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Community Comes First at Ethan James Green’s New York Life Gallery

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A bright gallery space with paintings on easels

There’s graffiti on the door of 167-169 Canal Street, along with its address in bold red block letters on the glass and, behind that, a long set of stairs cascading upward. I’m buzzed in, and I wind my way up five flights to a brick space painted white. Light from New York’s gray winter sky floods in through the windows overlooking Canal and Elizabeth streets below and the skylight above. I’m standing in New York Life Gallery, where the latest exhibition is in flux.

The gallery was founded in 2022 by photographer Ethan James Green—whose work has graced the pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and countless other publications—with the idea of organizing the creative energy that already flowed through the space. It was previously (and occasionally still is) his photography studio and a place where visiting friends and colleagues would often begin to collaborate on their own. Green’s goal was not to create yet another traditional art gallery but to create a space that was artist-run and artist-led, community-forward, accessible and inviting.

Many of Green’s philosophies about running an art gallery come from his own experiences as a photographer. “The artist always knows best” when it comes to creating a show of their work. “I’ve worked on books. I’ve worked a lot in the commercial space, the editorial space. And in two of those, there’s a lot of compromise that has to happen and you have to really pick your battles. But in those moments, I have had things come out, your name’s on it, and it’s not representing you and it’s just a very frustrating thing,” he says. “I’ve been so particular about my work since the beginning, that not allowing someone else to do the same would feel just wrong.”

A photo of seagulls swarming on the beach

Photographer Daniel Arnold, whose work has been positively reviewed by outlets as diverse as The New York Times and MTV, had a successful show at the gallery in late 2023—his first ever. He had never shown his work previously precisely because he hadn’t found a space that really represented him as an artist. He remembered a decade ago seeing galleries in Los Angeles that felt, as he says, “clubhouse-y,” with a communal energy, but he could never find that in New York. “It feels like in those ten years that has changed so much, and you can bypass, I don’t want to alienate anybody but, like the kind of corny elitism of known galleries and do something that feels communal and collaborative,” he says.

His experience at the New York Life Gallery had the community vibe he was looking for. “I’ve avoided galleries,” he explained. “Not that they’re banging down my door or anything, but something like this that feels like sort of a family situation is so much more appealing. It feels so much safer and so much more interesting, to be more experimental and not just show my most efficient, greatest hits that will sell the most.”

A self portrait of a shirtless painter painting

Green and gallery director Caroline Kelley arrive at exhibition ideas by instinct and by chance, working with artists both emerging and established, with archives and estates. “We’re just kind of going with the flow,” Green says. “Everything that we’ve done so far has been really organic. At the end of every show, the next show reveals itself, whether it’s someone walking in, whether it’s a discussion with someone at an opening or some programming.”

Their first show, featuring the work of late artist Steven Cuffie, came to be because Green’s friend Marcus Cuffie asked to use Green’s scanner to digitize their father’s photography archive. Green loved the work Marcus was scanning, and the work became the subject of the New York Life Gallery’s debut exhibition in October of 2022. Similarly, when artist and illustrator Drake Carr asked to use Green’s studio space to draw people, the output became a gallery exhibition in early 2023.

He and Kelley feel no need to rush to conform to a typical hamster-wheel-esque art world schedule, and that has been liberating. “There’s a certain freedom to starting a gallery because you don’t have to have a roster of artists, you don’t need necessarily to do these shows that are two months on, a weekend install, another two months,” Kelley says. “What’s the rush?”

On view now is “Salon,” an “expansive synthesis of New York Life Gallery’s collection” that features work from the gallery’s previous shows: photography from Cuffie’s archives, illustrations by Carr and selections from their group show of 20th-century painters, in addition to Arnold’s work. The gallery is currently open Thursday through Saturday, from 12 to 6 p.m. or by appointment.

A bright gallery space with photos on the wall

The theme of accessibility remains strong in this way, but also in the gallery’s production of zines. They’re a way to purchase a publication featuring an artist’s work that are, of course, art on their own, and can be more affordable. One features previously unpublished black and white nudes by photographer Victor Arimondi, originally shot in the 1970s; another a collection of Carr’s drawings made on-site and behind-the-scenes images taken while they were being produced. The next one they’re working on is called “Hot Guy,” featuring tintypes of attractive men from the 1800s.

“Our mission is just to make art more approachable,” Green says. “I started collecting myself three years ago and I love it. I would like more people our age to start to test it out. We have a range of works that are available. Some of them are much more affordable than others. We hope to be a gallery that people can come to to start collecting. This could be your first stop and we’ll walk you through it.”


How Artists’ Personal Brands Bring in Big Bucks

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You may see Bob Timberlake, the 86-year-old artist in Lexington, North Carolina, only as a painter of rural imagery (house in the woods, wicker chair in front of hydrangeas, house surrounded by a snowy field, picked strawberries in a basket, house on an island), but he also is a brand. His name is trademarked, as is his signature and an image of a quill, to identify a variety of products that he has designed or with which he is associated. His name is attached to bedroom furniture, living room furniture, dining room furniture, kitchen furniture and wall decor (including frames, signs and plaques), plus mirrors and pillows, colognes and perfumes, dinnerware, decorative pottery, stoneware, and enamelware. Then there are the ceiling fans, electric lighting fixtures, fabrics, curtains and clothing, house paints and wood stains. He has even put his work and his name on the Bob Timberlake Boykin Collection of whiskey and wine.

His son, Dan Timberlake, a lawyer and advisor to his father, told Observer that “there are close to a dozen trademarks.”

Bottles of whiskey posed in front of a brick wall

Perhaps, we need to step back a moment and ask—Is Bob Timberlake an oddity in the art field, licensing his name to a variety of home and bath products when he isn’t painting? The answer is no. There are quite a few other artists in this space with a “brand” that pushes products in a commercial context, such as Keith Haring’s Radiant Babies on t-shirts, magnets, stationery and baseball caps. Many other artists, including Banksy (who doesn’t do licensing), Jean-Michel Basquiat (whose estate does), Dale Chihuly, Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol, have trademarked their names for merchandising purposes.

Perhaps, we need to step back a moment to define the term. Trademarks are words, logos or images—for instance, Jolly Green Giant, Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker or Mickey Mouse—that specifically symbolize, or refer, to a company’s products and services.

One more often associates artists with copyright than with trademarks, but they may have both. Certain marks can be both copyrighted and trademarked where there is a distinct design element. A thumbnail self-portrait of Andy Warhol along with his signature have both been copyrighted and trademarked, but certain written terms—Warhol Factory and Silver Factory, for instance—have only been trademarked.

What distinguishes Bob Timberlake is not so much his brand but the fact that he pursued licensing his name while alive, compared to other artists whose commercial viability was generated by the executors of their estates. In the past year alone, the sisters of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died in 1987, have licensed his name for scented candles, flip-flops and Great Jones Distillery’s Basquiat whiskey, as well as $159 welcome mats from Ruggable. Timberlake is not the only living artist whose name generates income.

New York-based expressionist painter Tom Christopher is another living artist currently licensing his work (and name) to two companies: the first, a dress-making firm that will incorporate his work in shirts (“Illusions by Tom Christopher” is the line), and the second, the Swiss watch company Ikepod. Christopher began his career as a commercial advertising artist before switching to fine art, so the side hustle of trademarked collaborations was never far from his consciousness.

Colorful painted watch faces

“Merch is where the money is,” Christopher said, before adding that he doesn’t “make all that much” from licensing deals. “If I get a check, it’s a surprise.” Still, he was in the running to design a BMW art car, which would have involved very little money but a lot of prestige. “I wanted to rub elbows with Warhol and Jeff Koons,” both previously commissioned by the German automaker BMW to create art cars.

BMW has worked with twenty artists over the past several decades, including John Baldessari, Alexander Calder, Futura 2000, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Julie Mehretu, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol, to produce one-of-a-kind (or limited edition) art cars—mostly for showing off but sometimes for racing at LeMans, according to Thomas Girst, a spokesman for BMW in Munich. With Koons, an edition run of ninety-nine M850i xDrive Gran Coupés were produced with the artist’s images on them, priced at $350,000 (almost twice what they cost without the designs), “and they sold out in just two weeks.” All artists commissioned by BMW are given two undecorated cars as payment and for editioned models, they receive a small royalty based on the sales price for each vehicle sold. “It’s shared risk,” Girst said.

The automaker consults with museum directors from around to identify artists interested in being commissioned to design an art car. In all these years, Girst said, only Jasper Johns has turned down the opportunity. (“He wasn’t interested in the idea of mobility.”)

A man stands in front of a car with cartoonish art on it

Licensing deals let artists, or the artist’s heirs, earn money even as the number of saleable artworks in an estate diminishes over time. There was controversy some years ago when the heirs of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo disagreed over the creation of a Barbie doll with her likeness, but the legal dispute was less about the overall concept of product branding—a strange legacy for an artist who espoused Communist ideals—but in the specific use of her name and image. The artist died intestate, so who has the specific rights to use a trademark was not clear.

Opportunities to extend an artist’s brand are easy to find for some artists and their agents. “We are contacted by multiple manufacturers every day about licensing products, but we are very selective in our approvals,” said Lily Lyons, director of exhibitions and external affairs at the Calder Foundation, which acts to collect, exhibit and interpret the art and archives of artist Alexander Calder. “We have very occasionally undertaken product collaborations that we find educational and inspiring.” Artists and their agents also have to guard against illegitimate uses of their names and images. Lyons and the foundation “try to fight unauthorized products to the best of our ability, as they are a disservice to the work of the artist, an example of which is a marketplace of Alexander Calder socks.”

Bob Timberlake’s trademarks have been subject to lawsuits when other manufacturers have sought to stop him from trademarking a name that is close to theirs. Timberlake Cabinetry, a division of American Woodmark Corporation, sought to prevent Bob Timberlake from registering his name in similar products that might compete in the market, and Timberland, a manufacturer of outdoor clothes, shoes and accessories, also tried to block the artist from registering his name even though the two companies do not compete. “They both lost,” Dan Timberland said, but added that the two lawsuits cost his father between $250,000 and $300,000.

