Arts news

• Prison Art, a Dark Place Where the Muse Never Leaves

  12-12-2019 23:22 via nytimes.com
  
  A Drawing Center show makes a soulful statement about the nature of creative expression and what it means to be imprisoned.
  
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• Charges Against Dealer Dropped in Art Dispute With Russian Oligarch

  12-12-2019 23:14 via nytimes.com
  
  Monaco authorities had charged Yves Bouvier with fraud in connection with his sales to Dmitri Rybolovlev, but a court decided the investigation was biased.
  
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• William Luce, Playwright, Dies at 88; Wrote ‘Belle of Amherst’

  12-12-2019 23:04 via nytimes.com
  
  He specialized in one-character dramas, portraying luminaries like Emily Dickinson, John Barrymore, Lillian Hellman, Zelda Fitzgerald and Isak Dinesen.
  
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• Four Plays and Musicals to Go to in N.Y.C. This Weekend

  12-12-2019 23:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Previews, openings and some last-chance picks.
  
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• Sources: George Condo, Whose Paintings Sell for Up to $6 M. at Auction, In Talks to Join Hauser & Wirth Gallery

  12-12-2019 22:52 via artnews.com
  
  The art market has been rife lately with news of artists leaving one gallery for another. On Thursday, news broke that the young painter Avery Singer would head to Hauser & Wirth. But that is not the only new painter that the international heavyweight may be taking on. George Condo, 62, whose work has sold for as much as $6 million at auction, is in talks to join Hauser & Wirth, according to several credible sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
  Reached Thursday afternoon, a re
  
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• Hirshhorn Staffer Nabs ‘Registrar of the Year’ Award, Gives $5,000 Prize to Smithsonian Internship Program

  12-12-2019 22:41 via artnews.com
  
  Rajshree Solanki, who is responsible for managing the 12,000 works held by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., as its chief registrar, received the first annual Registrar of the Year award at a ceremony at Artist’s Space in New York on Wednesday. The newly created prize, which was established by the fine-art logistics company Atelier 4, comes with $5,000, and was presented after a multi-part nomination and judging process.
  However, Solanki will not be taking home
  
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• Portland’s Artist-Run Spaces Thrive Under the Radar

  12-12-2019 22:14 via artnews.com
  
  Last fall I moved back to Portland after a decade-long absence. When I lived here from 1998 to mid-2009, the national DIY trend of that era often manifested itself in Portland’s art scene as a series of ambitious, sprawling curatorial projects. For example, 2003 saw the debut of both Modern Zoo, a scrappy summer-long exhibition series in a 120,000-square-foot warehouse under the St. Johns Bridge, as well as Core Sample, a ten-day 140-artist series of exhibitions produced by volunteers as a
  
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• How ‘Survivor’ Failed Its #MeToo Test

  12-12-2019 22:07 via nytimes.com
  
  The reality show’s sexual misconduct saga proved the consequences of not doing the right thing from the beginning.
  
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• Artists Space Re-emerges as an Enduring Downtown Alternative

  12-12-2019 21:45 via nytimes.com
  
  The hardy noncommercial gallery, founded in 1972, has put down roots in a cast-iron building in TriBeCa.
  
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• Women Made Them. Viewers and Critics Liked Them. No One Nominated Them.

  12-12-2019 21:17 via nytimes.com
  
  Despite box office success and critical praise, female filmmakers are largely being left out of Hollywood’s awards season.
  
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• ‘Richard Jewell’ Review: The Wrong Man

  12-12-2019 21:08 via nytimes.com
  
  Clint Eastwood’s take on the frenzied aftermath of the Olympic Park bombing is flawed and fascinating.
  
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• Recently Discovered Cave Paintings May Be World’s Oldest Figurative Artworks

  12-12-2019 21:00 via artnews.com
  
  The archaeologist Hamrullah may have discovered the world’s earliest narrative and figurative artwork in the Maros-Pangkep limestone cave system of Sulawesi, an Indonesian island. According to the New York Times, the painting, which depicts eight figures approaching wild pigs, dates back some 44,000 years, and a scientific paper published this week reports that the work is “the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world.” Hamrullah,
  
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• Stolen Gustav Klimt Painting May Have Been Discovered in an Italian Gallery’s Wall

  12-12-2019 20:21 via artnews.com
  
  Earlier this week, a gardener clearing ivy at the Ricci Oddi Modern Art gallery in Italy made an astonishing discovery: behind a metal panel adorning the gallery’s exterior wall was a painting half-hidden by a black trash bag. Immediately, staff at the gallery began to wonder if the vivid picture they found was Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady (1916–17), a painting valued at a $66 million and stolen from the space almost 23 years ago.
  Now, police have confiscated the canvas as
  
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• Criminal Charges Against Swiss Dealer Accused of Fraud Dropped in Monaco, as Bouvier Affair Continues to Churn

