Art news

The Expressions of Agnes Neusch: Landscapes of the Heart

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 05:28:27 +0200

What is it that Agnes Neusch seeks to communicate through her art? Is it simply the inner world that she expresses through color, or is there something more that she...

The post The Expressions of Agnes Neusch: Landscapes of the Heart appeared first on RedDotBlog.

Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | Aimless Bullet

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 01:30:55 +0200

Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | Aimless Bullet skatt Fri, 09/30/2022 - 16:30

FILM at LACMA presents classic and contemporary narrative and documentary films, artists and their influences, emerging auteurs, international showcases, special guest-curated programs, and conversations with artists and special guests.

In conjunction with the exhibition The Space Between: The Modern in Korean Art, join us for a selection of cinematic gems of the Modern era. This spectacular period (1954–1972), bookended by the war and a period of stifling film censorship, generated some of the most well-regarded films in Korea’s history. This film series anticipates a symposium in February 2023, dedicated to scholarship on the Golden Age of Korean Cinema, organized by GYOPO and co-presented by LACMA and the UCLA Center for Korean Studies.

Join us for this screening of Aimless Bullet (Yu Hyun-mok, 1960).

Co-Presented with GYOPO and the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

Masks are strongly recommended indoors for everyone.

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The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | Aimless Bullet

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Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles | 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

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Sat, 10/22/2022 - 18:00 -Sat, 10/22/2022 - 19:30

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Film stills: The Coachmen, Kang Dae-jin, 1961; Mother and a Guest, Shin Sang-ok, 1961; The Housemaid, Kim Ki-young, 1960; and Aimless Bullet, Yu Hyun-mok, 1960, photo courtesy of the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles

Learn more about the complete catalogue of LACMA programs for all ages—many free. Discover film screenings, art talks and classes, music, creative fun for kids, wellness activities, and more.

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Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | The Housemaid

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 01:28:05 +0200

Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | The Housemaid skatt Fri, 09/30/2022 - 16:28

Join us for this screening of The Housemaid (Kim Ki-young, 1960).

Co-presented with GYOPO and the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

Masks are strongly recommended indoors for everyone.

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The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | The Housemaid

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Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles | 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

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Sat, 10/22/2022 - 15:00 -Sat, 10/22/2022 - 16:30

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Learn more about the complete catalogue of LACMA programs for all ages—many free. Discover film screenings, art talks and classes, music, creative fun for kids, wellness activities, and more.

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Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | Mother and a Guest

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 01:20:53 +0200

Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | Mother and a Guest skatt Fri, 09/30/2022 - 16:20

Join us for this screening of Mother and a Guest (Shin Sang-ok, 1961).

Co-presented with GYOPO and the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

Masks are strongly recommended indoors for everyone.

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The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | Mother and a Guest

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Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles | 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

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Sat, 10/15/2022 - 18:00 -Sat, 10/15/2022 - 19:30

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Film stills: The Coachmen, Kang Dae-jin, 1961; Mother and a Guest, Shin Sang-ok, 1961; The Housemaid, Kim Ki-young, 1960; and Aimless Bullet, Yu Hyun-mok, 1960, courtesy of the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles

Learn more about the complete catalogue of LACMA programs for all ages—many free. Discover film screenings, art talks and classes, music, creative fun for kids, wellness activities, and more.

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Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | The Coachmen

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:55:18 +0200

Film Screening—The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | The Coachmen skatt Fri, 09/30/2022 - 15:55

Join us for this screening of The Coachmen (Kang Dae-jin, 1961)

Co-presented with GYOPO and the Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

Masks are strongly recommended indoors for everyone.

Short Title

The Space Between: Korea’s Golden Age of Cinema | The Coachmen

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Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles | 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

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Learn more about the complete catalogue of LACMA programs for all ages—many free. Discover film screenings, art talks and classes, music, creative fun for kids, wellness activities, and more.

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Free, RSVP required

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Museums Can Use Deaccessioning Funds for Collection Care, AAMD Says

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 23:41:09 +0200

Museums will be able to apply funds from the sale of deaccessioned art toward the “direct care” of their collections, according to a new policy shift announced today by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). Previously, the AAMD restricted the use of those funds to the acquisition of works of art only.

This new update to the AAMD’s Professional Practices in Art Museums helps bring the association’s policy in line with the American Alliance of Museum’s (AAM), which has for years permitted its membership to use the proceeds from sales of deaccessioned objects for purposes of both acquiring new objects and caring for existing ones in its collections. But while the AAM’s policy does not define what constitutes legitimate “direct care” spending, the AAMD’s new rule does, referring to costs accrued from the storage and preservation of artworks. As examples, the AAMD cites conservation and restoration efforts and even the purchase of materials like frames, mat boards, and acid-free paper for storage. Exempted from “direct care” are salaries for staff and costs associated with organizing temporary exhibitions.

Some arts professionals welcome the shift. “Collections care is a constant need within museums, particularly as acquisitions continue to expand the scale and complexity of their holdings,” Laura Raicovich, the former president and executive director of the Queens Museum, told Hyperallergic. “This change facilitates care for existing collections, which is an important aspect of museum stewardship.”

Lisa Fischman, director of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, applauded the AAMD for offering clarification on the definition of “direct care” but raised further questions. “Given the cultural and financial power of the institutions represented on the Task Force — and via AAMD membership generally — conversations around any ‘philosophical shift’ in the field could surely be more inclusive,” Fischman told Hyperallergic. “It might be the perfect moment, even, to invite diverse leadership into such a group of ‘important collegial institutions.'”

Discussions ahead of today’s change began as early as 2019, with formal work on officially changing AAMD’s policies beginning nine months ago with the formation of a task force of 18 members including Christopher Bedford, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art; and Julián Zugazagoitia, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and president of AAMD. Rod Bigelow of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art led the task force.

In April 2020, the AAMD approved a series of resolutions that temporarily removed certain restrictions on how museums could spend their funds. In particular, it allowed museums to deaccession works and use proceeds from those sales on operating expenses and other purposes beyond the mere acquisition of new work, pausing its sanctions on members who do not comply.

Rules around deaccessioning have long been controversial, with some holding that museum collections should not be treated as liquid assets to weather difficult times. In 2020, the Baltimore Museum of Art halted the auction of three paintings just hours before the sale following weeks of pushback from critics and members of the local arts community. The estimated $65 million from the sale was earmarked for staff salaries, equity programs, and new acquisitions of works by diverse artists.

In a statement, Zugazagoitia acknowledged that AAMD’s members sought “more flexibility” and that AAMD’s policy “was no longer in sync” with those of other organizations, like the AAM. “This focused change addresses changes requested by members, ensures our approach is consistent with norms across the museum field, and provides crucial guidance to members on how to implement a ‘direct care’ standard should their institutions choose to do so,” he said.

Collector Who Says He Burned Frida Kahlo Work for NFT Under Investigation

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 23:29:25 +0200

In late July, crypto-businessman Martín Mobarak hosted a gaudy event at his Miami home — complete with flame throwers and posing models — during which he burned an allegedly authentic Frida Kahlo drawing into a martini glass while a mariachi band played in the background. He then announced his plans to sell the work in the form of 10,000 NFTs. Now, Mexico’s chief cultural authority, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL), is investigating the incident.

In a statement shared with Hyperallergic, INBAL suggested that Mobarak may have broken federal law in destroying the work. The organization also stated that the collector did not seek the required permission to replicate the drawing, and questioned its authenticity.

In the video of the stunt, Mobarak is handed a black bag ostensibly containing Frida Kahlo’s 1944 “Fantasmones Siniestros,” a drawing on a double-sided page from one of the artist’s diaries. Mobarak unscrews the work from its frame, places it in a martini glass, and burns it, the ash falling onto dry ice. The camera pans away from the onlookers as a crowd cheers.

“History was made,” Mobarak said in a statement emailed to Hyperallergic. “I made this profound act for children and the less fortunate around the world to receive hope,” he added, explaining that his 11-year-old daughter has Crouzon syndrome. The project’s website, where Mobarak is selling the digital tokens for 3 ETH (around $1,350 for each NFT, and $13.5 million if he sells them all), explains that “a portion of the proceeds” will support the Autism Society, the Children’s Craniofacial Association, the Fundación Origen (an organization that helps women who have experienced violence), and Mexico City’s Frida Kahlo Museum and Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas.

Mobarak also pledged proceeds toward the Palacio de Bellas Artes, which INBAL stated that it has not and will not accept. INBAL also stated that, if the work is real, Mobarak’s action went against federal law: Frida Kahlo’s oeuvre has been designated a “national monument” since 1984 and its destruction is therefore illegal. Additionally, the Bank of Mexico, as trustee of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo estate, owns the reproduction rights to Kahlo’s work, but according to INBAL, Mobarak did not secure permission to reproduce the drawing.

