organisation as it enters a new era. Mark will report to Elaine Bedell, CEO. The Artistic Director is responsible for setting and delivering an overall artistic strategy and has a mandate to drive a broader UK-wide reach and expand the organisation’s digital offer. Mark will be responsible for the delivery of the entire artistic programme, working with the Southbank Centre’s talented artistic team and extensive creative network to produce a dynamic and world class programme at the heart of London. In his current role as Creative Director ... More
See works by the greats and a new generation of Scottish sculptors at Marchmont House GREENLAW.- A brand new, specially-commissioned artwork by Andrew Mackenzie has now joined pieces by Antony Gormley, Eduardo Paolozzi, William Turnbull and David Nash in the rapidly expanding outdoor sculpture collection at Marchmont House. Visitors can see and learn about these – and many others – in a series of special guided tours between this weekend and 29 August. The walks round the grounds, and private walled garden, of the magnificent Grade A listed 1750 Palladian mansion near Greenlaw in the Borders, will be led by curator and archivist Francis Raemaekers. And on 28 and 29 August, to coincide with Marchmont’s next Open Studios weekend, Andrew will join two of the tours to offer an artist’s insights and to talk about his new artwork. His work, alongside that of Frippy Jameson, Charlie Poulsen and Keith McCarter ... More
Independent New York announces details of the artistic program NEW YORK, NY.-Independent New York announced the artistic program for this year’s edition, selected by founding curatorial advisor Matthew Higgs and co-produced in collaboration with leading galleries, non-profits and museums worldwide. Over one hundred artists, forty solo and dual artist presentations, and several activations have been commissioned especially for this year’s fair. Embracing a hybrid model and digital opportunities for storytelling, the fair will launch its first ever OVR platform, which will run from September 9-26. Home to over 50 exclusive editorial features, half of the new content has been produced in house exclusively for the platform. Over the coming weeks, Independent will be launching the interviews, artist takeovers, videos, talks and podcasts for each of this edition’s exhibitors, along with never-before-seen performances ... More
Japan House London launches large scale geometric project exclusively designed by Tokolo Asao LONDON.- This summer, Japan House London’s celebration of the ingenuity of Japanese designers at Olympic Games, past and present, spills out onto the High Street with the unveiling of a brand-new creative street crossing specially designed by Tokyo 2020 Games emblem creator, artist Tokolo Asao. A leading figure in the fields of art, architecture, and design, Tokolo’s eye-catching works are created using simple geometric patterns arranged around the theme of ‘connecting’, with a particular focus on the Japanese colour ai – or Japanese indigo, a durable, weather resistant dye that retains its vivid dark blue colour over time. Launching on Kensington High Street in August, the origins of the crossing design are unmistakeably linked to the Harmonised Chequered Emblem, brought to life so vividly through the drone display during ... More
Edinburgh Fringe is back. Is a smaller festival better? EDINBURGH(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The drone of bagpipes drifted down the Royal Mile last Saturday, as members of a student theater troupe walked the cobblestones trying to drum up interest in their show. In a normal year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, this central artery of the city’s Old Town district would have been packed tight with young performers and street acts, all competing loudly for the attention of passersby. But late Saturday morning, there was only one group around. “We were the only ones here yesterday, too,” said Serena Birch, 22, a member of the Aireborne Theater Company, from the University of Leeds. “Usually, it’s like a fight.” Before the pandemic, the Edinburgh Fringe, which opened last Friday and runs through Aug. 30, was surpassed only by the Olympics and the soccer World Cup in terms of audience size. ... More
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater announces in-person season NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s coming season at New York City Center will celebrate Robert Battle’s 10 years as artistic director, the company announced Wednesday. After the difficulties of the past 17 months, Battle is more open to embracing the occasion than he might otherwise have been. “Being a part of the problem solving that has taken place and kind of making our way through this has actually made me in a way own that 10 years a little bit more fully,” he said. “There’s something about going through that makes me think ‘Hey, if I’m going to go through this, then I’m going to definitely take the good and I’m going to go with it.’ ” During his tenure at Ailey, Battle has founded the New Directions Choreography Lab, an initiative to support emerging and midcareer dancemakers, ... More
Reggaeton's history is complex. A new podcast helps us listen that way. NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, marquesinas are centers of convocation, where family and friends gather to drink, dance and talk. Intimacy and conviviality are cultivated at these open-air garages and courtyards, a staple of middle-class homes. They’re where you gain an education. Where you learn the curves of your body when you dance to reggaeton for the first time and start to understand the language that the music offers: the ecstasy and uncertainty of youth, sexual self-discovery and the freedom of movement. Even at early 2000s marquesina parties, reggaeton carried certain myths. If you grew up at the crest of the genre’s commercial rise like I did, you were taught certain ideas about the genre early on. The notion, for example, that it is just vulgar party music. Or that it was invented solely ... More
$500,000 gift given to Housatonic Museum of Art by Werth Family Foundation BRIDGEPORT, CONN.-The Housatonic Museum of Art today announced a landmark gift of $500,000 from the Werth Family Foundation. The donation represents the largest contribution from a single donor in the history of the museum to date and will establish an endowment. In honor of the gift, the Werth Family Foundation Atrium will be established at the entry to the museum’s Burt Chernow galleries, located on the Housatonic Community College (HCC) campus in Bridgeport. A naming ceremony will be held in the spring of 2022. The Werth Family Foundation is a longtime supporter of the Housatonic Museum of Art, donating nearly $900,000 in total since 2004. This gift underscores the importance of supporting the arts in the greater Bridgeport region. “Supporting the museum is something the Werth Family Foundation is proud of. We ... More
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On a day like today, American photographer Herb Ritts was born
December 13, 1952. Herbert "Herb" Ritts (August 13, 1952 - December 26, 2002) was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture. He took many photos of famous actors, models, and more.