It’s a sobering takeaway. When artists consider licensing their brands, they should think very seriously about whether they’re ready to go head-to-head with large corporations in court. The ever-present threat of frivolous lawsuits might just be the main downside of brand licensing for artists who don’t have the cultural capital of

Christie’s Is Poised to Break Brice Marden’s Auction Record With a $50M Painting

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Abstract green and yellow painting

A never-before-seen Brice Marden painting is expected to smash the abstract artist’s auction record when it is offered up by Christie’s this spring.

Painted between 2004 and 2007, Event “marks the finest example by Brice Marden to come to auction,” said Sara Friedlander, Christie’s deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art, in a statement. With an estimate of between $30 million and $50 million, the two-paneled work is set to surpass Marden’s previous artist record of $30.9 million, established in 2020 with the sale of his painting Complements. 

Marden, who died in August of 2023, is renowned as one of contemporary art’s most visionary figures. After having studied at Boston University and the Yale School of Art, he made his way to New York City in the 1960s. It was there where he connected with other abstract artists like Jasper Johns, whom he met while working as a guard at the Jewish Museum, and Robert Rauschenberg, whom Marden worked for briefly as a studio assistant. He rapidly shot to fame for his subtle minimalist paintings, which today hang in museums around the globe.

Event belongs to Marden’s famed The Propitious Garden of Plane Image series, which consists of three six-paneled paintings and three diptychs. One of Marden’s most ambitious and celebrated projects, the series’ Third Version hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, while its Extremes belongs to the Centre Pompidou Paris.

The artist’s The Propitious Garden works are especially notable for Marden’s artistic techniques displayed throughout the series. Event, for example, contains not only the painter’s signature monochromatic composition but his ribbon-like lines—a motif Marden incorporated into his art after he began studying Asian calligraphic linearity in the 1980s. Even the painting’s dimensions are significant. Having been told by a numerologist that six was his number, Marden chose a 4-by-6-foot canvas because four times six is twenty-four and two and four added together equals six.

The painting will make its public debut in February

Despite its significance in Marden’s oeuvre, Event has never before been displayed publicly, and since 2007 has been in a private collection. It will make its debut later this month when it is exhibited in Dubai during the Art Dubai art fair and will later be shown in Hong Kong and Los Angeles ahead of its auction in New York, where the painting will lead Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale.

“Throughout his career, Mr. Marden demonstrated his enduring commitment to abstraction: each hue carefully chosen and every brushstroke intentional in his pursuit of painting’s divine power,” said Friedlander. “Event is a brilliant and symphonic exploration of the tension between two planar surfaces joined in harmonious resonance, to regard it is a mediation akin to breathing.”

Pipilotti Rist Explores Interior and Exterior in Two Chelsea Galleries

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Two lawn chairs next to a barbecue grill

Walking into Luhring Augustine on 24th Street, gallery visitors must pass a large red textile work quilted with multiple colorful patterns: Pipilotti Rist’s Textile Gleichzeitigkeit (Joey Foulard) (2023). More signpost than barrier, it still transports you into the world of the Swiss visual art pioneer. Rist’s “Prickling Goosebumps & a Humming Horizon” is a two-gallery show, on view now at Luhring Augustine and Hauser & Wirth’s West 22nd Street location.

At the entrance are small-scale works including Visual Cortex Dolomites (2022), a video installation projecting an oil on hardboard landscape, Seenlandschaft mit Dolomiten by Felix Heuberger. Heuberger’s original monochrome painting is flat and muted, with forest greens and grays illustrating a body of water in the foreground, a forest in the middle ground and faded mountains in the background. Rist’s video projection of the painting gives life by adding depth to the background and white highlights to the mountains. The sky becomes a vibrant electric scene with patterns similar to the Northern Lights in bright blues and greens. Across from the painting, a rock sculpture titled Respect Scholarly Rock Hong Kong (2022) is activated with a hypnotic video projection of abstract strokes of bright teals and greens. 

These works in the dimly lit and sanctum-like entrance presage the visionary excellence of Rist, whose work is in the permanent collections of the MoMA in New York, SFMOMA and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 

Background music—piano carefully met with sounds of wind and birdsong—increases in volume as one gets closer to what appears to be a dark room but reveals itself to be Rist’s curated backyard world, Neighbors Without Fences (2020), a version of which debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. There is a full-scale façade of a clapboard house. The windows project neon abstract imagery, shown close up: colorful leaves, flowers and other foliage made for the exhibition. It flanks a courtyard outfitted with patio furniture meant to be sat upon.

Large rock sculpture

“Prickling Goosebumps & a Humming Horizon” is whimsical and inspires feelings of familiarity as well as the sense that the viewer is in a dream. The space is large and inviting—an aged red picnic bench sits at the heart of the installation next to Die Geduld, The Patience (2016), a uniquely-shaped human-sized limestone chunk with purple and orange video projecting onto it. 

Walking toward the back room, visitors’ footsteps match the music: rhythmic melodies that get lower in octave, revealing Big Skin (2022), one of Rist’s audio-video installations. Hanging frosted acrylic panels become a canvas for abstract videos that almost mirror deep-water marine life. The electric neon colors light the pitch-dark room.

The magic continues at Hauser & Wirth, where Rist has transformed the street-level floor of the gallery into a living room with domestic objects- and furniture-as-art, including Ich brenne für dich (I burn for you) (2018), an antique marble fireplace with curated collectibles on the mantle. 

The West 22nd Street space feels very comforting—gallery goers can sit on elements of the installation, including the bed in Welling Color Island East (2023) and the couch in Welling Color Island West (2023), which invite us to become a part of the art. They are bordered by video projections on islands of carpets, and the Rist’s colorful lights fill the space in a tranquil way.  

A sculpture of an intestine covered in intense red and purple light

I was particularly drawn to the collection of sculptures along the floor, which included smaller-scale works such as I Love The Sound Of Your Intestine (2020). The Metal Flake Milk Tooth (2023) collection of sculptures is exactly what it sounds like—metallic milk teeth—but with a twist. Each shimmering ‘tooth,’ appears to be a beanbag chair. They express some of the vibrancy found in nature, particularly in moss and algae: bright blues and greens with a hint of yellow or apricots, pinks and oranges.

Overall, the exhibition does a fine job of showcasing Pipilotti Rist’s ability to find meaning in the mundane and quotidian parts of life by lending unique perspectives to objects, locations and shapes by adding multi-sensory elements that are as “wild and friendly” as the artist herself.

Prickling Goosebumps and a Humming Horizon” is on view at Luhring Augustine Chelsea through March 30 and Hauser & Wirth through April 13.

A Guide to All the March Art Fairs

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A whiff of spring is in the air, though for many of us, the temperature outside still makes indoor activities more palatable. The February art fairs have mostly come and gone—thankfully the calendar of March art fairs in 2024, if not quite as robust, has a lot to offer. Art fair insiders will no doubt spend the first few days of the month in sunny L.A., drawn to the west coast by Frieze and then charmed by the smaller fairs like Felix and SPRING/BREAK. From there, they might jet off to London for the Affordable Art Fair and The Other Art fair—or to New York City for the springtime edition of Asia Week New York. But those suffering from yet another bout of fair fatigue will probably hunker down for most of March until Art Basel returns to Hong Kong in the month’s latter days, when warmer winds herald spring’s actual arrival. Here’s what you need to know to put together your own art fair calendar.

Visitors and collectors attend the Art Basel Hong Kong show

March 2024 Art Fair Guide

Felix Art Fair 2024

Through March 3

Launched in 2018, Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles swiftly carved out its niche within a now-bustling calendar of California arts and culture events. Held in the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, this gathering of contemporary art aficionados and collectors was founded by art collector Dean Valentine along with pioneering dealers Al Morán and Mills Morán. Distinctive in its approach, Felix Art Fair leverages the storied architecture of its venue to full effect, inviting galleries to mount installations in the guest rooms and poolside cabanas, creating a viewing experience of unparalleled intimacy. This fair is on the smaller side, with approximately sixty exhibitors from Los Angeles, around the U.S. and across the globe, but in just a few years, it has become famous in the L.A. art scene for its convivial atmosphere—one that nurtures meaningful interactions between art and audience.

Frieze Los Angeles 2024

Through March 3

Frieze Los Angeles, launched in 2019, has swiftly ascended to prominence on the global art stage—a testament to its place in the storied and sprawling Frieze art fair empire. Under the stewardship of Christine Messineo, the fair is mounted annually in the Santa Monica Airport, which becomes a celebration of both Los Angeles’ vibrant culture and contemporary art’s significant contributions to the worldwide cultural narrative. Hosting more than ninety-five galleries from around the world, Frieze Los Angeles serves as a focal point for international artistic exchange in California.

Outsider Art Fair New York 2024

March 1-3

Since its founding in 1993, Outsider Art Fair (OAF) has carved out a unique niche within the art world, championing a diverse array of artists overlooked by the traditional systems governing art world ascendancy. With a spotlight on art brut, OAF celebrates an eclectic mix that spans visionary, street and modern folk art, yet intriguingly, also makes space for pieces by luminaries of the contemporary art world like KAWS, Cindy Sherman and Laurie Simmons. The blend of works by rising stars and stars underscores OAF’s role as a haven for art aficionados in search of something genuinely different and a place where collectors can catch a glimpse into the lives of creators with truly compelling narratives.

Art Dubai

March 1-3

Launched in 2007, Art Dubai has rapidly established itself as a luminary event on the international art circuit—a crossroads where the traditional and the avant-garde aspects of Middle East, North Africa and South Asia’s cultures converge in displays of artistic prowess. Under Pablo del Val, Artistic Director of Art Dubai, the fair has blossomed into a global platform, showcasing an impressive assembly of more than ninety galleries from dozens of countries, each bringing a slice of their unique cultural heritage to the fore. This year’s section curators include Emiliano Valdés, (Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Medellin, Columbia), Dr. Christianna Bonin (Assistant Professor of Art History at the American University of Sharjah), and Auronda Scalera and Alfredo Cramerotti (co-directors of IAM-Infinity Art Museum). Art Dubai’s ambiance is one of discovery and dialogue—in which collectors, artists and aficionados gather for beauty and cultural exchange—with programming that includes a flagship summit, collector talks and a new digital art summit. Unsure where to stay? Check out Observer’s guide to the most lavish hotels to book for Art Dubai.