When asked whether he sought permission to create NFTs of “Fantasmones Siniestros,” Mobarak simply stated, “I own the painting … By burning it, I am immortalizing [it.]” A statement on the project’s website similarly avoids acknowledging that the work was destroyed, cryptically declaring that it was “permanently transitioned into the Metaverse on July 30th, 2022.”

Mobarak with the alleged Kahlo drawing

James Oles, a professor and curator of Latin American art at Wellesley College near Boston, told Hyperallergic in an interview that Mexico’s enforcement of both copyright infringement and laws protecting the destruction of national monuments is limited, and that he doubted US authorities would intervene.

Whether the drawing is really by the hand of Kahlo is also under investigation by INBAL. Mobarak claims that he purchased the work in 2015 from a private collector. On the day he burned it, Mobarak attained an authentication certificate from a small gallery owner in Mexico City named Andrés Siegel. The certificate lists the drawing’s exhibition history, claiming that it was shown at institutions including Atlanta’s High Museum and the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City. (The High Museum confirmed in an email to Hyperallergic that it displayed the work in 2013, and the Nelson Atkins Museum said that it received the work in the same year as part of a traveling exhibition but did not hang it.)

James Oles told Hyperallergic that “no one could tell from the video” whether the drawing was real or not.

Mary-Anne Martin, an established dealer who sold the drawing in 2004 and again in 2013, told VICE that she had never heard of Mobarak and called the situation “creepy.” Martin has not responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.

Oles explained that the proliferation of fakes plagues Kahlo’s legacy. He added that although he cannot say for certain, when he watched the video of the drawing engulfed in flames, he thought the paper looked too crisp to have been 80 years old.

Oles also pointed out that if Mobarak does in fact own the original but burned a fake — and even if he succeeds in making millions from the NFTs — the value of the original would be unaffected.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Oles said. “The only proof would be finding the real thing one day. Or there’s no proof.”

Plein air event in Lehigh Valley offers free Vasari oil paint

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 22:43:31 +0200

From now until October 15, 2022, there is a plein air painting event in Easton, PA co-sponsored by the Karl Stirner Arts Trail and Vasari Classic Artist’s Oil Colors, makers of what is arguably the finest handcrafted oil paint available.

This is a fledgling event, so participants have an opportunity to get in on something fun in its early stages. The event is very informal, registration is not required; just show up and paint anywhere in Easton.

The event is centered on the Karl Stirner Arts Trail, a trail along the Bushkill Creek that is lined with sculpture. I’ve included some photos of the trail above, along with a shot of the paints laid out in the Vasari showroom.

Probably the best thing about this event is that you can stop by the Vasari workshop and showroom (in the Simon Silk Mill complex off of N. 13th Street) and stock your palette for free with any of Vasari’s extensive selection of oil colors!

If you like, you can leave your finished paintings at the Vasari showroom to be displayed during October, also making them eligible for prizes. (You may want to consider taking a frame wired for hanging.)

Vasari is also providing prizes for the event in the form of sets of their oil colors. Judging and the awarding of prizes will be on Saturday, October 15th at 5:00pm.

A friend and I went up earlier this week, had a great time and are planning to go up again next Saturday. I use Vasari paint regularly, but I had a great time trying out a variety of colors I might not have wanted to get a whole tube of just to try, and discovering new colors I love.

The Vasari workshop and showroom, for which there is ample free parking, faces one of the entrances to the Karl Stirner Arts Trail. The trail itself has a separate parking area nearby, though it’s fairly small.

Easton is about an hour and a half from the Philadelphia area, and (depending on time of day and traffic) a fairly easy drive up the turnpike.

(Navigation note: Driving directions from Google Maps or Waze may indicate you’re at their address a little too early; keep going to the parking area at the end of Simon Blvd and turn left. Google map)

More info here.

[Disclaimer: in my role as a website designer, Vasari is a client of mine; but those who know me personally and long time Lines and Colors readers know that I don’t recommend products in which I don’t personally believe.]

Your Concise Los Angeles Art Guide for October 2022

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 22:18:09 +0200

October will have us looking back and forward simultaneously in Los Angeles, with historical shows alongside new bodies of work from contemporary artists. These start 1,000 years back with the Maya Codex of Mexico (Códice Maya de México) at the Getty, then jump to the 20th century with exhibitions devoted to the “Mama of Dada” Beatrice Wood at LA Louver, and a homage to the late transgressive performance artist Bob Flanagan at Kristina Kite. At Shulamit Nazarian, Trenton Doyle Hancock reveals the latest chapter of his ongoing, idiosyncratic saga, while new hand-crocheted sculptures by Luis Flores are on view at Craft Contemporary.

***

Left: Sarah Pucci, “Beautiful Memories” (c. 1970), beads, sequins, pins, foam, medallion, 4 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches; right: Dorothy Iannone, “Undulations” (1962), framed collage, handmade Japanese paper and gold leaf on paper, framed dimensions: 18 7/8 x 15 3/4 inches (photos by Paul Salveson, images courtesy the artist and Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles)

Sarah Pucci and Dorthy Iannone

Dorothy Iannone was born in Boston but has spent much of her peripatetic career in Europe, living in Iceland, Switzerland, London, and Berlin. Beginning in 1959 and continuing for over three decades, Iannone’s mother, Sarah Pucci, would send her daughter small sculptures she crafted from beads, sequins, and foam — homespun baroque assemblages to keep her company on her travels. This show at Hannah Hoffman pairs 15 sculptures by Pucci with 4 collages that Iannone made on a 1962 trip to Japan, and a 1980 video about her mother, drawing connections between the formal and familial.

Hannah Hoffman Gallery (hannahhoffman.la)
2504 West 7th Street, Suite C, Westlake, Los Angeles
Through October 15

Beatrice Wood, “Thank God for Television” (1958), glazed earthenware and Indian jewelry, 15 x 10 3/4 inches (courtesy L.A. Louver)

Beatrice Wood: Drawings, Prints, Ceramics

Beatrice Wood was an actress and artist whose long creative career stretched from the avant-garde circles of New York between the Wars, to the bohemian enclave of Ojai, where she moved in 1948 and died 50 years later at the age of 105. Known as the “Mama of Dada” for her lifelong friendship with Marcel Duchamp, Wood’s own work encompassed early Dada and Art Deco-style drawings and prints, as well as ceramics, which she devoted herself to for the second half of her life. Drawing on the collection of Francis M. Naumann, a scholar and friend of Wood’s, this exhibition covers the years 1917–1996, capturing the breadth of her idiosyncratic oeuvre.

L.A. Louver (lalouver.com)
45 North Venice Boulevard, Venice, California
Through October 29

Lily van der Stokker, “How About This” (1996–2022), acrylic paint on wall, Dimensions variable (photo by Paul Salveson, courtesy Parker Gallery, Los Angeles)

Lily van der Stokker: What is it

Lily van der Stokker’s wall drawings toe the line between hard-edge formalism and soft, playful abstraction. Since the 1980s, she has been exploring organic forms, bright colors, and text fragments in works that keep one guessing. She revisits and remakes several of her drawings originally created in the 1990s in What Is it, rebuffing the works’ apparent spontaneity with years of research and revision.

Parker Gallery (parkergallery.com)
2441 Glendower Avenue, Los Feliz, Los Angeles
Through October 29

Trenton Doyle Hancock, “Let’s Try the Yellow Triangle Angle or The Return of Piss Christ” (2022), acrylic, graphite, paper and canvas collage, plastic bottle caps on canvas, 48 x 48 inches, (photo by Ed Mumford, courtesy the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles)

Trenton Doyle Hancock: Good Grief, Bad Grief

Pulling from autobiography, comic books, art history, religion, and other disparate sources of high and low culture, Trenton Doyle Hancock has been building an expansive universe over the past twenty-five years. Good Grief, Bad Grief features characters central to his mythology — Torpedo Boy, Hancock, and the malevolent Vegans. Engaging and enigmatic, Hancock’s layered works invite us to confront the tangled intersection of identity, race, and art.

Shulamit Nazarian (Shulamitnazarian.com)
616 North La Brea Avenue, Fairfax, Los Angeles
Through October 29

Installation view of Flanagan’s Wake, curated by Sabrina Tarasoff, at Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles (photo by Brica Wilcox, courtesy Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles)

Flanagan’s Wake

Transgressive performance artist Bob Flanagan explored the charged nexus of pain and pleasure with his partner and collaborator Sheree Rose. Flanagan, who succumbed to cystic fibrosis at 43, was an active member of the BDSM community and incorporated both illness and fetish into his artwork, free of shame and stigma. Curated by Sabrina Tarasoff, Flanagan’s Wake features his contemporaries and kindred spirits who similarly celebrate the abject and rejected, including Nayland Blake, Mike Kelley, Monica Majoli, and Robert Gober.

