The LA Times has a piece this week reflecting on the art and impact of photographer Gordon Parks, with a group of photographers and artists discussing his influence. “He had the ability to slipstream between high and low culture, rich and poor, to weave in and out of spaces and gain subjects’ trust,” says John Maggio. “But he almost never broke the fourth wall, he almost never became part of the story.” (more…)
Curator Christopher Y. Lew is leaving The Whitney Museum, Art News reports. “It has been an absolute honor to work with such a talented museum staff and so many visionary artists during the first years of the Whitney’s new building,” he said in an email announcing his departure. (more…)
Danh Vo (Installation View), via Chantal Crousel
Currently on view at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris, artist Danh Vo continues a body of work mining disparate historical and biographical threads to realize densely layered environments that challenge and complicate shared understandings of history and meaning. (more…)
The M+ Museum has finally opened in Hong Kong’s Kowloon neighborhood. “Nobody outside can come to the opening but it is an opportunity as well,” says director Suhanya Raffel. “This is an institution for this city. We can really engage with the city now, because we are all here and not traveling. After all this time, after all this waiting, it is very nice to make the museum opening about Hong Kong.” (more…)
Diane Simpson, Roof Shape (Ise), (2019), via JTT
Currently on at JTT Gallery in New York, Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson marks her second show at the gallery with Point of View, a show drawing on a range of architectural sources, as well as her own personal archive of drawings from the early 1980s to render a series of unique objects mixing a fanciful exploration of reality alongside conceptual operations. (more…)
Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe (2021), via Art Observed
Currently on at David Zwirner’s New York exhibition space, artist Neo Rauch has brought forth a body of new works unified under the title The Signpost, a set of new paintings that mark his first show in New York since 2014. Known for his rich color palette and dreamy, surreal motifs, the artist’s work makes a striking return to the city.
Neo Rauch, Wegweiser (2021), via Art Observed
The Salvator Mundi that sold at Christie’s has been downgraded by curators at The Prado to “attributed works, workshop or authorized and supervised by Leonardo.” “It is to be hoped that a future permanent display of the work will allow it to be reanalyzed with greater objectivity,” says curator Vincent Delieuvin. (more…)
Two men, including the executive director of Mana Contemporary, have been indicted in connection with a tax evasion scheme at Moishe’s Moving. The indictment states that director Eugene Lemay, as well as bookkeeper Joel Lingat, and “other co-conspirators perpetrated a scheme to defraud the U.S. government of payroll and income taxes due and owing to the IRS.” (more…)
Sean Kelly Gallery is opening a permanent Los Angeles space, helmed by the dealer’s son, Thomas. “It’s not just a lateral shift, it’s also a generational shift,” Kelly says. (more…)
Ron Gorchov, MOCKINGBIRD (2020), via Cheim and Read
Currently on view at Cheim & Read in New York, the gallery turns its attention to the late works of artist Ron Gorchov, exploring the last works the artist made between 2017 and his passing in 2020. Marking a concise summary of the artist’s work and a final look at his single-minded, painterly practice involving a curved, saddle-like stretcher that creates a painting surface that is simultaneously convex and concave, the show underscores his work in a unique and long-lasting mode of practice. (more…)
Ella Kruglyanskaya, Entrenched (2020), via Bortolami
Bortolami Gallery opens its latest exhibition this month with a body of works by artist Ella Kruglyanskaya, marking the artist’s first show with the gallery, and a continuation of her continued explorations of the human body and varied notions of femininity. (more…)
Dealer Kavi Gupta gives Architectural Digest a tour of his Chicago home, and his impressive art collection this month. “The design is very much in service to the art,” says his wife, Jessica Moss. (more…)
According to initial estimates, six million people visited Christo and Jean-Claude’s Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped during its run this fall. “It was a crazy dream and you have accomplished it, Vladimir [Javacheff, the late artists’ nephew]. We give you infinite thanks,” said President Emmanuel Macron. (more…)
With the announcement that the United States will reopen to international visitors, the NYT looks at the needs of cultural institutions, and the hope that the return of international visitors will help bolster budget shortfalls at a number of venues, galleries and museums. “We’re waiting with arms open,” says Victoria Bailey, the executive director of the Theater Development Fund. (more…)