The Affordable Art Fair 2021 - Private View

Affordable Art Fair London 2024

March 6-10

Since its inception in 1999, Will Ramsay’s Affordable Art Fair has emerged as a beacon for art enthusiasts and collectors alike, democratizing the acquisition of art with its welcoming, inclusive ethos. The spring edition of Affordable Art Fair in London (which is held in Battersea twice each year) features thousands of contemporary pieces priced between £50 and £7,500. Headed by UK director Hugo Barclay, the fair brings together an eclectic mix of handpicked galleries offering a treasure trove of works designed to appeal to both first-time buyers and seasoned art collectors. Affordable Art Fair not only stands as a testament to London’s dynamic and growing art scene but also reinforces the idea that art is truly for everyone. The vibe is, in a word, inviting.

The Other Art Fair London 2024

March 7-10

The Other Art Fair, a pioneering event designed to make discovering emerging artists easier, was first held in London in 2011 by Ryan Stanier. He wanted to empower direct connections between artist and collector, democratizing the art buying experience by making it more accessible and more personal. Today, the London edition of The Other Art Fair continues to embody this ethos, bringing works by independent artists to the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. This venue, known for its rich history and contemporary edge, perfectly complements the fair’s mission to showcase the next generation of talent. Attendees are treated to an immersive experience that goes beyond mere transactions, with workshops, live performances and public installations, all in the heart of London’s bustling art scene, making it a must-visit event for those looking to discover and engage with the art world in a more intimate and meaningful way.

ARCOmadrid 2024

March 7-10

Since 1982, ARCOmadrid, Spain’s premier contemporary art fair, has been a cornerstone of the European art scene. Under the guidance of director Maribel López, the fair brings together an impressive selection of more than 200 galleries from across the globe in the expansive IFEMA – Feria de Madrid exhibition center, offering a panoramic view of contemporary artistic expression. Each year, ARCOmadrid serves as a vibrant meeting point for artists, collectors and art enthusiasts, fostering dialogues through its eclectic mix of presentations, special projects and forums and creating connections that extend far beyond the fair’s duration.

TEFAF Maastricht 2024

March 9-14

The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in the Dutch city of Maastricht is a must-visit art fair for sophisticated collectors looking for offerings beyond contemporary art. Established in 1988, TEFAF is a paragon of excellence within the world of not just art but also antiques and design. This annual fair transforms the MECC Maastricht into a labyrinth of unparalleled beauty and rarity, attracting connoisseurs and esteemed collectors from every corner of the globe. It’s big—each edition features works representing over 7,000 years of art history (not just the Old Master era) in displays by more than 275 galleries—but curated with meticulous attention to detail to create a larger, transcultural narrative. A visit to TEFAF Maastricht is like a journey not just through time but through civilization itself.

Asia Week New York 2024

March 14-22

This twice-annual ten-day celebration of Asian art in New York City continues to be a jewel of the spring arts and auction calendars. Asia Week New York isn’t a fair, per se—one might call it a distributed art fair, with a heavy-hitter lineup of gallery and museum exhibitions and special lectures presented by international art experts plus a schedule of headline-generating auctions at all the big-name houses. Last year, there was a Great Wave bidding war. Founded in 2009, this dynamic celebration of Asian art turns the city into a vibrant hub for collectors, curators, and art enthusiasts eager to explore the rich tapestry of Asian art. From ancient sculptures and traditional ceramics to contemporary paintings and installations, Asia Week New York’s programming offers a unique opportunity to engage with the past and present of this diverse and rich artistic heritage.

Affordable Art Fair New York 2024

March 20-24

Affordable Art Fair New York, typically held biannually at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea, reflects the city’s fast-paced, diverse and vibrant art scene and showcases an eclectic mix of artwork. Like its London counterpart, it has become a beacon for making art accessible to a broader audience, echoing the ethos of its global counterparts. The fair presents a curated selection of works brought by more than seventy local, national and international galleries, with prices starting as low as a few hundred dollars. The vibe of the fair is refreshingly welcoming and inclusive to attract a diverse crowd of art lovers, from seasoned collectors to those looking to make their first art purchase. Interactive workshops, engaging talks and live art demonstrations enhance the visitor experience.

Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary 2024

March 21-24

Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary (PBM+C), founded by Nick Korniloff in 2017, quickly established itself as South Florida’s most prestigious winter art fair, blending the allure of modern, contemporary and emerging art with the sophistication of its locale. Held in the heart of vibrant Palm Beach, Florida, this meticulously curated fair is presented by Art Miami and takes place at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, which provides the backdrop for a diverse selection of pieces from leading international galleries. The fair, which offers an unparalleled art-buying experience, attracts a discerning audience of collectors, art advisors, museum professionals and art lovers drawn by the event’s reputation for quality and exclusivity. Attendees navigate through a labyrinth of exceptional art spanning a range of mediums and periods, including works by cutting-edge contemporary artists.

Art Basel Hong Kong 2024

March 28-30

Art Basel Hong Kong, now a pivotal event in the global art market calendar, was officially inaugurated in 2013, when it extended the prestigious Art Basel brand into Asia, but was actually held for six years before that as Art HK. Positioned uniquely to bridge the East and West, the fair under the umbrella of CEO Noah Horowitz’s leadership showcases an exceptional array of contemporary and modern art from leading galleries worldwide. Held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Art Basel Hong Kong attracts a large and sophisticated audience of collectors, curators and art enthusiasts, drawn by its cosmopolitan vibe and the high caliber of artworks. It’s not just a marketplace but also a cultural spectacle that reflects the dynamic and diverse spirit of the region, offering insights into Asia’s burgeoning art scene alongside global trends. Even if you can’t attend, it’s a fair to watch.

NETHERLANDS-ARTS-EXHIBITION

Art Central Hong Kong 2024

March 28-31

Art Central melds the vibrant essence of Asia’s artistic innovation with a global perspective with a fair that takes place annually in the heart of Hong Kong’s iconic harbourfront. This year, under the curatorial guidance of Enoch Cheng, the art fair embarks on its most ambitious program yet, with more than ninety galleries—70 percent from Asia with a notable presence from Hong Kong galleries plus a record-setting number of solo artist presentations—ushering in the largest, most dynamic iteration since its inception in 2015. “Neo,” a new gallery section, promises to spotlight emerging talents making their debut, ensuring the fair’s position as a crucible of discovery. The fair generally draws an estimated 40,000 visitors with lively cultural symposia, in-depth discussions, monumental installations, commissions (including a sculptural installation by Ho Sin Tung), performances (including a five-day duration performance by Japanese artist Norico Sunayama) and more set against the backdrop of Hong Kong Art Week.

Even more March art fairs in 2024

As usual, what’s above doesn’t represent the totality of March art fairs in 2024—there are scores of smaller, lesser-known and niche art fairs happening around the world. Here’s a quick roundup of several more you might want to check out this month.

SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2024 (Los Angeles)

Through March 3

art3f Toulouse 2024

March 1-3

Collect 2024 (London)

March 1-3

Hybrid Art Fair 2024 (Madrid)

March 7-10

Uvanity Art Fair 2024 (Madrid)

March 7-10

SPARK Art Fair Vienna 2024

March 15-17

Salon du Dessin 2024 (Paris)

March 20-25

Drawing Now Art Fair 2024 (Paris)

March 21-24

KunstRAI 2024 (Amsterdam)

March 27 through April 1

The Gallery of the Future: Navigating the Evolving World of Digital Art

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When we imagine the future, our minds often drift to scenes filled with flying cars, towering modern buildings and technology that seamlessly responds to our every gesture. Yet in these futuristic visions, we rarely consider the evolution of cultural institutions like galleries and museums, and how they will adapt to a rapidly changing digital landscape.

In my visit to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2023, I got a glimpse into the future. Refik Anadol’s “Unsupervised”—an artwork generated entirely by artificial intelligence—has since been acquired by the institution. With its fluid, mesmerizing patterns, Anadol’s work was seen by nearly every visitor, whether they were (like me) there to enjoy the Picassos and Van Goghs or for the “Crafting Pinocchio” exhibit.

The digital art era and art accessibility

While nothing can come close to being in the presence of a great work of art—physically wandering through the halls of museums and galleries and seeing art in person—traditional art viewing comes with significant challenges:

  • First, one has to get to a museum or gallery, though it’s clear relative proximity isn’t the only barrier. Only 28 percent of New Yorkers visited a museum in 2023, even though they are surrounded by 83 museums, including the Met, MoMA and the Guggenheim.
  • Galleries, while free, can feel exclusionary; museum admission can be expensive. Not everyone can easily shell out for $30 museum tickets.
  • While museums still face challenges attracting new audiences, the most famous and popular artworks—e.g. the Mona Lisa in the Louvre or special exhibitions like Manet’s Olympia at the Mettend to attract large crowds that detract from one’s enjoyment.
  • Most of us treat art appreciation as a ‘sometimes’ activity. It’s taxing to spend hours roaming and browsing, and most laypeople are not eager to do it day after day.

And it’s worth pointing out to those willing to look beyond these and other roadblocks that only 3 percent of all artwork in the world is on public display!

Institutions and cultural organizations that care about art accessibility and preservation must be open to digital transformation. Embracing digital art and art digitization will ensure their relevance, broaden their reach to increasingly digital-savvy audiences and advance their fundamental mission: to preserve, display and educate.

How the pandemic became a digital art tipping point

Art and technology have always gone hand in hand, with artists readily experimenting with the latest technologies, from the camera obscura to digital graphics, as a way to push the boundaries of their creative expression. These pioneers laid the groundwork for today’s digital movement in the arts. Museums and other traditional arts institutions haven’t always been as willing but the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the rapid digital transformation of art spaces. As the world went into lockdown, cultural institutions were forced to close their doors and needed to find new ways to engage with audiences from afar.

Museums and galleries worldwide pivoted to virtual exhibitions, allowing audiences to view shows or even explore entire collections online. Digital platforms of all kinds provided new modes of art appreciation that complemented, and in some cases, reimagined the art-viewing and collecting experience.

SEE ALSO: We’re Watching Niche Art Become Trad Art in Real Time

For institutions that planned shows many years in advance, quickly adapting was the only way to avoid losing not only audience but also relevance. Museums had to innovate, and quickly.

The USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena used Matterport, a software that provides virtual property tours, to create a virtual tour of “We Are Here: Contemporary Art and Asian Voices in Los Angeles.”. They were able to run the show as planned and reach a global audience, significantly expanding the exhibition’s reach and impact.

In “Underpinning History: Japanese Posters in the Age of Commercialism, Imperialism, and Modernism,” the USC Libraries and USC Dornsife College of Arts, Letters and Sciences leveraged Scalar, a semantic web authoring tool, to transform a relatively static online experience into a flexible, dynamic and engaging exploration.

Online-only exhibitions kept museums, galleries and artists in the public eye. Most have adapted their crisis measures to drive value in a reopened world: engaging more deeply with audiences on social media, putting more art online and partnering with generative artists and NFT creators.

What it takes to engage a digital art audience

The future of art engagement extends beyond virtual galleries. Interactive apps and augmented reality (A.R.) are beginning to play significant roles in the art world, offering immersive experiences previously unimaginable.

Social media has also emerged as a crucial platform for engaging with a digital audience, enabling direct interaction between artists, galleries, museums and art enthusiasts. New communities have emerged in this space—particularly, passionate digital art collectors building a market for works that live on chain.

The art market has also witnessed a noticeable shift toward online sales and auctions for traditional art and new platforms and marketplaces for selling digital works. Major auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, which have both built their own platforms (Christie’s 3.0 and Sotheby’s Metaverse), also include digital artwork and NFTs in their traditional auctions.

IPads displaying NFTs hang on green wall.

Digital platforms have become vital for both artists and galleries, enabling them to reach a broader global audience. This democratizes access to art and the art market, opening up new avenues for younger collectors and investors and those who don’t find galleries inviting.

As this new future becomes reality, many people are wondering: How do we balance digital and physical art experiences to ensure technology enhances rather than replaces art spaces? It’s a logical question. We’ve seen this happening in many industries, particularly media (cable, Netflix, bundled streaming services), music (vinyl, CDs and Spotify) and sports (stadiums, streaming games, esports and fantasy teams). But nothing really disappears; everything shifts, changes and evolves.

People will always crave a personal connection to art, and the value of in-person experiences will likely rise, not diminish, with more reach and access. Seeing a Rothko in person will always be more profoundly moving than viewing a Rothko on a screen, but that first digital encounter will likely be what introduces new audiences to the artist’s works. The integration of digital art in traditional spaces and vice versa—hybrid exhibitions, digital archives and interactive installations—bridges the gap between the physical and digital worlds.

Those who embrace this democratization of access, expanded reach and welcoming of new artists, art enthusiasts and collectors will pave the way for the rise of the museums and galleries of the future—connecting more people from around the world with art and inviting everyone to be part of the conversation.

One Fine Show: James McNeill Whistler at the National Museum of Asian Art

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Welcome to One Fine Show, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum outside of New York City—a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention.

An etching showing a boat docking with people on the prow

Some of the most defensible parts of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time involve his epistemological descriptions of encounters with new technologies such as the airplane and the automobile, or even popular entertainment. As a child, he begs his parents to see the famous actress La Berma, but then is confused when she comes onstage during his first trip to the theater. Why is she pretending that she can’t see everyone in the audience? That fin de siècle represented some of the greatest changes ever to occur in society, which is probably why we have seen so many exhibitions from this period in our rather stuck era.

Among the latest of these is “Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, which features over 100 works from the Freer Gallery of Art’s collection of over 1,000 works by James McNeill Whistler, the expatriate American painter best known for his famous portrait of his mother. That work belies his personality and larger body of work, however—both of which are far from frumpy. He sued the critic John Ruskin for his take on Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875). Like Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas invited Whistler to join the first show by the Impressionists in 1874, though, also like Manet, he declined.

SEE ALSO: Opera Queensland’s ‘Orpheus & Eurydice’ Is a Feast for the Eyes

This new show collects mostly small-scale etchings, pastels and watercolors of shopfronts and high streets. Some of these works look like they might have functioned as studies, but definitely also work as journalism, capturing social and economic changes in 19th-century European cities. Consider Variations in Flesh Colour and Green: The Balcony, (1864–73), which captures bored-looking women in radiant kimonos with flowers. The other half of the picture, off their balcony, is a bland industrial hellscape. It’s like watching The Kardashians.

There’s something special about the lines in Billingsgate (1859), an etching that depicts the new London Bridge behind a forest of ship masts, the sketchiness of the sea business and its denizens in rough contrast to the new and proper brick buildings on the waterfront that still conjure the city today. It’s a similar dynamic to The Lime-Burner (1859). Limeburners did what their name implies to make mortar and plaster, and Whistler’s leans against a wall almost surrounded by a series of roofs, ladders and rafters that threaten to tangle him in a maze of construction.

An Orange Note: Sweet Shop (1883 or 1884) was a contemporary hit in oil, with the artist Walter Sickert praising its detail “which gives us the contents even of the bottles, this little gem can hold its own with canvases a hundred times its size.” It’s remarkable what he’s able to achieve with just a pile of oranges in a single pane of window, appearing real in their shading and color varieties. Something is going on between the three figures in the painting, too, but who has time for that? This is a show about places and eras, not the people who happen to live in them.

Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change,” is on view at the National Museum of Asian Art through May 4.

An Early David Hockney Pool Painting Hits the Auction Block With a $20M Estimate

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Painting of two nude figures floating in blue pool

When English painter David Hockney first flew into Los Angeles in the early 1960s, he was struck by the aerial view of bright blue swimming pools scattered across the city.

“In England, a swimming pool would have been seen as a sign of luxury, because the climate is not very good for outdoor pools,” he told Eleanor Wachtel in 2011. “But in Southern California, it’s not—they’re simply everywhere because you can enjoy them year-round.”

California’s swimming pools went on to become one of Hockney’s signature motifs and the subject of his most sought-after works. Now, Christie’s is offering up one of the earliest examples of the artist’s dalliance with pools—a vibrant and large-scale painting created shortly after he first visited Los Angeles in 1964.

SEE ALSO: This Honolulu Exhibition of David Hockney Prints Trades One Paradise for Another

Titled California, the 1965 painting hasn’t been seen in public for more than 40 years and has an estimate in the region of £16 million ($20 million). It has remained in a European private collection since 1968, when the current owners acquired the work from Kasmin Gallery.

“As one of David Hockney’s first of a series of now fabled pool paintings, California stands as one of the most important pictures of the artist’s career,” said Joseph Braka, a junior specialist in post-war and contemporary art for Christie’s in London, in a statement. “Through a body of tangled lines and cells, emblematic of his early style before his move towards naturalism, Hockney masterfully captures the elusive and ever-changing properties of water and light.”

Hockney was evidently a big fan of the painting. When the work was unavailable to include in a 1988 retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he created a copy, now in the museum’s permanent collection, to use for the show.

A black and white photo of a man in a suit and glasses lighting a cigarette.

An early example of Hockney’s iconic pool paintings

Many of the techniques defining Hockney’s later works are explored in the 1965 painting, according to Christie’s. Its kaleidoscopic depiction of water, for example, was reproduced in Hockney’s 1967 A Bigger Splash and 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures). Meanwhile, the painting’s depiction of nude figures is an early example of subjects seen in works like the 1966 Sunbather and Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool. 

“After a childhood brought up in the north of England, and having studied in London, still reeling from the Second World War, California must have felt like Arcadia; a beautiful place to be free and enjoy being young,” said Katherine Arnold, head of post-war and contemporary art in Europe for Christie’s, in a statement.

California will hit the block on March 7 as a highlight of Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale. It will be exhibited across Paris and New York in February before going on view at Christie’s London headquarters ahead of the auction.

Hockney’s paintings, particularly those of swimming pools, have soared in value in recent years. His current auction record was established in 2018, when Christie’s auctioned Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) for $90 million. The work was sold by British billionaire and art collector Joe Lewis, who acquired it in 1995 from producer David Geffen.

Geffen also previously owned The Splash, another example of Hockney’s pool series that in 2020 fetched $31.1 million at Sotheby’s. And in July of last year, Phillips auction house announced plans to add an annual Hockney auction to its calendar in response to rising demand for the artist’s work.


The ‘Most Important Collection’ of Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes Goes to Auction

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Two small bronze statues of nude, muscular men

“Art is in my blood,” Argentine collector Claudia Quentin told Christie’s, which in just a few days will auction off one of the most exceptional collections of masterworks of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes ever assembled. It was shown in a groundbreaking exhibition at the Frick Collection in 2004. A portion of the collection was on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2017 until 2021. And Quentin has generously loaned her bronzes, which collectively represent 250 years of European technical and artistic brilliance, to some of the greatest art institutions around the world.

The name might not ring a bell, however. Claudia Quentin’s collection, assembled over four decades with support from London-based art dealer Patricia Wengraf, is rare in a way that’s ironically common. Old Master sculpture doesn’t attract the same degree of attention as, say, high-profile Old Master paintings or marble sculpture from the same period, and museum-quality collections as large as Quentin’s can fly under the radar. The Robert H. Smith Collection, which included bronzes by Giambologna and Antonio Susini owned by the late real estate mogul and philanthropist, last made headlines in 2008 when it was promised to the National Gallery of Art. Billionaire collector J. Tomilson Hill’s bronzes, shown by the Frick in 2014 in the “Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection” exhibition, represent just a fraction of the Hill Collection. Other significant collectors in the space, past and present, include American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, architect Peter Marino and Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein.

SEE ALSO: An Early David Hockney Pool Painting Hits the Auction Block With a $20M Estimate

Yet it wasn’t that long ago that the Renaissance and Baroque sculpture market offered an opening for new collectors to acquire Old Master works. Prices for bronzes at auction are nothing to sneeze at (and exceptional rediscoveries can fetch high sums) but don’t often reach the heights that paintings of similar provenance and quality do—for several reasons. As Judith H. Dobrzynski, writing for Art + Auction, pointed out some years ago, Europe-based dealers can play a much larger role in this slice of the market than auction houses, though the major houses have their regular sales. And perhaps Renaissance bronzes, for all their technical brilliance, simply don’t resonate with art lovers the way paintings or stone sculptures do. (Roberta Smith called them an ‘acquired taste’ in 2003.)