Kristina Kite (kristinakitegallery.la)
3400 West Washington Boulevard, Mid City, Los Angeles
Through November 5

April Bey, “Your Failure is Not a Victory for Me” (2022), and “Enjoyment” (2020), from the Colonial Swag series, in the ArtCenter exhibition Cantos of the Sibylline Sisterhood (© ArtCenter College of Design/Ruben Diaz)

Cantos of the Sibylline Sisterhood

In Ancient Greece, women who were believed to have prophetic powers were known as sibyls. Cantos of the Sibylline Sisterhood features 10 artists who tap into that oracular gift, laying bare truths about the future, past, and present. This is evident in April Bey’s blinged-out Afro-futurism, Marnie Weber’s witchy collages, and Molly Surazhsky’s post-Soviet textile works.

ArtCenter College of Design (artcenter.edu)
Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, 1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, California
Through November 23

Luis Flores, “Monster Truck” (2022), yarn, bronze, ABS, EPS (© Luis Flores 2022; photo by Ed Mumford, courtesy the artist and Matthew Brown)

Luis Flores: Because of You, In Spite of You

With material virtuosity and subversive humor, Luis Flores’s hand-crocheted sculptures challenge assumptions about fine art, craft, and stereotypes of masculinity. He often focuses on his own body, crocheting eerily lifelike, full-size stand-ins that practice amateur wrestling moves or flex with puffed-up bravado. In Because of You, In Spite of You, Flores reflects on his own life as a young father, staging a Monster Truck rally out of yarn and bronze epitomizing the glee and panic of early parenthood.

Craft Contemporary (craftcontemporary.org)
5814 Wilshire Boulevard, Miracle Mile, Los Angeles
October 2–January 8

Spiraling by Brittany Pratt; Mixed Media; weaving in the round in a copper frame

Diverse works in different mediums are the feature of Open Exhibits at The Art League. This month’s exhibit features 103 artworks in oil, acrylic, watercolor, ceramic, photography, printmaking and more. It was juried by painter Aaron Morgan Brown. The September 2022 Open Exhibit is on view through October 2.

Impact: Reflections of 9/11 by George Robert Overhiser Jr.

After escaping from the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, painter George Robert Overhiser Jr. witnessed the carnage as he stood before a vendor’s cart three and a half blocks away. Overhiser expresses the mayhem of that tragic day in Impact: Reflections of 9/11, an exhibit of 20 pieces that include stylized gouache on canvas; oil paints on the faceted stainless steel from which vendor carts are made; gouache-painted canvas applied to the diamonds pattern on the carts; and curved stainless steel, oil-painted with mixed media mobiles.

Modern Illuminations – Knowledge and Power

Knowledge is Power by Rosemarie Forsythe

Rosemarie Forsythe’s intricately detailed paintings depicting symbols of knowledge, strength, hope and resilience comprise Modern Illuminations – Knowledge and Power, at Reston Art Gallery and Studios. Inspired by illuminated manuscripts of the 15th – 17th centuries, the modern twist in Forsythe’s paintings is the inclusion of math and physics equations. Many pieces also include horses, which she considers “wonderful symbols of power and resilience.” Modern Illuminations – Knowledge and Power is on view Saturday, October 1 – 30. Meet Forsythe during the show’s opening weekend, Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and 2, from 12:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m.; 11400 Washington Plaza West, Reston, VA.

Christina Haslinger and Jeremy Wright: Shadows

Painting by Christina Haslinger

A double feature in art opens this weekend at Montpelier Arts Center: Christina Haslinger creates abstract paintings that are inspired by color, texture, and space found in nature. Using a mixture of watercolor, water mediums, and acrylic mediums, she plays with light and transparency through layers and textures. Her paintings, on view through October 30, exude energy through brush strokes and splatters of paint.

Water Kachina by Jeremy Wright

In Shadows, Jeremy Wright entices you to explore the world of the kachina. You will be invited into a “Square Ground” surrounded by clay figures. Looking at the large dolls, they are more than just their physical form. Each one will be casting a shadow that paints the true spirit of the kachina. Shadows is on view through October 16.

Meet both artists Saturday, October 1 from 2 – 4 p.m., during a reception at Montpelier Arts Center, 9652 Muirkirk Road, Laurel, MD.

Memory is a Funny Thing

Breakfast, San Francisco 1962 – 22” x 18” – Oil on linen

Says painter Sheila Blake, “I’ve begun to paint my memoir. I invited the spirits of my former life and trusted that I would have a chance of touching on what Wallace Stevens called the essential poem at the center of things.” In Memory is a Funny Thing at Foundry Gallery, Blake contemplates childhood and family in a series of paintings inspired by old family snapshots. It is on view through October 30. Meet Blake at an opening reception Saturday, October 1, from 4 – 7:30 p.m.; 2118 8th Street, NW.

One Life: Maya Lin

Maya Lin working on Civil Rights Memorial, 1989. Courtesy of Adam Stoltman

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery presents One Life: Maya Lin, the first biographical exhibition dedicated to the architect, sculptor, environmentalist, and designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Tracing Lin’s life from childhood to the present, this latest edition of the museum’s “One Life” series highlights the development of the artist’s approaches and processes through a variety of three-dimensional models, sculptures, sketchbooks and photographs. The exhibition brings together a carefully selected assortment of Lin’s family photographs and personal ephemera to offer additional insight into Lin’s remarkable career. It is on view through April 16, 2023; 8th and G Streets, NW.

Enjoy the weekend and stay dry!

Sunlight Illuminates a Full Spectrum of Color As It Filters Through Hummingbird Wings in a New Photo Book

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 20:37:42 +0200

“Opal Wings.” All images © Christian Spencer, shared with permission

Poetry in the Sky is a fitting title for a book of the elegant images of Australian photographer Christian Spencer. Slated for release next month, the volume gathers approximately two decades’ worth birds Spencer encountered during visits to the Brazilian Amazon, including macaws, emus, and the species he’s perhaps most notable for documenting: the hummingbird.

Taken when the creatures are mid-flight and beating their wings at incredible speeds, Spencer’s striking photos capture sunlight as it filters through their feathers, emitting a full spectrum of color. The opalescent phenomenon is caused by diffraction and transforms their limbs into tiny, ephemeral rainbows.

Poetry in the Sky contains several photos of the prismatic birds—many of which we’ve featured previously on Colossal—in addition to dozens of additional images of avian life. Pre-order a copy from Bookshop, pick up a print, and find more of Spencer’s work on Instagram.

“Stardust”

“Sundance”

“Hummingbird Rain”

“Holy Water”

“3 Amigos”

Has ari hicks got the golden touch?

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 19:00:00 +0200

Toronto Native ari hicks has, in a relatively short span of time, become a pop luminary on the …

De-Polarise by Liliana Osorio

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 17:00:00 +0200

Introducing De-Polarise by Liliana Osorio. A photographer and Master in Fashion Photography currently residing in Madrid. “I grew …

Aerial Photos Highlight the Rugged, Textured Topographies of the American Badlands

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 16:11:39 +0200

All images © Tobias Hägg, shared with permission

Awash in pale blue light or the glimmers of dusk and dawn, the dry, eroded terrains of the American West appear as otherworldly vistas in the works of Stockholm-based photographer Tobias Hägg (previously). Captured in spring of this year, the aerial images peer down on or out across the vast, rugged landscapes known as badlands. These regions are replete with geological formations and terrain diversity, and Hägg spotlights such shifts in elevation and soil by documenting the rippling, ravine crevices and buttes that overlook the area. Light and shadow dramatize the images and accentuate the textures and depth of the extraordinarily craggy topographies.

Prints of Hägg’s images are available in his shop, and you can find more from photographer, including new a forthcoming book comprising a decade’s worth of work, on Behance and Instagram.

New York Reawakens by Rita Sabler (Kickstarter)

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:07:19 +0200

Reportage artist and urban sketcher Rita Sabler has put up her New York sketchbook on Kickstarter.

New York Reawakens is a 74-page A4-sized hardcover artbook that collects sketches she has made as NYC is coming out of Covid lockdowns and restrictions. Price of the book is from US $35 (early bird) onwards and includes global shipping. Check out more details and pictures at http://kck.st/3y5S6fj

The fund raising campaign will end on 17 Oct 2022.

Exclusive Mixtape: AmyElle

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:00:00 +0200

Hotly tipped by BBC Radio 1, Mixmag, DJ Mag, Spotify (as the first DJ and female DJ to …

Artist Showcase, Fall 2022

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 13:00:06 +0200

Enjoy this showcase featuring the work of twenty-four talented artists. Click on each artist’s name to learn more about them.

“Please Love Me” ceramic clay and acrylic paint, 17cm x 20cm by artist Marianne Castle

Marianne Castle

I am inspired by my deep love of animals to recreate them as ceramic sculptures. My aim is to evoke the emotions and feelings of the person holding one of my sculptures.

