NEW YORK, NY.- With as many avatars as a Hindu god, Lee Miller appeared in her lifetime as a gorgeous fashion model, daring war photojournalist, and Man Ray’s photographic assistant and lover. “Seeing Is Believing: Lee Miller and Friends,” an exhibition at Gagosian in Manhattan through Dec. 22, explores an overlooked aspect of this intriguing woman, as the longtime wife of Roland Penrose, an English surrealist painter, scholar and collector. Drawn largely from the Penrose family’s holdings at their farmhouse in East Sussex, England, where Miller lived from 1949 until her death in 1977, the show downplays the photographs Miller made alongside Man Ray in Paris in the ’30s, as well as the fascinating surrealist-tinged landscapes she captured in Egypt later in that decade when she was married to her first husband, wealthy businessman Aziz Eloui Bey. And except for two prints, it omits her most consequential work: the harrowing World War II photographs she took as a correspondent ... More
Stephen Sondheim sits for an interview at home in Roxbury, Conn., a few days before his death, on Nov. 21, 2021. (Daniel Dorsa/The New York Times)
by Joshua Barone
NEW YORK, NY.- “You know, I had the idealistic notion, when I was 20, that I was going into the theater,” Stephen Sondheim once said. “I wasn’t; I was going into show business, and I was a fool to think otherwise.” It was a remark characteristic of Sondheim, a titan of musical theater whose decades’ worth of credits as a composer and lyricist included “West Side Story,” “Company” and “Into the Woods.” Here he was as many had seen him in interviews over the years: unsentimental and a bit flip, self-effacing to the point of selling himself short. Because among musical theater artists of his generation, Sondheim, who died in 2021 at 91, was arguably the most artistic — challenging, unusual, incapable of superficiality in a medium often dismissed as superficial. He was, perhaps to his disappointment, not the best businessman, with ... More
Contemporary Women Artists from Japan is curated by the Art Institute of Chicago’s Janice Katz.
CHICAGO, IL .- The The Art Institute of Chicago is presenting 'Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan' starting today. The exhibition will feature 40 stunning works by 36 different women artists from across Japan, showcasing the inventiveness and variety of work that is driving the ceramics movement forward. While women have historically been underrecognized for their contributions to the ceramics field, this show brings both established and emerging women artists to the forefront and focuses on the explosion of innovative and technically ambitious compositions by such artists particularly since 1970. “There are so many strong contemporary women artists from Japan that are truly pushing the limits in ceramics and clay beyond what we’ve ever seen traditionally,” said Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art, the Art Institute of Chicago. “This show brings together artists on the cutting edge of in ... More
Mary Cassatt, Portrait of Mrs. Cyrus J. Lawrence with her Grandson R. Lawrence Oakley, c. 1898, pastel on tan paper. The Clark, Gift of Mrs. R. Lawrence Oakley, 1973.36
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.- Marking the fiftieth anniversary of its Manton Research Center, the Clark Art Institute presents the opportunity to see a selection of prints, drawings, and photographs acquired between 1973 and 2023. 50 Years and Forward: Works on Paper Acquisitions opens on December 16, 2023 and is on view through March 10, 2024 in the Clark Center. The exhibition features several recent acquisitions as well as other works never previously shown at the Clark. “The Manton Research Center is the home of the Clark’s works on paper collection, said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. “As we mark the Manton building’s golden anniversary, this seemed like a perfect moment to reflect on how the collection has grown and changed over the last half-century. With more than 6,500 works on paper in a total collection of 10,500 objects, it’s ... More
Madonna performs at Barclays Center in Brooklyn in NewYork on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023. (The New York Times)
by Caryn Ganz
NEW YORK, NY.- For 40 years, evolution, rebellion and resilience have been Madonna’s hallmarks, but forward momentum is her life force. She’s been pop music’s premier shark, operating in near perpetual motion: Why would she pause to bask or look back, and risk losing oxygen? So there are understandable touches of both defiance and reluctance to the Celebration Tour, her first road show devoted to hits rather than a new album. The retrospective began its North American leg at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday night with all the classic trappings of a Madonna spectacle. But unlike her 11 prior tours of this scale, this one was haunted by ghosts — some invited, ... More
Jean-Luc Godard’s hard-boiled sci-fi movie from 1965 returns in a restored version at IFC Center.
