Arts news

• ‘Suspended Limbs and Liquid Spines’: Richard Kennedy Debuts ‘Both’ at Artists Space

  23-01-2017 23:49 via artnews.com
  Richard Kennedy, dressed in camouflage-print sweatpants and a beanie cap , began his new ballet, Both, by crossing Artists Space’s long gallery in Lower Manhattan with a long butane lighter in one hand before lighting two pillar candles. The ritualistic … Read More
  
  Read more

• Old Masters at Sotheby’s New York: our top lots

  23-01-2017 22:00
  
  When it comes to my favourite Old Masters sales, most people know that I like them offbeat, and Sothebys sale on 25 January features several beautiful and compelling pictures of that sort by mostly unfamiliar masters. Here are two of them.
  The first is a remarkable canvas by the late 16th-century Florentine artist Domenico Cresti (also known as Passignano), Bathers at San Niccolo (1638; est $700,000-$900,000), depicting a gathering of lithe, muscular nude men frolicking in the river Arno during
  
  Read more

• Object lessons: from Leonora Carrington's unseen works to Sir William Tate's watercolour by Burne-Jones

  23-01-2017 22:00
  
  Le Corbusier, Still life with guitar, pile of plates, an open book, pipes, bottles and glasses (1961)
  Aktis Gallery at Brafa Art Fair, Brussels, 21-29 January
  Price 200,000-300,000Though mainly known for Haute Epoque and tribal art, Brafa offers an eclectic mix of art, and its Modern and contemporary sectors are continually expanding. Londons Aktis Gallery is among 132 exhibitors this year. Its focus is on migr art from 20th-century Paris, and it is selling this late still life by the Fran
  
  Read more

• Philadelphia’s Vox Populi Names James Merle Thomas Executive Director

  23-01-2017 20:31 via artnews.com
  The Philadelphia-based collective and alternative contemporary art space Vox Populi announced today that James Merle Thomas will be the nonprofit’s next executive director. He succeeds Bree Pickering, who left in October to become director of the Murray Art Museum Albury … Read More
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• A music venue that reflects our diversity

  23-01-2017 20:23
  
  While the desire expressed by Sir Simon Rattle and others for a new concert hall is understandable (Report, 18 January), I wonder if it is really relevant to the UK as it stands. The population is multiracial, practising and supporting a wide variety of different kinds of music, not just the western orchestral, chamber music and recital repertory. This would apply not only across arts spectrum but in scientific research. What we need are new centres that can house diverse kinds of musi
  
  Read more

• Amie Siegel's Strata review – from the depths of the Earth to the heights of excess

  23-01-2017 19:55
  
  Amie Siegel follows marble from quarry to tasteful, lifeless New York apartments. What will her cryptic excavations turn up?Amie Siegel’s HD videos and films are rich, complex affairs. They slow you down. In her largest British show to date, the American artist fills the South London Gallery with recent works. The camera burrows deep underground, between fissures and sunken lakes lit in greenish light. Neptune, from Gustav Holst’s Planets suite, accompanies us as we go down into the
  
  Read more

• Patrick Martinez at Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles

  23-01-2017 18:24 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday Read More
  
  Read more

• Geta Bratescu Will Represent Romania at the 2017 Venice Biennale

  23-01-2017 17:25 via artnews.com
  Romania’s Culture Ministry has selected the 90-year old artist Geta Brătescu as its representative for the 2017 Venice Biennale. Brătescu’s project, Geta Brătescu — Appearances, won her this honor after receiving the highest score during the second phase of the Culture … Read More
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• All Of The Winners Of The American Library Association's Youth Awards (Spoiler: John Lewis Cleaned Up)

  23-01-2017 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  You thought the Congressman's books were selling out before? Now it's won quite a few of the coveted youth awards. But here's a list of all of the winners and honor books, including the Newbery, the Caldecott, the Printz and so many more, from this morning's ALA Midwinter gathering in Atlanta.
  
  Read more

• Is IKEA Destroying The Antiques Trade?