A small bronze statue of a woman holding something out of a child's reach

Nonetheless, there’s a fair amount of buzz around Claudia Quentin’s collection because, as Christie’s puts it, it encompasses “some of the best efforts of the most famous masters of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture: the school of Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Bandini and those connected to the Medici court, Adriaen de Vries, Giambologna, Antonio Susini and Willem Danielsz van Tetrode.”

Quentin comes from a family of artists and collectors, which may be why she has such a discerning eye. She initially began acquiring Renaissance and Baroque bronzes for private study but soon became respected around the world for her connoisseurship. She has a knack for identifying originals crafted by the artist, one-of-a-kind pieces (e.g., Carlo di Cesare del Palagio Venus Withholding a Heart from Cupid) and the best examples of multiples.

“It’s rare to have the opportunity to view original models by these artists outside of museums,” added Christie’s Head of Sculpture, Will Russell, in the accompanying auction story. “It’s even rarer to have the chance to bid on them… Yet suddenly, here are 15 at once—this is an unbelievable moment for European bronze and sculpture collectors.”

The first iteration of “The Quentin Collection: Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture” will take place at Christie’s in New York on January 30. The second will be held at Christie’s in Paris in June. 

A small bronze statute of a nude and very muscular man

Artist Duo Orejarena & Stein On Simulations, Artistry and the Nature of Reality

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A photograph of a street grid with no houses

Simulation theory became a hot topic a few years back when physicists started talking openly about how reality as we know it might be virtual and we all found out that the CIA was open to the possibility. On social media, people started sharing snapshots that ostensibly proved we’re living in a computer simulation—real-life glitches in the Matrix. Buzzfeed fodder? Absolutely. But also significant on several levels in an era in which conspiracy theories are widely disseminated, news is easily faked, reality is increasingly virtualized and technology like Midjourney can generate any image the human mind can imagine.

Maybe the question we should be asking is not “Are we living in a simulation?” but rather “What is reality?” Where should we draw the line between what is real and what is unreal when the distinction gets blurrier every day? It’s a line of inquiry the artist duo Andrea Orejarena and Caleb Stein explore in “American Glitch,” which will go on view in an exhibition at New York City’s Palo Gallery in February and then as part of “Tactics & Mythologies” at the Deichtorhallen Museum in Hamburg in September. It will also be released in book form by Gnomic Book next month.

A photograph of what looks to be a village in Iraq but the village is empty

Orejarena & Stein spent years mining the internet for shared pictorial evidence of ‘glitches,’ researching the locations where photos were taken and then traveling to them to take their own uncanny photographs that make up the body of work that is “American Glitch.” The result is a collection of photographs made with a large-format camera and manipulated with Adobe Photoshop and AI tools juxtaposed with images sourced from the internet.

SEE ALSO: The ‘Most Important Collection’ of Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes Goes to Auction

“Amidst an inundation of digital images, Orejarena & Stein exist at the juncture where hope and truth are still alive,” end the Palo exhibition notes. It’s a compelling coda and one that raises questions about how one can nurture an outlook of positivity among the proliferation of fake news that is largely negative. But it’s worth pointing out that the artists found more than just interesting imagery on their virtual and real-life glitch journeys. They also discovered virtual communities that fostered real connections, suggesting that drawing a dividing line between what’s real and what’s not might just be more complex and more challenging than is generally assumed.

A photograph of a woman and a man walking on a city street at the golden hour

Observer caught up with Orejarena & Stein, who have works in the J. Paul Getty Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; MoMA’s library collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s library collection, to talk about perception, glitches and what it’s like working as a duo.

What can you tell us about what inspired “American Glitch”?

“American Glitch” looks at the slip between fact and fiction and how this manifests in the U.S. landscape, which is our adopted home. We were inspired by an ocean of information that leaves us perpetually asking what’s real and what’s fake. In an era defined by screens, conspiracy theories, and the advent of the Metaverse, the notion that we exist within a simulation has become increasingly popular, often in a satirical collective protest to late-stage capitalism, disinformation and increased dependence on technology. This notion that we’re living in a simulation appears online where images are posted as personal evidence of spotting a ‘glitch in real life’. This vernacular builds on ideas explored in movies like ‘The Matrix’ and ‘The Truman Show’. The notion of a glitch reflects a generation’s experience where the digital and physical worlds are merging. We spent years treating the internet as our collective subconscious, collecting posts on social media and Reddit threads of people’s “evidence of glitches in real life”. These threads and images become a place for a new form of community and connection across time and space. We then photograph sites around the U.S. that remind us or people on the internet of real-life glitches.

In terms of the title, it was important for us to acknowledge the longstanding tradition of photographing the American social landscape and mythologies surrounding the photographer who sets out on the open road. In some ways, this work is an act of placemaking and a way of orienting ourselves in our new home.

How long did collecting the images take? What were the most difficult images to obtain?

The first year and a half of this project was focused on amassing an archive of glitches in real-life images, stories, and videos. With “American Glitch” we see ourselves as artists and researchers. We see this collecting of found images as a collaboration of sorts with the internet and our collective consciousness. The process was like a deep dive into a labyrinth of imaginative, poetic fragments shared by anonymous people from around the world. Although immensely time-consuming the process was not difficult, we took as long as we needed to immerse ourselves in this language and research without fixed conceptions of how to proceed with our work. That flexibility and curiosity are key for us to strive for.

From this archive, we were able to determine sites that we wanted to photograph ourselves that had been described as glitches in real life in the U.S. landscape. We also use this archive to generate site-specific installations that weave together our photographs with the archive. It is critical to the conceptual integrity of the work that they are shown in conversation with each other, using installation as a medium for collage, because the project is hugely about the collective.

What are your thoughts on the idea that inspires some people to share “glitches”—specifically, that we’re truly living in a simulation? 

We see a lot of discourse surrounding disinformation, late-stage capitalism and our increased dependence on technology. For us, the satirical use of glitch and simulation, and the broader use of humor and play, shows resilience and collective self-awareness. Jungian ideas of synchronicities and our broader shared sensations of deja vu, spotting a doppelgänger, or collective misremembering of the same thing through a Mandela effect all share a tie that unify us. The notions of glitch and simulation feel like fruitful frameworks through which to question human perception.

A photograph of what looks to be a Mars habitat

I think the replica Iraqi city is one of the most compelling in the series, but do you have a favorite glitch?

One of our favorites is the view of the Mars Desert Research Center in Utah. Scientists and space enthusiasts from all over the world gather here for several weeks at a time to simulate life on Mars. If you want to go outside you need to wear an astronaut suit. You eat dehydrated space food. We photographed the exterior of MDRS in 2021, and in November we returned for a commission from The New York Times and participated in the simulation for five days. One of the most touching moments, and our favorite photograph, shows an astronaut conducting a memorial for his friend who always wanted to go to Mars.

Finally, what’s it like working together?

We love working together. We’ve been collaborating for years, so we have a shared visual shorthand that makes it easy to work with each other. We constantly share photos with each other when we come across something that we like, whether it’s art, chairs, or even wall moldings— and the funniest ones are the ones we find ourselves circling back to.

Our process is straightforward; we use one camera and work together from the conceptual development of the project to the composition of the photo and final edits. And we allow each project to develop as we go. It almost feels like our artist duo is its own artist in the sense it’s not work that either of us would be able to make on our own and it isn’t necessarily a combination of our individual work either. Instead, it has an emergent component to it and is more than the sum of its parts.

Often we hear our peers talk about photography as a lonely medium, but it really doesn’t have to be. We love collaborating with each other and others.

A photograph of two fried eggs but one has white where the yolk should be

American Glitch” opens at Palo Gallery on February 9 and will be on view through April 6. The gallery will host a public talk with Orejana & Stein and David Campany on February 27. 

The Most Anticipated Art Museum Openings and Expansions of 2024

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A spookily lit industrial building on the waterfront

Last year, Dan Hicks writing for The Architecture Review about his book The Brutish Museums: the Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution asked the question, ‘Are museums obsolete?‘ While his piece was mainly concerned with the complexity of repatriation, the query stands alone. Museums in recent years have had to reckon with audience contraction, financial woes and the need to prove their relevance in a world where every masterpiece has been digitized and people are increasingly using the appellation to refer to TikTokable experiences (see: The Museum of Ice Cream).

Museums are dealing with a litany of issues all at the same time,” Linda Harrison, director and chief executive officer at the Newark Museum of Art, told Observer in late 2023—a year marked by museum admissions hikes, layoffs and exhibition reductions. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. Signs of recovery abound, with a third of institutions enjoying attendance figures close to pre-pandemic levels, according to the American Alliance of Museums, and still others reporting positive progress in that area. A third also increased staff in 2023 compared to pre-pandemic levels while about as many reported having the same staff size as in 2019.

SEE ALSO: Barbara Kruger Is Still Flipping the Bird

Museums around the world are approaching the challenges touched on above not only proactively but also optimistically, seeking new ways to increase revenues and attendance while lowering expenses. In the process, they’re creating pathways forward for institutions yet to open. There are several exciting art museums opening in 2024 along with much-awaited expansions that will wrap up in the coming months—here’s what you can look forward to.

Opening: Kunstsilo in Kristiansand, Norway

Norwegian hedge fund manager and art collector Nicolai Tangen has previously shown works from the Tangen Collection, the largest-ever collection of Nordic modernist artwork, at the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. In May, the 5,000 works by more than 300 artists will go on view once more with pieces from the Southern Norway Art Collection and the Christianssands Billedgalleri in the soon-to-open Kristiansand Kunstsilo. The three-story museum, housed in a converted grain silo, will host lectures, digital installations,concerts and workshops in addition to showing original works and, for reasons unclear, copies. “Is it less beautiful to look at? No, it’s not,” Tangen told the Guardian. “So it’s just about the mindset you have.”

Opening: The Museum Reinhard Ernst in Wiesbaden, Germany

German businessman Reinhard Ernst started collecting abstract art in the 1970s and as his collection grew to encompass nearly one thousand artworks, so did his desire to make his collection accessible to the public. Funded by the Reinhard & Sonja Ernst Foundation, the Museum Reinhard Ernst (designed by Fumihiko Maki) is the realization of that desire. It was initially scheduled to open in spring and then autumn of 2023, but the opening date was pushed to mid 2024. “In recent months, we have realized that the required perfection is compromised due to time constraints and a lack of specialized personnel,” Ernst said in an interview on the museum’s website. “We are by no means willing to compromise our quality standards because of self-imposed deadlines.” When it does open, works on view will include abstract German post-war art, abstract Japanese art (the Gutai group) and American abstract expressionism from Ernst’s collection and institutions around the world.

