Arts news

• What they do and how they do it: why museums matter

  18-01-2017 22:00
  
  Nicholas Thomas is the director of Cambridges Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, a scholar, curator, writer and a museum enthusiast. He likens museums to regions and nations in which all sorts of disparate elements are brought together, which in different ways express the past vividly embodied in the present. The thrust of his ruminations on the nature of collections is that, like collections of people, the sum is greater than the parts because of the dialogues, conversations, connections
  
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• US artist Amie Siegel takes a Freudian trip to South London

  18-01-2017 22:00
  The South London Gallery opens an exhibition by the New York-based artist Amie Siegel this week. This first show for Siegel in a UK institution includes three works, among them Fetish (2016), which documents the annual cleaning of Sigmund Freuds collection of archaeological artefacts in his former north London home. Another work, Quarry (2015), will be shown on an impressive scale, says the gallerys director, Margot Heller. It will take up the whole of the double-height main space.Siegels previ
  
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• Object lessons: from an early John Piper gouache at London Art Fair to a gold leaf cabinet by Paul Evans

  18-01-2017 22:00
  
  John Piper, Public Bar (1933)
  Waterhouse & Dodd at London Art Fair, 18-22 January 
  price 42,000The late Edgar Astaire was a dedicated and respected collector of Modern British art, concentrating largely on Slade School artists such as Mark Gertler, David Bomberg and William Roberts. In 2015, Christies South Kensington sold Astaires collection, which included this early gouache and collage on paper by John Piper (1903-92). The work was exhibited in 1941 at the First Exhibition of Three
  
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• London Art Fair sets its sights wide on collectors of all kinds

  18-01-2017 22:00
  
  Unlike many other fairs in the UK capital, which cater predominantly to specific slices of the market, the London Art Fair (until 22 January) targets a wide range of wallets. Works on offer at the fair, which opened to VIPS and collectors on Tuesday 17 January, range from 600 etchings to six-figure prints by Warhol, while average prices seem to hover around the mid-to-low five-figure mark.
  Robert Travers, whose gallery Piano Nobile is a stalwart of the fair, says it has always attracted a stron
  
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• How Northern Europeans interpreted Japan

  18-01-2017 22:00
  After Japan opened up to the West in the mid-19th century, its ceramics, fans and textiles became highly fashionable and were frequently depicted in European portraits and interior scenes. A new show at the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) in Copenhagen looks specifically at how the influence carried in the Nordic countries. The exhibition, titled Japanomania in the North, 1875-1918 (19 January-23 April) argues that most Nordic artists regarded Japanese art and craft as a way to look at and under
  
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• Cuban collector’s heirs settle over Wifredo Lam painting that resurfaced in Miami

  18-01-2017 22:00
  
  A painting that the heirs of a Cuban collector maintain was looted after the 1959 revolution is now on sale for the second time in Miami after a restitution case was settled quietly this summer, The Art Newspaper has learned. The heirs of the original owner of a mural-sized canvas by Wifredo Lam (1902-82) received undisclosed compensation from the current holder of the work in an out-of-court settlement.
  The painting, Sin Titulo (Suenos Arcabes), or Untitled, which Lam painted in 1955, first su
  
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• Amartey Golding and his Royal Ballet brother deliver London Art Fair showstopper

  18-01-2017 22:00
  
  The must-see piece of this years London Art Fair (until 22 January) is not easy to find. The London-born, Brighton-based Amartey Goldings mesmerizing and disturbing film Chainmail, is tucked in a tiny curtained viewing room alongside the booth of Jack House Gallery from Portsmouth. However, an increasingly lengthening queue outside acts as a clue. Once in, it is easy to see why this debut film from an artist hitherto best-known for his charcoal drawings on unprimed canvas, has been attracting s
  
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• Connie H. Choi Joins the Studio Museum as Associate Curator

  18-01-2017 21:33 via artnews.com
  The Studio Museum in Harlem has hired Connie H. Choi as associate curator of its permanent collection, filling a role left vacant when Lauren Haynes departed to become curator of contemporary art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, … Read More
  
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• ‘Why Not Ask Again?’: Shanghai Biennale Addresses Contemporary Social Issues, With Spectacle and Grace

  18-01-2017 20:26 via artnews.com
  Through March 12, 2017 Read More
  
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• Alexis Gideon at Locust Projects, Miami

  18-01-2017 20:11 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday Read More
  
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• From the Smell of Sewage to the Smell of Cash: Mike Bouchet Brings an Olfactory Sculpture to Marlborough Chelsea

