Italian Police believe they have recovered works by Pierre-August Renoir and Peter Paul Rubens stolen in 2017 from an office in Northern Italy. “We now have to confirm that the attributions are correct,” said Major Francesco Provenza, commander of the Monza’s police unit for the protection of cultural heritage. (more…)
Urs Fischer, One More Carrot Before I Brush My Teeth (2001), via Hauser & Wirth
In reference to the address of Cabaret Voltaire – the birthplace of Dada in Zurich, Switzerland, Hauser & Wirth’s current exhibition Spiegelgasse (Mirror Alley), takes the landmark avant-garde movement as a starting point, and dives into the history of modern and contemporary Swiss art. Curated by Gianni Jetzer, Mirror Alley presents a range of works from the 1930s to the present day. (more…)
IvaÌn Argote, Deep Affection (Installation View), via Art Observed
On view now at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, artist Iván Argote has traced a striking psycho, winding together disparate locales, global actions and fragments of a broader social narrative to understand and explore the world around us. The show, which draws on the artist’s range of actions and pieces investigating political action and history, offers a range of potentials for joining together global populations, often through a combination of art and action.
A committee report from the UK’s House of Lords has predicted substantial damage to the arts if a hard Brexit is pursued. “Should the exit be a chaotic one, it is hard to see global public opinion on the UK remaining buoyant,” the report reads. (more…)
A piece in The Atlantic this week looks at a young generation of Chinese artists, and their shifting stance towards political activism in their work. “In China, everything reflects the circumstances of Chinese society,” says Ai Weiwei. “But we need to be more thoughtful and flexible about it.” (more…)
Charles Saumarez Smith, the secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts, is joining Blain Souther as its senior director. “I have known Harry Blain and Graham Southern ever since they took the lease on Burlington Gardens for Haunch of Venison,” he said in a statemnet. “I greatly respect their work and that of the artists they represent, several of whom are RAs.” (more…)
Iranian gallery owner Afarin Neyssari and her husband Karan Vafadari, have been released on bail in Tehran after two years in prison. “It is great news that they are out after two years [in prison], even though they are on bail for now for IRR400bn (around $10m) and they have to wait for appeal” says Salman Matinfar, director of Ab-Anbar Gallery. “Many Iranians with dual nationalities have returned to Iran to start a business to contribute to their motherland for a brighter future” (more…)
Art Dealer David Killen is claiming that the contents of a New Jersey storage locker he purchased for $15,000 includes works by Willem de Kooning and Paul Klee. “Life is full of extraordinary discoveries, he says. “I’ve paid my dues. I’m ready for membership in the million-dollar club.” (more…)
The Tate Modern will offer a series of “slow looking” initiatives around its 2019 show on Pierre Bonnard, The Guardian reports. “Obviously one can’t force people to look slowly but one can encourage it,” Matthew Gale, the head of displays at the museum says. (more…)
Juergen Teller photographs of the pop star Rihanna are drawing criticism this week over their similarities to the work of artist Mickalene Thomas without giving her credit. “Mickalene has earned the right to be recognized and commended for her ground-breaking contributions to contemporary art and visual culture, and for a signature aesthetic that she has been cultivating for decades,” Thomas’s Gallery, Lehmann Maupin said in a statement. “As Mickalene’s long-time gallery and advocate, we vigorously stand by her in defending the originality of her work.” (more…)
Installation View. All images via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed.
On view through August 11, 2018, Capitain Petzel in Berlin presents Open Secret, an exhibition by Andrea Bowers. In this show, Bowers focuses on the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements, an international effort to speak out against and prosecute sexual harassment and assault, which spread virally in October 2017 following the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. This is the first exhibition in an ongoing project that reflects on the apologies and non-apologies of 100 accused sexual offenders at a time.
The main work in the show consists of 100 photographic prints covering both sides of a 19 by 4-meter wall. Each print lists the name and occupation of a person accused of sexual misconduct, as well as their apology (or lack thereof) and an up-to-date summary of the case. Over 5 months ago, Bowers started compiling a database of those accused in the context of the #MeToo movement. This list has now grown to include 355 names at present. The information contained in the prints includes relevant photographs, a description of the case brought against the individual, as well as his or her response to the allegations, presented in the font and format of the platform on which the response was originally posted (Twitter, Facebook, magazines, journals, etc.). The project seeks to present a physical manifestation of the patriarchy and a monument to the courage of those speaking out against sexual harassment, making public what many repeatedly referred to as “open secrets.”