NEW YORK, NY.- Cinephiles of a certain age have a Jean-Luc Godard film that when first seen, blew their minds. Mine was Godard’s low-budget foray into dystopian science fiction, “Alphaville.” Having opened the 1965 New York Film Festival, which called it the “first successful incursion of pop art into the cinema,” “Alphaville” returns in a restored, re-subtitled print at the IFC Center, starting Friday. Call it pop art, meta-noir, sci-fi neorealism or the underground precursor to the overblown, effects-driven superhero movies of the 21st century. “Alphaville” inserted itself into popular cinema by appropriating an existing movie icon — the hard-boiled detective Lemmy Caution, played in seven French thrillers by frog-faced American actor Eddie Constantine. Thanks to Constantine, “Alphaville” is remarkably close to a “normal” movie (by ... More
NEW YORK, NY.- Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Marc Payot, Co-Presidents of Hauser & Wirth, announced the gallery’s representation of Nova Scotia-born, New York-based artist Ambera Wellmann, in joint partnership with Company Gallery, NY. Wellmann has attracted international critical approbation for paintings that depict worlds within worlds, populated by human and animal forms emerging from and dissolving into each other and the atmosphere. Rendered in oils with a technical dexterity that recalls the work of Renaissance and Baroque masters, her canvases are filled with unanchored figures and disembodied faces, shimmering swaths of illumination and darkness, anachronistic details and indeterminate spaces that circle and move in defiance of hierarchy, pointing ... More
Yao Wu in the Carol T. Christ Asian Art Gallery at the Smith College Museum of Art. Photograph by Aprile Gallant.
SALEM, MA.-The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) announced the appointment of Yao Wu as the museum’s first Huang Family Curator of Chinese Art and Culture. A distinguished scholar and curator, Wu brings nearly two decades of museum experience and an extensive academic background to PEM. She will focus on creating new interpretive galleries for Yin Yu Tang, a 200-year-old Chinese home, and the museum’s renowned collections of Chinese art and culture. Wu, who currently serves as the inaugural Jane Chace Carroll Curator of Asian Art at the Smith College Museum of Art, begins her post at PEM on March 4, 2024. "We are thrilled to welcome Ms. Wu to PEM,” said Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, PEM’s Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Executive Director and CEO. “Her scholarship, curatorial creativity and deep passion for sharing art and culture will enhance the museum’s commitment to broadening perspectives and fostering ... More
Hsüan-t'ung silver Specimen Pattern "Long-Whiskered Dragon" Dollar Year 3 (1911) SP64+ NGC, Tientsin mint, KM-Pn304, L&M-28, Kann-223, WS-0040, Wenchao-105 (rarity 3 stars).
DALLAS, TX.- A Hsüan-t’ung silver Specimen Pattern “Long-Whiskered Dragon” Dollar Year 3 (1911) SP64+ NGC sold for $630,000 to lead Heritage’s HKINF World Coins Platinum Session and Signature® Auction to $8,685,913 December 9-11. Among the finest Pattern Long-Whiskered Dragon Dollars extant, it is the finest example ever offered through Heritage Auctions, the world’s leading numismatic auctioneer. “This is an extraordinary coin, and one which has not come to auction in decades,” says Cris Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of International Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. “The demand for high-grade Asian coins has never been higher, and it is coins like this magnificent piece that are leading the way.” More than two dozen bids poured in for a Republic Chu Yu-pu Specimen Pattern Medallic Dollar ND (1927) SP61 PCGS, L&M-962, Kann-690, WS-0125 before it sold for $528,000. From the Ta Han Co ... More
Nia Wilkerson, a student at St. John’s University, poses as Hero Girl from “The Polar Express,” on a crowded subway train in New York on Dec. 11, 2023. (Scott Rossi/The New York Times)
by Madison Malone Kircher
NEW YORK, NY.- “Oh my God! You’re the girl from ‘The Polar Express,’” a tourist yelled at Nia Wilkerson. Dressed in a pink nightgown, Wilkerson was dancing in front of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan for a TikTok video. Over the course of the next two hours Monday afternoon, dozens more people stopped and stared. Many of them filmed her from afar or asked to take selfies with her. “Wait, are you really the girl from the movie?” a passerby asked. The answer to that question is no. Wilkerson, a senior at St. John’s University in Queens, was 3 years old in 2004, when “The Polar Express” was released. The movie, a box office hit directed by Robert Zemeckis that was based on a children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg, has long drawn criticism because of its brand of motion-capture animation, which gives its characters an eerie, zombified look. ... More