“The old barn in the beauty” oil impasto painting on canvas, 14″ x 11″ by artist Gladys Waters

Gladys Waters

I wanted to transmit the serenity, calm and the beautiful feeling of this scene. Every brush stroke flowed, full of color and love. It was such an enjoyable piece to paint.

“Elephant Running Free” (Feeling of the Wild Series) acrylic on loose canvas, 24″ x 36″ by artist Ramona Marquez-Ramraj

Ramona Marquez-Ramraj

I create colorful and misty expressionist acrylic pieces inspired by my South African background. This series, Feeling of the Wild, includes “Elephant Running Free,” a reminder about the danger of animal extinction.

“the puzzled duck, when then only…only then” mixed media, 200cm x 200cm by artist Don Antart

Don Antart

I create a complex, surrealistic, narrative artwork through the act of writing phrases and letters on the canvas which then become forms. In this painting, the message “when? Then only, only then” is written multiple times.

“Downdraft” acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 24″ x 1.5″ by artist Sharon Dunlap

Sharon Dunlap

Rich vibrant colors capture the attention in this abstract, while motion is suggested through the use of stalactite and stalagmite shapes. Many of my artworks are inspired by earth science.

“Boketto #11″ oil on canvas, 20″ x 20” by artist Suzanne Frazier

Suzanne Frazier

Boketto, a Japanese word for “staring vacantly into the distance without thinking,” reflects my meditation process and my perspective as a contemplative artist. Check out interviews on the “Suzanne Frazier – Contemplative Art” YouTube Page.

“Here’s to Good Times” acrylic on canvas, 16″ x 20″ by artist Maureen P. Tracey

Maureen P. Tracey

Tropically inspired, my paintings show feelings, colours, and themes in art you will want to live with anywhere in the world. Art to make your environment happy and even more meaningful to enjoy.

“Unwavering Hope” digital art, various sizes by artist Eugene Green

Eugene Green

I came across a gesture that felt like I could tell multiple stories in one pose.

“Sands of Time” oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″ by artist Mary Begley

Mary Begley

An entity surrounded by its environment is a universal concept, whether it is from reality or the subconscious. I create naturalistic atmospheres and tell stories about human existence. I call these paintings Abstract Tableaux.

“Do You See Me?” oil on wood, 110cm x 80cm by artist Sahar Hasan Al-louthai

Sahar Hasan Al-louthai

This extraordinary artwork by Sahar Hasan depicts the suffering of children who are experiencing tough lives due to wars, displacement, violence, racism, marginalization and malnutrition. Look at them and listen to their pain.

“Split Rock Falls” oil on linen panel, 18″ x 24″ by artist John J. Abisch

John J. Abisch

What inspired me to paint this scene was the movement of light and water set in the rocks and surrounding forest. The contrast of values and textures calls for our attention and contemplation.

“Storm of Wonder” acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 20″ x 1.5″ by artist Hollie Ross

Hollie Ross

I enjoy incorporating lots of colors and textures into my paintings. I take my inspiration from nature and my surroundings as well as the different cultures and forms of art I experienced during extensive travels.

“Sunflowers” oil on canvas, 24″ x 24″ x 1.5″ by artist Sandra Deacon

Sandra Deacon

A gestural and color response to New Mexico sunflowers. This painting sprang to life after several detailed, realistic studies of various sunflowers.

“Peaceful Contrasts” acrylic on canvas, 80cm x 40cm by artist Lilli Kirschmann

Lilli Kirschmann

I deal with the definition of colors and their meaning for humans. I express this through vivid landscapes and flowers as shown here in “Peaceful Contrasts” with complementary colors and clear versus wild shapes.

“Garden Outburst” acrylic paint on canvas, 40cm x 40cm by artist Tim Hupkes

Tim Hupkes

My work is basically dictated by my subconscious. I get into the flow and allow things to happen. Usually, I just get a need to start painting—the rest happens as “on its own.”

“Dinner for Two” watercolor, 10″ x 8″ by artist Carl McKinley

Carl McKinley

I have always loved nature, birds and animals. Watercolor is my choice for all these subjects. Thanks for viewing “Dinner for Two.”

“Botanical Portrait: Daisies Abstracted” multimedia photography, various sizes by artist Tanna Giroux

Tanna Giroux

The fusion of digital photographic engineering with classical artistic design has developed into an artistic genre I like to call Multimedia Photography. It provides creative expression using abstract impressionism to present botanical portraits and surreal imagery.

Aleksei Bordusov aka Aec Interesni Kazki is a Ukrainian street artist whose surrealistic works grace walls across the globe. His bright, intriguing murals – inspired by science, religion, mythology, cosmology, myths and times past – are filled with color, and often accompanied by black and white drawings of his own. Aec’s highly detailed pieces appear like they come from a fairy tale populated by colorful imaginary creatures that often seem to be in motion.

Mural ” ‘1922-2022 ” is dedicated to Margherita Hack – an Italian astrophysicist and scientific disseminator.

Idea of the work was to step aside from representation of her personality in a portret way, but to assemble images of her life and science interests and topics of scientific research of her, in a way Aec see it through his artistic vision.

Take a look at more images below and check back with us soon for more updates.

THE POWER OF AESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE TO TRANSFORM BUSINESSES

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 06:26:45 +0200

Pauline Brown, renowned expert on luxury branding and founder of Aesthetic Intelligence Labs, discusses the definition of aesthetic intelligence and how it can drive business interests.

From a Reader – Creating Art Sales by Promoting Your Work to Your Network of Acquaintances

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 05:15:09 +0200

I’ve often written that selling artwork is all about building relationships with potential buyers. There’s another side to this, however, in that people with whom you already have a relationship...

The post From a Reader – Creating Art Sales by Promoting Your Work to Your Network of Acquaintances appeared first on RedDotBlog.

Your Concise New York Art Guide for October 2022

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 00:40:57 +0200

How can it possibly be October already? Soon enough, we’ll be setting the clocks back once again, which increasingly feels like an effort to recover lost time. For lifelong goths such as myself, however, this season is all about the city’s many thrills and chills, and of course the casual reminders of our own mortality. Our monthly highlights include topographical studies of battlegrounds and cemeteries, ghosts of Manhattan’s geological past, and the terrors of theocratic rule. Happy Halloween, my friends!

***

Nafas

Jude Griebel, “Procession” (2020) (courtesy Invisible Dog Art Center)

When: through October 15
Where: Invisible Dog Art Center (51 Bergen Street, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn)

A group exhibition and festival dedicated to cooking examines the effects of colonialism and industrialism on global cuisine. Taken from the Arabic word for spirit, which according to resident artist Reem Kassis carries a dual context in cooking, Nafas brings together mixed media by more than 30 contemporary artists. Displayed across the main gallery of Invisible Dog, these works are less of a smorgasbord and more a vivid tableau of cultural resistance. Jude Griebel’s factory farming sculptures, Chang Ya Chin’s paintings of personified dumplings, and Khaled Hourani’s Palestinian watermelon are just a few of the offerings at this table.

Tiffany Chung: Terra Rouge & Archaeology for Future Remembrance

Installation view of Tiffany Chung, Archaeology for Future Remembrance (photo by Adam Reich)

When: through October 22
Where: Davidson Gallery (521 West 26th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Across two floors of Davidson’s 26th Street location, Vietnamese artist Tiffany Chung questions whether displacement is a historical inevitability. The maps and drawings in Archaeology of Future Remembrance, displayed around windows that look out to the Manhattan skyline, explore how US colonialism directly influenced present redevelopment in her hometown of Ho Chi Minh City. Beneath this, the colorful paintings in Terra Rouge hearken to ancient earthworks excavated from a site where both 19th-century French colonialists planted their first rubber trees and the People’s Army of Vietnam launched its 1972 Easter Offensive against the US military. Together, these bodies of work posit that no state structure has an intrinsic right to any land and that colonialism embeds itself deep into culture long after its departure.

Athena LaTocha: The Remains of Winter

Athena LaTocha, “Remains of Winter (Battle Hill, East)” (2022) (courtesy the artist)

When: through December 23
Where: Green-Wood Cemetery (500 25th Street, South Slope, Brooklyn)

Lakota-Ojibwe artist Athena LaTocha is exhuming what lies beneath the Brooklyn cemetery’s surface in her latest installations, which are displayed atop Battle Hill and in Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel. The Remains of Winter may seem like a bizarre name choice for early autumn, but it actually refers to the remnants of prehistoric glaciers that became these lands. LaTocha composed her shapely sculptures with layers of paper, lead, and steel to resemble earthen developments over millennia. A study of shifting terrains beneath our feet, LaTocha makes this place of eternal rest feel like a small blip in the land’s greater history.

