Arts news

• Gurlitt bequest spurs provenance research in Switzerland

  23-07-2017 23:00
  Cornelius Gurlitts surprising decision to bequeath his controversial collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern has triggered a new impetus for provenance research in the Swiss capital. The elderly recluse, who hoarded Nazi-looted art for decades in his Munich apartment and Salzburg home, unexpectedly named the museum as the sole beneficiary of a will written weeks before he died in May 2014.
  Gurlitts legacy comprised more than 1,500 works of art, including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Cl
  
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• Art critic Michael Fried’s new poems dwell on past love, childhood—and his predilection for high Modernism

  23-07-2017 23:00
  The New York-born art critic and historian Michael Fried's new book of poetry, Promesse du Bonheur, which is published by David Zwirner Books and nonsite.org, is something of a memoir. It includes many mentions of old friendsClement Greenberg, Frank Stella, Kenneth Nolandstories from Fried's childhood, memories of past love and reflections on his long-held critical convictions.
   
  Those convictions come to him quickly. In a poem titled "Revelation," he describes his first experience of Antho
  
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• Nathan David obituary

  23-07-2017 19:10
  My husband Nathan David, who has died of cancer aged 87, was a sculptor who created bronzes of ballet dancers, including Rudolf Nureyev, Anthony Dowell, Antoinette Sibley, Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov and many others.In 1980, Dame Margot Fonteyn unveiled the over-life-size bronze of herself that he was selected to create for her birthplace in Reigate, Surrey. There are editions of her portrait head at the Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells. Continue reading...
  
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• The Observer critics’ guide to the summer holidays

  23-07-2017 09:30
  Make cultural hay while the sun shines with our suggestions for reading, viewing and listening, from dreamy R&B to vintage Keanu Reeves to op art in the country Pop
  Beyond the boutique tag, Houghton festival in Norfolk (10-13 August) specialises in high-end electronic music, from minimal techno to reggae. Sensitively curated by Craig Richards, artist-cum-Fabric DJ, it boasts a cogent bill – Ricardo Villalobos headlines, Nicolas Jaar and Floating Points promise lengthy DJ sets – a
  
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• Rose Finn-Kelcey: Life, Belief and Beyond review – subversive power of a quiet wit

  23-07-2017 09:00
  Modern Art Oxford
  Whether performing headstands or re-enacting war, the restless conceptual artist was a true original who shunned the limelightComplete uplift: that is one way to describe Rose Finn-Kelcey’s most enduring work, a photograph of the artist performing a perfect handstand on a beach. It is a jubilant scene, immediately stirring the same impulse in the viewer. And yet it is also mysterious, for the pleated skirt she wears seems to fall upwards, covering her torso and head like
  
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• Is the Stirling becoming a prize ass?

  23-07-2017 09:00
  The Stirling prize 2017 shortlist displays a woeful lack of adventure – not least in its omission of Tate Modern’s Switch HouseThe Stirling prize has done it again. The award for the UK building that “has made the greatest contribution to the evolution of architecture over the past year” has a magnificent record of not recognising the projects that define their time, of favouring everyone’s second choice and nobody’s first choice, with the result that you coul
  
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• This week, we love to buy | Alice Fisher

  23-07-2017 07:00
  Lemons, lips and watermelons on lampshades, Lucienne Day’s classic flower brick and super-light ear-plugs for the festival season… These are some of the things we love this week Graphic designer Kendra Dandy has created a new range of prints. Choose from lemons, lips and watermelons for your blinds, lampshades and walls. Bouffants & Broken Hearts range, from £90, surfaceview.co.uk Continue reading...
  
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• Hokusai's The Great Wave crashes into Melbourne for major exhibition – video

  23-07-2017 03:37
  Two prints of The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), one of Japan’s most prolific and enduringly popular artists, are on show at the National Gallery of Victoria in a major exhibition alongside over 150 of his other artworks. Wayne Crothers, the gallery’s Asian art curator, explains that ‘this exhibition really gives the Australian public a chance to appreciate Hokusai’s genius well beyond The Great Wave’ • Hokusai is showing at th
  
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