A modernized version of the "Seven Brides" musical staged at Muny in St. Louis, 2021. (Via Muny via The New York Times)
by Michael Paulson
NEW YORK, NY.- “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” features a central plot twist that makes the story problematic for contemporary audiences: A group of ill-mannered brothers kidnaps the women they have been eyeing. The plot device goes back all the way to ancient times, when it was the theme of a Roman legend called “The Rape of the Sabine Women.” That story inspired paintings (Peter Paul Rubens, et al.), a short story (“The Sobbin’ Women”) and a 1954 musical film later adapted into a 1982 stage musical, which closed on Broadway three days after it opened. Now, an effort to modernize the story to make it palatable for today’s theatergoers has landed in court. The dispute centers on a version of the show that was staged ... More
LONDON .- The Garden by Siân Davey is now open in a free outdoor exhibition in Soho Photography Quarter, just outside The Photographers’ Gallery. Starting in 2020, British photographer Siân Davey transformed her abandoned garden over three summers into a vibrant space, filled with wildflowers, birdsong and people. Together with her son, Luke, Davey cultivated a space rooted in love. They researched native flowers and encouraged biodiversity, sourcing seeds and plants locally. When the flowers bloomed, they called in the community. Everyone had a place in The Garden; the mothers and daughters, the lonely, the marginalised, lovers, the traumatised and heartbroken and those that had concealed a lifetime ... More
Senada Borcilo, Rite of Passage-Stone. Lithograph.
EDINBURGH .- New members’ exhibition ‘Journey’ at Edinburgh Printmakers celebrates the journey of Edinburgh Printmakers’ Workshop from its beginning in 1967. The 3rd annual members’ show at Edinburgh Printmakers galleries at Castle Mills Fountainbridge is hosting the work of 78 artists across a broad spectrum of print mediums. The theme of ‘Journey’ has been interpreted in many ways: including landscapes, excerpts of travels, and a morning commute. The exhibition embraces milestones of life and personal experiences as well as ‘Journeys’ within printmaking itself through exploring new processes or materials. Hung across Galleries 1 & 2 at Edinburgh Printmakers, ‘Journey’ celebrates the ‘Journey’ of Edinburgh Printmakers' Workshop itself. Starting as a small collective of imaginative artists in 1967, it has flourished into a group of over 200 members from Edinburgh and ... More
Quote Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. Camille Pissarro
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Phoenix Art Museum unveiling 'Expanding Darshan: Manjari Sharma, To See and Be Seen' PHOENIX, ARIZ.-Phoenix Art Museum is now unveiling the exhibition 'Expanding Darshan: Manjari Sharma, To See and Be Seen', which will be on view until April 14th, 2024. Organized by the Birmingham Museum of Art, Expanding Darshan: Manjari Sharma, To See and Be Seen showcases the remarkable work of global contemporary artist Manjari Sharma, who has photographically re- imagined encounters with Hindu deities in temple settings with custom fabrication. These portraits, which address issues of identity, multiculturalism, and personal mythology, are paired alongside historical sculptural objects from the collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art, many of which are on view publicly for the first time. By presenting these works together, the exhibition creates a dialogue about the longstanding, inextricable ... More
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago commences 'Descending the Staircase' CHICAGO, IL.- The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago commences the exhibition Descending the Staircase, opening today and running through August 25, 2024. Drawn from the MCA Collection, Descending the Staircase considers novel artistic approaches to representing the human body. Using the MCA’s iconic helix staircase as a central axis, the exhibition spreads across the third and fourth floor of the museum, inviting visitors to descend into realms of the uncanny and fantastical. The exhibition explores figures of all kinds, from the fragmented, abject, and surreal to the curated, self-aware, and media savvy. Descending the Staircase features four sections—Mind, Object, Form, and Action—that each delve into different questions about the human body through the lens of the contemporary art world. This exhibition brings ... More
