Tag Archives: Museums

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (September 21, 2023): This week: the latest controversies prompted by the Unesco World Heritage Committee. As we mentioned last week, the 45th session of the committee is taking place in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, and continues until 25 September.

The founder of The Art Newspaper, Anna Somers Cocks, joins host Ben Luke to look at the latest sites granted World Heritage status and at the Committee’s decision not to add Venice to the organisation’s endangered list. We ask: is Unesco so mired in politics that it cannot adequately perform its role? The Colombian artist Fernando Botero died last week, aged 91, and we talk to the gallerist Stéphane Custot, of Waddington Custot galleries in London, about this painter and sculptor who drew ire from many critics but achieved widespread public acclaim.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is October’s Gone . . . Goodnight (1973) by Barkley L. Hendricks. As a group of paintings by Hendricks goes on display among the masters at Frick Madison in New York, Aimee Ng, co-curator of the exhibition, tells us about the painting.

Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick, Frick Madison, New York, until 7 January 2024.

Miami Views: A Tour Of The Vizcaya Museum & Gardens

Christopher Putvinski Films (September 16, 2023) – A short tour of the beautiful grounds of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens,  the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune, on Biscayne Bay in the present-day Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida. 

Filmed in September 2023.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (September 15, 2023): A Unesco conference and archeological summit in Saudi Arabia are the latest examples of the country’s increasing focus on culture as part of the so-called Vision 2030 programme.

We look at Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented and lavishly funded focus on contemporary and ancient culture and how that relates to ongoing concerns about artistic freedom and human rights abuses in the kingdom. Alia Al-Senussi, a cultural strategist, and senior advisor at Art Basel and to the Saudi Ministry of Culture, joins host Ben Luke to discuss the contemporary art scene, and Melissa Gronlund, a reporter on the Middle East for The Art Newspaper, tells us about the push to reveal hitherto underexplored Saudi heritage.

The Sierra Leone-born, London-based artist and poet Julianknxx this week unveiled a new project at London’s Barbican Centre, Chorus in Rememory of Flight. The multi-screen installation features performers and choirs from the African diaspora who Julianknxx met on a 4,000-mile trip around European cities with colonial histories, from Lisbon via Marseille, Rotterdam and Berlin to London. We talk to him about this epic endeavour. And this episode’s Work of the Week is among the greatest works on paper ever made: Michelangelo’s studies in red chalk for the Libyan Sibyl, one of the most distinctive figures on his Sistine Chapel ceiling. The drawing features in Michelangelo and Beyond at the Albertina in Vienna and one of its curators, Constanze Malissa, tells us more about it.

Art in Saudi Arabia: A New Creative Economy? by Rebecca Anne Proctor, with Alia Al-Senussi, published 30 November, Lund Humphries, £19.99.

Julianknxx: Chorus in Rememory of Flight, The Curve, Barbican Centre, London, and online on WePresent, until 11 February 2024; Julianknxx is in A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern, until 14 January 2024.

Michelangelo and Beyond, Albertina, Vienna, 15 September-14 January 2024.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (September 7, 2023): It’s our 250th podcast, and in this special episode we focus on the future. We ask leading figures across the art world to tell us about their hopes and concerns for the visual arts. Among them are Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,

Bénédicte Savoy, the co-author of the Saar-Savoy report into the restitution of cultural heritage, Shanay Jhaveri, the head of visual arts at the Barbican, the Berlin-based curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Kymberly Pinder, the dean of Yale School of Art, and the artist Tomás Saraceno. Host Ben Luke is then joined by three core members of The Art Newspaper’s team and regular guests in the first 249 episodes of this podcast: editors-at-large Cristina Ruiz and Georgina Adam and our contemporary art correspondent Louisa Buck discuss the present and future of museums and heritage, art and artists and the art market.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (August 31, 2023): In the first episode of this new season of The Week in Art, we talk to Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent, about the thefts scandal at the British Museum and its implications for the museum in the future.

The artist Grada Kilomba is one of four curators of this year’s Sāo Paulo biennial, called Choreographies of the Impossible, and she joins our host Ben Luke to discuss the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Village Square at Céret, a painting made in 1920 by Chaïm Soutine. It features in the exhibition Against the Current, which opens this week at K20 in Düsseldorf, Germany. The exhibition’s co-curator, Susanne Meyer-Büser, tells us about the picture.

The Sāo Paulo biennial: Choreographies of the Impossible, Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Sāo Paulo, Brazil, 6 September-10 December.

Chaïm Soutine: Against the Current, K20 Düsseldorf, 2 September until 14 January next year; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 9 February-14 July 14 2024; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland, 16 August-1 December 2024.

International Art: Apollo Magazine – September 2023

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Apollo Magazine – September 2023 issue: Wrestling with Michelangelo at the Albertina; The Musée des Arts Décoratifs gets modern; An interview with Sarah Lucas and The Norman conquest of the European imagination.

Inside this issue

Profiles: David Hockney At The Huntington Library

Painting of a bare tree, with many small branches, in a green field with a blue sky.
David Hockney, Tree on Woldgate, 6 March, 2006

The Huntington Library (August 9, 2023) – A David Hockney in The Huntington’s venerable European art gallery? Yes, visitors can view the large and striking Tree on Woldgate, 6 March (2006), which depicts the serene Yorkshire countryside where the renowned artist grew up.

