Category Archives: Museums

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 20, 2023): This week: it’s the second year of Paris +, the event that has taken over from Fiac as the leading French art fair. How is Art Basel’s French flagship faring amid geopolitical turmoil and economic uncertainty, and is Paris still on the rise as a cultural hub?

We speak to Georgina Adam, an editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, and Kabir Jhala, our deputy art market editor, who are in Paris, to find out. The largest ever exhibition of the work of the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto opened last week at the Hayward Gallery in London, before travelling to Beijing and Sydney next year. We talk to its co-curator Thomas Sutton.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is La femme-cheval or the Horse-Woman, a painting made in 1918 by the French artist Marie Laurencin. She is the subject of a major survey, called Sapphic Paris, opening this week at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia in the US. Cindy Kang, who co-curated the exhibition, tells us more about this landmark work in Laurencin’s life.

Paris +, 20-22 October.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, Hayward Gallery, London, until 7 January 2023; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 23 March-23 June 2024; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, 2 August-27 October 2024.

Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, US, 22 October-21 January.

Exhibitions: Vertigo Of Color – Matisse, Derain, & The Origins Of Fauvism

Study for "Luxe, calme et volupté" (Etude pour “Luxe, calme et volupté”), Henri Matisse  French, Oil on canvas
Study for “Luxe, calme et volupté” – Henri Matisse – 1904

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism

October 13, 2023–January 21, 2024

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 18, 2023) – Over an intense nine weeks in the summer of 1905 in the modest fishing village of Collioure on the French Mediterranean, Henri Matisse and Andre Derain embarked on a partnership that led to a wholly new, radical artistic language later known as Fauvism.

The Port of Collioure (Le port de Collioure), André Derain  French, Oil on canvas
The Port of Collioure – André Derain – 1905

Their daring, energetic experiments with color, form, structure, and perspective changed the course of French painting; it marked an introduction to early modernism and introduced Matisse’s first important body of work in his long career.

View of Collioure (Vue de Collioure), Henri Matisse  French, Oil on paper mounted on board
View of Collioure – Henri Matisse – 1905

This exhibition, which is co-organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, emphasizes as never before the legacy of that summer and examines the paintings, drawings, and watercolors of Matisse and Derain through sixty-five works on loan from national and international museums, including Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou; National Galleries of Scotland; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; as well as private collections.

Fishing Boats, Collioure (Bateaux, pêcheurs, Collioure), André Derain  French, Oil on canvas
Fishing Boats – André Derain – 1905

The Arts: The ‘Etchings’ Of A Master Printer (MoMA)

The Museum of Modern Art (October 17, 2023) – What makes a 500-year-old printing process new? Master printer and publisher Jacob Samuel has brought etchings—prints created by transferring ink from a metal plate to paper—into the 21st century through collaborations with more than 60 contemporary artists. In this video, we filmed Samuel making his last print.

As he inks, hand wipes, and rolls his final print through the press, he reflects on his philosophy. “My goal is to leave no fingerprints,” he says. All you see is the artist’s work. I’m just another pencil. I’m just another brush. But I want the pencil to be sharpened really well. I want the brush to be sable. And to do that and be completely spontaneous, I trust the materials.”

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 13, 2023): The Frieze art fair has turned 20 this week, and is only growing in its ambitions, having acquired the Armory Show fair in New York and Expo Chicago.

So what should we make of Frieze’s continuing expansion and what’s the mood at Frieze London and Frieze Masters this year? We talk to Tim Schneider, The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor, who is over from New York for the fairs. In Reykjavik in Iceland, the artist-run Sequences Biennial opens on Friday. A former curator of the event is Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, who will represent Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Tom Seymour went to the Icelandic capital to talk to her about Venice, Sequences and the Icelandic scene.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Open Window, Collioure (1905) by Henri Matisse. The painting is a highlight of the exhibition Vertigo of Colour: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We speak to Dita Amory, co-curator of the show, about this landmark painting in Matisse’s career.

Frieze London and Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, London, until 15 October.

The Sequences Biennial, entitled Can’t See, begins on 13 October and continues until 22 October 2023.

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 13 October-21 January 2024; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 25 February-27 May 2024.

Chicago Exhibitions: ‘Caravaggio In Rome’

The Cardsharps - Wikipedia
The Cardsharps, about 1595
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

The Art Institute of Chicago (October 8, 2023) – Whether for his large dramatic canvases or his larger-than-life persona, the name Caravaggio evokes images of turmoil and violence, both sacred and profane. Born in Milan in 1571, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio entered the robust Roman art scene around 1592 and, over the next 14 years, developed an original and captivating painting style that attracted eminent patrons and passionate followers, thrusting him into the public eye. 

