Arts news

• Save the data: New York Public Library launches online biographical archive for photographers

  13-04-2016 23:35
  
  The New York Public Library (NYPL) has launched an online biographical database that features more than 115,000 profiles of photographers, studios, manufacturers, dealers and other notable names in the history of photography.
  David Lowe, the founder and editor of the Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC), initially began collecting the information from a database that was maintained by the George Eastman House, now known as the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. “That d
  
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• Raphaela Simon at Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles

  13-04-2016 23:08 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday Read More
  
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• Women of east (and south) London’s art world at centre as Peer reopens

  13-04-2016 23:00
  
  Everyone agreed that the determination of Ingrid Swenson, the director of peer, to bring “the experience of high quality art to the high street” was achieved with a vengeance at last night’s grand unveiling of the independent arts organisation’s refurbished new galleries and two new public art commissions.
  After admiring Ofili’s clock and agreeing that Angela de la Cruz’s massive 10 by 12 metre Larger than Life painting, crammed into one of the elegant galler
  
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• Storm clouds gather over German art market

  13-04-2016 23:00
  
  Some German art dealers are questioning whether the local art market offers them a future as a new law on protecting cultural assets adds to hurdles, including an increase in value-added taxes, social welfare payments for artists and global economic risks.The Kulturgutschutzgesetz (Cultural Assets Protection Law) had its first hearing in the lower house of parliament on 18 February and is expected to pass into law in the coming months. Its primary aims are to stop the illegal trade in looted an
  
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• Show us your knickers Victoria (& Albert)

  13-04-2016 23:00
  
  Undressed: a Brief History of Underwear, which opens at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London this week (16 April-12 March), exposes the origins and evolution of fashion’s usually hidden garments: crinolines, corsets, bras, knickers, boxers, stockings and tights.Among the more than 200 items on show are cotton drawers worn by Queen Victoria’s mother, a First World War austerity corset in paper and a pair of Vivienne Westwood flesh-coloured leggings with a strategically-placed mir
  
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• Letter to the Editor: from Sharon Flescher, IFAR

  13-04-2016 23:00
  
  I would like to correct certain statements concerning the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) published in your April 2016 issue.
  As is now known, in October 2003, IFAR issued a report concerning its review of a purported Jackson Pollock sold by the Knoedler Gallery to Mr Jack Levy. The statement that IFAR could not “determine whether the work was authentic or not,” implying that we did not come to an opinion, is not correct.As the report makes clear, IFAR had serious c
  
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• It’s a jungle out there: interactive installation brings the Amazon to Times Square

  13-04-2016 23:00
  
  For the month of April, or Earth Month for the eco-minded, visitors to New York’s urban jungle will be able to use a smartphone app to superimpose the sounds of the Amazon rainforest on an eight-square block plaza in Times Square. “We spent two months recording in the Amazon”, Stephan Crasneanscki, one of the artists behind the project JUNGLE-IZED, told The Art Newspaper. “After an expedition like that, it’s almost strange being back in a place where nature has bee
  
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• The Readymade Revue: Ei Arakawa on His Musical, ‘How to DISappear in America,’ at Reena Spaulings

  13-04-2016 22:26 via artnews.com
  A thriller about two people on the run, the artist’s new work is inspired by Seth Price’s ideas about disappearing Read More
  
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• The Ready-Made Revue: Ei Arakawa on His Musical ‘How to DISappear in America’ at Reena Spaulings

  13-04-2016 22:26 via artnews.com
  A thriller about two people on the run, the artist’s new work is inspired by Seth Price’s ideas about disappearing Read More
  
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• A Basquiat From the Collection of Adam Lindemann Could Break $48.8 M. Artist Record at Christie’s

  13-04-2016 21:20 via artnews.com
  Each day this week, Christie’s chairman Brett Gorvy has using his improbably popular Instagram feed—27,000 followers, and counting!—to reveal the major lots in the house’s postwar and contemporary evening sale that happens in New York on May 10. Today’s drop is Basquiat’s Untitled … Read More
  
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• Cuba’s support for its arts should make us weep with envy | Letters

  13-04-2016 20:10
  
  No artistic freedom in Cuba? Really (Havana artist sets up ‘haven for free speech’, 11 April)? Thanks to its rigorous arts education system, free to students including at graduate level, Cuba has a diverse and brilliant cultural life which engages with the wide spectrum of social and political issues in the country. Anyone who has visited the island will know that. The fact is that support for the arts would make educators in the UK weep with envy. Cuba has brought the world outstand
  
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• He said she said: Grayson Perry’s brush with the ballet

  13-04-2016 19:00
  
  The gender-bending artist Grayson Perry seems an appropriate choice to create the front cloth for the English National Ballet’s programme She Said, three new pieces choreographed by Aszure Barton, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Yabin Wang, running 13 through 16 April at London’s Sadler’s Wells. The ballet’s artistic director, Tamara Rojo, cited the artist’s “wonderful insight into different forms of identity” in her statement on the commission. The artist, w
  
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• Gary Oldman gets behind the camera

  13-04-2016 18:55
  
  Leading actor Gary Oldman—the esteemed star of movies such as Sid & Nancy and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—is also a keen and seemingly accomplished photographer. Fans of the UK film star can view his enigmatic black-and-white works in a two-hander show due to open at Flowers gallery in London this week (Slipping Glimpsers, 15 April-14 May), with Oldman’s images hanging alongside paintings by the British artist George Blacklock. The pair met on the set of the 1986 TV ser
  
