Global contemporary art events and news observed from New York City. Suggestion? Email us.
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Jail for Spanish Forger Who Attempted Sale of 15 Fake Works

February 21st, 2023

A Spanish court has sentenced an art collector to prison for selling a set of fake works, including a series of forged works attributed to Edvard Munch and Roy Lichtenstein.
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The Guardian Interviews Former Subjects of Painter Alice Neel

February 21st, 2023

The Guardian has a piece this week on what it was like to be painted by Alice Neel. “One day Alice said she wanted to paint me and to bring some things I could wear, so I packed a little suitcase and had various costumes,” says artist and sex activist Annie Sprinkle. “I’d just had my labia pierced and I was showing it off, and she really wanted to see that. She picked a leather outfit and I put a feather in my hair.”
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Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation Behind $4.5 Million Robert Colescott Buy

February 21st, 2023

Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation is apparently behind the $4.5 million purchase of a Robert Colescott at Bonhams this month. “This work in particular presents a hopeful and powerful message, and we are pleased that it resonated so strongly with individuals and institutions alike,” says Ralph Taylor, Bonhams’s global head for postwar and contemporary art.
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Joan Mitchell Foundation Pushes Back on Alleged Unlicensed Use of Work in Louis Vuitton Ad

February 21st, 2023

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has accused Louis Vuitton of reproducing the artist’s work without permission. “It’s important for folks to understand that this wasn’t something we agreed to,” says foundation exec Christa Blatchford. “How did it even happen, is my question. I honestly don’t understand how it happened on their side. I really don’t.”


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Paintings By Queen Victoria Head to Auction in London

January 20th, 2023

A rare pair of floral paintings by Queen Victoria will go to auction next week, expecting prices of £8,000 and £10,000, Art News reports. 
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Michael Rakowitz Proposes Gift of Fourth Plinth Statue to British Museum in Exchange for Return of Assyrian Arifacts to Iraq

January 20th, 2023

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz is proposing that the British Museum return one of its ancient Assyrian treasures to Iraq in exchange for the donation of his fourth plinth sculpture to the UK. “As I pondered my gift to the nation of Great Britain, I began to fantasise that it could be attached to a second gift: the return of one of the British Museum’s lamassu to the country of Iraq, to replace what was destroyed by Daesh [or Islamic State],” he writes in an open letter.
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Art News Traces Continued Challenges of Repatriation at The Met

January 20th, 2023

Art News has a piece this week discussing ongoing issues with repatriation at The Met, reviewing some disputed works still on view. “Once you know that someone is acquiring artifacts without looking too closely as a source, the first thing you should do is look deeper,” says Erin Thompson, an associate professor of art crime at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
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UNESCO Seeks to Prevent Looting of Ukrainian Artifacts

January 20th, 2023

UNESCO is holding programs in Warsaw to help identify looted cultural materials from the Ukraine. “Poland is really a country at the forefront of this work,” Krista Pikkat, UNESCO’s director of culture and emergencies, says.
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NYT Profiles Revival of Robert Whitman’s “American Moon” at Pace

January 20th, 2023

The New York Times writes on the revival of artist Robert Whitman’s 1959 happening American Moon at Pace. “I used to try to explain things to myself — what I was doing,” he said. “Then I suddenly realized my ideas and thoughts and rationalizations were nonsense, and I just decided to go with my intuition.”
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Whitney Curator Marcela Guerrero Profiled in NYT

January 20th, 2023

The New York Times profiles Whitney Museum curator Marcela Guerrero, the first Puerto Ricaan curator at the Museum. “She is at the right place at a time when Latinx art is emerging as a force to be reckoned with,” says Mari Carmen Ramírez, the first curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “We all expect her to contribute to this transformation in a significant way.”
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REFERENCE LIBRARY

Los Angeles – Anish Kapoor at Regen Projects Through April 15th, 2023

March 17th, 2023

Anish Kapoor, Blood in the Sky III (2022), via Regen Projects
Anish Kapoor, Blood in the Sky III (2022), via Regen Projects

This month in Los Angeles, artist Anish Kapoor has brought forth a new body of large-scale paintings that continue the artist’s mining of visceral experience, phenomenological experiments and dense, colorful compositions as a site for the visualization of the perceptual experience. Over the last 40 years, Kapoor has engaged a diverse range of media and materials to probe the qualities and contradictions of form and perception. This is the artist’s seventh exhibition with the gallery since 1992 and the first devoted entirely to his painting practice. Read More »

NEW YORK – JESS XIAOYI HAN: “IMPLOSION” AT ROSS+KRAMER GALLERY THROUGH APRIL 15, 2023

March 16th, 2023

Jess Xiaoyi Han, Implosion (2023), via Ross+Kramer Gallery

Jess Xiaoyi Han, Implosion (2023), all image photography by Cooper Dodds via Ross+Kramer Gallery

Currently exhibiting at Ross+Kramer Gallery’s Chelsea location is Chinese artist Jess Xiaoyi Han’s debut solo show Implosion, a series of her most recent paintings which explore abstract articulations of internal fluctuation and transformation. This new body of work, painted with alkyd on canvas, reflects an evolution in the young artist’s meticulously controlled and expressionistic style —the compositions are increasingly crowded with frenetic arrangements while still maintaining a cohesive and meditative fluency. Han’s luminous canvases, saturated with a vibrant, candy-colored palette, burst with streams of fluid brushstrokes, emanating a sense of dynamic movement through illusionistic space.