  23-01-2017 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Well, the antiques business is at its lowest point since the 1930s, and IKEA is cruising along. One design critic lists six alternatives, including an open-sourced furniture design shop.
  
  Read more

• The Composer's Job During The Trump Administration

  23-01-2017 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  And not just the job of composers, but of every creative person: "There’s a lot of talk about opposing extremism and intolerance in the world and it’s fine to oppose violence and destruction through developing a counter-narrative or developing a cogent military strategy (those are vital things), but the ultimate response of resistance to violence and destruction is creation."
  
  Read more

• We must rescue Van Gogh from becoming a pop culture cliche

  23-01-2017 15:45
  
  Loving Vincent is a corny new biopic made from 62,450 hack oil paintings in Van Gogh’s style – and is an insult to the human struggle in his original worksVincent van Gogh is peculiarly cursed to be travestied, misunderstood and reduced to a kitsch parody of himself. Look at the art section in your local bookshop and you will find a glitzy new publication of his “lost” Arles drawings being heavily promoted even after the Van Gogh Museum denied the drawings in it are by Va
  
  Read more

• In South Korea, 'Abused And Humiliated' Government Officials Reveal Push To Blacklist Artists

  23-01-2017 15:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  A former minister of culture said that junior officials gave him evidence of the blacklists:"They were told to destroy the data, but they collected and saved it." Up to 10,000 artists and writers were on the list by 2015, sources say.
  
  Read more

• High Key: Brendan Fowler on His Current Show and Projects in the World of Fashion

  23-01-2017 15:39 via artnews.com
  The Los Angeles–based artist and musician Brendan Fowler has cut an idiosyncratic path through culture for well over a decade, building a deep and varied body of work that defies easy summary. Fowler’s most recent exhibition, “New Portraits,” currently on … Read More
  
  Read more

• One Thing That's Key To The Writing Life

  23-01-2017 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  "Wanting is not enough. I have wanted to climb a fourteener—here in Colorado, this is a peak over 14,000 feet—but I have yet to put in any effort to accomplish it. And unless I start training for a marathon hike, this will remain an unrealized ambition. Drive is the will to achieve. It is a state of mind that propels you to act. In the years before my book came out, I had the drive to write. I made compromises in order to have the time and space to make my art."
  
  Read more

• On Stage Now: Resistance, Catharsis, Community

  23-01-2017 15:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  Questions for now: "What will the art be like? Will it offer effective resistance to the Trump administration? Solace to the audience? Will theatrical craftsmanship suffer in the face of what Martin Luther King Jr. called the fierce urgency of now? Is this a time that will allow for nuance and complexity? Will any protest plays emerge of lasting value?"
  
  Read more

• Morning Links: Women’s March Edition

  23-01-2017 15:10 via artnews.com
  Here’s what we’re reading this morning. Read More
  
  Read more

• All Of The Training That Goes Into Learning The Lion Dance For Lunar New Year

  23-01-2017 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Seventeen-year-old Sara Pore: "Lion dancing started 2,000 years ago — that’s incredible. ... But what makes you a competent lion dancer is that there is a sense of imagination involved. Lion dancing teaches competence in leadership because of this. You’re constantly forced to push yourself past your limit."
  
  Read more

• Look at me: Saatchi gallery's self-portraits show (aka selfies)

  23-01-2017 14:41
  
  Organisers of the forthcoming show From Selfie to Self-Expression at the Saatchi Gallery in London this spring (31 March-30 May) stress that this will be the worlds first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from the old masters to the present day. The show, held in partnership with the mobile phone brand Huawei, will include works by masters of self-portraiture such as Cindy Sherman, Van Gogh, Tracey Emin and Gavin Turk. People who love taking photos of themselves can even e
  
  Read more

• Look at me: Saatchi gallery launches self-portraits show (aka selfies)