In addition to the hanging prints, this exhibition includes a series of works from Bowers’ earlier series of colorful cardboard collages, which illustrate women in powerful positions that resemble historical political graphics. A large LED sign hangs on one side of the gallery and flashes the message “TRUST WOMEN” across the space and through a large front window onto the street outside. The film Disrupting and Resisting, J20 & J21 is projected in the basement of the gallery. This hour and a half documentary video honors the work of two activist groups who came together for a series of mass protests to shut down the presidential inauguration in January, 2017 and for the Women’s March on Washington, the largest single-day protest in the history of the U.S., aimed at Donald Trump and the sexist positions and statements he issues.
In this exhibition and ongoing project, Bowers seeks to memorialize and preserve the activist groups that stem from this extremely polemical moment in U.S. history. In so doing, she unites the voices and actions that are actively resisting white supremacy, patriarchy and the suppression of freedom.
-A. Corrigan
Related Links
Exhibition Page [Capitain Petzel]
Pace Gallery will represent the work of Mary Corse in Asia, Art News reports. “Very few artists have been able to express the breadth and depth of light through the medium of painting,” Marc Glimcher, the president and CEO of Pace, said in a statement. “Mary is one of those rare people who has the gift to contain that energetic field within the frame of the canvas.” (more…)
Through September 8th, Sprüth Magers presents Kara Walker’s video Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale (2011). Walker’s work is well known for the trenchant connections it draws between the legacy of slavery in the United States, historical narratives and cultural beliefs, sexuality, and contemporary race relations. Since the 1990s, she has worked with silhouetted wall works, drawings, installations, and videos to explore the uncertain lines between beauty and violence, attraction and repulsion, the past and the present. In Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale, Walker deploys her skilled paper puppetry to tell the painful story of a crucially relevant historical narrative.
Kara Walker, Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale (2011). All photos via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed
In this seventeen-minute video, the story of a sexual encounter between a Southern Belle and a black man, and the brutal beating, castration and death that results, unfolds through shadow puppetry against simple, colorful and at times abstract backgrounds. The animation and attitudes of the characters are rendered deftly through this ancient form, and the shadows of the puppeteers (including Walking herself) are at times incorporated into the frame. The characters appear as forms starkly delineated, yet also empty and open to the renderings of the viewer’s imagination and the twists and turns of the narrative.
The story unfolds predominantly narratively, breaking this progression only when it doubles back on itself in moments of suggested memory or through interludes of seemingly unrelated content, like a man in a top hat dancing to cheerful music or the passing of flowering trees. These moments periodically jolt the viewer out of this historical context, subtly leading her back to the resonances with present moment. The soundtrack of the film presents another vehicle through which the viewer is transported both historically and culturally between moments and contexts. Moving between ambient noise and Delta Blues to groove music, the soundtrack adds a complex layer to Walker’s blending of cultural and historical references.
Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale is a portrait of a reality still, incredibly, overlooked in North America. Namely, the country’s blinded renderings of the history of slavery that is so fundamental to the mythology and brutality of this country. The film beautifully and chillingly speaks to the open wounds of American society’s insufficient recognition of the violence of the Antebellum era, a time that set the stage for the ongoing brutality of race relations through the 19th and 20th centuries, to the present day. In seventeen minutes, and through a simple and ancient story-telling technique, Walker manages to summon and point to the gratuitous amnesia, denial, resentment, and injustice that continue to shape the enormous failure of the United States to come to terms with this shameful historical and, resultantly, contemporary narrative about socio-economic and race relations in this country. In this film, Walker urges the viewer to relearn the origin stories that were established within and continue to feed a completely depraved system.
