The NY Review of Books has a piece on Vincent Van Gogh this week, charting the artist’s time in London and his fascination with the city, documented in many of his letters. “He was a writer before he was a painter,” says author Carol Jacobi. (more…)
A new French task force for recovering Nazi look has received a broad mandate to search for and return artwork that had been looted or sold under duress, the NYT reports. “We are not starting from nothing, but we are amplifying the work,” says David Zivie, a Culture Ministry official. (more…)
A selection of paintings from inside Notre Dame have been transferred to the Louvre for restoration after suffering smoke damage yesterday during the Cathedral’s fire. The paintings are largely still intact. (more…)
The French nation launched a major campaign to restore Notre Dame after its tragic blaze yesterday, with collectors Bernard Arnault and François Pinault both pledging $226 million and $113 respectively. “The Arnault family and the LVMH Group, in solidarity with this national tragedy, are committed to assist with the reconstruction of this extraordinary cathedral, symbol of France, its heritage, and its unity,” a press release from LVMH, Arnault’s company read. (more…)
30 pieces from the collection of Texas oil heiress Cecil Amelia Blaffer will go to auction at Christie’s New York next month, with works by Picasso, Rothko and more expected to earn more than $40 million. “What we are seeing more and more is the interesting collections that were put together 40, 50 years ago,” says Adrien Meyer, Christie’s co-chairman of Impressionist and modern art. “They precisely represent moments of collecting history” and people who were “buying at the moment of pivotal art innovations,” he said.
New York’s Independent Curators International will give its Leo Award (named after Leo Castelli) to collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. “Since the beginning, the passion and daily work of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has been to contribute to an opening up of contemporary art to a wider audience,” she says of her work . “Investing in young curators and artists has been an exciting, rewarding and vital part of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo’s program, which we are seeking always to develop.” (more…)
The European Commission has approved new laws concerning an overhaul of copyright law, making online platforms liable for copyright infringement on their sites and forcing companies like Google and Facebook to pay publishers for the information they repost. “It was a long road and we would like to thank everyone who contributed to the discussion,” says IMPALA executive chair Helen Smith. “As a result, we now have a balanced text that sets a precedent for the rest of the world to follow, by putting citizens and creators at the heart of the reform and introducing clear rules for online platforms, “By adopting this landmark text, the EU has proved itself a leader in terms of delivering a fair, open and sustainable internet. This text clarifies the position of platforms, building on European case law. It is a first of its kind, and sets an example for other countries across the globe.” (more…)
The Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris has caught fire, with much of the building engulfed in flames and its main spire partially collapsing. “These cathedrals and houses of worship are built to burn,” says Vincent Dunn, a fire consultant and former New York City fire chief. “If they weren’t houses of worship, they’d be condemned.” (more…)
Jean-Michel Othoniel, Oracles (Installation View), Photo: Claire Dorn © Jean-Michel Othoniel / ADAGP, Paris, 2019 Courtesy of the artist & Perrotin.
Entering the Paris location of Galerie Perrotin, the viewer is greeted with a series of dazzling sculptures, jagged agglomerations of shining blocks that appear to glow with a colorful energy, spreading across the floor of one room, while in another, dotting the walls, each appearing to emit a gentle, flame-like glow. The works, new pieces by the artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, are a striking elaboration of the artist’s work, continuing his exploration of space and light as innately tied to their generating materials. (more…)
Austin Lee, Feels Good (Installation View), via Art Observed
Part of a young crop of digital natives exploring convergences between physical and digital art practices, artist Austin Lee’s work feels particularly vivid and important. While earlier generations of artists began their careers sketching on paper, Lee began by using Photoshop and other digital tools to sketch on his computer. His work combines the latest image making technologies with traditional artistic processes. He uses the airbrush and the paintbrush to create luminous paintings that evoke both the light of a computer screen and the bold coloration of color field painting. (more…)
The painting of Judith beheading Holofernes, recently (and controversially) attributed to Caravaggio, will go on show at Galerie Kamel Mennour next week, alongside work by Daniel Buren’s site-specific work, Pyramidal, haut-relief – A5, travail (2017). “I think giving audiences the opportunity to view these two works together [Buren and Caravaggio] is fantastic. It is about the parcours [journey] of 400 years between the avant-garde then and now,” the Kamel Mennour says. (more…)