INDECENCIA

Sill from Paula Court, “Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst Is Your Waffen” (1994) (courtesy Leslie-Lohman Museum)

When: through January 8, 2023
Where: Leslie-Lohman Museum (26 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan)

It doesn’t seem controversial to say that American notions of “decency” have caused more harm than good, particularly the invasion of privacy in queer spaces. INDECENCIA goes tit for tat with this paradigm, looking to late theorist Marcella Althaus-Reid’s notion of “lifting the skirts of God” to show the real roots of “indecency.” Contemporary Latinx artists such as Marga Gomez, Arantxa Araujo, and Elizabeth “MACHA” Marrero turn symbols of religious purity into signs of cultural depravity, exposing the naked corruption of theocratic rule.

Enrico Riley: Stand

Installation view of Enrico Riley, Stand (courtesy Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York and San Francisco)

When: through October 29
Where: Jenkins Johnson Gallery (207 Ocean Avenue, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn)

On the surface, Enrico Riley’s radiant paintings of Black and Brown dancers exude joy and freedom. Looking deeper, though, these monochromatic compositions, which curator Connie H. Choi describes as “deceptively simple,” seem to exist in an in-between space straddling figuration, abstraction, agency, and entrapment. In subtle critiques of the Western canon, Riley positions his subjects in positions of fluidity and fugitivity — their featureless faces and coordinated body language speak for generations of enslaved, indentured, and segregated lives yearning for the simple joy of self-expression.

Siren (some poetics)

Bia Davou, untitled work (c. 1980s) (courtesy Radio Athènes and Melas Martinos, Athens)

When: through March 5, 2023
Where: Amant (315 Maujer Street, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

For Amant’s latest group exhibition, guest curator Quinn Latimer sounds a metaphorical alarm. Everything we know about meaning, symbolism, and aesthetics, she claims, is but a portion of an ongoing creative process. To that end, she posits that the “siren,” a female-coded symbol that has shifted significance over centuries, calls us to move past well-worn binaries and borders. From Nour Mobarak’s “Fugue” sculptures to Jenna Sutela’s visual “poetry,” the exhibition commences the decontextualization process.

Xaviera Simmons : Crisis Makes a Book Club, Charisse Pearlina Weston: of [a] tomorrow: lighter than air, stronger than whiskey, cheaper than dust

Nick Cave, “Penny Catcher” (2009), mixed media including vintage coin toss, suit, shoes, and aluminum cans, 74 × 23 × 14 in. Collection of Margo & Robert Roth (photo Debra Brehmer/Hyperallergic)

Kapwani Kiwanga Uses Daylight to Expose Racial Surveillance

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 00:15:00 +0200

It’s almost uncanny to see a museum with its lights turned off. When the dazzle of the lights goes, so does the sense of spectacle: it is as if we are no longer meant to look at the art. But on the fourth floor of the New Museum, the Canadian-born, Paris-based artist Kapwani Kiwanga invites viewers to look with only the quiet glow of natural light seeping in through the skylights. In so doing, she illuminates a nuanced way of seeing race.

Titled Off-Grid, Kiwanga’s exhibition is comprised of two monumental sculptures that offer complementary critiques of sight and visibility. The installation is based on years of the artist’s own research on the politics of light, visibility, and race. While calls to resist the racist mechanisms that erase and make invisible Blackness remain pressing, Kiwanga points to the perniciousness of being seen by connecting “lantern laws,” 18th-century statutes requiring enslaved people to carry lanterns after dark when unaccompanied by a White person, and floodlights used in contemporary police surveillance.

Installation view of Kapwani Kiwanga: Off-Grid at The New Museum. Pictured: “Cloak” (2022)

“Cloak” (2022) is a towering sculpture composed of two intersecting parts, both of which are fashioned from aluminum once used to make police floodlights. Kiwanga has seemingly emptied the floodlights of their power, having subjected them to a series of painstaking transformations: melting the aluminum down, shaping it into wires, loading it into a spray gun, and spray painting it onto steel. Though the floodlights are rendered unrecognizable by the artist’s alchemy, their task of surveillance continues to loom large. One of the sculpture’s two parts consists of a beaded partition, a device that simultaneously conceals and reveals what’s on the other side; any effort to hide behind it only heightens a person’s awareness of their partial visibility. The sense of being watched is redoubled by the other part of the sculpture, where a zigzagging pattern of mirrors coaxes you to confront your own reflection. Though the sculpture is titled “Cloak,” nothing can hide underneath it.

On the opposite side of the room, “Maya Bantu” (2019) beckons with the possibility of opacity, a welcome retort to the cool transparency of “Cloak.” The labyrinthine sculpture is made from sisal fiber, a plant Kiwanga began to research after she was introduced to it at plantations in Tanzania. Sisal is indigenous to Mexico, but German colonizers brought it to Tanzania in the 19th century. Despite the insidious histories that underlay the material, “Maya Bantu” feels like an embrace, a shroud that protects against an intrusive gaze. In the dense folds of its wooly and light absorbent-texture, secrecy seems possible.

The exhibition’s title, Off-Grid, can be interpreted in multiple overlapping ways. It hints at the absence of electric illumination. It also alludes to the artist’s practice of removing materials from the power structures — both physical and political — that they usually require to function. But most of all, Kiwanga’s exhibition reflects a yearning for a way of being that is off the grid: a fugitive life where people — in particular those of us who are racially othered — can slip beneath the glaring gaze of authority.

Installation view of Kapwani Kiwanga: Off-Grid at The New Museum. Pictured in foreground: “Maya Bantu” (2019)

Kapwani Kiwanga: Off-Grid continues at the New Museum (235 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through October 16. The exhibition was curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director at the New Museum, and Madeline Weisburg, curatorial assistant.

Required Reading

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:38:13 +0200

Jean-Luc Godard was into anti-imperialist cinema, according to Patrick Higgins, who pens an essay in Ebb magazine. He writes:

There remains in my view much to love about the French New Wave, but Godard’s association with it does little to clarify the direction his films later took. Other New Wave filmmakers weren’t nearly as wide-ranging in their interests. During a recent screening of Eric Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse, I was struck by the hermetism of the film’s characters, their cushioned seclusion in the countryside and the limitation of their field of concern to only themselves and each other. I adore Francois Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses, but its references to the Paris upheavals of 1968 serve as little more than atmospheric support for the hapless Antoine Doinel’s stumbling and whimsical misadventures with women. In the years those films were released, 1967 and 1968, Godard was becoming increasingly intoxicated by revolution, until he was eventually compelled to lead a protest against the 1968 Cannes Film Festival in solidarity with the general strike in Paris. “We’re talking solidarity with students and workers,” Godard barked. “You’re talking dolly shots and close-ups; you’re assholes.”

Gregory Sholette writes about Documenta 15 and “bad” curating for Art Agenda:

Documenta 15 has its own historical repetitions to deal with. Germany’s twentieth-century war crimes and genocide hovered over the show from the start, prompting nearly daily flagellations in the press over allegations of antisemitism. Certainly, there are outstanding issues to be addressed with Documenta 15, especially regarding several decades-old, pernicious caricatures, two of which were removed from view in June. While such images offend, isn’t it the very nature of an archive to be made up of what it actually contains, in order not to devolve into a cherry-picked, or censored, collection of select historical documents? All of this preceded Hito Steyerl’s withdrawal of her artwork in early July, an act that may have been aimed at hastening the necessary conversation. Nevertheless, Steyerl’s vanishing act appears to have had little lasting impact, which is curious given that she is not just one of the only German citizens participating in Documenta 15, but a prominent artist with non-European ancestry. Silence from the mainstream German press also greeted a communique sent from the Brazilian-Jewish cultural center Casa do Povo [The People’s House] on July 20, which stated that while they were not ultimately invited to participate after an initial visit by ruangrupa, they were still involved and supportive of Documenta 15’s “unique, decentralized community of artists, friends.”

There’s a state on the island of Corvo and no one apparently can explain it:

For Inquest, Kay Whitlock writes about the Culture Wars and criminalization and how we should expect more with the erosion of our civil rights:

Within this longer arc, culture wars are not “distractions,” as some people believe, meant to deflect our attention from more serious issues. Rather, they are powerful base-building vehicles for political organizing, fundraising, and media saturation. Culture wars purposefully mark some groups of people and communities as polluting, degenerate, and disposable. Again and again, the profoundly anti-democratic notion of a deserving us and an undeserving, criminal them is distilled into an oppressive worldview and translated into governance. It’s the reason the so-called war on drugs, the war on immigrants, and the war on welfare, to name but a few domestic wars that exploded in the 1980s and ‘90s, have been so effective at growing and maintaining the U.S. carceral state and mindset.

