Category Archives: Art

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Art Newspaper (June 16, 2023): As her new series for the BBC, Africa Rising, takes Afua Hirsch to Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa, we talk to her about the artists and art scenes she encountered and what she took away from her experiences.

The Liverpool Biennial’s latest edition opened last weekend and has a South African curator, Khanyisile Mbongwa, and an IsiZulu title, uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things. The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, Louisa Buck, visited the biennial and reviews it for us. And it is Art Basel this week, in its original Swiss location, so this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the most notable works for sale at the fair.

Valentine was painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1984 and given to his then girlfriend, Paige Powell, on Valentine’s Day. Jeffrey Deitch, who is selling the work at Art Basel, tells us its story.

Africa Rising: Morocco is on the BBC iPlayer now. The Nigeria episode is on BBC Two on 20 June at 9pm for UK viewers and on BBC iPlayer, and South Africa is broadcast on BBC Two at 27 June at 9pm. For listeners outside the UK, check your local listings.

Arts Tour: The Courtauld Institute Of Art In London

The Courtauld Institute of Art (June 14, 2023) – The Courtauld Gallery is home to one of the world’s greatest art collections, located in the magnificent historical setting of Somerset House in Central London.

Join actor and friend of The Courtauld Gallery, Bill Nighy, as he returns to the Gallery following its three year refurbishment, and discover our world-renowned collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces.

Highlights on display include the world-famous A Bar at the Folies Bergère by Édouard Manet, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh, the most significant collection of works by Paul Cézanne in the UK and works by Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Seurat and more.

Art Gallery Exhibitions: ‘Art Basel 2023’ Preview

VernissageTV (June 13, 2023) = The 2023 edition of Art Basel in Basel features 284 of the world’s leading galleries from across the globe. At Art Basel, the galleries present modern and contemporary art across all media including painting, sculpture, photography, and digital artworks. The art fair runs from June 15-18, 2023.

Art & Architecture Tour: Château La Coste, France

Château La Coste is a unique mix of contemporary art, architecture, and wine culture. A succulent cocktail for the eyes and the tastebuds.

Across 200 hectares (130 of which are full of grape vines), vineyards, chestnut forests, and olive tree fields spread as far as the eye can see into the Provençal horizon. It’s an invitation to take a walk for a veritable symphony of the senses, magnificent enough to have its own name – the Promande Art & Architecture.

The path – about a two-hour walk – will take you through a series of artworks and installations from contemporary artists invited to work on site. Just off the path, sitting atop a vast lake, admire the immense spider created by Franco-American artist Louise Bourgeois. Sitting at the top of the hill, next to the chapel created by Tadao Ando, raise your eyes and take in the great red Murano glass cross, imagined by Jean Michel Othonel.

The jaw-dropping surprises will lead you to the center of a forest, where you’ll find yourself face-to-face with foxes – but don’t worry! The creatures are cast in bronze, borne of the talent of American artist Michael Stipe.

Reviews: The ‘African And Oceanic Art’ Collection Of France’s Hélène Leloup

Sotheby’s (June 12, 2023) – Hélène Leloup is one of the art world’s true pioneers, bringing together a spirit of adventure, a detailed anthropological approach and deep knowledge to become one of the foremost specialists in African and Oceanic art in Paris and New York. 

Now aged 96, Hélène is regarded as France’s most important and passionate dealer of sub-Saharan and Oceanic art, an adventurer and explorer, ground-breaking gallerist and collector, and eminent specialist in Mbembe and Dogon art, ever since her first foray to Dakar in 1952.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Art Newspaper (June 8, 2023): Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood on their collaborative art, Wayne McGregor on his new choreographic work—a collaboration with the late Carmen Herrera—and Whistler’s Mother returns to Philadelphia.

Ahead of an exhibition of their work in London in September, we talk to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood—who has created the artwork with Yorke for every Radiohead album since 1994, as well the visuals accompanying Thom’s solo records and side projects including the recent records by The Smile—about their collaboration.

A new work for the UK’s Royal Ballet by the choreographer Wayne McGregor premieres at the Royal Opera House in London on 9 June. Untitled, 2023 is a collaboration with the Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, developed before Herrera’s death last year at the age of 106. We talk to McGregor about the piece and the intersection between visual art and choreography.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the most famous pictures in the world: Arrangement in Grey and Black, better known as Whistler’s Mother, by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. It’s part of an exhibition called The Artist’s Mother: Whistler and Philadelphia, curated by Jenny Thompson, and we speak to Jenny about the work and the show.

Art: ‘Bonnard – Designed By India Mahdavi’ (June ’23)

designboom Films (June 8, 2023) – Pierre Bonnard is one of the most beloved painters of the twentieth century, celebrated for his use of colour to convey an exquisite sense of emotion. His close friend Henri Matisse declared that Bonnard was ‘a great painter, for today and definitely also for the future’.

Opening in June 2023, the blockbuster Melbourne Winter Masterpieces® exhibition Pierre Bonnard presents the iridescent paintings of Bonnard within immersive scenography by Paris-based designer India Mahdavi

Pierre Bonnard (3 October 1867 – 23 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist group of avant-garde painters Les Nabis, his early work was strongly influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin, as well as the prints of Hokusai and other Japanese artists. Bonnard was a leading figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism.

Museum Stories: ‘Japanese Plate With Kintsugi Repair’

Ashmolean Museum (June 7, 2023): Here, animator Charlie Black brings the poetic story behind this beautifully broken 17th-century Japanese plate to life.

JAPAN COLLECTION

Ashmolean Museum – Oxford University

The Japanese collection is now best known for its ceramics, in particular the collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century export porcelain which is one of the most comprehensive collections in the world. Ceramics for the Japanese market are also well represented, including fine examples of Arita, Nabeshima and Hirado porcelain, tea ceremony wares and Kyoto earthenwares.

Design: Sculpted Bronze Art Of Diego Giacometti

Sotheby’s (June 5, 2023) – Trained in the school of Art Deco decorators and sculptors, Diego Giacometti was equally attached to the discipline of pre-WWII production standards as to the classical artistic vocabulary deriving from ancient Greece, Egypt and Etruscan decorative arts .

The eminent history and personal connection of these tables and lamps to the artist and one of his dearest friends echo the oeuvre of Diego Giacometti itself— a sumptuous and timeless universe in bronze filled with the unique character and artistic prolificity of a true poet.

The featured ”Racine” Guéridon in particular figures as one of Diego’s most rare and original creations in bronze. The piece shows the sculptor’s prowess at skillfully adapting an organic motif into a strikingly abstract and perfectly balanced composition, which is simultaneously sculptural in its intent and highly functional.