Arts news

• Post-Conquest Aztec Altar Found in Mexico on 500th Anniversary of Spain’s Invasion

  03-12-2021 20:56 via artnews.com
  
  When Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico in 1521, it heralded the end of an era for the Aztec people. But that empire was not finished all at once, and according to the BBC, a new archaeological find shows that some Aztecs managed to continue living after the Spanish arrived.
  Earlier this week, Mexican officials announced that they found an altar formed by a family that survived the initial Spanish invasion. The altar was discovered quite deep underground. Archaeologist Mara Becerra told the BBC that s
  
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• Everything to Know about the 2024 Met Gala

  06-05-2024 21:09 via artnews.com
  
  A-list celebrities, fashion world icons, and the art world come together tonight at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for the annual Met Gala.The museum hosts the art-and-fashion ball each year on the first Monday of May to support its Costume Institute, which holds around 33,000 objects across seven centuries of fashion history. Guests are invited to the gala by invitation and a single ticket can cost up to $50,000. Despite the price may seem steep, there are expected t
  
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• Newly Discovered Caravaggio will be Unveiled at the Prado in Madrid This Month

  06-05-2024 20:57 via artnews.com
  
  A painting that nearly sold at auction three years ago for $1,600 has been revealed to be a missing masterwork by the by the Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It will go on public view for the first time at the Prado in Spain on May 27, according to the Associated Press.The painting, which depicts Jesus Christ being present to the masses just before his crucifixion, is titled Ecce Homo and is one of only 60 works in existence known to have been p
  
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• ‘Berthe Morisot in Nice’ Delves into the Impressionist Painter’s Working Methods

  06-05-2024 17:16 via artnews.com
  
  Art institutions around the world are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, which staged its first exhibit in April 1874, and curators are seizing the opportunity to dig further into the lesser-known aspects of the movement, notably the historically overlooked women artists from the period. Fresh looks at women Impressionists are underway or upcoming at the National Gallery of Ireland, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Musée de Pont-Aven in France, the Museum der bildenden
  
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• The Quiet Power of Marisol’s Work Is Highlighted in a Traveling Retrospective

  06-05-2024 16:22 via artnews.com
  
  How does an artist go from being a smash hit to falling through the cracks of art history? Beginning in 1957 and through the 1960s, the artist Marisol (1930–2016) was the toast of the New York art scene, her figurative sculptures of roughly hewn wood and found objects admired by artists, critics, and the public alike. Her work was included in the pivotal “Art of Assemblage” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1961, and she represented Venezuela at the 1968 Venice Biennale
  
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• Frank Stella Dies, Dozens Arrested at Pro-Palestine Encampment at Chicago’s Art Institute, and More: Morning Links for May 6, 2024

  06-05-2024 15:36 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.The HeadlinesIN MEMORIAM. Artist Frank Stella has died at 87. During the 1950s, the iconic American artist marked paved the way for Minimalism, and brought “abstraction into brave new directions, defining an era with his ‘Black Paintings,’” reports ARTnews Senior Editor Alex Greenberger. Rejecting attempts to interpret his sp
  
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• Dozens Arrested at Pro-Palestine Encampment at Art Institute of Chicago

  05-05-2024 18:50 via artnews.com
  
  Dozens of pro-Palestine protestors were arrested on Saturday at an encampment at the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the nation’s most heavily attended museums.The People’s Art Institute, a group run by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, said on Instagram that it was seeking for the museum and the university to “divest from all entities and individuals financially supporting the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”An encampment was set up on Saturday in
  
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• Frank Stella, Trailblazing Artist Who Pushed Abstraction to Its Limits, Dies at 87

  04-05-2024 23:10 via artnews.com
  
  Frank Stella, an artist who brought abstraction into brave new directions, defining an era with his “Black Paintings” of the 1950s, died on Saturday at 87. The New York Times reported that he had been battling lymphoma.Stella was among the many artists who responded to the growth of Abstract Expressionism in the postwar years. His spare paintings, made as a riposte to that movement, were particularly challenging, since they contained no color at all and were not intended to provide v
  
