Category Archives: Art

Inside Art: ‘Abstraktes Bild, 1986’ By Gerhard Richter

Sotheby’s (February 3, 2023) – Reminiscent of a landscape, or the strata of a Monet waterlily painting, the horizontal swathes of paint migrate across Abstraktes Bild in wave like-motion across the breadth of the canvas. Texture, colour and structure are here deployed with spectacular force, with the gliding scrape of the squeegee revealing the kaleidoscopic architectural structure of the artist’s underpainting.

It is a masterpiece created during the critical year of 1986, which saw the artist’s first large-scale touring retrospective and was also the year in which Richter first took up the squeegee as his principal compositional tool. He has only ever produced 24 Abstraktes Bild of this magnitude (with a width greater than 380 cm), of which half of these reside in museum collections across the globe.

Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany. Throughout his career, Richter has negotiated the frontier between photography and painting, captivated by the way in which these two seemingly opposing practices speak to and challenge one another. From exuberant canvases rendered with a squeegee and acerbic color charts to paintings of photographic detail and close-ups of a single brushstroke, Richter moves effortlessly between the two mediums, reveling in the complexity of their relationship, while never asserting one above the other.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

February 3, 2023: As we approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Art Newspaper has published an investigation that raises serious concerns that works of art taken by Russian troops from a museum in Kherson, Ukraine, in November 2022 may not be repatriated once the fighting ends.

Our London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about his story. Plus, the Sharjah Biennial opens next week, and is the final biennial curated by Okwui Enwezor, who died in 2019, but set the blueprint for the show, entitled Thinking Historically in the Present. We talk to Nadine Khalil about the biennial and Sharjah’s place in the Middle Eastern art ecosystem.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere (1991) by the American photographer Ming Smith, a key piece in a new exhibition of Smith’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Oluremi Onabanjo, the curator of the show, tells us about the work.The Sharjah Biennial runs from 7 February to 11 June.Projects: Ming Smith, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 4 February-29 May. Ming Smith: Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere, by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 48pp, $14.95/£17 (pb)

International Art: Apollo Magazine – February 2023

Apollo Magazine – February 2023:

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  • How Christopher Wren built his reputation
  • The changing face of Silicon Valley
  • An interview with Zineb Sedira
  • The tiger who smoked a pipe
  • Plus: the uncertain market for Old Masters, the Cambridge colleges that have turned to wood, the artists who have taken young women seriously, and reviews of Guido Reni, Edward Hopper and the new museum at the Bibliothèque nationale

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

January 27, 2023: This week: as robotic figures of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama appear in windows of Louis Vuitton stores in New York, London and Tokyo, Ben Luke talks to Federica Carlotto, a specialist in art and luxury, about the latest collaboration between Kusama and the LVMH brand.

What does it tell us about what the former creative director of Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, called the “monumental marriage between art and commerce”? Also this week, the artist Michael Rakowitz hopes to give a public sculpture he made for Trafalgar Square in London to Tate Modern and an Iraqi institution. He explains how it prompted Iraq to request the return of one of the lamassu, the ancient Assyrian sculptures that inspired Rakowitz’s work, from the British Museum to its country of origin.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is I didn’t put myself down for sainthood (2018), a piece made by Rosy Martin in collaboration with Verity Welstead. The photographic ensemble is in the opening displays of the new Centre of British Photography in London. We speak to James Hyman, the art dealer, collector and co-founder of the centre, about the work.

You can hear our interview with Michael Rakowitz when he unveiled the sculpture in Trafalgar Square in the episode from 22 March 2018 and an in-depth conversation with Michael in the episode of the A brush with… podcast from 9 June 2021.Headstrong: Women and Empowerment, Centre for British Photography, London, until 23 April.

Native American Art: Tour Of ‘Raven And The Box Of Daylight’ Exhibition (2023)

CBS Sunday Morning – Preston Singletary, a member of the Tlingit tribe of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, uses a very untraditional medium when fashioning indigenous art: glass.

He talks with correspondent Lilia Luciano about his traveling exhibition, “Raven and the Box of Daylight” (now at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.), which tells a Native American folktale about the origins of the world entirely through glass.

Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight

The story Raven and the Box of Daylight, which tells how Raven transformed the world and brought light to the people by releasing the stars, moon, and sun, holds great significance to the Tlingit people of the North Pacific Coast. A new body of work by artist Preston Singletary immerses readers in Tlingit traditions by telling this story through his monumental glass works and installations. Primarily known for his celebration of Tlingit art and design, Singletary explores new ways of working with glass inspired by Tlingit design principles. This book includes texts that place Singletary’s work within the histories of both glass art and Native arts traditions—especially the art of spoken-word storytelling. Also included are a biography and an interview with the artist. Co-authored by Miranda Belarde-Lewis and John Drury.