You can see fields in the distance and, in the center, a leafless tree with branches that twist and turn in an almost snakelike manner. The painting comes from a period in Hockney’s career when he created a series of plein air landscapes around his hometown.

Watercolor self-portrait of David Hockney, paintbrush in hand, looking at the viewer.
David Hockney, Self-Portrait with Red Braces, 2003

The painting hangs in conversation with John Constable’s monumental View on the Stour Near Dedham (1822). While the two works were created more than 180 years apart, their inspiration comes from the same source—childhood surroundings—and they both convey a sense of place and nostalgia.

One of the most famous British artists of the 20th century, Hockney emerged as a major contributor to the 1960s pop art movement and has had a multifaced career as a painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. He is perhaps best known for his acrylic paintings of bright swimming pools, split-level homes, and suburban California landscapes.

In 2022, The Huntington acquired its first Hockney works: 17 works on paper that include an artist book, drawings, prints, photocollages, and watercolors. These works display an intimate side of Hockney—like the self-portrait of the artist in red suspenders, bent over a table and peering over his wire-rimmed glasses, paintbrush in hand. His blue eyes, gazing straight at the viewer, create an immediate intimacy.

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Museum Views: The Isle Of Wight – Dinosaur Island

Natural History Museum (August 8, 2023) – The Isle of Wight is a traditional British holiday resort. It’s well-known for its beautiful sandy beaches, dramatic cliffs, stunning countryside and many tourist attractions.

Video timeline: 0:00 A brief history of the Isle of Wight 1:13 Theo Vickers tells us about the geology of the island 1:35 Jack Wonfor talks about the diversity of fossil remains and how it is the best place in Europe for dinosaur discovery 2:02 Dr Susannah Maidment explains as to why the island is so good for dinosaur finds 2:35 Over 20 dinosaur species so far have been discovered on the Isle of Wight 2:52 Prof Paul Barrett tells us about the early palaeontologists, including William Fox and Sir Richard Owen 3:15 The Isle of Wight early dinosaur discoveries helped form much of what we know about dinosaurs today. 3:50 Original dinosaur discoveries are still relevant today. 4:15 New dinosaurs still being found today. 4:33 The dinosaurs found on the Isle of Wight. Iguanodon, Polacanthus, Omithopods, Sauropods, Neovenator and Eotyrannus. 5:26 How could you make your own discovery? 5:34 Techniques for finding dinosaur remains. 6:06 Dinosaur Island, the Isle of Wight’s excellent museum of geology, where there are many dinosaurs and fossils. 6:52 Why the Isle of Wight is a lovely place to visit. 7:08 how it is so easy to find a fossil on the beach.

But did you know that it is also the best place in Europe to find dinosaurs and the fossils of numerous other prehistoric animals, from ammonites to alligators?

Join our palaeontologists Dr Susannah Maidment and Professor Paul Barrett, as well as local experts, to discover what makes the Isle of Wight so special to them.

Art Exhibitions: ‘Manabu Ikeda – Flowers From The Wreckage’ (Canada, 2023)

art in whistler

Manabu Ikeda:
Flowers from the Wreckage

June 24 – October 9, 2023

Audain Art Museum, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada (July 22, 2023) – Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage features Ikeda’s meticulously detailed pen-and-ink drawings that are filled with astonishing images.

This Japanese artist seeks inspiration from his surroundings to bring attention and awe to viewers, as a way of sending warnings about the painful reality of environmental disasters. Central to his practice are metaphors of grief and the undeniable aspects of life that are often beyond society’s control, including the fundamental forces of Mother Nature. Ikeda’s drawings also reveal human resilience and the ability to rise above devastating situations when it appears impossible.

Curated by Kiriko Watanabe, the Audain Art Museum’s Gail & Stephen A. Jarislowsky Curator, this is Ikeda’s first solo retrospective in North America showcasing over sixty works from national and international collections. Flowers from the Wreckage includes Foretoken (2008), Meltdown (2013) and Rebirth (2013-16), a selection of Ikeda’s large-scale drawings that relate to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake; the most devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power disaster in the country’s recorded history.

Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage will be on display in the AAM’s Tom and Teresa Gautreau Galleries from June 24 to October 9, 2023. A full colour exhibition catalogue featuring essays by Kiriko Watanabe and comments by Manabu Ikeda will be available for purchase in the Museum Shop.

Manabu Ikeda, “Territory,” 2004
Manabu Ikeda, “Territory,” 2004

pen and acrylic ink on paper, mounted on board, 17″ x 23″ (Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, courtesy the Audain Art Museum, Whistler, B.C.)

Manabu Ikeda Studio Gallery

A studio has been set up in the Museum’s architecturally stunning Upper Galleries, where visitors have the opportunity to observe the process of Ikeda drawing his latest work and interact with him during open studio hours.

Manabu will be in studio on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, from 3:00pm to 4:30pm until August 30. Museum guests are encouraged to come and witness the Artist’s incredible talent and learn more about his techniques. The studio will be open for viewing Thursday through Monday until September 4.

International Art: Apollo Magazine – July/Aug 2023

July/August 2023 | Apollo Magazine

Apollo Magazine – July/August 2023 issue: At the new National Portrait Gallery, The unswerving art of Ellsworth Kelly, A Futurist family home in Rome, and more…