The Museum St. John's Hospital in Bruges reopens as new museum focusing on care and hospitality BRUGES.- The St. John's Hospital in Bruges, one of the oldest and best-preserved hospital buildings in Europe, reopens on 16 December as a completely new, contemporary museum. The new museum is conceived as a place that speaks to the heart, where hospitality - in all senses of the word - and care - through all ages - are central. The magnificent St. John's Hospital has stood proudly at the heart of Bruges' city centre for almost nine centuries. From 1150 onwards, the hospital accommodated the sick and needy. All who needed care or a place to sleep were welcome within its walls. The artworks, preserved there until today, were created specifically for the hospital to offer hope and comfort to the sick and dying or strength and inspiration to the nuns who offered their assistance. The St. John's Hospital owns a unique ensemble ... More
Review: Onstage, the 'Stranger Things' franchise eats itself NEW YORK, NY.- As theatergoers took their seats, a buttery waft of popcorn in the auditorium was an indicator of what was to come. “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” — a spinoff of the hit Netflix series, “Stranger Things” — brings a high-octane, TV-movie sensibility to the stage, pummeling the audience with horror-show frights and sensory overload: eerie smoke effects, mind-boggling levitations, scary vocal distortions reminiscent of “The Exorcist” and noise — so much noise. Directed by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot: The Musical”; “The Crown”) and written by Kate Trefry and Jack Thorne in collaboration with the TV show’s creators, the Duffer brothers, the show runs at the Phoenix Theater, in London, through Aug. 25, 2024. It’s a gaudy, vertiginous fairground ride of a play, exactly what you’d expect from a show co ... More
Oil paintings flow past estimates in Neue Auctions online event, led by 'Red Hills' BEACHWOOD, OHIO.- An oil on canvas painting by Roger Brown (American, 1941-1997) blew past its $1,000-$2,000 estimate to finish at $49,200, and an oil painting by the French artist Felix Ziem (1821-1911) also shattered expectations in Neue Auctions’ online-only Fine Estates & Collections auction held December 2nd. They were the top two earners of the 417-lot auction. The Roger Brown painting, titled Red Hills, was unframed and unsigned but titled in pencil on verso. It had a canvas size of 22 ½ inches by 36 inches. The lot was accompanied by a copy of the book Roger Brown, by Sidney Lawrence (1987). Brown was often associated with the Chicago Imagist groups. He was known worldwide for his distinctive painting style and shrewd social commentaries on politics, religion, and art. Brown’s life was shortened ... More
1863 $20 gold certificate shines at Heritage's FUN Currency Auction DALLAS, TX.- One of just six known examples of America’s first Gold Certificate will become an undeniable treasure for the winning bidder when it is sold in Heritage’s January 10-12 FUN Currency Signature® Auction. The Fr. 1166b-I $20 1863 Gold Certificate PMG Very Fine 25 that will be up for grabs is one of just four in private hands. Within paper currency, there are some major design types that far outweigh the rarity of many numismatic trophies, and the Series 1863 Gold Certificates are a prime example. “These were the first Gold Certificates printed and issued,” says Dustin Johnston, Vice President of Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. “The vast majority of them were redeemed for physical gold, making the survivors unquestioned rarities. Now just four $20 notes and a single $100 are available to collectors. The ... More
Heritage's December 8-11 Animation event celebrating 100 years of Disney tops $3.3 million DALLAS, TX.- Heigh-ho! Our collective love affair with Disney’s rich history continues: From December 8-11, Heritage presented Part II of its celebration of Disney’s centennial with an auction that brought in $3.3 million; this followed the auction house’s Part I summer event that brought in a record $4.8 million for a combined, whopping $8.1 million for the art of Disney animation in 2023. No other auction house comes close to this level of success in this special category. The December spectacular — Celebrating 100 Years of Disney! (1923 - 2023) PART II Signature ® Auction — featuring nearly 1700 lots, was a complete sellout. “Part II of this amazing auction celebrating 100 years of Disney continued the record-breaking results we saw this past June,” says Jim Lentz, Heritage's Vice President of Animation and Anime Art. “The market ... More
