A piece in Frieze this week asks if the art world can kick its addiction to air travel as the climate crisis intensifies.  “We are all implicated in making travel aspirational, for accepting the idea that living ‘between’ places is more  cosmopolitan, more creative, than settling in just one and staying there,” writes critic Kyle Chayka. “We keep choosing to leave every few weeks, constantly advertising for subletters on Facebook, melting the Arctic ice, because movement is so pleasurable.” (more…)

The restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral has entered a new stage, in which the scaffolding structure on the roof of the building, fused by intense heat, must be removed.  The process will involve a delicate stabilizing process before the scaffolding can be removed. (more…)

William Kentridge returns to the Metrpolitan Opera this season, opening a production of Wozzeck which features his stage designs. “It’s a radical opera, also, in the sense that it feels, as you say, connected to colonialism,” he says. “It takes the private, rather than the prince or the doctor or the captain, as the central figure. Its perspective is very much from the periphery.” (more…)

Matthew Wong, Starry Night (2019), via Karma

Passing away at the untimely age of 35, artist Matthew Wong left behind an impressive body of painted canvases, pieces that moved through a dynamic and compelling emotional range exploring light and shadow, space and bodies as shifting value systems rarely lingering in easy relief for any prolonged period. Opening just a few weeks after the artist’s passing, his current exhibition at Karma, Blue, continues this practice.

Matthew Wong, Blue (Installation View), via Karma

Wong casts the landscapes and interiors of his exhibition under the glowing spaces between light and shadow, the transitional states where light passes to dark, and day might fade slowly into the early hours of night. The works here, dusky and nocturnal, were intended as the coda, or sundown, to a previous series of day-lit oil and gouache paintings, exploring a watery, fluid treatment of both space and the light that bounds it. Delving in particular into the color blue, Wong was primarily fascinated with the idea of the color as a fluid ground upon which light and space could play out.

Matthew Wong, Solitude (2018), via Karma

Matthew Wong, Blue (Installation View), via Karma

Wong concerned himself with the “blueness of blue”: its fluidity, its affect, and its uncanny ability to “activate nostalgia, both personal and collective,” according to the show’s press release, and his interest in subject matter that drifts into the personal sphere is underscored by the scenes themselves. Meditative and bucolic, they move between improvisation and memory, taking on characteristics where space and time are just as hazy as the light that floats into the picture plane. The images here were witnessed in Sicily, often on walks while traveling with his mother, the result being a time frame in which the artist both looks back on his past, and seems to delve into it more deeply to seek out elements and ideas either initially hidden, or emergent with the inclusion of new sensations. Wong’s rendering of light is dappled, corpuscular: a contrast to the smooth gradations of his interiors, and occasionally feature spotlights, cascading from a door or window left ajar. These moments and symbols, often implying a space just out of site, contributes to the allure and mystery of these works, and the sense of sadness that seeps forth when considering a talent gone too early.

The show closes January 5th.

Matthew Wong, Autumn Nocturne (2018), via Karma

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Matthew Wong: “Blue” at Karma [Exhibition Site]

Performance artist Ulay will open an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, one of the first new shows under new director Rein Wolfs.  “Ulay, also during his collaborative years with Marina Abramović, has been a prominent figure in performance and body art since the nineteen seventies,” says Wolfs. “He used his identity and body as his medium.” (more…)

A piece in The Daily Beast this week outlines how former Parks Commissioner Robert Moses upended the status quo at The Met.  “The arrogance and conceit of those people were phenomenal,” he once said. “They really felt they were the lords of creation and that nobody had the right even to question what they did.” (more…)

As Kehinde Wiley‘s Rumors of War heads to a permanent installation in Virginia, the artist speaks to New Yorker on his vision and process.  “I recall trying to re-create some Velázquez paintings in which men were on horseback,” he says. “I actually hired Hollywood horses, so they could deal with the flashes.  It turns out, the artists were lying. No man-to-horse is that ratio.” (more…)

The value of guaranteed works in contemporary evening art auctions dropped 18% to $1.08 billion in 2019, according to a recent report from ArtTactic.  “It look like the guarantors in the West are increasingly getting jittery going into the new year,” the report reads. (more…)

The Smithsonian looks back at its recent efforts to evaluate how museums can better relate to the communities it supports and reflects. “Involvement is what is wanted and involvement can only be created if it is the community’s museum,” says former secretary S. Dillon Ripley. “It must be on the spot, participated in by the people who live there. Otherwise, the project will end up nothing more than a museum equivalent of a visiting book mobile.” (more…)