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• Ancient Egyptian Pyramids, Sphinx Close to Public for Tech Billionaire’s Lavish Wedding

  03-05-2024 22:20 via artnews.com
  
  Ancient Egyptian pyramids and the Great Sphinx in Giza were briefly shuttered to the public this week because of a tech billionaire’s wedding.That billionaire, Ankur Jain, and fitness trainer Erika Hammond reportedly paid to have those sites closed down for their wedding, a week-long celebration that is estimated to have cost upward of $3 million. The event, which has since gone viral on TikTok, offered guests a private tour of the pyramids and the sphinx without interruption, as well as a
  
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• The Best Booths at NADA New York, From Sci-Fi Utopias to Remixed Folklore

  03-05-2024 22:04 via artnews.com
  
  Out of all the art fairs being held in New York this week, the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) fair may be your best bet for genuine discovery. The event centers emerging enterprises, and this year has 92 exhibitors, about half of which brought some truly intriguing wares. Percentage-wise, figurative painting ruled the fair, but the best works in that style bypassed camp and irony—the modes most commonly associated with it these days—for unaffected explorations of the self and our cu
  
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• Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini Portrait’ Gets a New Frame, Polarizing Social Media Users

  03-05-2024 20:08 via artnews.com
  
  The Arnolfini Portrait, a main attraction at London’s National Gallery, has received a new frame intended to reshape how viewers see the famed Jan van Eyck painting.It is normal for beloved artworks to get new frames every once in a while, and when they do, those frames tend not to receive much discourse. But when Peter Schade, head of the National Gallery’s framing department, posted news of the van Eyck painting’s makeover, users on the social media platform X were divided on
  
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• Original ‘Harry Potter’ Cover Art Heads to Auction, Where It May Break Records

  03-05-2024 19:50 via artnews.com
  
  Break out your wands (and wallets), Potter fans.Slated to hit the auction block at Sotheby’s New York this summer is the original watercolor that graced the cover of the first book in the “Harry Potter” series. The painting is anticipated to become the most expensive item related to the franchise ever sold at auction.The work was painted by Thomas Taylor when he was 23 years old. In 1997, it was featured on the first-edition covers of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s St
  
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• A Riotous, Edgy Alternative Fair About 1970s Art Returns to New York

  03-05-2024 17:47 via artnews.com
  
  For the second year in a row, far from Frieze New York in Hudson Yards, the SoHo art dealer Eric Firestone is hosting 18 New York galleries, all of whom are celebrating the 1970s.The fair is situated on the upper floors of Firestone’s gallery on Great Jones Street, where painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and jazz musician Charles Mingus once lived. (Basquiat’s former home now houses Angelina Jolie’s clothing store Atelier Jolie.)Up the broad, creaky wooden stairs, on the third
  
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• British Arts Center Apologizes for Canceling Palestinian Film Events

  03-05-2024 17:31 via artnews.com
  
  Arnolfini, an arts center in Bristol, England, apologized on Friday for a decision to cancel two events held as part of the Palestine Film Festival, a move that many artists and activists claimed was a form of censorship.Those events were a screening of Farha (2021), a film set during the Nakba, and a discussion between Palestinian writer and doctor Ghada Karmi and rapper and activist Lowkey. When it called off this programming in November, Arnolfini said that hosting the events might be “
  
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• $850,000 Ed Clark Painting Tops First-Day Sales at Frieze New York

  03-05-2024 15:32 via artnews.com
  
  The opening of the Frieze New York art fair this week brought six-figure sales and a bunch of celebrities. But whereas last year’s Frieze New York saw the sale of a $2.5 million Jack Whitten painting, no gallery reported any transaction quite so sizable this time around.Once again, Hauser & Wirth and White Cube, two blue-chip operations with galleries across multiple operations, were among those who reported big sales. (Because sales of artworks at fairs are self-reported by galleries,
  