Opening: Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins in Southern France

Exterior shot of museum building with green shutters surrounded by trees and small brick fence

Former hedge fund manager Christian Levett’s Mougins Museum of Classical Art (MACM), which first opened in 2011 in Southern France, will officially become the Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins (FAMM) in June. The first museum in Europe dedicated to work by female artists, FAMM’s collection will show pieces by Tracey Emin, Carrie Mae Weems, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning and Cecily Brown, among others. “Creating this museum and sharing it with the public has been an incredibly exciting experience for me as a collector,” said Levett in a statement, adding that “as my collecting and research interests matured over the years, I believe that it is now time for the museum to evolve as well.”

Opening: Mercer Labs Museum of Art and Technology in New York City

In about a month, artist Roy Nachum and real estate developer Michael Cayre’s museum of the future will open where Century 21 used to be. The three-level, 36,000-square-foot institution, which bills itself as the “first museum for New York where art and technology come together,” will shine a light on the city’s role in creative tech innovation with fifteen exhibition spaces that use state-of-the-art technology to “arouse and tease the senses.” While it’s unclear what Mercer Labs Museum of Art and Technology (MOAT) will have on view after the official opening, current offerings include immersive audio-visual experiences, reactive screen-based installations and robots that draw. For the curious and impatient, there are a limited number of preview tickets available.

Opening: Hampi Art Labs in Vijayanagar, India

Not far from the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hampi in southern India, the heirs of late billionaire O.P. Jindal have built a stunning contemporary art space on a sprawling eighteen acres of land. Hampi Art Labs, which is the project of businesswoman, philanthropist and collector Sangita Jindal and is set to open in February, will house exhibition spaces, artist studios and a brand new curatorial residency program. The inaugural show, “Right Foot First,” will feature works from the Jindal Collection by artists like Andy Warhol, Annie Morris, Ai Weiwei, Manish Nai, Atul Dodiya and Shilpa Gupta.

Re-opening: The Frick Collection in New York City

Digital drawing of large grey building with trees and people in front

In March, the Frick Collection will leave its temporary home in the Marcel Breuer-designed Modernist building at 945 Madison Avenue. Some months later, it will return to its historic home on Fifth Avenue, which will have been comprehensively upgraded by Selldorf Architects with new gallery, education and conservation spaces, as well as increased accessibility and new public amenities. In addition to public-facing improvements, $35 million in donations for the project were earmarked to upgrade the infrastructure, energy efficiency and long-term sustainability of the Gilded Age structure.

Expanding: Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in São Paulo, Brazil

Expanding: Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in São Paulo, Brazil

The iconic São Paulo institution, originally founded in 1947 by business mogul and patron of the arts Assis Chateaubriand, was reimagined in 1968 by Italian-Brazilian modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi so that the thousands of works in the institution’s collection would have a worthy home. The striking legged structure has since become a landmark of 20th-century architecture but as the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis’ permanent collection grew, officials saw the need for more space. The expansion encompasses an entirely new fourteen-story structure housing new gallery and multipurpose spaces, classrooms and a restoration lab—all linked to Bo Bardi’s original building via underground tunnel.

Expanding: The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City

The Studio Museum in Harlem’s much anticipated and somewhat delayed post-expansion reopening of an  82,000-square-foot physical space comes with a total rebrand. As the institution’s new purpose-built, six-story building designed by David Adjaye in the cultural beat of 125th Street took shape, director and chief curator Thelma Golden was hard at work overseeing the development of a new identity inspired and influenced by Black culture—the unveiling of which was celebrated with a brand launch party at the Renaissance New York in Harlem. The design of the institution’s permanent home, which will have double the exhibition and residency space, is a nod to the heritage brownstones of Harlem.

Expanding: Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY

Mark di Suvero at Storm King (Courtesy: Storm King)

Verdant outdoor sculpture park Storm King Art Center has been one of the country’s most iconic open-air art spaces since its founding in 1960 by H. Peter Stern and Ralph E. Ogden. Since then, the Hudson Valley museum set on 500 acres has hosted works by sculpture greats like Isamu Noguchi, Di Suvero and Claes Oldenberg. This fall, Storm King (which is just an hour’s drive from Manhattan) will unveil landscaping by Reed Hilderbrand, new accessibility features and a reimagined outdoor welcome area along with a new fabrication workshop, studio and conservation building by Heneghan Peng. What won’t change is Storm King’s commitment to presenting large-scale sculpture and site-specific commissions in the region’s sweeping vistas and rolling hills.

Expanding: The Palmer Museum of Art in University Park, PA

University museums tend to offer a more intimate art appreciation experience but don’t assume they’re small. Penn State’s Palmer Museum of Art will debut a new 73,000-square-foot building designed by Allied Works and landscape architect Reed Hilderbrand this June, when twenty galleries, education and event spaces, a museum store and cafe and outdoor art spaces open to the public. The opening of the newly revamped institution will also mark the unveiling of Dale Chihuly’s site-specific installation, Lupine Blue Persian Wall, and new acquisitions by artists including Fernando “Coco” Bedoya, Joseph Delaney, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rodrigo Lara, David MacDonald, Toshiko Takaezu, Akio Takamori, Kukuli Velarde, Patti Warashina, Malcah Zeldis and Arnold Zimmerman.

The Noguchi Museum’s Amy Hau On Preserving the Artist’s Legacy and Building Her Own

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Last month, it was announced that Amy Hau would serve as the next director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, colloquially known as The Noguchi Museum, in Long Island City, Queens. The institution was established by and is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Japanese-American sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Noguchi purchased the printing plant and gas station across from his home in 1974, and the museum on the site opened in 1985—the first institution of its kind established by a living artist in America.

A smiling woman in a black top standing in front of an artistic lamp

Observer caught up with Hau to hear about her plans for the museum, and her continued efforts to preserve the legacy of the artist, who gave Hau her first job.

The release announcing your appointment tasks you with “completing its capital campaign and fully developing the Museum campus, celebrating the institution’s 40th anniversary in 2025, and developing and implementing a new strategic vision.” That’s a lot! Which of these do you think is going to be the most challenging?

No matter how much we grow and change in programming and recognition, the biggest challenge will be to preserve the fundamental character and environment of the Museum, as Isamu envisioned it, as a place for contemplation and reflection. That is the most important.

The Museum’s audiences have grown tremendously in recent years, and national and international interest in Isamu’s art and design work has as well. I am interested in continuing to cultivate that growth and educate new audiences about the breadth and depth of his work and influence.

What’s your vision for the museum, what would you most like to improve about it?

The Museum’s 40th anniversary in 2025 will be a large focus of mine in the coming months. We want the anniversary to be an opportunity to celebrate Isamu’s New York with public programs around various sites around the city. The anniversary celebration will be a great opportunity for us to collaborate with arts organizations city-wide and local community groups.

Prior to your last job, you spent almost three decades working for the museum. How does that kind of institutional knowledge help you coming into this job?

During my nearly three decades of employment with Isamu and the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, followed by the 501(c)(3) Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum (our current organization), I played a role in the transformation of the institution, which started as a small group of Isamu’s closest associates and developed into an internationally recognized art museum. I’ve been involved in nearly every facet of our operations which gives me a great advantage in my new role.

A black and white photograph of three people: a man, a woman and a person with their face turned away from the camera

You began your career as Isamu Noguchi’s assistant in 1986. What was that like?

The first two years, as Isamu’s assistant, my focus was on the business side of his artistic practice, helping to organize his exhibitions, coordinate logistics for public projects and work closely with his business manager. In those early years, I started his photo archive. With his passing in 1988, my focus with the estate was to catalog his works and personal collection in New York, as well as his studios in Mure, Japan and Pietrasanta, Italy. Thereafter, my focus was the museum, working on capital projects to stabilize it and make it more accessible to the public, and later transitioning it into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

What’s something about Isamu Noguchi that might surprise people?

As I have been back at the Museum for the past few weeks, I have been astonished that people were not aware of Isamu’s long history with the neighborhood, since the early 1960s. While next year we will be celebrating the Museum’s 40th anniversary, he was actually here for a quarter of a century before.

Queens is the home to many amazing art institutions, boasting perhaps even more than Brooklyn. Why do you think that is?

When Isamu came to Long Island City in 1960, he was drawn to the industrial space and proximity to stone suppliers and metal workers. I know this was true of Mark di Suvero and others.

Social media seems to have driven major interest in interior design among younger generations. Is the museum seeing this reflected in attendance or otherwise looking to capitalize on it?

The museum has had steady, organic growth on social media. The popularity of Noguchi’s iconic Akari lamps and our Museum Shop have been a big factor in this. The interior design community often interacts with us over social media via Akari, and oftentimes this is a gateway for people to become more interested in the museum and Isamu’s work. We do communicate all of the museum’s news, exhibitions and events on social media and will continue to use it as a platform to reach a wider audience.

Is Matthew Wong the 21st Century’s van Gogh?

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Colorful paintings hanging in a museum with white walls

The Realm of Appearances,” the Matthew Wong retrospective currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, is full of ghosts. There’s the ghost of Wong himself, of course, who died by suicide in 2019 at age 35. But there are also the ghosts of painters past and present. Wong was an obsessive student of art history, and in his work you find traces of the Fauvists, Qing-era ink painters, Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Perhaps no phantom haunts the show as doggedly as that of Vincent van Gogh. This is for biographical reasons as much as aesthetic ones: the list of parallels between the two artists is lengthy, even eerie. Both started painting in their late twenties; both took their own lives in their mid-thirties. Both were outsiders with strong ties to the art world. Both were odd, misfits. Both painted landscapes that were really about people. (The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam will be hosting a Wong/van Gogh exhibition later this year.)

Curators at the MFA have made a point to emphasize this connection; beside a van Gogh landscape upstairs (“Ravine”), in a gallery of Post-Impressionist paintings, the museum has added a placard referencing the Wong retrospective. It features a quote from a letter van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: “When anyone says that such and such [painting] is done too quickly, you can reply that they have looked at it too fast.”