-A. Corrigan
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Sprüth Magers]
Christie’s International sold $4 billion of art during the first half of 2018, up 35% from the year-earlier period and setting a new record for the auction house. “I’m amazed at the depth of this global market right now,” says CEO Guillaume Cerutti. (more…)
Margo Wolowiec, 10pm Saturday (view 2) (2018), all images via Marlborough Contemporary
Detroit-based multimedia artist Margo Wolowiec’s first exhibition, Still Water, Circling Palms, at Marlborough Contemporary is a full-force manifestation on the merger of craft and digital technology. Covering the gallery’s spacious ground floor, the artist’s tapestry paintings are semi-abstract representations of computer screen shots, abundantly-colored plants, densely-blue skies or wave-strewn seascapes. Made from handwoven polymers, linen, dye sublimation ink and acrylic dye, these hallucinatory works convey dream-like collages of her various source materials, inviting the viewer to closely inspect the formation of each thread within the larger frame. (more…)
Art dealers are mobilizing in earnest against President Donald Trump’s tariffs against China, which could see a tax of up to 10% on Chinese art and antiques. “Ordinarily, there are no customs duties on art or antiques. It is considered in the public interest to bring art and literature to the US, so in the past, no duties were imposed on foreign art or books,” the Committee for Cultural Policy says in a newsletter alert on Friday (20 June). “The Trump administration is changing that, at least for art and antiques from China. This is one of the more bizarre stories in the tariff saga, since a tariff on antiques will please the Chinese government and reinforce its global dominance and monopoly on Chinese art.” (more…)
The new offer of free access to New York Museums granted by New York Public Library Cards caused sellouts for tickets to many museums this summer, the New York Times reports. “We knew that there was considerable need and demand for a program like this,” says Angela Montefinise, spokeswoman for the New York Public Library. “So while the overwhelming response hasn’t been surprising, it has been extremely gratifying to see a program designed to promote learning, culture and knowledge quickly become the hottest ticket in town.” (more…)
Artist Henry Taylor gets a profile in the New Yorker by Zadie Smith this week, spotlighting his life and work as a master portraitist. “First of all, I love other people,” he’s quoted as saying. “I love to meet them, and the fact I can just paint them.” (more…)
A group of protests occurred at the Harvard Art Museum this weekend, continuing a string of actions calling for the Sackler Family to dedicate resources to the war against opioid addiction. “From our vantage point, being in medical school in the thick of the opioid crisis has been a defining experience,” says one organizer, medical student Leo Eisenstein. “We’re trying to end the stigma that surround opioid abuse disorder, and to promote the interventions that we know work at saving lives.” (more…)
The New York Times has a piece on Susan Unterberg, a donor who has advocated anonymously for women artists over the past four decades, and is now stepping publicly into her role. “It’s a great time for women to speak up,” she says. “I feel I can be a better advocate having my own voice.” (more…)
Fred Wilson, Afro Kismet (Installation View), via Art Observed
Currently on view at Pace Gallery’s New York location, artist Fred Wilson has mounted his powerful exhibition Afro Kismet, reprising a work from the Istanbul Biennial that sought shared cultural threads and a refreshed cultural understanding of shared relationships between Africa and the Middle East. Continuing Wilson’s nuanced dialogues with both historical and cultural framing in conjunction with a studied view of both modern and deep history, the show’s trip to New York offers a second chance for viewers to see a challenging and important piece of work by the artist. (more…)
Voice of America (Installation View), via Gladstone
In 1975, Vito Acconci installed his now classic piece Voice of America at Portland Center for Contemporary Arts. The piece was a love letter by way of a music lesson, according to the artist, an attempt at getting under the skin of the nation, and to speak to the inner spirit of the nation. “One kind of American music drifts into another: America presented in a music lesson, a geography lesson: from Ozark fiddle to California harmonica to New Orleans piano,” Acconci says. “My voice is the voice of a mythical Mr. America talking to Mrs. America: we’re giving voice to an American dream… There is a voice calling out from the wilderness, jabs of voice…here’s the response from the children of America.” (more…)
Julie Mehretu, A Love Supreme (2018), via Art Observed
Long time friends Tacita Dean and Julie Mehretu have teamed up for a unique exhibition concept at Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris month, a show that winds through a broad range of varied techniques in abstraction. Dean and Mehretu are presenting two new works emblematic of their respective practices: Suite of Nine, a series of chalk drawings on slate depicting a solar eclipse and A Love Supreme, a large painting in ink and acrylic on canvas. On the occasion of the exhibition, the two artists decided to create in parallel 45 monotypes each. Composed of 90 works covering the walls of the gallery’s lower level, the installation Monotype Melody (ninety works for Marian Goodman) reflects a unique bond shared by the artists.
Julie Mehretu and Tacita Dean (Installation View), via Art Observed
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will commission a Native artist to do a public artwork for the museum’s sculpture garden, a response to the controversy over artist Sam Durant’s Scaffold work. “We are extremely fortunate to be working with the expertise, knowledge, and creative thinking of this committee, who collectively will help bring an important new work of art to the Walker Art Center collection and to the Twin Cities,” says Siri Engberg, the Walker’s senior curator and director of exhibitions. (more…)