  23-01-2017 14:41
  
  Organisers of the forthcoming show From Selfie to Self-Expression at the Saatchi Gallery in London this spring (31 March-30 May) stress that this will be the worlds first exhibition exploring the history of the selfie from the old masters to the present day. The show, held in partnership with the mobile phone brand Huawei, will include works by masters of self-portraiture such as Cindy Sherman, Van Gogh, Tracey Emin and Gavin Turk. People who love taking photos of themselves can even
  
  Read more

• The Ultra Popular BroadwayCon Is In A Dispute With Actors' Equity

  23-01-2017 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Uh-oh: "In a note sent to Actors’ Equity members on Friday, Flora Stamatiades, the union’s national director of organizing and special projects, wrote that last year’s contract had been reached on an understanding that the payment terms for future conventions would be changed. 'Now the producers are refusing to make the changes to which they agreed,' she wrote. 'This is unacceptable.' She then put BroadwayCon on Equity’s 'do not work' list."
  
  Read more

• As Philip Glass Turns 80, He Says His Problem Is That People Don't Believe Him

  23-01-2017 14:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  At least, they don't believe he writes symphonies. "But I’m premiering Symphony No 11 in a couple of weeks. ... Maybe I do too many things."
  
  Read more

• Giacometti plasters created for 1956 Venice Biennale to be reunited for Tate Modern show

  23-01-2017 14:13
  
  A group of six tall spindly female nudes created in plaster by Alberto Giacometti for the Venice Biennale in 1956 are to be reunited for the first time in 60 years at Tate Modern this spring. The Women of Venice plasters will be shown alongside two further sculptures from the same series, which Giacometti unveiled at the Kunsthalle Berne that year.
   
  Giacomettis emaciated bronze figures are considered among the most important sculptures of the 20th centuryhis 1947 LHomme au doigt (Pointing
  
  Read more

• We Can Learn How To Fight For Arts Funding From New York In The 1970s

  23-01-2017 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  One idea - among many - is to talk about money: "Indeed, the late ’70s saw the emergence of the idea that theatre might not be a drain on the city’s coffers, but actually help fill them—a school of thought that still holds today, with theatre as an economic engine on a par with tech (something has to replace manufacturing, right?)."
  
  Read more

• Après-art: how an Aspen ski resort became a retreat for art's biggest names

  23-01-2017 14:00
  
  The likes of Theaster Gates and Catherine Opie have all used Anderson Ranch to experiment. Now Tom Sachs is the latest to go tell it to the mountainBack in 1966, just as the ski industry was taking hold in Aspen, Colorado, resort developers began to think about an arts and cultural center to service the growing community of artists and rat-race refugees. Over the years, Anderson Ranch, a one-time sheep farm in nearby Snowmass Village, has expanded from a little-known retreat to hosting extensive
  
  Read more

• Tate Modern to reunite Giacometti's plaster Women of Venice

  23-01-2017 13:46
  
  Gathering of six sculptures for first time since they were made in 1956 will be highlight of retrospective for Swiss artistA group of six plaster sculptures made by Alberto Giacometti for the Venice Biennale at the height of his fame are to be brought together for the first time since they were made in 1956.Tate Modern said the plasters would be exhibited in London this summer as a highlight of its retrospective for the Swiss artist, which will position him alongside Matisse, Picasso and Degas a
  
  Read more

• No, The Author Of 'Goodnight, Moon' Was Not The Old Lady Whispering Hush

  23-01-2017 13:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  This was Margaret Wise Brown: "When she received her first check for writing, she didn't buy necessities or even champagne, but an entire cart full of flowers. She had dramatic and tumultuous love affairs with both men and women. She was ambivalent about her audience, famously telling a reporter, 'I don't particularly like children.'"
  
  Read more

• A String Quartet's Place In The Political Upheaval Of Our Time

  23-01-2017 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Mark Sved on the Kronos Quartet: "The Age of Reason ideal expanded throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, but with the string quartet still a reasonable vehicle for great composers’ inner musical thoughts and feelings. Then along came Kronos. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the Bay Area outfit revolutionized everything in string quartet country and beyond."
  
