The collector Eugenio López Alonso, heir to the Grupo Jumex empire in Mexico, at home in Los Angeles, April 27, 2021. López divides his time between Los Angeles and Mexico, filling both homes with paintings and sculpture. Michelle Groskopf/The New York Times.
by Robin Pogrebin
LOS ANGELES(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- To your left in the foyer are Damien Hirst’s dots. Over the fireplace is a Louise Bourgeois spider. Opposite the master bed are Cy Twombly’s swirls. Los Angeles is not necessarily known as a city of art collectors, but nestled smack dab in Beverly Hills is one of the more active buyers in the market: Eugenio López Alonso, heir to the Grupo Jumex fruit-juice empire in Mexico, who has landed on an ArtNews list of the top 200 collectors in the world for at least five years running. Many credit López, 53, with helping elevate Mexico’s contemporary-art scene through the institution he founded in 2013, Museo Jumex. Every work on display there during the Zona Maco art fair in May was by an artist from or living in Mexico, Artnet noted. With Museo Jumex, designed by David Chipperfield in the Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City, López joined the ranks of collectors who have started their own private museums. “Jumex was as transformational to Mexico City as was the opening of ... More
Antelope by Samson Kambalu restages a 1914 photograph of Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley as a sculpture. Photo: James O Jenkins.
LONDON(AFP).- A sculpture of African baptist preacher John Chilembwe, who led an uprising against colonial rule, will look over London's landmark Trafalgar Square for the next two years, the mayor's office said Monday. "Antelope", by Samson Kambalu, restages a 1914 photograph of Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley as a sculpture. In the sculpture, a larger-than-life Chilembwe is shown wearing a hat, defying a colonial rule that forbade Africans from wearing them in front of white people. "By increasing his scale, the artist elevates Chilembwe and his story, revealing the hidden narratives of underrepresented peoples in the history of the British Empire in Africa and beyond," said the office of mayor Sadiq Khan. The "fourth plinth", which marks one corner of Trafalgar Square, is one of the most coveted art commissions in the world, and is often the source of ... More
LONDON.- This week, Tate Britain will open the UK's largest and most comprehensive retrospective of the work of Paula Rego. An uncompromising artist of extraordinary imaginative power, Rego (b.1935) redefined figurative art and revolutionised the way in which women are represented. This exhibition will tell the story of this artist’s remarkable life, highlighting the personal nature of much of her work and the socio-political context in which it is rooted. It will reveal her broad range of references, from comic strips to history paintings. Featuring over 100 works including collage, paintings, large-scale pastels, drawings and etchings, it will span Rego’s early work from the 1950s to her richly layered, staged scenes from the 2000s. The exhibition will begin with a selection of Rego’s rarely seen early works in which the artist first explored personal as well as social struggle. In Interrogation 1950, painted at fifteen ... More
Andy Warhol, Flowers (detail). Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm) Executed in 1964-65. Estimate: £1,000,000 - 1,500,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.
LONDON.-Phillips announced highlights ahead of the New Now sale in London. The sale will be led by Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, KAWS, Banksy, Josh Smith, Kehinde Wiley, Lynn Chadwick, Alex Katz, and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami. Further highlights include works by younger stars Salman Toor, Erik Parker, Genieve Figgis, Jonas Wood, and Eddie Martinez. A group of 12 works chosen by Stella McCartney from her McCartney A to Z Manifesto will be offered in the sale, with proceeds going to charities chosen by the artists to feature, included amongst which are Joanna Vasconcelos, Sam Taylor-Johnson, and Cindy Sherman. For the first time, Phillips will offer an NFT in London, titled Phytocene by musician Agoria, Oscar-winning sound designer Nicolas Becker and bio-physicist Nicolas Desprat. Also on offer is a selection of works from contemporary African artists ... More
Sarah Bowern, the head of costume for the English National Opera, with Paul Brown in the company’s costume department. Via English National Opera via The New York Times.
