Arts news

• Losing Maggie’s handbag looks like carelessness

  12-06-2017 23:40
  
  Theresa May has just about made it back to No. 10 after last week's general election, but her forerunner, the late Margaret Thatcher, could soon be back in Westminsterin the shape of a 10ft-tall sculpture of the Iron Lady in Parliament Square. The imposing bronze was commissioned by the Public Memorials Appeal Trust, but has apparently angered Carol Thatcher, the daughter of the former Conservative leader, because the 300,000 work does not include her mothers trademark accessory: a ha
  
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• What is the market for Documenta 14 artists?

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  Art Basel and Documenta 14 are opposites: one embodies the art market while the other eschews it. The quinquennial, which opened its first leg in Athens in April (until 16 July) and its second in the German city of Kassel last week (until 17 September), is funded largely by the German taxpayer. This years highly political edition, in particular, appears to be keeping the market at arms length: Adam Szymczyk, the shows artistic director, has called for artistic production to be valued as more th
  
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• Venice Biennale: triumphs and talking points

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  Many fairgoers will now be on a grand tour, with the Venice Biennale on their itinerary. We asked leading figures for their impressions of Christine Macels main show, Viva Arte Viva, and their pick of the national pavilions.Stefan Kalmar
  Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts, LondonAs a whole, the Biennale felt flat, maybe because we are living in such dire times. Perhaps the problem lies with the context into which the Biennale has fallen, rather than the Biennale itself. In the social and
  
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• Pierre Huyghe creates sci-fi landscape in Münster

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  The sensation of this years Sculpture Projects Mnster, which opened on Saturday (until 1 October), is Pierre Huyghes futuristic biotope in a disused ice-rink. Featuring live animals, an incubator growing cancer cells and augmented reality, it is among the most ambitious works ever realised at the decennial show in the north-west German city.As well as the 35,000 given to each Mnster participant, Huyghe has had help from his galleries: New Yorks Marian Goodman, Hauser & Wirth in London, Esth
  
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• New art across old Basel

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  Amanda Ross-Ho, Mitchell-Innes & Nash 
  Untitled Findings (ACCESS) (2017)
  Various locations throughout the Parcours areaIve been a big fan of Amanda Ross-Hos work for a long time. She makes large-scale sculptural interpretations of everyday objects, like gloves and trousers. In this vein, shes made a keychain based on her own Carabiner keychain and a bunch of keys that seem to have fallen off and are lost throughout the streets of Basel. Theyre largemaybe 60cm long. You might find
  
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• National Gallery of Ireland’s grand reopening worth the protracted wait

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  The National Gallery of Ireland will unveil around 650 works when its historic collection displays reopen on Thursday (15 June), its director Sean Rainbird says. Around 80% of the gallerys exhibition space has been closed since 2011 to make way for a refurbishment by the Office of Public Works and the Dublin-based architects Heneghan Peng that cost around 30m.  The redesign included the construction of an internal courtyard with windows that open up views across the museum, allowing visito
  
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• Interview: Claudia Comte unveils her Circus maximus at Art Basel

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  The smooth surfaces of Claudia Comtes wooden sculptures bear little trace of her tool of choice: a chainsaw. Sanded and waxed to perfection in her Berlin studio, her abstract forms evoke cartoon cacti as readily as rigorous Brancusi totems. While wood remains an enduring love for the Swiss artist, who grew up in a chalet near a forest and learned her craft from local lumberjacks, she is also making a name for herself with ambitious installations in locations ranging from a mountain ice rink to
  
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• In pictures: new art across old Basel

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  The intimate mood of this years Parcours at Art Basel is an indirect reaction to a summer of massive art presentations, says Samuel Leuenberger, who has organised the fairs site-specific sector around the Mnsterplatz for the second time. In his day job, the Basel-born curator runs the project space Salts in nearby Birsfelden. In a year marked by the once-a-decade convergence of the Venice Biennale, Documenta and Skulptur Projekte Mnster, Leuenbergers selection of 22 works really boils down to th
  
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• Cézanne: the sketch artist exposed