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• EU Court Says Getty Should Return Ancient Greek Bronze to Italy, Kyiv ‘Derussifies’ Monument, Da Vinci Gets Biopic, and More: Morning Links for May 3, 2024

  03-05-2024 15:00 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESGETTY BRONZE DISPUTE. The European Court of Human Rights upheld a 2018 Italian judicial ruling that an ancient Greek statue at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles should be confiscated and returned to Italy, describing it as “an unlawfully exported piece of cultural heritage” in their Thursday announced decision. The Getty had appealed the
  
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• How Arlene Shechet Makes Her Recalcitrant Materials Come Alive

  03-05-2024 13:00 via artnews.com
  
  This spring, Storm King Art Center is getting a serious makeover. Since its founding in 1960, the 500-acre sculpture park in the Hudson Valley has been gradually populated by world-class works: the modernist abstractions of David Smith and Mark di Suvero; Louise Nevelson’s glowering black cabinetry; towering monoliths by Ursula von Rydingsvard; and, most recently, Martin Puryear’s Lookout, an elegant viewing chamber in vaulted brick. The collection is all the more impressive for its
  
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• Celebrate Spring With Terrific Tulips

  03-05-2024 13:00 via smithsonianmag.com
  
  These 15 Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest images give top billing to the beautiful blooms
  
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• The Best Booths at 1-54 New York, From Leaf Assemblages to Invented Archaeological Finds

  03-05-2024 00:44 via artnews.com
  
  The 2024 edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York opened to press on Wednesday afternoon at a new location, Chelsea’s Starrett-Lehigh building.While previous editions of the fair were held in Harlem, this year the fair moved to industry heavyweight neighborhood of Chelsea. More specifically, the Starrett-Lehigh, a massive near-century old Art Deco building that has been extensively renovated in the last decade and has lately become a magnet for fashion brands. The buil
  
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• Paul McCartney’s Rarely Seen Photography Gets a Big Museum Show in New York

  02-05-2024 22:42 via artnews.com
  
  During the early 1960s, at the height of “Beatlemania,” New York City was taken by storm as The Beatles kicked off their visit to the US. Tens of thousands of fans hurried to the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Fab Four, and band member Paul McCartney was ready to greet them. But McCartney did more than simply posing for pictures—he also shot photographs himself, using his Pentax 35mm film camera.Six decades later, McCartney has returned to New York, where he is now s
  
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• Leonardo da Vinci to Get the Hollywood Treatment from ‘All of Us Strangers’ Director

  02-05-2024 21:03 via artnews.com
  
  Leonardo da Vinci is coming soon to a movie theater near you. The Renaissance artist will become the latest artist to receive a biopic, Variety reports, in the form of a new film from Andrew Haigh, the director most famous for making last year’s All of Us Strangers.The film will be based on Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed Leonardo biography, though it remains unclear whether it will touch on just one aspect of the artist’s life or the whole thing. It seems likely, however, that Hai
  
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• In Collection Hangs, Major Museums Remix the Classics

  02-05-2024 20:53 via artnews.com
  
  Until it reopened in a $230 million new building this past June, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum was an anomaly among United States institutions: it held a world-class collection of modern and postwar art with nowhere to properly exhibit the bulk of it at once. Now, a 50,000-square-foot space allows masterpieces like Picasso’s 1906 La Toilette to return to view, along with showstoppers from the likes of Chaim Soutine, Andy Warhol, and a whole lot more.The way these pieces are displayed, however
  
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• Multimillion-Dollar Frank Auerbach to Be Sold by the UK’s National Crime Agency

  02-05-2024 20:35 via artnews.com
  
  A painting by the British artist Frank Auerbach from his lauded “Albert Street” series is slated to hit the auction block after having been recovered by UK authorities from money launderer Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, according to the Guardian.Mayhew-Lewis bought the picture, which the UK’s National Crime Agency says could be worth “millions of pounds,” in 2017 for £1.6 million. Later, another unidentified person used the work as collateral to secure a &p
  
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• Are We Supposed to Believe Maurizio Cattelan Is Sincere Now?