by Susanne Fowler
NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Many elements need to come together to create an opera that will absorb the attention of an audience, including the costumes, be they bodices and ballgowns for divas or admiral’s uniforms for baritones. As the head of costume for the English National Opera, Sarah Bowern supervises a crew that can swell to 80 people filling roles like costume makers, milliners, dyers, dressers, makeup artists and wig managers. The company performs in English in the 2,359-seat London Coliseum in the West End. Bowern, who is now supervising work on a production of “HMS Pinafore” set to open in October, is based at the opera’s rehearsal space in West Hampstead, in the building where Decca Records auditioned, then rejected, the Beatles in 1962. The following interview, conducted by email, has been edited and condensed. A: No day is the same. I like to check in ... More
President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, June 20, 2019. Erin Schaff/The New York Times.
by Matt Stevens and Larry Buchanan
NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- What if the paintings and sculptures could talk? What if they already do? Indeed, the paintings and the sculptures that are displayed in the Oval Office represent the choices of each American president — subtle and not so subtle signals every administration sends about its values and view of history. And so although the Oval Office is perhaps not often thought of as an ultra-high-profile rotating exhibition space, in one narrow sense, that is exactly what it is. “The Oval Office decoration often reflects a president’s view of history and the nature of his hopes for the future,” said Jon Meacham, the presidential biographer whom President Joe Biden asked to advise on art for the Oval Office. Presidential and art historians say that already, Biden’s approach to art appears distinct from his predecessors. In terms of sheer volume, he has included more sculptures and paintings ... More
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, the largest circulating branch, on Fifth Avenue at 40th Street in New York. Max Touhey via The New York Times.
NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Muddling along for four decades in a nondescript former department store, the Mid-Manhattan Library, at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in New York City, served a growing swarm of local residents and commuters even as the branch steadily became a dilapidated “embarrassment” to the New York Public Library system, as Anthony Marx, its president, put it. After three years of construction and $200 million, the library system was ready to reopen its largest circulating branch in the spring of 2020. Instead, the pandemic extended the closure. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, or SNFL, as it is now known (after a $55 million gift), finally threw open its doors to unlimited browsing in June. Its theatrically expressive heart is a dramatic atrium billowing upward from the second floor, where book lovers will delight in a vista of the vast circulating collection of up to 400,000 volumes. The branch is phasing in its extensive programming over the coming months. (On Tuesday, the New ... More
MONACO.- The inaugural exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Monaco, ‘Louise Bourgeois. Maladie de l’Amour’ explores the motif of the couple and its discontents through a selection of sculptures, installations, and works on paper. For Bourgeois, the relation to the Other has a fundamental importance, yet the desire for the Other carries within it the fear of rejection, abandonment, and isolation. The common trope of love as a ‘mal’ or sickness has its roots in medieval ‘trobar’ (frequently composed in the South of France) and the traditions of courtly literature. Love is conceived as a sickness which consumes the lover even as it refines and elevates her sensibility. All thought and feeling become concentrated in the beloved, which engenders in the lover a loss of interest in the world around and a withdrawal of affect from other objects. This state of heightened vulnerability and sensitivity becomes a modalit ... More
Leading Melbourne-based visual artist Jason Phu’s multi-disciplinary practice includes drawing, installation, painting and performance.
MELBOURNE.-ACMI announced Jason Phu as the latest recipient of the Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for young Australian artists. The commission supports artists under 35 to create moving image works that reference contemporary social, cultural or political issues with energy and originality. It will see three artists selected over three years, each receiving $80,000, with the commission worth $240,000 in total. Now in its second year, the Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for young Australian artists further extends the impact of ACMI’s vibrant commissioning program that has seen 20 artists receive commissions worth more than $1 million over the past three years – and reflects the longstanding partnership with Catriona Mordant AM and Professor Cav. Simon Mordant AO, the City of Melbourne and John Allsopp from Web Directions. Leading Melbourne-based visual artist Jason Phu’s multi-disciplinary practice includes drawi ... More
Black Beacon, in which is installed Library of Sound (2021) containing field recordings by Iain Chambers, Chris Watson and Brian d’Souza on Orford Ness, Suffolk.