  Read more

• The Movies, TV Shows, And Theatre That Won Awards For Casting

  23-01-2017 13:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  At the Artios Awards, casting directors on both coasts were wondering if the long-requested casting director Oscar might join the Academy Awards soon.
  
  Read more

• Known Unknowns, Or, How The Fossils We Don't Have Are As Important As Those We Do

  23-01-2017 13:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Evidence of absence: "Interpreting fossils that aren’t there comes with its own peculiar challenges, and these gaps and ghosts that haunt the fossil record are a big part of palaeontology’s allure. In dinosaur palaeontology, sample sizes are often small, and the challenge is to find creative ways to extract information from fossils. One of the most daring moves of all is to begin treating the fossils we don’t have as data."
  
  Read more

• Broomberg & Chanarin to bring their politically-engaged art to the London Underground

  23-01-2017 12:41
  
  The artist duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, who have tackled subjects such as the war in Afghanistan and the terrorist attacks in London, are making their presence felt with a new exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in Milan and a commission for Art on the Underground in London, which will be unveiled in September.
   
  Commuters passing through Canary Wharf tube station in the citys financial district will see a film showing the destruction of boats used to transport refugees fleeing fro
  
  Read more

• Who is Hasso Plattner whose spectacular museum has opened near Berlin?

  23-01-2017 11:55
  
  To the software billionaire Hasso Plattner, the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo is better than Picasso. Among his art treasures on show at the new Barberini Museum in Potsdamopened to invited guests on 20 January including Bill Gates and chancellor Angela Merkelis a painting of a woman in a lighted room, viewed from the dark outside between half-open blinds.
   
  Plattner first saw the painting for auction at Sothebys in New York, but it was too expensive for him. Ten years later, in the early 1
  
  Read more

• Why Clive of India’s treasures are up for export to Qatar again

  23-01-2017 11:38
  
  Two Mughal treasures brought to Britain by Robert Clive, the commander-in-chief of British India, also known as Clive of India, have been export-deferred again13 years after an earlier attempt to send them from the UK to Qatar.
  When Clive of Indias descendants consigned a very rare jade and gold flask decorated with emeralds and rubies along with a ruby and sapphire huqqa pipe to Christies in 2004, both were bought by Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani, the culture minister of Qatar. After expor
  
  Read more

• Rex Whistler: More than Murals – in pictures

  23-01-2017 08:00
  
  Exhibition brings together paintings, letters, designs and photographs from the National Trust’s Whistler archive, the family archive at Salisbury Museum and the Welsh Guards Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Rex Whistler: exhibition shines new light on relationship with last patron

  23-01-2017 08:00
  
  Artist was said to have been unlucky with last employer Maud Russell but display at Mottisfont Abbey paints a different picture Many of his friends thought the artist Rex Whistler unlucky in what proved the last of his glamorous society patrons: Maud Russell was young, gorgeous, rich, had a huge country house, Mottisfont Abbey, and a vast room which she wanted him to cover with a mural – but she also knew her own mind. Whistler’s brother Laurence, a glass engraver, said snidely that
  
  Read more

• Mona Foma: how a summer festival swamped me with ominous foreboding

  23-01-2017 07:30
  
  The Brian Ritchie-curated festival of music and art at David Walsh’s Mona sometimes feels like a requiem for humanityEven the press conference at Mona Foma (Mofo) was strange. On Thursday at noon, the festival’s curator and former Violent Femme, Brian Ritchie, spoke to local media as half a dozen helpers waved CB radio receivers around his face. Ritchie said that one of the themes this year was “primitive electronics” but stopped short of explaining why.Afterwards, the pa
  
  Read more

• Saatchi gallery to explore selfies as art form

  23-01-2017 01:01
  
  Barack Obama selfies to feature alongside self-portraits by Tracey Emin and Vincent van Gogh in exhibition on self-expressionAn exhibition at Saatchi gallery plans to explore the importance of selfies as an art form.Opening in March, it will showcase a selection of well-known pieces as well as selfies that have “quickly become icons of the digital era”. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUKnews on Twitter!