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Los Angeles – Emma McIntyre: “Pearl Diver” at Chateau Shatto Through March 25th, 2023

March 16th, 2023

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Emma McIntyre, We will invent new roses (2023), via Chateau Shatto

On this month in Los Angeles, local favorite Château Shatto presents a body of new paintings by Emma McIntyre, unified under the title Pearl Diver and marking the first show for the artist at the space. Embracing a gestural and expressive mode of mark-making, the works here see the artist running through a range of approaches and techniques, each time exploring notions of density, movement and space. Read More »

New York – Kara Walker: “Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)” at The New York Historical Society Through June 11th, 2023

March 15th, 2023

Kara Walker, Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) (Installation View), via Art Observed
Kara Walker, Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) (Installation View), via Art Observed

For over two decades, artist Kara Walker (b. 1969) has been making work that weaves together imagery from the antebellum South, the brutality of slavery, and racist stereotypes. Her work has stirred controversy for its use of exaggerated caricatures that reflect long-standing racialized and gendered stereotypes and for its lurid depictions of history. This mode of work takes center stage in a body of new prints on view this spring at the New York Historical Society, which challenge and re-examine methods of depiction and representation of history through pointed interjection.  Read More »

New York – Tony Oursler: “mAcHiNe E.L.F.” at Lehmann Maupin Through March 25th, 2023

March 14th, 2023

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Tony Oursler, SpEcTrUm (2023), via Lehmann Maupin

Compiling a body of new work this month, Lehmann Maupin presents mAcHiNe E.L.F. by Tony Oursler, the pioneering new media artist whose diverse combination of multimedia projects, immersive environments, expansive outdoor installations, and dynamic dolls, ghosts, and bots that liberate video from its traditional two-dimensional format and bring it into the realm of sculpture have long served as a powerful and expressive exploration of modern culture.  Read More »

RIP – Artist Phyllida Barlow, a Leading Voice in British Sculpture, Has Passed Away at the Age of 78

March 13th, 2023

Phyllida Barlow, Folly at the British Pavilion, via Art Observed
Phyllida Barlow, Folly at the British Pavilion, via Art Observed

Artist Phyllida Barlow, a principle voice in British sculptor during the late 20th and early 21st Century, has passed away at the age of 78. The artist’s work, known for its massive scale and intricate incorporations of color, form and material, was a central figure in the country’s contemporary discourse, and represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2017.  Read More »

New York – LaToya Ruby Frazier at Gladstone Gallery Through April 15th, 2023

March 13th, 2023

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LaToya Ruby Frazier, More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022, (2021 – 2022) (Installation View), all images via Gladstone

Marking its first show with artist LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gladstone Gallery has installed a body of work by the artist that pays tribute to and commemorates the work of healthcare workers during the course of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Centered around More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland (2021-2022), which marks its first installation in New York, the show makes for a fitting reflection on several exceedingly challenging years for the United States and its healthcare workers.  Read More »

Los Angeles – Mark Manders: “Writing Skiapod” at Tanya Bonakdar Through April 8th, 2023

March 10th, 2023

Mark Manders, Writing Skiapod (Installation View), via Tanya Bonakdar
Mark Manders, Writing Skiapod (Installation View), via Tanya Bonakdar

Taking over the Los Angeles outpost of Tanya Bonakdar, artist Mark Manders marks his fifth solo show with the gallery, and his first in LA since 2010. Continuing his exploration of rooms as a container for expressive and surreal arrangements of material, the artist here takes on a range of explorations of language and expression. Read More »

New York – Gedi Sibony: “I Was Like Wait” at Greene Naftali Through March 18th, 2023

March 9th, 2023

Gedi Sibony, Her Seven Morning Sentiment (2015), via Greene Naftali
Gedi Sibony, Her Seven Morning Sentiment (2015), via Greene Naftali

Artist Gedi Sibony presents a range of new works this month at Greene Naftali in New York, continuing the artist’s studied interrogation of spatial dynamics, color, and form, all explored through a range of sculpture and painting.  Titled I Was Like Wait, the exhibition stages a series of encounters, expansive and confounding.

Gedi Sibony, I Was Like Wait (Installation View), via Greene Naftali
Gedi Sibony, I Was Like Wait (Installation View), via Greene Naftali

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New York – Charles Atlas: “A Prune Twin” at Luhring Augustine Through March 11th, 2022

March 8th, 2023

Charles Atlas, A Prune Twin (Installation View), via Luhring Augustine
Charles Atlas, A Prune Twin (Installation View), via Luhring Augustine

On view this month, Luhring Augustine presents A Prune Twin, the gallery’s third solo exhibition with pioneering film and video artist Charles Atlas. The showmarks the debut of the titular piece, a multi-channel installation with sound and video originally commissioned by the Barbican Centre, part of the show Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer. Atlas and Clark were longtime collaborators, and this show marks something of both a tribute and compendium of their work together.

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