  12-12-2019 20:14 via artnews.com
  
  Never let it be said that the “Bouvier affair” is a dull one.
  A criminal case in the Principality of Monaco against Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier was dismissed on Thursday, according to court documents reviewed by ARTnews, marking the latest twist in a long-running legal affair that has seeped into the highest echelons of the art world.
  In 2015, Bouvier was charged with fraud and money laundering in Monaco. (He denied the allegations.) He had sold more than $2 billion in artwork to D
  
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• ‘A Hidden Life’ Review: Refusing Hitler, Embracing Beauty

  12-12-2019 20:12 via nytimes.com
  
  Terrence Malick’s film telling the story of an Austrian farmer’s heroic defiance of the Nazis is gorgeous and at times frustrating.
  
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• Hollywood at Home in New York

  12-12-2019 20:09 via nytimes.com
  
  A collector brings together the star-struck and the heartbroken in a constantly evolving exhibition.
  
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• Baby Yoda Is Your God Now

  12-12-2019 20:00 via nytimes.com
  
  What if the future of TV were delightful, irresistible, meme-able versions of intellectual property you already loved … forever?
  
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• As Arts Institutions Expand Digital Programming, Rhizome Names New Editor and Curator

  12-12-2019 19:57 via artnews.com
  
  While museums have been rapidly expanding their digital programming in recent years, the New Museum in New York has been at it longer than most, thanks to its 2002 acquisition of the art-and-technology nonprofit Rhizome. Now that closely watched organization has tapped one of its staffers for a new leadership position.
  Rhizome has named Aria Dean as its new editor and curator. Dean, who also works independently as an artist, was previously the organization’s assistant curator of net art an
  
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• ‘Uncut Gems’ Review: Adam Sandler’s Punch-Drunk Hustle

  12-12-2019 19:56 via nytimes.com
  
  In the Safdie brothers’ new movie, Sandler plays a jewelry-store owner and compulsive gambler running for his life.
  
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• The ARTnews Top 200 Collectors at 30 and Beyond

  12-12-2019 19:37 via artnews.com
  
  Times have changed since ARTnews started the Top 200 Collectors list 30 years ago. Back then, the artworks breaking records at auction tended to be Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which sold for $82.5 million in 1990, held the record for the highest-priced painting at auction for 14 years, and the people who bought art at such scale tended to come from small and rarefied circles.
  As the recession of the mid-1990s wore off, the mark
  
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• Review: A Brother and Sister Triumph Together at Carnegie Hall

  12-12-2019 18:32 via nytimes.com
  
  The cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason gave a superb New York recital debut alongside the pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason.
  
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• Did Sturtevant Invent the Meme?

  12-12-2019 18:14 via artnews.com
  
  Sturtevant: Dark Threat of Absence, 2002, two-channel video, 14 minutes and 37 seconds; at Freedman Fitzpatrick.
  Sturtevant didn’t copy, appropriate, or forge; Sturtevant repeated. The artist, who died in 2014, at age eighty-nine, is best known for paintings and sculptures that redo the signature works of other artists, ranging from Marcel Duchamp to Felix Gonzalez-Torres. When she took up video in the new millennium, Sturtevant often repeated the juicy burgers and waving flags of commerci
  
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• ‘One November Yankee’ Review: TV Stars on a Bumpy Flight

  12-12-2019 18:03 via nytimes.com
  
  Harry Hamlin and Stefanie Powers bring a measure of glamour to a patchy two-hander about three sibling pairs and one downed airplane.
  
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• With Walking Dead Behind Him, Comics Creator to Debut Fire Power

  12-12-2019 18:00 via nytimes.com
  
  A man on an identity quest finds powers instead in Robert Kirkman’s new comic coming in May.
  
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• For Dealer Friedrich Petzel, a Successful Gallery Is About Precision, Not Expansion

  12-12-2019 17:19 via artnews.com
  
  One morning a couple weeks ago, the art dealer Friedrich Petzel was sitting in a backroom of his Upper East Side space—on the third floor of an elegant townhouse—and discussing his gallery’s future. His downstairs neighbor, the veteran dealer of American modernism Vivian Horan, had told him earlier this year that she was retiring, he said, and she asked him if he might be interested in taking over her space. “Absolutely it’s of interest to me because it’s the
  
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• Her Francophilia Saved Her From the Death Camps, but Not From Great Danger

  12-12-2019 17:02 via nytimes.com
  
  In “A Bookshop in Berlin,” Françoise Frenkel describes a life devoted to French literature and her escape from the Nazis across occupied France.
  
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• A Museum Devoted to Geological Treasures Opens in Maine

  12-12-2019 16:53 via nytimes.com
  
  A world-class meteorite collection is among the highlights of the new Maine Mineral & Gem Museum.
  