  02-05-2024 19:23 via artnews.com
  
  Maurizio Cattelan is usually “dismissed as a prankster,” per the press release for his new show at Gagosian in New York. That’s because he duct-taped a banana to a wall and sold it for $120,000, made a sculpture of an asteroid hitting the pope, and—for his last New York show, a 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum—dangled his art from the rotunda’s ceiling, making it hard to get a good look and leaving viewers wanting more.The same press release insists
  
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• At Frieze New York, Young Galleries Reveal Untold Narratives and Spotlight Overlooked Talents

  02-05-2024 18:54 via artnews.com
  
  The most coveted commodity at an art fair, beside the wares themselves, is attention. At a blue-chip bazaar like Frieze New York, where the crowd churns ceaselessly, and every wall aspires to be a show-stopper, a curator can’t leave discovery to chance. You might fear that Focus, the section of Frieze dedicated to enterprises 12 years and younger and to emerging talent, would be swallowed by the din. You’d be wrong. The section, curated by Lumi Tan, is an intergenerational showc
  
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• Tao Siqi’s Baudelaire-Inspired Erotic Paintings Stun at Frieze New York

  02-05-2024 15:40 via artnews.com
  
  A common result of walking through any art fair is realizing that, after two hours, no more than a handful of works remain in your memory. And the ones that are on view at Capsule Shanghai’s Frieze New York booth are likely to be among that handful this time around. In the Focus section for young galleries, Capsule is showing work by Tao Siqi. Upon passing the booth, a double take is almost compulsory. Sensual, violent scenes—bondage, asphyxiation, and other kinky activities&mda
  
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• Asante ‘Crown Jewels’ Displayed, Biden Forgives $6.1 Billion Art Student Debt, Stolen Frank Auerbach Work to Auction, and More: Morning Links for May 2, 2024

  02-05-2024 14:39 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESGOLDEN DISPLAY. The Asante golden “crown jewels,” looted by British troops have gone on display in Ghana’s Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, to jubilant celebrations, reports the BBC. The 32 items are on loan from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) and the British Museum to the Asante King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II for three
  
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• Asante ‘Crown Jewels’ Displayed, Biden Forgives $6.1 Billion Art Student Debt, and More: Morning Links for May 2, 2024

  02-05-2024 14:39 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.THE HEADLINESGOLDEN DISPLAY. The Asante golden “crown jewels,” looted by British troops have gone on display in Ghana’s Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, to jubilant celebrations, reports the BBC. The 32 items are on loan from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) and the British Museum to the Asante King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II for three
  
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• Five Shows to See in Chelsea During Frieze New York 2024

  02-05-2024 14:13 via artnews.com
  
  After the frenzy of the Venice Biennale, the art world will now shift its attention to the Frieze art fair in New York, which opens its doors to VIPs today. It returns to the Shed in Hudson Yards, and will this year have 68 exhibitors.This location means Frieze attendees will be just a 10-minute walk away from the nearby galleries in Chelsea. While the area’s buzziest show might be the one at Gagosian for Maurizio Cattelan, who is fresh off of his participation in the Venice Biennale&rsquo
  
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• The Best Booths at Frieze New York, From a Pouncing Tiger to a Meta Reflection on Consumerism

  02-05-2024 05:10 via artnews.com
  
  For its 12th edition, Frieze New York has once again returned to the Shed, the arts center in Hudson Yards. With 68 exhibitors, the fair, which opened to VIPs on Wednesday morning, was the first held since Frieze acquired the Armory Show, its main New York competitor. That should have lent the event some extra excitement, but the preview felt a bit subdued—perhaps due to post–Venice Biennale fatigue has now made its way across the Atlantic. Still, there was a steady stream of visitor
  
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