NPR’s All Things Considered explains how a “whiskey-fueled meeting in 1949 led to Berlin’s famed techno scene.” Bobby Allyn writes:

Tired of the East receiving those final-hour dollars, West Berlin moved its curfew one hour later. In response, the East pushed its back another hour. The tit for tat became something of a curfew standoff.
A hotelier named Heinz Zellermayer had enough of it. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and made his case to Brig. Gen. Frank Howley, the commandant over the American sector of West Berlin.
“They need the hours of the night the way we need our dear bread,” Zellermayer is remembered to have said, according to a biography of the family written by his sister, Ilse Eliza Zellermayer.
“Mayhem only comes when the bartender has to say ‘closing time,'” the hotel owner insisted.
Zellermayer said nixing the curfew would be good for the economy and that the freedom of no curfew was an expression of Western values.

It appears even Japanese gangs (yakuzas) are having trouble recruiting new members:

The reasons for falling membership are identical to the problems that other gangs are facing, analysts say. Numbers are shrinking because fewer young people see yakuza as an enviable career path, existing members are aging and earnings are shrinking as a result of a number of legal changes that have given the police far greater powers to bring the gangs under control.
And just as in other parts of Japan’s economy, the businesses traditionally operated by underworld groups across the country — illegal gambling, the sex industry, protection rackets, the drugs trade, loan-sharking and so on — have suffered during the downturn brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

People around East and Southeast Asia are being coerced into cyberscamming, according to a new report by ProPublica written by Cezary Podkul with Cindy Liu:

Fan’s descent into forced labor began, as human trafficking often does, with what seemed like a bona fide opportunity. He had been a prep cook at his sister’s restaurant in China’s Fujian province until it closed, then he delivered meals for an app-based service. In March 2021, Fan was offered a marketing position with what purported to be a well-known food delivery company in Cambodia. The proposed salary, $1,000 a month, was enticing by local standards, and the company offered to fly him in. Fan was so excited that he told his older brother, who already worked in Cambodia, about the opportunity. Fan’s brother quit his job and joined him. By the time they realized the offer was a sham, it was too late. Their new bosses wouldn’t let them leave the compound where they had been put to work.
Unlike the countless people trafficked before them who were forced to perform sex work or labor for commercial shrimping operations, the two brothers ended up in a new occupation for trafficking victims: playing roles in financial scams that have swindled people across the globe, including in the United States.

A very Philadelphia moment:

Woman as a Philadelphia Wawa is being ransacked around her: "Are y'all gonna make the sandwiches or are ya'll just gonna keep recording?"

Wawa employee: "Uh… It's going to be a while" pic.twitter.com/S8SORxfgs7
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) September 25, 2022

No thanks:

imagine farting in these and they fog up pic.twitter.com/a3vnSmZELX
—

We Asked AI to Re-Imagine 5 Blue-Chip Art Exhibitions

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:34:23 +0200

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here and more accessible than ever, and while some are criticizing the material realities of this new technology and its impact on the lives of artists, it does feel somewhat inevitable that AI will be a tool that professionals and novices will be using in the years ahead. Is AI really that different than the innovation brought on by the printing press, photography, or even computers? Rather than thinking of AI as a way to sideline artists, I think it’s more likely that it helps creatives realize their visions with greater ease. Because, sure anyone can take a photo, but that doesn’t mean everyone can take a good photograph.

In contemporary art, art observers have long noticed how artists when they enter the land of blue-chip galleries start churning out increasingly similar and mundane pieces, often turning aesthetic innovations into branded objects for the very wealthy. So, I thought I’d try using press releases from five “blue-chip” (aka really expensive) art galleries in New York City — or at least as much of the press release that the AI system would allow me to input — and see how DALL-E (one of the most popular AI tools nowadays) reimagined the exhibitions using only those words.

So, without further delay, here are the results. The human-made works on are on the left, and DALL-E’s reimagined versions on the right, with some commentary. Is the future already here?

Left, Rick Lowe’s “Victoria Square Project” (2022), and, right, DALL-E’s interpretation of Gagosian gallery’s press release for Lowe’s exhibition (photo on left Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, photo on right by DALL-E)

I have to say, I think AI might win this one, though the DALL-E rendering definitely feels more like a concept drawing rather than a finished work. Lowe’s work has a digital feel to it, so maybe it’s a more natural fit for AI. The original work also has thick textures and patterns on its surface but I imagine texture is something AI will only get better at rendering.

Thomas Ruff: d.o.pe. at David Zwirner gallery (533 West 19th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Left, Thomas Ruff’s “d.o.pe.04 I” (2022) and, right, DALL-E’s interpretation of the Zwirner press release for Ruff’s exhibition (photo on left Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, photo on right by DALL-E)

Artist Thomas Ruff seems perfectly suited for AI, and DALL-E’s version is quite convincing. If you told me the image on the right was a little-known series by Ruff, I’d believe you.

Jenny Holzer’s Demented Words at Hauser & Wirth gallery (542 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Left, A view of Jenny Holzer’s Demented Words exhibition and, right, DALL-E’s interpretation of Hauser & Wirth’s press release for Holzer’s exhibition (photo on left Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, photo on right by DALL-E)

This example reveals a weakness in the current DALL-E system, which is text. The AI system renders all text as gibberish, which is curious, but then again Jenny Holzer’s text nowadays is becoming harder and harder to read. The image on the right could easily be mistaken for the work of Holzer, maybe one that “questions legibility and our ability to read without understanding …” Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Jason Martin’s Vortex at Lisson Gallery (508 W 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Left, A view of Jason Martin’s “Untitled (Viridian light/Scheveningen green deep)” (2022) and, right, DALL-E’s interpretation of Lisson Gallery’s press release for Martin’s exhibition (photo on left Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, photo on right by DALL-E)

It’s curious that this was the only exhibition text that I cut and pasted into DALL-E that rendered people along with art on the wall. Perhaps it was the phrase “the relationship between painting and sculpture” from the press release that triggered it, but all four of the renderings did indeed have human figures, even if they were blurred or distorted. I think AI might also win this one, but maybe I’m just not a big Martin fan, though the smell of oil paint that permeated Lisson Gallery on West 24th Street is not something AI can reproduce, yet.

Jill Mulleady’s Bend Towards the Sun at Gladstone Gallery (530 West 21st Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Left, Detail of Jill Mulleady’s “The Fisherman’s Daughter” (2022) and, right, DALL-E’s interpretation of the Gladstone gallery press release for Mulleady’s exhibition (photo on left Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, photo on right by DALL-E)

Another creepy rendering that could very well be by the artist in question.

Ennui Moody scene Brushy rendering Strong foreground figures Backgrounds that create a sense of shallow space Strange light

Pretty unnerving how much DALL-E gleaned from the text to make this image.

Should artists be worried? Nah, but I can’t wait to see how many will use this tool to transform the way we see and experience the world.

The Artists Amplifying the Voices of Iran’s Protesters

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:30:43 +0200

For the 12th consecutive day, protests sparked by the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini continue to rage across Iran. Amini, a Kurdish woman, died after being detained for three days by Iran’s “morality police,” who reportedly severely beat her for not wearing her government-mandated headscarf properly. Despite Iran’s brutal crackdown on dissent, protestors of all genders, ages, religions, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds continue to fight. Hundreds of videos of women burning their headscarves and cutting off their hair have spread swiftly across social media — and alongside them, Iranian and Kurdish artists are putting their skills to work to amplify their voices.

Artwork by @innerjalz

On Instagram, artist Jalz garnered thousands of likes by layering the dancing women from Henry Matisse’s “La danse” (1910) on top of Iran’s famed Freedom Square. “It is rare to dare to use collages of naked designs,” Jalz told Hyperallergic. The nude figures contrast sharply with the hair coverings and loose “manto” overcoats that women are required to wear. When read aloud, the Farsi typography blazoned above them is the Kurdish phrase “Jin – Jiyan – Azadi,” or “Women, Life, Freedom,” a rallying cry heard in many of the protests.

Designer Asal Faraschi has also created digital posters of the “Women, Life, Freedom” chant. “This is our new slogan, just like a mantra, a password,” they said. “In tribute to all brave Iranian women and those who are killed, like Mahsa Amini, and the ones might be killed on upcoming days and nights.”

Jalz writes that rather than protest graffiti and wheatpastes, “all work in Iran is digital. Our behavior is strictly controlled.” This is made immensely more difficult by the Iranian government’s widespread Internet blackouts. Many artists in Iran had difficulty sending messages and artwork for this story.