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• ‘In the Heights’ Trailer: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Show Dances to the Screen

  12-12-2019 16:35 via nytimes.com
  
  Anthony Ramos, a “Hamilton” veteran, stars in the adaptation that is directed by Jon M. Chu.
  
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• With ‘Black Christmas,’ Sophia Takal Makes a #MeToo Slasher

  12-12-2019 16:00 via nytimes.com
  
  The director and co-writer of the new remake discusses her feminist take on the material.
  
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• Camila Cabello and Harry Styles, Teen-Pop Alumni, Think Bigger

  12-12-2019 15:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Both emerged from groups created on “The X Factor.” And both are releasing their second solo albums, showing listeners they have the ambition to go their own way.
  
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• Art Berlin Cancels Future Fairs, Venice Conservation Efforts, and More: Morning Links from December 12, 2019

  12-12-2019 15:00 via artnews.com
  
  To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.
  Controversies
  These are the art controversies that defined the 2010s. [ARTnews]
  According to a survey by an advocacy group, 31 percent of solo shows at 20 top museums in Spain were by women. [El País]
  After three editions, Art Berlin, a prominent fair in the German capital, will no longer take place. A location for its 2020 edition wasn’t secured, and the
  
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• ASAP Rocky Returns to Sweden in Triumph, Without Trump’s Help

  12-12-2019 14:55 via nytimes.com
  
  The rapper’s show in Stockholm on Wednesday came just months after his trial for assault in the country drew international attention.
  
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• ‘The Great War’ Review: A Segregated Black Unit Fights in World War I

  12-12-2019 14:00 via nytimes.com
  
  While the movie takes inspiration from real events, it doesn’t have the budget or craft it needs.
  
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• ‘Seberg’ Review: Woman on Fire

  12-12-2019 14:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Kristen Stewart is a picture of gorgeous disintegration in this speculative look at the F.B.I.’s persecution of the actress Jean Seberg.
  
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• ‘The Death & Life of John F. Donovan’ Review: A Child Is Torn

  12-12-2019 13:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Xavier Dolan’s muddled tale of a closeted celebrity and his much younger fan is shackled by an awkward structure and a fragmented vision.
  
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• ‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ Review: New Faces Join the Gang, Back in the Wild

  12-12-2019 13:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan return for this sequel, and they’ve got Danny DeVito and Danny Glover in tow.
  
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• ‘Chinese Portrait’ Review: A Snapshot of a Country, Artfully Composed

  12-12-2019 13:00 via nytimes.com
  
  A visual take on the vast expanse of a land and its people, compiled over 10 years by Wang Xiaoshuai.
  
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• ‘Bombshell’ Review: Blind Ambition and Blond Sedition at Fox News

  12-12-2019 12:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie star in a story about the fall of Roger Ailes.
  
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• The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2019

  12-12-2019 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Hear our critics’ favorites, crossing six centuries, compiled over a year of listening.
  
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• How Jews Have Made an Impact on the Modern World

  12-12-2019 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Norman Lebrecht’s “Genius & Anxiety” looks at Jewish achievement from 1847 to 1947.
  
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• How Jews Have Impacted the Modern World

  12-12-2019 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Norman Lebrecht’s “Genius & Anxiety” looks at Jewish achievement from 1847 to 1947.
  
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• Emmanuel Carrère’s Disconcertingly Personal and Utterly Gripping Prose

  12-12-2019 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  “97,196 Words,” a new collection of essays by the celebrated French author, encapsulates his novel approach to nonfiction.
  
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• Deborah Levy Would Like to Drink With Virginia Woolf

  12-12-2019 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  “I suspect she would not be that interested in food.”
  
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• A Master of Winter Writes His First Opera: ‘The Snow Queen’

  12-12-2019 11:00 via nytimes.com
  
  Hans Abrahamsen’s work, starring the fearless soprano Barbara Hannigan, is opening at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
  
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• ‘Survivor’ Removes Player Accused of Inappropriate Touching

  12-12-2019 10:31 via nytimes.com
  
  The contestant, Dan Spilo, had been warned about his behavior. He was removed after an unspecified off-camera incident.
  
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• Late Night Takes a Swig of Trump’s Impeachment Light

  12-12-2019 08:47 via nytimes.com
  
  “America’s going on a diet,” Stephen Colbert joked Wednesday night. “We’ve got to lose 239 pounds of dead weight.”
  
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• What’s on TV Thursday: ‘Long Shot’ and ‘I Am Big Bird’

  12-12-2019 07:00 via nytimes.com
  
  A romantic comedy with Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen airs on HBO. And a documentary about Caroll Spinney is streaming on Topic.
  
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• JR’s Street Gallery Comes Indoors

  12-12-2019 00:28 via nytimes.com
  
  At the Brooklyn Museum, his pictures skim the surface of social problems. It can be a frustratingly reductive vision of world peace. “I think being naïve is what has helped me the most,” he says.
  
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