It’s an apt quote to describe Wong’s work, as well as van Gogh’s: like the Dutch master before him, Wong worked at lightning speed, producing over 1,000 paintings and drawings in his seven-year career. (Van Gogh, in his decade of painting, produced about 900 paintings and 1,000 works on paper). Wong had Tourette’s syndrome and autism and struggled with clinical depression; his mind moved quickly—forward, backward and in circles, around and around.

Wong, who was born in Canada and grew up in both Hong Kong and Toronto, began painting at the age of 27. He already had an MFA in photography from the City University of Hong Kong, which he earned after a failed stint in the world of corporate finance. In 2011, while interning at the Hong Kong pavilion at the Venice Biennale, he had a revelatory encounter with the paintings of Julian Schnabel and Christopher Wool. Soon he had traded his camera for a paintbrush and was devouring art history from the Internet and the local library.

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The MFA show, which was first exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art last year, is divided into two main rooms. In the “early” room, you can see Wong’s first attempts at painting. There are ink drawings, small acrylics and large oils. Many of the paintings are clunky and childish: a set of two titled Banishment from the Garden show two muddied faces, possibly those of Adam and Eve. The faces, painted with thick, clumsy lines, are hard to distinguish. In the background of one, Wong carved awkward vertical lines into the paint with a palette knife or the end of a brush.

Two paintings side by side, portraits of a man and a woman with their faces obscured

Wong’s technique may have been unrefined, but plenty of highly skilled painters have nothing to say. Wong had something to say, and it was his vision, his intense desire to express what was within him, that drove him to learn. And learn he did. From his frenzied study of art history, he gleaned lessons in mark making, color and composition. Within three short years of picking up a brush, he was turning out sophisticated and poetic paintings, made up of vibrant colors and quick, obsessive brushstrokes.

Most of these paintings are landscapes, pulled from Wong’s imagination. They’re lonely, sometimes, but also quiet and expansive. In The West, a small ghostly figure, sketched in with white paint, looks out over a dark, mountainous desert. Quick dabs of paint form the land, trees and stars. Around the corner, Blue Rain shows a simple white house surrounded by tall blue trees. A moon hangs above the house, and short streaks of blue rain cross the canvas. The pieces may have been painted quickly, but they reward slow looking.

Wong’s feverish drive didn’t always result in brilliant work. Since his death, the conversation around Wong has dealt in extremes: curators and critics have depicted him as a tormented genius, struck by divine inspiration (Roberta Smith called him “one of the most talented painters of his generation”). Wong was talented, but he was also still developing. Many of the paintings in the show don’t feel quite done. If the urgency with which Wong painted was a sign of creative inspiration, it was also, sometimes, a sign of compulsion and grasping. Painting was an escape for Wong (he once told a friend that “not painting is pain”), and artistic glory offered Wong, finally,  the possibility of social acceptance. Sometimes it feels like Wong is running toward something, a beautiful vision, and sometimes it feels like he’s running away from the ghosts at his back.

A landscape painted in a cartoonish and colorful style

But ghosts often go hand-in-hand with beauty, as Wong and van Gogh knew well. Shortly before his death, van Gogh made a painting of a wheat field near Paris. Streaks of rain, depicted as blue lines, cross the field at diagonals; dark crows fly above it. It should be a tragic painting, given how van Gogh died (he shot himself in such a field later that week), but it’s oddly peaceful. The horizon stretches out before you; you can sense, through the streaks of rain, a vastness, an expanse.

Wong’s equivalent painting is Realm of Appearances, from which the show, rightly, takes its title. The piece, completed in 2018, a year before Wong’s death, shows a pink landscape under a moony sky. The land depicted in thick, fast dashes of paint is reminiscent of van Gogh’s brushstrokes but more spacious. There’s a small gray figure in the corner of the scene. You could read the piece as an expression of loneliness. But it’s also serene, transcendent, even. If the figure isn’t at peace, then it’s only because he can’t see the whole picture the way we can. He doesn’t know that he’s surrounded by beauty.

Is Wong our van Gogh? Not quite. Van Gogh was a painter through and through, obsessed with the physical world and with the medium of paint. Wong was more of an image maker, who used paint to provide insight into an unseen, ethereal world. In this sense, he is more Munch or Bonnard than van Gogh. What’s remarkable about Wong, though, is not that he resembled other great painters but rather that he was himself… that in such a short period, he was able to develop his own voice. We’re left to wonder what he might have done, and who he might have been, if he had had more time.

Arts Travelogue: Finding Dali in Cadaqués

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I recently went for a long walk, over several weeks, down the Costa Brava from Banyuls, France to Sitges in Spain. I walked with no particular destination and on no schedule, so when I ended up in Cadaqués, I stayed a while. I was drawn to this once-isolated, steep-sided harbor village where Salvador Dali spent much of his adult life, but it was more than this that attracted me.

Cadaques. Costa Brava. Catalonia. Spain. Europe

Cadaqués has long been known as a stronghold of Catalan independence, and a safe harbor for smugglers and refugees from all over the world. The town is isolated in a craggy harbor and difficult to access even today with only one road in and one out. Most of the tourism is driven here by Dali’s house and some adjacent arts-related attractions, but as famous as Dali is, his name and his influence don’t overbear the small town.

I walked in from the north through the arid Paratge de Tudela where the light is flat and intense. It has the effect of making the Mediterranean in the distance seem deeply, refreshingly blue as it shimmers off the morphic rock formations all around. A visitor with the right set of eyes could see elephants with skeletal legs, and camels with five humps within the play of light and shadow the rocks cast. Dali used this light and this landscape as the setting for many of his dramatic absurdities.

Salvador Dali statue

If you draw a line between the towns of Figueres, Púbol and Cadaqués, you have a triangle across the Emporda. This is known to some as the Dali Pyramid, as it connects the three towns most important to him. He was born in Figueres and bought a castle for his wife in Púbol, but it was to Cadaqués that he was indelibly drawn. The stark landscape, its cluster of buildings and the stoic residents of the town begin to show up in his paintings as early as 1916.

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Dali lived in Cadaqués throughout his adult life in a twisted dream house of his own design, filled with his surrealistic fantasy furniture and fixtures. Being obsessed with Dali’s paintings in my youth, hiking the coastal trail around the finger of rock, up the hills and then down to the cove at Port Lligat was like walking through a dreamscape. A place I’d never been but knew so well.

Museum-House of painter Salvador Dali

The first time I visited the house, there was a high school field trip scrambling through the place. The second time, I ended up giving my spot to a teacher from Taiwan who had ridden his bicycle halfway around the world and made the famous house one of his prime stops but came too late in the day to get a ticket.

I didn’t need to tour the famous house; I know what’s in there. But to stand on the dock and face the entrance to the cove was like stepping into one of Dali’s seascapes, and I nearly expected a great Madonna to rise up out of the sea.

The house isn’t sectioned off in any way. The dock, which seems unchanged since Dali painted it, is lined with small boats. It’s still a working area. Lobster baskets hang from a pole and the boats come in and out with netted fish. Is that Dali’s own skiff painted a bright yellow still moored, as it was in his Punta Es Baluard de la Riba d’en Pichot, Cadaqués.

Spotting a homemade black-and-white label on the bright blue door of a private house adjacent to Dali’s Maisonette that reads ‘This is not Dali’s house’ seemed to me an exceptionally surreal happenstance—c’est no es pip. The whole place could be examined through Dali’s to reveal some hidden truth.

A white doorknob in a blue door

The church of Santa Maria de Cadaqués was just a few steps up above my hotel so I thought I would stick my head in quickly and see what was drawing the loose string of tourists milling about its courtyard.

The church was originally erected in the 13th Century and then rebuilt in the 16th. It overlooks the bay and its wealth betrays the dedication of the townspeople to its upkeep. The 18th-century titular altarpiece, baroque to the point of monstrousness, minutely detailed and masterfully crafted, was almost too much to take in a church of its size.

The Madonna looms over the nave at 22 meters high. The figure was immediately familiar—the open-armed Madonna inhabited Dali’s works in various forms for thirty years. Around her, the detail of the baroque altarpiece nearly overwhelmed me. I wasn’t prepared for this kind of majesty in a church with a congregation of just 400 or 500 people.

At night, I had taken to hanging around at Netico’s House where a cosmopolitan group of renegades sat eating and drinking inside and out. My first night I took the sole table for one in the alley on which sat a placard featuring a sepia-toned photograph of an old man in olden times. I read the quote in Spanish and understood it to mean something like ‘Man is nature that has become aware of itself.’ This was a beer ad?

I searched the quote and found it was from the manifesto of the French anarchist Elisee Recluse from sometime in the 1880s, so I ordered one.

The narrow streets and alleys of Cadaqués were paved generations past with pieces of slate on edge so that both humans and donkeys alike could get a good grip when the weather played hell, in the meantime, it was playing hell on my already sore feet. Just sitting and listening to multi-lingual murmurings was a pleasure not only to the ear but to the rest of the body as well.

When my beer came the label revealed it was made by an anarchist, nano brewer and the label depicted Angel Rock, a symbol of the city being squeezed into a fist until blood ran down the arm, not unlike Hunter Thompson’s gonzo symbol, and of course, it was because this was Cadaqués.

The chain-smoking sisters who ran my hotel gave me some historical pamphlets about the town to read. It was an odd selection of history and quotes, but some of it gave real insight into the place. “The fates have not been kind to the people of Cadaqués… when disaster strikes, the only person you can rely on is a fellow Cadaquésenc, which has given rise to the town’s motto, Nos amb nos (Us with us).

Place To Visit: Salvador Dali's Places - Figueras and Cadaques

On a rainy afternoon, I ducked into the Expo Dali—one of the few places in town that seemed to be shamelessly profiting from using his name. The museum is full of photos of Dali and his entourage taken by the owner. It didn’t add up to much until I went up to the third-floor gallery. The room was hung with a hundred portraits of townspeople. Each sat in the same chair, in the same corner of a room in what could have been in any house in town.

All the photos were taken in the 1950s. The people, men, women, youth and elders alike share an unmistakable profile, and each sits with a defiant expression and rigid air that personifies the people’s stoic attitude and the harsh realities of living on a rocky outcropping above a wind-buffeted harbor. They were the same people Dali had used in his paintings going back a century. Fishermen, market women and sailors all hunched over against the wind, climbing the tortuous streets or perched precariously on the sea-worn rocks.