Kamran Sharif, “I am still living” (2019)

“I have lived and grown up in Iran and my whole life I’ve been witnessing this unfairness against women and human right violation by the regime,” wrote sculptor Kamran Sharif. Although he created his I am still living series of human hair and urethane pieces well before the current uprising, he has posted them again as their clear symbolism of trapped freedom and expression is more relevant than ever before.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Farah Ossouli (@farah_ossouli_official)

Another poignant repost comes from celebrated artist Farah Ossouli, who shared a detail of her 2014 work “Fra Angelico and I.” The gouache painting, one of her contemporary takes on traditional miniatures from the Safavid period, comes from a series ominously titled Listen! Do you hear the darkness blowing. The imagery needs little explanation: The painful depiction of violence wrought by authorities against women and children arguably hits harder than Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.”

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<article>
<h1>The Dazzling Local Arts Scene of Southeast Los Angeles</h1>
<p>Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:23:19 +0200</p>
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<p>Every Wednesday evening for the past six months, about two dozen artists gather in a former furniture store on a quiet street roughly 10<strong> </strong>miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. With pads, pencils, charcoal, and tablets, they take their seats before a nude model, whom they observe and sketch for the next three hours. This weekly life drawing class is the foundation of the <a href= — A drawing class at SELA (photo courtesy SELA Art Center)

“You Can’t Eat Prestige:” Brooklyn Museum Workers Demand Better Wages

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:12:19 +0200

On the evening of Thursday, September 28, dozens of Brooklyn Museum union workers lined the institution’s grand entrance, chanting “overworked and underpaid” and “ancient art, not ancient wages.” Visitors to the museum’s Open House, an event celebrating the revamped Asian and Islamic art galleries, streamed in through different entrances in an attempt to circumvent the protestors.

Employees at the Brooklyn Museum officially unionized in August 2021 and began contract negotiations with museum leadership in January of this year. While the two parties have reached tentative agreements on some non-economic issues, they have yet to come to terms on healthcare and wages.

The day before their protest, the union announced that they had filed an Unfair Labor Practices charge against the museum with the National Board of Labor Relations, which oversaw their 2021 election into United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110. UAW Local 2110 represents employees at a score of other other cultural institutions, including the Whitney, the Dia Art Foundation, and the New Museum.

“There just hasn’t been enough movement on the part of the museum to meet us where we’re at,” Liz St. George, an assistant curator in the decorative arts department who sits on the union’s bargaining committee, told Hyperallergic during the protest. “We feel on the bargaining committee that we’ve made concessions and we’ve made proposals that the museum is just not responding to. With this action, we want to put a little pressure on the museum to come to the table.”

The union started contract negotiations with museum leadership in January.

The Brooklyn Museum Union is fighting for higher wage increases across the board.

Among the union’s demands are a minimum 7% wage increase (set retroactively to July 1) and 4% raises in both 2023 and 2024. According to UAW, the museum is currently offering a 3% increase, a 1.5% increase in 2023 and 2024, and a one-time adjustment that would be applicable to select workers.

A museum spokesperson told Hyperallergic that although they cannot comment on the specifics of the ongoing negotiations, the museum has proposed a 9% average wage increase. UAW emphasized that this 9% figure is an average and would leave more than half of the union’s workers with only a 3% raise. This increase would fall far below the sky-high inflation rate — calculated at 8.3% from August 2021 to August 2022.

“We remain committed to partnering with our staff to achieve an agreement that advances our commitments to wage equity,” a Brooklyn Museum spokesperson said in a statement. “The museum recently approved a FY2023 operating budget that dedicates nearly $4M in new investments in wage and benefit improvements for all employees,” they added, a result of a “comprehensive wage equity project.”

Visitors to the museum largely bypassed the protesting union workers.

St. George said that many of the museum’s workers are drawn to the institution because of its social justice mission.

St. George said that one of the biggest drivers for organizing was the museum’s staggering employee turnover rate. “It’s a constant revolving door,” she said. “Which is something that we’re trying to remediate.”

Owen O’Brien, an individual giving manager in the museum’s Development department, told Hyperallergic that high employee turnover, coupled with what he sees as underpayment, led him to join the union and take a position on its bargaining committee. O’Brien said that pay is especially poor for part-time workers.

Emma Dematteo, a visitors service associate, is one of those part-time employees. She’s been at the museum since 2018 when she was hired as a temporary worker, and excluding a brief stint at the Morgan Library, Dematteo has worked at the Brooklyn Museum “almost [her] entire adult life,” since she was 21.

“I feel like I’ve grown up here,” Dematteo said. “It’s the people here. I always felt really supported and nourished.” Now, Dematteo only works at the museum on occasion and has taken up a job as a nanny. “It pays the bills,” Dematteo said, adding that she is paid $17 an hour at the Brooklyn Museum. The living hourly wage in New York City, as calculated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is $25.42.

“Organizing comes from a deep care and passion for museum work and this institution in particular,” St. George said, adding that many workers are drawn to the Brooklyn Museum for its espoused social justice mission. “This is just about holding the museum accountable to its lip-service to social justice.”

As workers lined the museum’s entrance, another group of union members stood next to Eastern Parkway near an NYPD police car stationed outside the protest, waving signs at cars passing by on the busy street. Their placards read “Art workers won’t kiss ass” and “You can’t eat prestige.”

Drivers honked in response and pedestrians stopped to chat with the rallying workers.

“We do this because we love and care about the museum,” St. George said. “We care about our work here and now, but also what future people coming to the museum will encounter.”

“You Can’t Eat Prestige”: Brooklyn Museum Workers Demand Better Wages

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 23:12:19 +0200

The union started contract negotiations with museum leadership in January.

The Brooklyn Museum Union is fighting for higher wage increases across the board.

Visitors to the museum largely bypassed the protesting union workers.

St. George said that many of the museum’s workers are drawn to the institution because of its social justice mission.

Drivers honked in response and pedestrians stopped to chat with the rallying workers.

“We do this because we love and care about the museum,” St. George said. “We care about our work here and now, but also what future people coming to the museum will encounter.”

MoMA’s Cruel Offer to Unionized Workers During the Pandemic

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 22:47:06 +0200

In spring of 2020, when COVID-19 overwhelmed New York and shuttered its art museums and galleries, leadership at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presented some of its unionized workers with an offer they couldn’t refuse: Give up salary raises in the next two years and, in return, you will not be laid off or terminated.

Fearful of losing their jobs while seeing peers at other museums getting let go in the thousands, the workers of at least one of MoMA’s four labor unions, Local 30 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, agreed.

Local 30 represents about 60 art handlers, engineers, preparators, carpenters, and maintenance workers at MoMA. A month and a half into negotiating a new contract with the museum (their contract expired in early August), the workers are now saying that leadership isn’t returning the favor, offering them scant salary raises that don’t match what they had to give up or reflect the spike in inflation and living costs in the city.

A protest poster provided by the Local 30 union reads: “Change is Modern. Change Requires Labor.”

“When the museum asked us to give up contractually agreed upon wage increases for 2020 and 2021, we agreed in order to save jobs and the museum,” Rachel Abrams, a MoMA preparator who worked at the museum for more than 18 years, told Hyperallergic in an interview. “This sacrifice was made to support MoMA in a time of need and uncertainty. We are now simply asking for respectful compensation for the financial, physical, and emotional sacrifices we have made for MoMA.”

To deliver this message, the union parked a protest truck in front of MoMA yesterday, September 28, clad with digital screens that displayed informational slides about the museum’s high earnings and ample endowment (around $1 billion as of June 2021, according to public filings) together with messages like “It’s time to support workers who supported the museum” and “We sacrificed while management is stashing away millions.”

MoMA has not responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.

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The wage increases that the workers relinquished were 3% in 2020 and 3.25% in 2021. Now, their goal is to at least recoup those lost raises, but they say they’ve been facing an unsympathetic management. The union’s opening proposal was a 12% salary increase for every worker in the first year, while the museum’s proposal stands at around 3%, according to Robert Wilson, a representative of Local 30.

“We didn’t expect to get 12% but that was our starting point because if we agree to 6.25% in the first year, that would be taking zero this year as it only gets us to where we should have already been.”

Wilson added that the museum “took advantage” of the pandemic and misled the workers by making them believe that their only choice was giving up their salary increases or potentially losing their jobs.

MoMA workers next to Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece “The Starry Night” (1889)

“Most of our members worked the museum during the lockdown because they were needed for a large renovation and for later preparing for the museum to reopen, so the argument that the museum would’ve had to lay them off was disingenuous,” he said.

Abrams confirmed that Local 30 engineers were on site throughout the entire lockdown of 2020 to “ensure the safety and security of MoMA’s priceless collection.”

Mark Warhall, an art handler who has also worked at the museum for more than 18 years, said: “I love my job but am finding it increasingly challenging to live in NYC given the two year’s worth of raises we sacrificed at the beginning of the pandemic, as well as inflationary pressures for rent, food, etc.”

He continued, “It’s very discouraging when you pour every effort into a job that requires a high amount of skill, experience, physical labor, and patience to hear the cost of living increases being offered at this point in the Local 30 negotiations with MoMA.”