ORFORD NESS.- A series of major new commissions by international artists are being presented this summer by Artangel on Orford Ness – a windswept strip of land stretching several miles along the Suffolk coast owned by the National Trust and known locally as the ‘island of secrets’. Accessible only by boat, Orford Ness’s environment shifts from mud flats, salt marshes and brackish lagoons, to shingle ridges that are home to a unique ecosystem of flora and fauna and an eroding coastline. An assortment of abandoned structures punctuate the desolate landscape, apparitions from the time when Orford Ness was used by the British military during both World Wars as a test site for radio, radar and ballistics systems, and for the UK’s atomic weapons research programme during the Cold War. Presented in partnership with the National Trust, Afterness opened on 1st July 2021 to the public with new ... More
ARLES.- After being awarded the prestigious Prix du Jury by the Salon des Beaux Arts for ‘Different Shades of Yellow’, the critically acclaimed photographer will unveil ‘Different Shades of White’ photographic series at Arles Misia-O’ will be exhibiting a new series of photographs titled ‘Different Shades Of White’ at the prestigious les Rencontres d’Arles between 6 July to 25 September 2021. ‘Different Shades of White’ is the latest in Misia-O’s celebrated photographic series, following the critically-acclaimed ‘Different Shades of Yellow’, which was recently awarded the Prix du Jury (Jury Prize) at the Salon des Beaux Arts (SNBA) in Paris. Beginning with ‘Different Shades of Black’, followed by Yellow and White, the next series will explore different shades of red. Misia-O’s work focuses on using light to show the colour variations of the ... More
Robin Rhode, Spade, 2007. Sammlung Goetz, München. Installation view museum Voorlinden. Photo: Antoine van Kaam.
WASSENAR.- Robin Rhode’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands is now on view at the Museum Voorlinden. Spanning two decades of artistic output, the retrospective reveals how drawing underscores Rhode’s work across photography, installation, performance, sculpture, and animation. Rhode was born in 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa and now lives and works in Berlin. His work creates visual narratives that are brought to life using quotidian materials such as soap, charcoal, chalk, and paint. Rhode came of age in the newly post-apartheid South Africa and was exposed to new forms of creative expression motivated by the spirit of the individual. The growing influence of hip-hop, film, and popular sports on youth culture as well as the community’s reliance on storytelling in the form of colorful murals encouraged the ... More
The 22 essays in the book are small narrative jewels of landscape, horses, friendship, and a search for belonging - what it means to feel part of a place, having lost the one he was born to in South Africa’s Cape.
CROWBOROUGH.- This lyrical book is a love letter to Ashdown Forest after a forty-year affair. Wry, funny, moving and vivid, this memoir chronicles the life of the author and the ten square miles of country he calls his Kingdom. This book is as good as a brisk walk in the woods on an autumn day. Written with love and passion it is a hymn to landscape and freedom. It is a close and deep observation of the writer’s adopted country the fabled Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England, (the home of Winnie the Pooh) where he has lived and ridden for the past forty years. His gift is the ability to take you deep into the landscapes that make this place resonate in his heart: its streams, woods, heathlands. You meet its literary residents A.A, Milne, Sir ... More
Quote All painting is abstract, it must be organised. David Hockney
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Retooling 'La Bohème' for pandemic performances LONDON(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- It’s an evening of drinking and revelry at Café Momus. A group of young men chatter away as a femme fatale tries to get their attention, jumping on tables and tossing undergarments. But the night spot is not as crowded as usual. There are few waiters in attendance, and by the windows in the back three patrons dine alone. It is Act II of a pared-down production of Puccini’s “La Bohème” at the Royal Opera House. In light of pandemic restrictions, the orchestra has 47 players, down from the usual 74. The act opens with only 18 of 60 chorus members onstage, the rest singing from the wings, and 10 (not 20) children onstage. There are four, not 10, waiters in the cafe. “The cafe scene feels less ‘bustling belle epoque cafe’ and more ‘lonely-hearts establishment’ at the moment, simply because there’s a limited number of people that we can have in the ... More