Among Friends and Rivals: Caravaggio in Rome

Sep 8–Dec 31, 2023

Martha and Mary Magdalene (Caravaggio) - Wikipedia
Martha and Mary Magdalene, about 1598
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. 

Caravaggio’s followers, known as the Caravaggisti, embraced the stylis­tic hallmarks of the painter’s intensely naturalistic work. Like their trailblazing idol, they used models from real life, boldly depicting their quirks and flaws in dynamic compositions whose turbulent movement was revealed in dramatic extremes of light and dark. The themes and individual artistic approaches of Caravaggisti often depended on their direct or indirect relationships to Caravaggio—some knew the artist personally, while others knew him only through his work.

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Museum Exhibition Tour: ‘Manet/Degas’ At The Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 6, 2023) – Stephan Wolohojian, John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge, and Ashley Dunn, Associate Curator, explore Manet/Degas. This exhibition examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in modern art history: the close and sometimes tumultuous relationship between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas.

Manet/Degas

September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024

Manet/Degas - Yale University Press London

Born only two years apart, Manet (1832–1883) and Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists who worked to define modern painting in France. By examining their careers in parallel and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged. Through more than 160 paintings and works on paper, Manet/Degas takes a fresh look at the interactions of these two artists in the context of the family relationships, friendships, and intellectual circles that influenced their artistic and professional choices, deepening our understanding of a key moment in nineteenth-century French painting. On view: September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 6, 2023): The looted Ethiopian icon, AI copyright debate in US, and the end of China’s museum boom.

The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about the Kwer’ata Re’esu, a European painting of Christ that became a revered icon in Ethiopia before being looted by an agent for the British Museum in the 19th century. Martin’s colour photographs of the work—which has been stored in a vault in Portugal—might help us to identify its maker and prompt new calls for the icon’s return to Ethiopia. On Monday this week, campaigners in the US staged an AI Day of Action, amid mounting concerns over the exploitation of artists’ work by corporations behind powerful artificial intelligence tools.

We talk to our reporter Daniel Grant about renewed calls for the US Congress to enact a law that would ban corporations from copyrighting art made by AI. And as China’s economy struggles, some museums in the country are closing or scaling down their ambitions. We talk to our correspondent in China, Lisa Movius, about how the end of the Chinese economic miracle has hastened the end of its museum boom.

International Art: Apollo Magazine – October 2023

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Apollo Magazine – October 2023: The new issue features Getting ruff and ready with Frans Hals; Sophie Calle takes on Picasso; Can museums cope without dodgy donors?, and more…

Inside this issue

October 2023 | Apollo Magazine
October 2023 | Apollo Magazine
October 2023 | Apollo Magazine

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (September 28, 2023): This week: three big London shows, in depth. As Marina Abramović draws huge crowds to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, we interview her about the exhibition—the first ever dedicated to a woman artist in the Royal Academy’s main galleries.

At the National Gallery, meanwhile, is a remarkable survey of the paintings of the 17th-century Dutch master Frans Hals, which will tour next year to Amsterdam and Berlin. We take a tour with Bart Cornelis, curator of the National’s incarnation of the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Peter Paul Rubens’s Three Nymphs with a Cornucopia of around 1625 to 1628 (painted with Frans Snyders). In the collection of the Prado in Madrid, it is one of a number of major loans to the exhibition Rubens and Women at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. Amy Orrock, one of the curators of the exhibition, tells us more.

Marina Abramović, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 1 January 2024. You can hear our interview with Marina during the Covid lockdown in our episode from 8 May 2020, and a conversation with Tate Modern’s Catherine Wood about Ulay, following his death in 2020, in the episode from 6 March that year.

Amsterdam Exhibitions: ‘Van Gogh Along The Seine’

By the Seine – Vincent van Gogh Paris, May-July 1887

Van Gogh Museum (September 22, 2023) – In the 19th century, bridges and trains made it easier to visit places outside of Paris. And yet smoking factory chimneys increasingly dominated the horizon. This exhibition reveals how artists captured these changes in their artworks.

‘And when I painted landscape in Asnières this summer I saw more colour in it than before.’

Vincent van Gogh to his sister Willemien van Gogh, late October 1887

Bank of the Seine – Vincent van GoghParis, May-July 1887

‘Van Gogh along the Seine’

13 October 2023 until 14 January 2024

Five ambitious artists – Van Gogh, Seurat, Signac, Bernard and Angrand – travelled to the banks of the Seine to paint. Surrounded by green, they captured the changes ushered in by the burgeoning industry. Here they found new, contemporary motifs and developed their use of colour and painting techniques. Asnières had a particular impact on the artistic development of these artists.

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