The next round of Guggenheim Fellowships have been awarded to 168 scholars, artists, and writers, Art News reports. “Each year since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has bet everything on the individual, and we’re thrilled to continue to do so with this wonderfully talented and diverse group,” says Edward Hirsch, the foundation’s president. “It’s an honor to be able to support these individuals to do the work they were meant to do.” (more…)
Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco was detained by customs officials and turned away from Havana this week, as she traveled to the city’s Biennial. “I heard one of the immigration officials refer to me as an ‘inadmissible,’ ” Fusco said in a statement. “I’m not a live plant, cheese, a narcotic, or a pornographic publication, but expressing critical views of repressive measures carried out against artists constitutes grounds for barring my entry to Cuba.” (more…)
The European Council has passed new rules to prevent trafficking in cultural goods, including a requirement for import licenses on artifacts more than 250 years old. The new regulations are designed for “the effective protection against illicit trade in cultural goods and against their loss or destruction” and “the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering through the sale of pillaged cultural goods to buyers in the union.” (more…)
Art Basel will commission artists for a series “interventions around the topic of the fair as a marketplace and as a historical site for exchange, trade, and competition, addressing the production, circulation, mediation, and consumption of contemporary art in a global world,” Art News reports. The project celebrates the fair’s 50th anniversary and will be curated by Kasper König. (more…)
Venice Biennale curator Ralph Rugoff gets the profile treatment in the NYT this week, as the opening days of the event draw close. “Bigger isn’t always better,” he says. “The exhibition format doesn’t always lend itself to gargantuan scale, in general. Do you want to see movies that are 20 hours long? Compared to a normal exhibition, that’s what a Biennale is like.” (more…)
The Venice Biennale has named its five members international jury for awards and recognition, with Stephanie Rosenthal of the Gropius Bau serving as jury president. (more…)
The Mike Kelley Foundation in Los Angeles has named 10 recipients of its 2019 Artist Project Grants, totaling $400,000 going to local groups. “This year’s recipients of the Artist Project Grants exemplify the innovation, rigor, and daring that the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts supports,” says Mary Clare Stevens, executive director of the Mike Kelley Foundation. “There is such depth and breadth to Los Angeles’s artistic and curatorial practices, and it’s an honor to help realize these adventurous projects.”
Jessi Reaves, Red eyelashes (2019), via Art Observed
On view currently at New York space Bridget Donahue, artist Jessi Reaves has returned to her uniquely inventive turn on sculpture. The show, which draws on the shared languages of design, interior space, domestic languages and the possibilities of these elements to work in tandem, presents a series of floor sculptures and hanging works, investigating and reposing questions of varied histories of making, and how they ultimately converge, twist, and reform. (more…)
This year’s edition of Performa has announced its first rounnd of commissions, featuring work by Ed Atkins, Nairy Baghramian and Korakrit Arunanondchai, and will focus on the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus. “I’ve always found it fascinating that most exhibitions [about the Bauhaus] are from an architecture point of view,” says Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg. “At Performa, we go at it from the perspective that it was the first art school to have a performance workshop at its heart.” (more…)
The UK art market is showing signs of recovery as exports of art increased last year by 5.5% to £5.1bn, while global imports rose by more than 20% to £2.1bn. The sales also note a decline in sales to Switzerland, as the country sheds its anonymous banking laws. “Switzerland has dropped its banking secrecy laws and that means an end to anonymity, so companies can no longer conceal their ultimate beneficiaries,” says an anonymous Swiss dealer. (more…)
A version of Nicole Eisenman’s Founttain will be installed in Boston’s Fens, Art News reports, following the work’s popularity during its previous install at Skulptur Projekte Munster. “I’m happy to know the fountain will be situated in a place where people are likely to hang out and enjoy some leisure time,” Eisenman said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing kids climbing on the sculptures and this piece integrating into the fabric of life in the Fens.” (more…)
The Whitney Museum of American Art has acquired 300 artworks over the past six months, including work by Barbara Hammer, Simone Leigh, and Ed Clark, many of whom enter the collection for the first time. “We’re thrilled that many of our recent acquisitions, particularly by artists new to the collection, arose through our reenergized emerging artist program,” says Scott Rothkopf, the senior deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney. “This continues our historical commitment to acquiring works by contemporary artists directly from our groundbreaking exhibitions and allows us to extend our dialogue with these artists as stewards of their work.” (more…)