Back at the barre, lessons learned LONDON(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When students at the Royal Ballet School scattered to their homes around the globe during the first British lockdown last spring, classes went virtual and, at first, proved quite tricky. It was not just about time differences, with Chinese, Australian and Japanese students, among others, not keen to get up in the middle of the night to meet classmates on the virtual barre during the day in Europe. Technical issues also arose as the recorded music that teachers played was out of sync. “When I would look at my screen, we’d be doing grand battement and our legs would be in different positions, and everyone was on totally different timings,” recalled Ava May Llewellyn, a 19-year-old British ballerina who has been at the school since she was 11. “And the teachers would always say: ‘Yeah, really good work. However, musicality wise, I don’t really know who is right.’” ... More
Review: 'The Watering Hole' can't quite quench a thirst NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The day I went to the Signature Theatre, it was so hellishly hot out that it felt as if the air was clinging to my skin. So I stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan for “The Watering Hole,” a theatrical installation conceived and curated by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon. What I had hoped for was refreshment. What I left with was a thirst for a more memorable and neatly composed offering. “The Watering Hole,” directed by Haymon, is a collaborative project featuring work by Haymon and Nottage along with Christina Anderson, Matt Barbot, Montana Levi Blanco, Stefania Bulbarella, Amith Chandrashaker, nicHi douglas, Iyvon E., Justin Ellington, Emmie Finckel, Vanessa German, Ryan J. Haddad, Phillip Howze, Haruna Lee, Campbell Silverstein, Charly Evon Simpson ... More
Guggenheim Bilbao presents 'Cecilia Bengolea: Animations in Water' BILBAO.- From June 24 to October 24, 2021, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is presenting Cecilia Bengolea: Animations in Water, the second exhibition of 2021 in the Film & Video gallery, a space that the Museum dedicates to key works in video art, film, and the artistic languages associated with the moving image. Cecilia Bengolea (b. 1979, Buenos Aires) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice merges video, choreography, and sculpture. In her research, Bengolea explores forms of popular dance combining contemporary and archaic elements, giving way to constant redefinitions of the concept of figuration. Following the thread of water and movement flows, this exhibition presents a selection of works where the artist’s reflection on dance, the sensorial interplay between the body’s interiority and its surroundings, as well as the rhythmical relations of social communities and nature, ... More
39th EVA International opens phase 2 of biennial LIMERICK.-EVA International announced the 2021 programme of the 39th Irish Biennial, its phase 2 featuring 14 presentations by renowned Irish and international artists and collaborating curators, across venues in Limerick, remotely and online. Taking inspiration from the ‘Golden Vein’, the bountiful pastures of Limerick and Tipperary region, the 39th EVA International programme seeks to address ideas of land, borders and its contested values in the context of Ireland today. Curated by internationally acclaimed curator Merve Elveren, phase 2 of the 39th EVA International’s Guest Programme, Little did they know, extends across two venues in Limerick city (Park Point and Sailor's Home) and on a dedicated online platform. Functioning as an “exercising ground” for interpreting current social and political conditions in various geographical contexts, the exhibition centers ... More
Oscar-winning Russian director Menshov dies of Covid at 81 MOSCOW(AFP).- Russia's Oscar-winning film director Vladimir Menshov died on Monday aged 81 after testing positive for coronavirus. Menshov, who won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1981, died as a result of complications from Covid-19, Moscow film studios, Mosfilm, confirmed in a statement. "We knew he was suffering from Covid-19, but in a mild form. It is absolutely horrible and unexpected," film director Vladimir Khotinenko told AFP. "His death leaves a huge vacuum in our shared cultural space," Khotinenko added. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Menshov's death represented "a huge loss for our cinema and our culture". Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin "expresses his deepest condolences". Menshov was born in 1939 in Baku, then the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan. He worked as an actor and then a director and gained international fame for ... More