Top 2023 Art Exhibitions: Sholto Blissett – Rubicon

Sholto Blissett Rubicon I, 2022 oil on canvas 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 in. (200 x 300 cm.)
SHOLTO BLISSETT: RUBICON
January 25-February 22, 2023

Bodies of water act as both borders and conjunctions, where societies are delineated and defined. Further contradictory meanings bubble through to the surface as Blissett’s imagined landscapes become psychological spaces for meditation where the river is an obstacle to be crossed and considered.

Installation view of Sholto Blissett: Rubicon (January 25-February 22, 2023) at Alexander Berggruen, NY. Photo: Dario Lasagni

In Rubicon, Blissett’s upland rivers are framed by bridges that run perpendicular to the body of water. The artist’s central placement of the bridges, Roman architectural embellishments in linear perspective, and urge to repetitively revisit similar yet increasingly foreboding environments reveals an attempt to organize or frame the scene. Yet, this organization is a fiction as from this positioning, the bridges cannot encompass the swell, the rugged topography, and the cloud-blemished skies. While bridges connect lands and cultures, from this frontal viewpoint, the ends of the arches depicted in Blissett’s paintings are rendered inaccessible

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

January 20, 2023: Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in Tokyo are the subject of a legal claim in the US relating to Nazi loot.

The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent and resident Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey tells us why Sunflowers (1888-89) is at the centre of the dispute, 35 years after it was sold for a record price at auction, and why the heirs of the German Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who owned it until the 1930s, now value it at a staggering $250m.

Our editor-at-large Georgina Adam has just returned from Singapore, where the first Art SG art fair took place last week. How successful was this new event in the art market calendar, and what does it tell us about Singapore’s ambitions to become an art hub?

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Portraits in a Chinese Studio, a photographic work by the artist Grace Lau. In the project, which marks Chinese New Year, Lau is subverting the tradition of colonial 19th-century portrait studios in a shopping centre in Southampton on the south coast of the UK.Grace Lau: Portraits in a Chinese Studio, Marlands Shopping Centre, Southampton, UK, 21 January-12 February

AI Design Views: ‘Paris’

using AI, vincent callebaut reimagines 'haussmannian' paris architecture as green, breathable buildings

designboom – Taking their cues from Haussmann’s work, the architects at Vincent Callebaut Architecture continue to explore the concept of climate and energy solidarity by using new artificial intelligence tools. 

using AI, vincent callebaut reimagines 'haussmannian' paris architecture as green, breathable buildingsusing AI, vincent callebaut reimagines 'haussmannian' paris architecture as green, breathable buildings

The French architects draw inspiration from existing buildings, as well as ecosystem feedback loops and biomimetics, to create a series of green, organic structures distributed throughout Paris. Through a sensitive and contemporary dialog that preserves the historical heritage of the French capital, the project creates islands of urban freshness by reviving nature, biodiversity and permaculture urban agriculture in the heart of the city.

using AI, vincent callebaut reimagines 'haussmannian' paris architecture as green, breathable buildings

using AI, vincent callebaut reimagines 'haussmannian' paris architecture as green, breathable buildings

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

January 13, 2023: In the first episode of the year, we look ahead at the next 12 months. Anny Shaw, the acting art market editor at The Art Newspaper, peers into her crystal ball and tries to predict the fortunes of the art market this year.

Then, Jane Morris, one of our editors-at-large, José da Silva, our exhibitions editor, and host Ben Luke select the museum projects, biennales and exhibitions that they are most looking forward to in 2023.Events discussed:

  • The Grand Egyptian Museum: no confirmed opening date.
  • \The National Portrait Gallery reopens on 22 June.
  • Factory International, Manchester, also opens in June.
  • Yayoi Kusama’s You Me and the Balloons opens there on 29 June, as does the Manchester International Festival.
  • The Sharjah Biennial: Thinking Historically in the Present opens on 7 February.
  • The Gwangju Biennial: Soft and Weak Like Water opens on 7 April.
  • Celebration Picasso 1973-2023
  • Vermeer opens at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on 10 February.

Museum & Gallery Review: ‘Art In America Guide 2023’

Art In America (January 2023) – Published annually, the Art in America Guide to Museums, Galleries, and Artists is the most comprehensive national printed directory of galleries, artists, dealers, consultants, museums, and nonprofit spaces available. With detailed information on almost 3,000 art venues and businesses in the United States, the Guide is an essential resource for the art world.

The A.i.A. Guide was first published in 1982, making the current issue our 40th annual edition of this much-loved art world publication.

The A.i.A. Guide’s digital counterpart, launched in May 2017, provides listings searchable by city, state, category, and artist’s name; recommendations for shows to see from Art in America editors, as well as from respected curators, art writers, and artists; and highlights from Art in America’s print issues. Find out what’s on view near you. Discover important new artists and venues. And see why Art in America has been the world’s premier art magazine for over 100 years.

Please contact Kristie Nilsson, Art in America Guide Manager, for more information: knilsson@artnews.com | (212) 398-1690 x62104