The trans comic looking for love 'at the End of the World' NEW YORK, NY.- The first thing to know about Jes Tom, a stand-up comedian who approaches the craft with a spirit of mischief, is that they “only say true things.” So when their roughly 75-minute set parcels out recollections of explaining glory holes to their mother, watching their polyamorous girlfriend get married on Twitch or discovering — after four years on testosterone — that they were newly into men, you would be forgiven for wondering how any one person’s dating life could be so complex. “I thought testosterone would turn me into a man, but it turned me into a twink,” Tom, who is nonbinary, revealed to a cackling West Village audience last week at the Greenwich House Theater in Manhattan. “Less Lonely,” Tom’s solo comedy show about their quest for love, sex and gender confirmation “at the end of the world,” swerves ... More
'Godard Cinema' review: A convention-defying auteur NEW YORK, NY.- Making sense of the career of Jean-Luc Godard is both impossible and contrary to the spirit of his art. More than any other filmmaker, Godard, over six decades of features, sought with each new work to confound assumptions about how movies could look and sound. He long ago left behind intelligibility, at least in the conventional sense. But if an overview were your goal, Cyril Leuthy’s documentary “Godard Cinema” — which had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022, just eight days before Godard’s death at 91 — acquits itself reasonably well. It refuses to reduce Godard’s output to the relatively accessible French New Wave period and tries to deal with him in all his thorniness. There is Godard the film lover turned film director, who had made a decisive break with his childhood and ... More
A playwright revisits his 'Illusion of Suffering' on Broadway NEW YORK, NY.- As with so many family reunion plays, the squabbling Lafayette siblings in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Appropriate” dislodge their share of skeletons from the closets of their childhood home, a former plantation in southern Arkansas. But here those secrets, hovering over everything and everyone, may be actual skeletons, and worse. The increasingly unsettling revelations power what The New York Times’ Ben Brantley called a “very fine, subversively original new play” at its off-Broadway premiere in 2014 at the Signature Theater. So subversive and so original that it took almost a decade to reach Broadway. Jacobs-Jenkins, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient whose works include bold reimaginings of “The Octoroon” and the 15th-century play “Everyman,” got there a bit earlier when he contributed original material ... More
Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea presents 'Experiments in the Existence of Evil' RIVOLI.- To mark the donation to the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea of the large installation I numeri malefici (The Evil Numbers), 1978, created by Fabio Mauri (Rome, 1926 - 2009) for the XXXVIII Venice Biennale, the Museum presents the exhibition Fabio Mauri: Experiments in the Existence of Evil. “I still don’t really know if God cares about art, I’ve never understood it, much less my own, which focuses on evil, for which I have a certain eye.” - F. Mauri, Un utile esperimento negativo (A useful negative experiment), 2002. Artist and intellectual, Fabio Mauri was born in Rome in 1926 and began publishing his first drawings and articles when he was only 16 years old in the magazine “Il Setaccio” (The Sieve), which he had founded with Pier Paolo Pasolini in Bologna in 1942. The trauma of the Second World War later ... More
On a day like today, Spanish-Mexican surrealist painter Remedios Varo was born
October 16, 1908. Remedios Varo Uranga (16 December 1908 - 8 October 1963) was a Spanish-Mexican para-surrealist painter and anarchist. Born in Girona, Spain in 1908, she studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. She is known as one of the world famous para-surrealist artists of the 20th Century. During the Spanish Civil War she fled to Paris where she was greatly influenced by the surrealist movement. She met her second husband, the French surrealist poet Benjamin Péret, in Barcelona. In this image: Remedios Varo (Spanish/Mexican 1908-1963), Vampiros vegetarianos. Oil on canvas. Painted in 1962. Estimate: $1,500,000 – 2,000,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2015
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