'Talibanned': From kite-running to breakdancing, Afghan pastimes again under threat KABUL(AFP).- The Taliban outlawed dozens of seemingly innocuous activities and pastimes in Afghanistan during their 1996-2001 rule -- including kite flying, TV soap operas, pigeon racing, fancy haircuts, and even playing music. These have made a comeback in the years since, but fears are growing they will be banned again if the hardline Islamists return to power. The insurgents have made enormous military and territorial gains since US troops began their final withdrawal in May, and their leaders say they want Afghanistan to return to being an Islamic emirate ruled by religious elders. AFP looks at some of the activities the Taliban banned, and the fears of those now taking part in them. Sayed Mohammad makes a living as a professional musician playing the japani, a traditional Central Asian stringed instrument he first picked up as a boy. He still remembers the ... More
Inked mummies, linking tattoo artists with their ancestors NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In the 1970s, hunters stumbled upon eight 500-year-old bodies preserved by the Arctic climate near Qilakitsoq, an abandoned Inuit settlement in northwest Greenland. Later, when scientists photographed the mummies with infrared film, they made an intriguing discovery: Five of the six females had delicate lines, dots and arches tattooed on their faces. For thousands of years, tattoos were more than just body decoration for Inuit and other Indigenous cultures. They served as symbols of belonging, signified coming-of-age rituals, channeled spiritual beliefs or conferred powers that could be called upon while giving birth or hunting. Yet starting around the 17th century, missionaries and colonists intent on “civilizing” Indigenous people put a stop to tattooing in all but the most remote communities. The practice so thoroughly disappeared in Greenland that ... More
Lydia Lunch's infinite rebellion NEW YORK(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- For nearly two hours on a recent afternoon, Lydia Lunch sat in her bright Brooklyn apartment and spoke with bracing speed, and at an alarming volume, about rape, murder, incest, genocide, racism, sadism, torture and — for a thunderous encore — the apocalypse. Because she has spent more than four decades broadcasting her belief that such brutal subjects lie at the heart of the human experience, critics have often cast her as a nihilist. “It’s the problems that are nihilistic, not me,” said Lunch, 62. “I’m the most positive person I know. To me, pleasure and joy are the ultimate rebellion. For some reason, few people seem to know that.” “The War Is Never Over,” a new documentary about the artist that opened Friday, will offer more people the chance to get a fairer sense of Lunch’s life and work. Directed by her longtime ally Beth B, the movie ... More
'Superman' director Richard Donner dies at 91 WASHINGTON(AFP).- Richard Donner, a prolific filmmaker who directed the first "Superman" movie, "The Goonies," and other blockbuster hits, died on Monday at age 91, US media reported. Donner's other credits include the 1976 horror classic "The Omen," the "Lethal Weapon" cop franchise with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover starting in 1987, "Scrooged" (1988) and his final movie in 2006, "16 Blocks." He also directed episodes of iconic 20th century television shows such as "Get Smart," "Perry Mason," "Gilligan's Island" and "The Twilight Zone," according to IMDB, and took on a producer role for blockbuster hits including "X-Men" and "Free Willy." The Hollywood Reporter cited Donner's assistant in confirming his death, while Deadline said there was no cause of death revealed by Donner's business manage or producer wife, Lauren Schuler Donner. "Richard Donner had the biggest, ... More
MARGATE NOW announces artists, partners and projects for Sunken Ecologies MARGATE.-MARGATE NOW announces the artists, partners and projects for the 2021 Sunken Ecologies festival programme curated by Anna Colin, with permanent commissions by Nicolas Deshayes, Lindsey Mendick and Olu Ogunnaike, and commissions for the festival duration by headline artists Ama Josephine Budge, Adam Chodzko, Kim Conway, Sonia Overall, Christina Peake, Shamica Ruddock, Holly Slingsby, Francesca Ter-Berg and Sara Trillo. Sunken Ecologies takes on the human-made natural environment, centering on the Sunken Garden, a public park in the Westbrook area of Margate, designed and landscaped in the 1930’s. Sunken Ecologies comprises nearly 30 exhibitions, installations, performances, walks, talks and other events by over 20 artists, musicians and writers at the Sunken Garden, Nayland Rock Hotel, CRATE, Limbo, Cliftonville Cultural Space ... More
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