  18-01-2017 19:52 via artnews.com
  During last year’s Manifesta 11 in Zurich, visitors were given an odorous answer to a question they never knew they had: How much solid waste does that stately riverside Swiss city’s entire population produce every day? An artwork titled The Zurich … Read More
  
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• Essex Street Gallery Relocates to Hester Street, Opening New Space With an Anti-Inauguration Show

  18-01-2017 19:46 via artnews.com
  Since Essex Street, the gallery, first moved to Eldridge Street in Lower Manhattan, in 2012, it’s been located in a smallish ground-floor space near a beauty spa, a Vanessa’s Dumpling House, and a dollar store. There’s something charming about its … Read More
  
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• Winnie The Pooh day heralds V&A show

  18-01-2017 19:11
  
  Today may be national Winnie the Pooh daycelebrated annually on the author A.A Milnes birthdaybut the end of the year will see an even bigger celebration of the lovable bear. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London will be hosting the exhibition Winnie the Pooh: Exploring a Classic (16 December-8 April 2018). The show will look at the creative partnership between Milne and the illustrator E.H. Shepard, and will draw on the V&As large collection of hi
  
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• Tate Liverpool to exhibit works of German artists whose lives were shaped by war

  18-01-2017 18:20
  
  Painter Otto Dix and photographer August Sander to have work shown in Liverpool from JuneWorks by two German artists, the painter Otto Dix and the photographer August Sander, who chronicled the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic and were then banned by the Nazis, will be exhibited together for the first time at Tate Liverpool, in an exhibition with eerie contemporary echoes.“It’s a bit political in many ways,” said Andreas Gestrich, director of the German Historical Institute
  
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• Marianne Boesky to Open Gallery in Aspen

  18-01-2017 18:00 via artnews.com
  Last May, Marianne Boesky closed her space on the Lower East Side, which she had dubbed Boesky East, and expanded her Chelsea gallery by taking over the former 303 Gallery space next door. Because the new space is technically on the east … Read More
  
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• Expo Chicago 2017 Announces Curators for Special Projects Sections

  18-01-2017 17:00 via artnews.com
  Expo Chicago announced today that it has selected curators for In/Situ, Expo Video, and Exposure, three sections of the forthcoming fair scheduled for September 13-17. The fair also announced that it will host an edition of the roving European exhibition series “Hors … Read More
  
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• Export bar placed on Clive of India's flask and huqqa set

  18-01-2017 16:19
  
  Gem-encrusted pieces belonging to 18th-century British governor barred from being exported unless potential buyer matches priceA spectacular gem-encrusted jade and gold flask presented to Clive of India after his victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 has had a temporary export bar placed on it by the British government.Experts advising ministers say there is no other object like it anywhere in the world, let alone in Britain. Related: Listen to William Dalrymple's long read on The East India
  
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• Nasty Women: An Exhibition in Queens Takes on Trump

  18-01-2017 16:00 via artnews.com
  Seeing that racism and sexism are apparently permissible for a presidential platform, nearly 700 artists and activists banded together in opposition for “Nasty Women,” a group exhibition at Knockdown Center that showcased work by females and gender-non-conformists in a hub … Read More
  
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• Martin Parr bags a top prize for capturing the world’s quirks

  18-01-2017 15:52
  
  The illustrious UK photographer Martin Parr is known for capturing the eccentric characteristics of the British public (as well as the foibles of the US public; see our last Art Basel in Miami Beach daily editions which included some top-notch images of the Florida art scene). Parr, who was voted president of Magnum Photos International in 2014, has been honoured by the World Photography Organisation, which has bestowed the title of Outstanding Contribution to Photography on the Bristol-based sn
  
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• Inside Job: In the Tradition of Institutional Critique, Artists Are Throwing Wrenches Into the Art World’s Works

  18-01-2017 15:10 via artnews.com
  The standard hours for contemporary art galleries have been set in stone for decades: 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday. But quite a few people attempting to visit A. L. Steiner’s exhibition this past fall at Koenig & Clinton in … Read More
  
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• Brant Foundation Will Present Jason Rhoades Exhibition This Fall

  18-01-2017 15:05 via artnews.com
  This fall the Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, will play host to an exhibition of work by the late Los Angeles–based artist Jason Rhoades, who is perhaps best known for large installations featuring neon texts, bounties of … Read More
  
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• Morning Links: $600 Million Edition

  18-01-2017 15:00 via artnews.com
  Must-read stories from around the art world Read More
  