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• Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors To Represent Finland at the 2017 Venice Biennale

  13-04-2016 17:54 via artnews.com
  Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors have been chosen to represent Finland at the 57th Venice Biennale, in 2017. Their winning proposal, titled The Aalto Natives, was curated by Xander Karskens and plans to turn the Finland Pavilion into “an immersive … Read More
  
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• Morning Links: Coachella Edition

  13-04-2016 14:58 via artnews.com
  Must-read stories from around the world Read More
  
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• Photos of teenage bedrooms in the 90s

  13-04-2016 14:54
  
  There's a strange abstraction about the aesthetics of the near past. Look at bedrooms from the 1920s and you feel like you're simply taking in historical information, but gaze on ones from just a couple of decades ago and you're met with the odd realisation that a period that felt devoid of character while you lived through it had just as defined a look and corresponding temporal paraphernalia.
  
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• The so-called Caravaggio in the attic looks like a fake to me

  13-04-2016 13:07
  
  A supposedly 400-year-old painting found in Tolouse has the old master’s cinematic lighting and lurid focus. But where is the psychological intensity?I am sorry but it is all too good to be true. The owners of an old house near Toulouse ventured into their attic and found a large dusty painting. When a local antiques dealer gave it a gentle clean, he recognised it as a painting by – or closely associated with – none other than the great Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.Related
  
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• Artists Elmgreen & Dragset turn curators, taking on the 15th Istanbul Biennial

  13-04-2016 12:54
  
  The maverick Scandinavian artists Elmgreen & Dragset have been appointed as the curators of the 15th Istanbul Biennial, which opens late next year (16 September-12 November 2017). The pair have long been associated with the established biennial, having participated in three editions (their performance piece Istanbul Diaries featured in the 2013 biennial).
  The artists say in a statement: “In light of the current global geopolitical situation, in which we’re experiencing a new ris
  
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• Nazi-looted Old Master painting withdrawn from Austrian auction at France’s request

  13-04-2016 11:50
  
  The Vienna auction house Im Kinsky has withdrawn a Nazi-looted 17th-century Dutch Old Master painting from sale yesterday, 13 April, at the French government’s request.  
  Portrait of a Man (1647) by Bartholomeus van der Helst featured in the Im Kinsky catalogue with an estimated price of between €12,000 and €18,000. It was among several hundred works looted in 1943 from the Schloss family, whose magnificent collection of Flemish and Dutch Old Masters was coveted both by Ado
  
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• Philanthropist Yana Peel appointed chief executive of London’s Serpentine Galleries

  13-04-2016 11:20
  
  The Hong Kong-based philanthropist and entrepreneur Yana Peel has been appointed chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries in London. The high-profile institution's trustees took the unusual decision to choose a fellow trustee to fill the new post. Julia Peyton-Jones, who put the institution on the international map, is stepping down as co-director this month after 25 years at the helm.Peel will work in partnership with Hans Ulrich Obrist who has been at the Serpentine since 2006 as co-direct
  
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• 2 Versions of Hmm by Gonsalves Mpili and Jenny Kim

  13-04-2016 08:54 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A circumcised sigh,
  Came out and blew up my face,
  I looked dehydrated.
   
  It wasn’t stress,
  The sun was sympathetic to me,
  The option it gave me,
  Was to burn my skin,
  As if i was an iceberg,
  In an ocean melting down into pieces,
   
  I am poor
  Yet the sun promotes it’s product,
  Even if I had money to buy the product,
  I wouldn’t bother,
  The sun’s heat is free like air,
  Such a product should be condemned to a cooking school,
  Hmm.
   
  Hmm is the sound I make when in
  
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• The First-Ever Afghan Muppet Is A Girl With A Mission

  13-04-2016 02:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Zari, whose name means ‘shimmering,’ is an eager 6-year-old who will focus on girls’ empowerment, health and emotional well-being” on the Afghan version of Sesame Street, Baghch-e Simsim.
  
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• Lebrecht: Has London’s Classical Music Scene Gone Flat?

  13-04-2016 01:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “This is a piece I hoped never to write and each word is wrung from me with regret. But recent chats with regular concertgoers have confirmed the growling in my gut that some life force has vanished from London’s music in the past couple of years. The causes are diverse.”
  
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• This Viral Dance Sweeping The Arab World Is Landing People In Jail

  13-04-2016 00:38 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The “Barbs” is a certifiable hit in the Middle East. A fun mix of hip-hop and early 1980s-style break dancing melded with Arabic rhythms, the routine is performed by a bunch of young Saudis, including one wearing a dark suit and bright red high-top sneakers. Their video has gone viral.
  
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• ‘Civilization Stylishly Blowing Itself To Pieces’ – Alex Ross On Stéphane Mallarmé

  13-04-2016 00:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  “Upon his death, in 1898, he left behind a body of work so inscrutable that it still causes literature students to fall to their knees in despair” – not least because it’s written in sonnets and alexandrines. “It is, however, precisely this tension between traditional form and radical content that keeps reactivating the shock of his writing.”
  
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