Negotiations between the museum and the union will resume in about a week. In the meantime, the workers are using protest and outreach to the media to put pressure on management to move closer to their demands. “MoMA thrives off the labor of every one of us, it is time for our negotiations to reflect our commitment to making MoMA an internationally renowned destination for art,” Abrams said.

Wilson concluded: “These workers have skill sets that take years to develop; these are the people that handle the most valuable assets that MoMA has, in their most vulnerable forms. They’re expecting a little bit more respect.”

Deadly Plants Squashed Under Plastic by Artist Ant Hamlyn Question the Paradox of Preservation

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 22:39:47 +0200

“Daffs,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters. All images courtesy of Moosey Art Norwich, shared with permission

The botanical works of West London-based artist Ant Hamlyn are studies of dichotomies and paradoxes. Polarities of the organic and synthetic, comfort and danger, and preservation and destruction emerge from his sculptures, which are comprised of playful, stylized interpretations of natural life pressed under sheets of acrylic.

On view as part of his solo show Tread Softly, Hamlyn’s most recent pieces include yellow daffodils, nightshades, and a pink flowering cactus that, although alluring for their blossoms, are extremely harmful if touched or ingested in real life. This sinister undertone pervades the body of work, which broadly addresses the precarious boundary between life and death. All of Hamlyn’s squished fabric specimens, for example, are depicted at their prime while being suffocated under a polyurethane coating and plastic panel. The artist shares:

When I think about the past time of ‘pressing flowers,’ I think about how when we crush a flower to preserve its beauty, we essentially destroy it to preserve it. These works are at once a celebration and a critique. The human relationship to flowers is a complex one in the way they symbolise love and loss simultaneously. For example, we give dying flowers to each other both in celebration and in grief.

If you’re in Norwich, you can see Tread Softly through October 8 at Moosey Art. Otherwise, head to the artist’s site and Instagram for more of his squished botanicals. (via It’s Nice That)

“Fly Agaric,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters

“Deadly Nightshade,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters

“Pink Flowering Cactus,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters

Left: “Thistle,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters. Right: “Red Dragon Fly Trap,” 60 x 50 x 8 centimeters

“Lily of the Valley,” 60 x 50 x 8 centimeters

they.

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 21:00:00 +0200

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Eye Candy for Today: Mucha’s Autumn

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 20:24:02 +0200

Autumn, Alphonse Mucha; color lithograph, roughly 40 x 21 inches (103 x 54cm)

Image sourced from here; direct link here; info here.

This is one of the panels from Mucha’s first and perhaps most successful series of decorative panels, The Seasons, which he created in 1896. This and Summer are my favorites from the series.

I love the way he has counterbalanced the complementary reds and blue-greens throughout the composition, and set them off with muted versions in the background.

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Thu, 29 Sep 2022 18:48:24 +0200

Using vintage textiles from both her personal and her family’s collection of bedspreads and home decor, artist Mila Zemliakova sews plush animal sculptures that connect various traditions of her Belarusian heritage. She draws correlations between her chosen creature and each pattern, color, and type of fabric, capturing the essence of a deer in floral brocade or that of a bison with tufted gray wool.

Largely oversized and perched in chairs, the anthropomorphic characters are expressive and often photographed outdoors in states of contemplation and solitude. In a note to Colossal, the artist shares that she sees the growing menagerie as embodying “the connection of Belarusians with their nature, as well as with their traditions, which are now in a dangerous position and under repression.”

Some of Zemliakova’s sculptures are available for purchase from Art Center or on Instagram, where you can also watch her at work.

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Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:18:45 +0200

Ever fickle, the ocean and all its excitable energy provide endless fodder for Ray Collins (previously). The Australian photographer, who is based in Wollongong, is known for his dramatic images that capture the diversity of textures and forms that emerge from the water. Waves undulate into scaly walls, fine mists erupt in the air, and surges turn in on themselves, creating eerie, patterned tunnels. Each image emphasizes the capricious nature of the water, which Collins shares as the impetus for his practice. “I’m fortunate that my subject, the ocean, is never the same. There are always new emotions and feelings to capture. As long as I show up with a blank slate I will find new and beautiful moments,” he says.

Collins has several books and prints available on his site, and you can find a massive archive of his photos on Instagram.

“Tree of Life”

“Siren”

“Scales”

Left: “Aberrant.” Right: “Convergence”

“Matter”

Left: “Fortitude.” Right: “Cauldron”

“Rumble”

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Featured Artist Nancy Smyth

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 13:00:19 +0200

Artist Nancy Smyth uses pastel and watercolor to capture the expressions and personalities of her subjects in wonderful detail. Find more of her delightful art on visit her website.

“Take Me Home…With You” pastel, 16″ x 12″

I started drawing when I was very young. My mom told me that I would sit quietly for hours, consumed with coloring and drawing at the kitchen table. Fast forward into adulthood, I am once again at my kitchen table creating pastel paintings of my favorite subjects—animals.

“Frankie” pastel, 16″ x 20″

Two passions of mine are having horses and dogs in my life and creating artwork. While dog ownership has been a steady part of my life since childhood and I got my first horse in my teens as my high school graduation gift, they are still an integral part of my life today.

“Remy” pastel, 16″ x 12″

This has given me hands on contact with my subjects. I can study their expressions, nuances and unique characteristics—invaluable in the creation of my art.

“Before The Storm” pastel, 18″ x 18″

Because of my connection to these wonderful creatures, I have met like-minded people who have become lifelong friends. Also, when I am unable to ride or be around my horse and friends, creating my art can help me stay connected to that part of my life.

“Devotion” pastel, 17″ x 16″

Like the art world, horse and dog owners’ communities are a huge gathering of people from different backgrounds, all sharing the same passion.

“Salt River Grazing” watercolor, 16″ x 20″

I love to try new things and the challenge of learning to use different mediums fulfills that need. I read articles by artists whose work I admire and study their artwork to pick up helpful pointers.

“Pearl” pastel, 20″ x 16″

Entering competitions also pushes me to learn to hone my craft. I am mainly a pastelist who focuses on animals, but I am challenging myself to use acrylics, watercolor and oils and incorporating people and landscapes in my art.

“A Ray Of Sunshine” Pastel, 12″ x 18″

My professional art career started later in life as I worked in the corporate world for decades. During that time, I looked forward to when I would begin my journey as an artist. That time is now.

“Waiting” pastel, 16″ x 20″

Whether the piece is slated for my portfolio or is a commissioned portrait of someone’s beloved pet, I strive to portray not only a realistic rendering but also capture its uniqueness. This creates a memorable experience for the viewer.

“The After Bath” pastel, 37″ x 29″

When I was in college, a professor told me that I should not do artwork with animals as the subject. But I knew deep down that this was what I wanted to do, and I’m so glad I followed my heart and ventured down this path. I will continue to learn not only for my growth as an artist, but to create artwork that resonates with my collectors. I love to make people happy. What better way to do this than through my art?

Artist Nancy Smyth invites you to follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

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Andell Family Sundays—Soar to New Heights (In Person)

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:36:48 +0200

Andell Family Sundays—Soar to New Heights (In Person) aliciavs Wed, 09/28/2022 - 15:36

Join Andell Family Sundays in person on LACMA's campus and be creative, discover new art, make memories, and have fun!

This week, led by artist Eszter Delgado make your own bird made from paper inspired by the outdoor installation Language of Birds. If you want, you can add a poem to your bird too! This event is designed for all ages. We can't wait to see you in person!

Discover other family-friendly art-making blog posts on Unframed and check out our video content on LACMA's YouTube channel.

Health screening required. Attendees will be required to wear a mask when participating in the workshop.

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Andell Family Sundays—Soar to New Heights

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Drop-in Workshops

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All ages welcome!

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LACMA

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Zev Yaroslavsky Plaza

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Sun, 10/02/2022 - 12:30 -Sun, 10/02/2022 - 15:30

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Tue, 03/30/2021 - 15:52

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Kids & Families

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Andell Family Sundays Anytime is supported by Andrew and Ellen Hauptman and The Hauptman Family Foundation. Outreach for Andell Family Sundays Anytime is made possible in part by Tally and Bill Mingst.

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Learn more about the complete catalogue of LACMA programs for all ages—many free. Discover film screenings, art talks and classes, music, creative fun for kids, wellness activities, and more.

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Featured Artist Nancy Smyth

Artist Nancy Smyth uses pastel and watercolor to capture the expressions and personalities of her subjects in wonderful detail. Find more of her delightful art on visit her website.

Want to stay current on cutting edge business articles from Artsy Shark, plus artist features, and an invitation to the next Call for Artists? Click below to sign up for our twice-monthly email. You’ll get all this plus opportunities and special offers that you can’t get anywhere else!

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