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• Sebastiano: the forgotten Renaissance genius who swapped sex for God

  18-01-2017 14:49
  
  The National Gallery is pairing Michelangelo with the lesser-known Sebastiano in its latest exhibition. So who is this artist who gave up debauched Venice for the Vatican – and why did he waste his talent?The names are not quite equal in fame. This spring the National Gallery is putting on an exhibition called Michelangelo and Sebastiano. You may have heard of Michelangelo. He carved David, painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and did a few other things. In Paolo Sorrentino’s br
  
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• Deal or no deal? Phoenix Ancient Art sues Getty over billion-dollar Greek and Roman sculpture collection

  18-01-2017 14:44
  
  The Getty and its director, Timothy Potts, were sued for $77m on 12 January in Manhattan federal court by the Swiss antiquities dealership Phoenix Ancient Art for cutting it out of a purported arrangement to secure rights to or display antiquities owned by the Torlonia family in Italy. According to the complaint, the collection of more than 600 Greek and Roman sculptures, amassed by the princely family who made a fortune in the 18th and 19th centuries as bankers to the Vatican, hasnt been displ
  
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• Britannia rule the waves at the London Art Fair

  18-01-2017 13:09
  
  The London Art Fair (until 22 January), billed as "the UK's premier Modern British and contemporary art fair", opened its doors to VIPs and collectors yesterday (17 January), who began trickling in during the early hours of the afternoon. Visiting luminaries included the dealer Daniel Katz and his son Robin, and Wentworth Beaumont, the co-founder of art consultancy Beaumont Nathan. But unlike many other fairs in the capital which predominantly cater for single slices of
  
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• Who will design baby Pia’s Wendy House for Julia Peyton-Jones?

  18-01-2017 12:05
  
  The happy news that former Serpentine Galleries supremo Julia Peyton-Jones is a mother later in life took the art and architecture worlds by surprise when Londons Evening Standard newspaper broke the news yesterday (17 January). If and when a Wendy house is desired by baby Pia, Peyton-Jones will be spoiled for choice for designers, given the number of star architects on her Rolodex. As well as the likes of Bjarke Ingels, Frank Gehry, Peter Zumthor, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of
  
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• Istanbul art fair and biennial join forces in bid to boost tourism in Turkey

  18-01-2017 09:00
  
  In a bid to boost tourism and a flailing economy, Contemporary Istanbul art fair is moving its dates to September and is joining forces with the citys venerable biennial to form Istanbul Art Week in the middle of the month. Museums and galleries such as the privately run Sakp Sabanc museum are also due to take part in the initiative, which is for the first time supported by the local government.
  The recent spate of terror attacks and a crackdown on freedom of expression by the Turkish president
  
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• President with a torpedo in his crotch: how the works of Lubaina Himid speak to Trump times

  18-01-2017 08:00
  
  Born in Zanzibar and raised in Britain, Lubaina Himid makes work about everything from slavery to Thatcher to the cotton trade. Now in her 60s, she’s finally getting the recognition she deserves
  Lubaina Himid was just four months old when her father died. It was 1954 and her Blackpool-born mother decided to leave their home in Zanzibar and head back to Britain, where she brought her daughter up as a Londoner. Himid would not return to the place of her birth for 43 years.So for much of her
  
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• Mind maps: the beauty of brain cells – in pictures

  18-01-2017 08:00
  
  The 19th-century Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the father of modern neuroscience, was one of the first people to unravel the mysteries of the structure of the brain – and he made stunning drawings to describe and explain his discoveries Continue reading...
  
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• Confined: artwork from Indigenous prisoners in Victoria – in pictures

  18-01-2017 03:41
  
  An exhibition showcasing art from Indigenous Australians in or recently released from Victorian prisons opens today in Melbourne. Now in its eighth year, the annual Confined exhibition is presented by prisoner support organisation The Torch as part of St Kilda’s Indigenous Arts festival, Yalukit Wilum Ngargee. This year, it features artworks by 130 artists developed through The Torch’s Indigenous Arts in Prisons and Community program • Confined 8 is showing at the Gallery, St Ki
  
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• Business by the Bay: Dealers Descend on San Francisco for Untitled and Fog Fairs

  18-01-2017 00:20 via artnews.com
  The word provincial is sometimes thrown around when discussing the art world in San Francisco. There are the usual complaints that one hears in many metropolitan areas around the country—that few collectors are serious and that the arts are underfunded—but recently … Read More
  
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