  12-06-2017 23:00
  The Hidden Czanne: from Sketchbook to Canvas
  Kunstmuseum Basel
  Until 24 SeptemberWorn and jumbled, bearing oil stains from the studio and his sons childish doodles, Paul Czannes sketchbooks have come out of storage for the next three months at the Kunstmuseum Basel. The Hidden Czanne: from Sketchbook to Canvas (until 24 September), which opened this weekend, is the first exhibition in nearly 30 years of the museums 154 sheets, most of them from five sketchbooks. The worlds largest set of the Fr
  
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• Beyeler to reunite Giacometti and Bacon

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  Giacometti and Bacon will be the stars of the Fondation Beyelers main exhibition next year, which is due to coincide with Art Basel 2018. The show is being organised by the Fondation Beyelers curator, Ulf Kster, Catherine Grenier, the director of the Fondation Giacometti, and Michael Peppiatt, an expert on Bacon and Giacometti.
  Peppiatt promises that the sheer visual excitement of two great 20th-century masters will make this a major show. Discussions are taking place about a second venue for t
  
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• Artist Subodh Gupta dishes up a feast, Parcours pussy riot, plus more Basel gossip

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  Food for thought
  Fed up with fondue? All rsti-ed out? Then head over to Unlimited at Art Basel, where Subodh Gupta is dishing up a delectable Indian feast from inside one of his giant sculptures made from old cooking utensils. I love cooking, and food is my passion, declares the Delhi-based artist, whose gastronomic performance Cooking the World is taking place four times a day throughout the fair. Visitors can choose from a menu of dishes reflecting the cultural and religious diversity of the
  
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• Animal rights activists attack Documenta 14 artist’s studio

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  Animal-rights campaigners smashed windows and threw blue paint on the work space of Aboubakar Fofana in Athens, where the Malian artist is participating in the Greek leg of Documenta 14 (until 16 July). The anonymous assailants had previously disrupted the artists performance, which featured live sheep, in the Greek capital in late April.
  The group addressed Fofana in a blog post after the attack on 19 May, writing: You choose to say nothing about [the sheeps] confinement, nor the massive murde
  
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• Agnes Gund urges collectors to sell their art to fight for justice

  12-06-2017 23:00
  
  The Ford Foundation has partnered with the American philanthropist Agnes Gund to launch an fun to help organisations in the US that deal with criminal justice reform. Called Art for Justice, the initiative was started with a $100m donation from Gund, who raised the cash by selling Roy Lichtensteins Masterpiece (1962) from her collection to the hedge fund manager Steven Cohen for $165m through the New York gallerist Bill Acquavella.
  Gund has asked other collectors, such as Laurie Tisch and Kenne
  
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• LACMA Announces Three New Board Members

  12-06-2017 22:36 via artnews.com
  The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced the addition of three new members to its board of trustees: Allison Berg, Troy Carter, and Carter Reum.Allison Berg is an art collector and philanthropist who currently sits on LACMA’s Decorative Arts and Design … Read More
  
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• Betye Saar at Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles

  12-06-2017 22:21 via artnews.com
  Pictures at an Exhibition presents images of one notable show every weekday. Read More
  
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• New York’s On Stellar Rays Gallery to Close, Will Relaunch as Stellar Projects

  12-06-2017 21:32 via artnews.com
  After eight years on New York’s Lower East Side, On Stellar Rays will close. The gallery announced today that, instead, Candice Madey, the operation’s owner, will launch Stellar Projects, which will be open by appointment only and feature shows by the … Read More
  
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• Yokohama Triennale 2017 Finalizes Artist List [Updated]

  12-06-2017 20:45 via artnews.com
  The organizers for the Yokohama Triennale have released the final list of artists included in the upcoming 2017 edition, which will open in the Japanese port city on August 4. In April, the organizers had originally announced 26 artists and … Read More
  
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• Fun Fair Shot Bar By Claudia Comte Brings Señor Frogs-Style Hedonism to Art Basel

  12-06-2017 20:39 via artnews.com
  Slurp 'em up (in the name of art). Read More
  
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• Shakespeare and Kathy Griffin: controversial art keeps targeting Trump