Art Newspaper looks at the upcoming Art Basel Hong Kong fair, and notes how hard it is for dealers to currently find insurance for works shipping to the politically fraught region.  “Insurers are insuring for Hong Kong very sparingly. They are being quite choosy and they are doing so for a lot more money,” says Chris Bentley, a director of underwriting at AXA insurance firm. (more…)

A piece in Art Newspaper asks a number of gallerists their predictions for 2020.  “I think next year we will see that the demise of small and medium-sized galleries will turn out to be greatly exaggerated,” Pace head Marc Glimcher says. “The pendulum will swing.” (more…)

A major LS Lowry painting never shown publicly will go on sale at Christie’s in London.  “What’s unusual about this is that it just doesn’t feature anywhere in the literature at all,” says Nick Orchard, the head of modern British art at the auction house. “It is a lovely painting and a great composition. You’ve got everything you want in a Lowry … lots of people doing lots of different things, terraced houses, factories in the background. It ticks all the boxes for Lowry.” (more…)

The former employees of the Marciano Art Foundation have filed suit alleging they were improperly terminated. “The law is the surest way we have to hold the Marcianos accountable,” lawyer Kenneth Moffitt says. (more…)

A Thomas Gainsborough work is the subject of a UK Export bar, preventing it from leaving the country. “Gainsborough is one of the greatest British landscape artists and his work still wows audiences more than 250 years later,” says arts minister Helen Whately. “This piece is a superb example and I hope that a U.K. buyer can be found so we can find a new home for this work in our national collection.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper has an intriguing breakdown on the making of an art world scandal, as it looks back on the uproar over Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian. (more…)

The plan is underway to move 250,000 objects, alongside 350,000 books and thousands more prints, drawings, account books, samples and more from Blythe House to a new storage space by Victoria and Albert Museum’s Easterm outpost in London. “All we ever do in a museum is play God and try and stop time in its tracks,” says Philippa Mackenzie, head of the move. (more…)

Mark Bradford, Sapphire Blue (2019), via Hauser & Wirth

Cerberus, Mark Bradford’s first exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in London extends across the gallery’s spaces in the city, compiling a range of works including film, new paintings and sculptural work, often moving between each format, the show sees Bradford returning to ancient mythology, a consistent source of inspiration for the artist. Engaging in particular with the many headed dog guarding the entryway to Hades, Cerberus, Bradford’s show marks an engaged and intriguing investigation of conflict and healing, trauma and time through works that negotiate states in the same way that the multi-headed creature stands between hell and the mortal realm.

Mark Bradford, Dancing in the Street (2019), via Hauser & Wirth

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The Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam will rethink its storage program as it opens a massive, accessible storage space that will place most of its collection on view.  “The first plans were that maybe 20 or 40 percent would be accessible,” says museum head Sjarel Ex. “At a certain moment, we said, ‘Why don’t we make it entirely accessible?’” (more…)

The heirs of painter Thomas Hart Benton are suing UMB Bank, run by the Kemper family, for alleged neglect of a collection of works.  “We take our role as a trustee for art and other assets seriously and will directly address and defend the misguided allegations made in the lawsuit,” UMB Bank said in a statement. “We look forward to this matter being resolved as quickly and fairly as possible.” (more…)

A piece in the New York Times notes that a massive transfer of wealth from the boomer generation to millenials and Gen X is coming, and asks what that might mean for the art market.  “With the global wealthy population at an all-time high, the next 10 years will see the biggest-ever wealth transfer in modern history,” says Maeen Shaban, the director of research and data analytics at Wealth-X. (more…)

Artists Gilbert & George are selling specially-designed plates to benefit outreach to the homeless, The Guardian reports. “We are avoiding being the frowning classes,” says George Passmore. “It’s extraordinary. People actually discriminate. We are the artists of the disenfranchised. We have an extraordinary following amongst them.” (more…)

Artists Space head Jay Sanders speaks to Art News as he prepares to open the institution’s new space downtown. “I feel like so much of the language around alternative spaces is now ubiquitous,” he says. “Everybody says the same thing, like ‘we’re artist-centric’ and blah blah blah—the whole language of sort of ’70s alternative spaces is now the de facto language for talking about contemporary art spaces at all scales. So I’m trying my hardest to think of new language. I do feel that it’s a real practitioner’s space, and that the audience really is artists, curators, students, intellectuals, academics.” (more…)

Olivier Widmaier Picasso, a television producer, author and grandson of Pablo Picasso, gives an interview to the NYT this week, showcasing his collection in his Miami Beach apartment.  “We make purchases based purely on emotion and don’t think about them as investments,” he says. (more…)

The National Gallery in London has succeeded in its £22m bid to buy Orazio Gentileschi’s The Finding of Moses.  “It is great news as we come up to Christmas that this picture will be ours from early next year,” says director Gabriele Finaldi. “We are absolutely thrilled.” (more…)