Arts non-profit Anonymous Was a Woman has announced its largest series of awards recipients this year, providing funding to 14 women in a variety of creative fields. “It is an unexpected honor to finally receive recognition for my work as a painter and sculptor,” says recipient Suzanne Jackson. “I have known about the Anonymous Was A Woman award for years, though I never thought that I would be a recipient. I plan to use the award funds to continue my work exploring new aspects of integrating drawing, painting, and sculptured forms as related to various American relationships to our natural and urban environments.” (more…)
Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.237, Hanging Six-Lobed, Interlocking Continuous Form), c. 1958, Private Collection © 2021 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy David Zwirner
Marking an ambitious exploration of the life and work of artist Ruth Asawa, David Zwirner in New York is currently presenting All Is Possible, an expansive exhibition curated by Helen Molesworth that situates the artist’s iconic looped- and tied-wire sculptures in the context of her extraordinary drawings and her lesser-known sculptural forms. Presenting viewers with one of the most comprehensive looks at this artist’s work to date, the show larger context illuminates an artist in pursuit of form as a means to reshape the act of seeing, and the role of art in daily life.
The Vatican will open a new contemporary art space in the papal library. “Our challenge is to strengthen the cultural role of the Vatican in the contemporary world,” says Vatican’s librarian Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça. (more…)
Amy Lincoln at Sperone Westwater, via Art Observed
As the art world gradually returns to the pace and flow of the days before the chaos of the Covid-19 outbreak, the ADAA Art Show returns to New York for another iteration of its curation-first focus and studied, engaged relationships between exhibitors and artists. This year, liberated from the usual hustle and bustle of the weeks around the Armory Show, the fair offered an even stronger draw, welcoming a casual, meandering pace, with its gentle lighting and wide aisles, making for a more relaxed and exploratory atmosphere.The result, as last year, was a packed few days of the fair, as scores of New York collectors, dealers and art lovers came out in force.
The Vancouver Art Gallery has received a $100 million gift from the Audain Foundation in support of a new building in downtown Vancouver. “The new Vancouver Art Gallery — from its conception and design — will reflect a Coast Salish worldview,” says Vancouver Art Gallery Elder-in-residence and art and design consultant Skwetsimeltxw Willard ‘Buddy’ Joseph.
Mark Rothko, Untitled (1968), via Pace
Marking the first exhibition at its new London gallery, Pace has brought out a striking body of works by Mark Rothko, focusing in particular on the artist’s output during the final years of his life, specifically smaller works on paper that have rarely been seen in public, and which will serve as the first dedicated to the artist’s paper-based practice (more…)
A piece in the Art Newspaper notes that in the growing field of NFT art, women make up only 16% of the market. (more…)
The Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam will soon open The Depot, a large-scale archive and storage site for the museum that will put its full collection on view to the public. “You’ll go through the collection like you would visit a library looking for a book and finding three others,” said Sjarel Ex, the museum’s joint director. “We also decided to take private collectors, to give private collectors opportunities to work with us in the same building. So you see when you go around and you see the floors, you will meet with several collections that enjoy a collaboration with the museum.” (more…)
Alicia Keys and her husband, producer Swizz Beatz, give a tour of their La Jolla, California mansion, and their extensive art collection to Architectural Digest. “The interiors don’t in any way shout; they’re simple and timeless,” says interior designer Kelly Behun. “It was never going to be about trying to upstage the natural surroundings, the architecture, or the art.” (more…)
An official at the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg broke the nose of a visitor this weekend after the guest tried to enter the museum through an exit. “The employee who committed the offense fully admits his guilt and is sorry for his excessively emotional actions,” a statement reads. “He explains it by the general state of nervousness connected to the pandemic and its influence on life, including the museum’s new regime of work.” (more…)