  12-06-2017 19:56
  
  A production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar featuring the assassination of a Trump-like version of the character is the latest in a series of contentious piecesFrom the moment he was elected president, Donald Trump has inspired protest on the streets and has proved to be a muse for a range of controversial artworks.A fair amount of that art has focused on emasculating or physically exposing Trump, seemingly in response to his air of extreme masculine braggadocio. Trump routinely spoke on t
  
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• Chris Burden’s Magnificent Flying Machine: The History Behind the Late Artist’s Last Work, Hovering Over Unlimited at Art Basel

  12-06-2017 19:42 via artnews.com
  “It was one of these perfect pieces for Chris,” Paul Schimmel said.I was speaking to the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles about about a day in January 2015, a clear afternoon in Camarillo, California, … Read More
  
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• Fahrelnissa Zeid: Tate Modern resurrects artist forgotten by history

  12-06-2017 19:31
  
  Painter had illustrious global career during her lifetime – now retrospective hopes to restore her former fameShe was an artist of such “force and originality”, says Tate Modern, that it is astonishing that Fahrelnissa Zeid should have been practically forgotten. Now, in the first retrospective of its kind in the UK, Tate Modern hopes to lift the pioneering Turkish artist out of obscurity to ensure that she does not become yet another female artist forgotten by history.For Fran
  
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• Art Basel Festivities Begin With Liste, the Town’s Young Fair

  12-06-2017 17:25 via artnews.com
  Upon arriving in Basel after a weekend of gallery-going in Zurich, I saw an image on the Messeplatz that reminded me of the vibe at Liste, the satellite fair here that focuses on smaller galleries showing mostly up-and-coming artists. The vision on the Messeplatz … Read More
  
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• The Getty gets £24.5m Parmigianino after no UK museum tries to match price

  12-06-2017 17:08
  
  The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has successfully acquired Parmigianinos 24.5m painting of The Virgin and Child with Saint Mary Magdalen and the Infant St John the Baptist. Dating from around 1535-40, it is one of the finest works by Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola) in private hands. The painting was sold by the Dent-Brocklehurst family of Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, and has been in the UK for nearly 250 years. Sothebys handled the private sale.A UK export licence was deferred
  
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• What Does a Gallery Bring for its First Time at Art Basel?

  12-06-2017 17:00 via artnews.com
  Market veterans from Luxembourg & Dayan mulled what to show for their full-scale gallery booth at the fair. Read More
  
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• Morning Links: Jeff Koons’s Virtual Reality Experience Edition

  12-06-2017 15:01 via artnews.com
  Here's what we're reading this morning. Read More
  
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• Swiss Movement: Before Basel, a Spin Through Zurich Gallery Weekend

  12-06-2017 14:16 via artnews.com
  An essential part of this season’s grand tour is the annual pre-Basel boondoggle to Zurich, where a slew of openings pop up around town, with the center of activity being the Löwenbräu complex. By 8:00 the place was riddled with Swiss … Read More
  
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• Swiss Movement: Before Art Basel, a Spin Through Zurich Gallery Weekend

  12-06-2017 14:16 via artnews.com
  An essential part of this season’s Grand Tour is the annual pre-Art Basel arrival in Zurich, when a slew of openings pop up around town, with the center of activity being the Löwenbräu complex. The place has been riddled with Swiss movers and shakers, … Read More
  
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• It Tolls for Thee: Cerith Wyn Evans’s Skulptur Projekte Münster Piece Is Nearly Imperceptible

  12-06-2017 12:11 via artnews.com
  Skulptur Projekete Münster provides an almost irresistible opportunity for artists to make intensely ambitious work—Claes Oldenburg installed huge pool balls in 1977, which are now permanently on view, and Mike Kelley conjured a peculiar petting zoo in 2007—so it’s always remarkable and, in a … Read More
  
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• Heady Brews: In Münster, Emeka Ogboh Honors Moondog With a Vast Soundscape, Honey Beer

  12-06-2017 10:33 via artnews.com
  Placing their works in buildings and fields all over Münster, following long periods of research on the area, artists in the 2017 Skulptur Projekete here are revealing all sorts of fascinating and little-known aspects of the city. For instance, Emeka Ogboh has made a piece … Read More
  
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