A painting of a seaside landscape with people in the foreground

Was there ever a painter so attached to a specific landscape, one town, one single rock? Again and again, we see the shallow bay, the white-washed cluster of buildings huddled against the bare cliffs and the point of Angel Rock in the distance. Often when the coast isn’t the setting of Dali’s paintings then the arid planes and wind sculpted rocks of the Paratge de Tudela are. Whether it’s stilt-legged tigers eating like-legged elephants or Christopher Columbus discovering the new world, it’s all happening in Cadaqués.

I was left with a chicken and egg question. Is it Dali’s legacy of being an outcast, unique and stand-alone, that influences the attitude of the town, or was it the individualism, stoicism and rebellious spirit of the town that made Dali what he was? Or was it just kismet—did Dali find just the right place on earth to unleash his particular kind of genius as seems the case with so many others over time? He wasn’t a fisherman or a sailor but he was a proud Catalan and seemingly a natural Cadaquésenc who lived their motto. Us with us, indeed.

A rocky outcropping on the sea

The Art of Mexico City, On and Off the Beaten Path

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Avenida Paseo de la Reforma is the backbone of Mexico City, its tallest skyscrapers lining the boulevard like a great set of vertebrae, a spine occasionally punctuated by the chakras of enormous roundabouts at the center of which stand statues of Diana the Huntress, the Angel of Independence, las Mujeres Que Luchan (The Women Who Fight) and others.

As you make your way down the street’s pleasantly bustling arterial promenades you come upon something of mottled bronze that emerges from the steel and glass of contemporary Mexico City like a monster in an old dream. It’s an absurd, almost primitively rendered reptile of some kind, upon the back of which rides a troop of crude lizards. This is How Doth the Little Crocodile by renowned surrealist Leonora Carrington, one of countless illustrious artists to have called the city home.

Mexico City, Mexico, Avenida Paseo de la Reforma, public artwork Little Crocodile surrealist sculpture by Lenora Carrington

Here is as good a place as any to start an exploration of Mexico City’s artistic offerings. Consider it more or less the center while Reforma will serve as a vague east-to-west compass.

Heading east from the weird serpents will bring you directly to the grand park of Chapultepec. One of the most significant locations in Mexican history, it encompasses abundant green spaces, a castle, a zoo, a lagoon and an impressive botanical garden, not to mention three of Mexico City’s most prominent art museums and cultural institutions.

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Museo de Arte Moderno has only recently reopened in its entirety after closing in 2020, and I’m happy to say that it has regained its pre-pandemic excellence. With its delightful abstract statue garden, boldly curated visiting exhibitions and a permanent collection boasting masterpieces like Frida Kahlo’s Los dos Fridas, it’s one of the continent’s preeminent contemporary art institutions. Just down and across Reforma is Museo Tamayo—the brutalist structure of which is an artwork unto itself—which is home to an impressive collection spanning the likes of Magritte, Ernst and of course Tamayo, along with consistently first-rate avant-garde exhibitions. Deeper into the park you’ll find the expansive Museo Nacional de Antropologia, which displays a wealth of anthropological artifacts as rich as any I’ve seen anywhere in the world. It’s easy to spend several solid hours wandering its vast halls.

These are among the most renowned and frequented museums in Mexico City, but there are two in the Chapultepec area that typically go overlooked and are well worth a bit of extra legwork. Just behind the anthropology museum in the upscale neighborhood of Polanco is Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, a gallery dedicated to experimentation with “public art” where you can see expansive murals by the esteemed social realist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, including his Homage to Vietnam. Then in the uncrowded southwestern section of Chapultepec where few ever venture is Fuente de Tlaloc—a sprawling tiled fountain by artist Diego Rivera that portrays the Aztec water god of Tlaloc, adjacent to which is a small museum containing an empty water tank muraled by Rivera in honor of the city’s 1952 project to modernize its water system.

Now we’re following Reforma back to the east, past street vendors selling handicrafts, back by Carrington’s outlandish crocodile, on into the imperious colonial buildings of the Zocalo, which is centered around la Plaza de la Constitution. This square was once the heart of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan, and today it is hewn in by the National Palace, a handful of massive governmental and commercial buildings and the 400-year-old Metropolitan Cathedral—which not only stands atop the former Aztec’s Templo Mayor, but was built of the previous temple’s stone in an act of colonial domination. In the plaza you can watch indigenous dancers in elaborate traditional dress, visit the splendid Museo Nacional de Arte or attend one of the frequent fiestas or protests.

Next, we go back northwest toward Reforma—past the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the city’s golden-domed art nouveau centerpiece where you can and should check out enormous murals by Rivera and other greats—on up toward the district of Guerrero. Along the way, aim to cross the unique street of Calle Violeta where all the buildings are painted violet and you may notice openly cartel-operated cantinas. You’ll also see a very heavy police presence, for this street and the wider Guerrero area have a history of trouble. But you’re perfectly safe during the day, and the enormous, stunningly vibrant murals you’ll find along the neighborhood’s charming arterial street Mosqueta warrant straying into the city’s more notorious regions.

And now we’re going to head way down south, forty-five minutes by metro or taxi—note: in traffic, all bets are off—to the historically artistic, tree-lined colonia of Coyoacán, perhaps the most famed resident of which was Frida Kahlo. For the majority of visitors, the main draw is Casa Azul—the home in which Kahlo was born, lived on and off throughout her life and then died. While it is certainly worthy of inclusion on any art lover’s itinerary—the house itself is beautiful, and the vestiges of Frida’s life and work, inspiring—but it is obnoxiously popular. You must buy tickets several days in advance, as it is always full.

When I asked Coyoacán-raised Alvaro Enrigue (author of the recently released You Dreamed of Empires, a work of kaleidoscopic historical fiction set in Aztec-era Mexico City) about his thoughts on the matter, he shared a bit of insider history.

“I’m the kind of person who would more emphatically recommend a visit to Trotsky’s home than to the Blue House of the Kahlo’s,” he said. “When I grew up they were tiny local museums which no one visited, guarded by one guy and his family. You would pay him, he would give you a very unprofessional ticket back, and you could stay all the time you wanted in the empty houses. The guy who took care of the Casa Azul was nicer than the very convinced communist that guarded the Trotsky Museum, so the patios of the Kahlo family house were a perfect safe spot to smoke an occasional joint after a soccer match.”

The Trotsky Museum is located a few blocks away from Casa Azul. This is the home where the Marxist revolutionary lived in exile following the Russian Revolution and survived several assassination attempts, including one involving the previously mentioned Siqueiros and the one that was ultimately successful.

In any case, Coyoacán is a pleasant place to while away the evening exploring the cobblestone streets for food and handicrafts but to complete our relentless itinerary, we must move on.

Mexico City, Mexico, National Autonomous University of Mexico, University Museum of Contemporary Art,

Further south we arrive at the contemporary art museum at UNAM—one of the country’s largest universities—with its imposing brutalism and reliably excellent exhibitions. After this, slingshot back north to the central campus (which happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site) to explore an array of architectural and artistic delights. The Central Library stares over the green like a gargantuan, tattooed owl. Looming even taller is the Rectory Tower, which bears a trio of three-dimensional “sculpture-murals” by Siqueiros. And so on.

It was here that in 1968 the school rector Javier Barros Sierra famously marched in support of student groups attacked by police during protests against the ’68 Olympics being held on the campus. Days later, as many as 400 students and other protesters were killed in the Tlatelolco Massacre at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Located just north of the previously discussed district of Guerrero, today the plaza is home to Memorial 68—a museum and monument to the tragedy.

General Views Of Mexico 2019

After all of that, you might need a drink. Retrace your steps toward the city center and turn east at Reforma. We’re heading back to Bellas Artes where there is a trinity of bars decorated and featuring large-scale artworks by local artist Fabian Chairez: La Purisima, Soberbia and Marrakech Salon.

I recommend you spend the night in one of two Mexico City hotels. Conveniently near the aforementioned bars is Umbral: an arts-forward hotel with art deco design, gothic vibes and artworks throughout—including the freakish pianos in the hotel bar. Another great option located just down Reforma and overlooking the statue of Diana is the St. Regis. This is a particularly good pick if you want to hit the spa and follow that up with a massage.

And my final suggestion is to go fully local by participating in one of the many community arts classes offered by Mexico City’s many cultural centers. For example, you might sign up for a live nude drawing session led by Victoria Moctezuma, who is part of the Guadalajaran visual and performance art duo Gemelxs VS. She speaks both Spanish and English, and her classes are the perfect opportunity to connect with the Mexican artists of today.


Barbara Kruger Is Still Flipping the Bird

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An exhibition view of a text-heavy art show

Until the late 1970s, making a zine was a labor of love and money. Love as in time spent assembling the thing—the cutting out, the sticking together. Money as in paying a service to print issues. By the end of the 1970s, though, with photocopiers a fixture in public libraries, agit-propagandists could make copies of their pamphlets and artwork themselves. Zine culture flourished. Granular, black and white Xeroxed appropriated images overlaid with Letraset phrases were affordable carriers for political statements and creative theorizing. Plus, they could be pasted up wherever the artists wished (until they were taken down).

This kind of DIY approach has informed Barbara Kruger’s work since the early 1980s. The grain and the grit, the declamatory phrases, the high contrast—both visually and in polemic—were reflected in the Woman’s Art Journal’s review of Kruger’s first European solo exhibition (at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art) in 1983. The Journal positioned Kruger at the vanguard of DIY political art, saying she was “…fully aware of the politics of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Her use of photography is radical, confrontational, agitational and obviously influenced by Benjamin’s theory of montage.”

SEE ALSO: Is Matthew Wong the 21st Century’s van Gogh?

The Benjamin in question is German art theorist Walter Benjamin, who used his 1935 essay, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, to predict how reproduction machines would specifically benefit artists whose work has a political basis. Authenticity lost its meaning (“…from a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense”) as the reproductive process itself was baked into the artwork. And reproduction means access—now artwork could be designed to be viewed on any wall, anywhere. Art and technology historian Margot Lovejoy folded Barbara Kruger’s work into Benjamin’s thinking for her 1989 essay, ‘The Copier: Authorship and Originality’, describing Kruger’s “…now characteristic black-and-white photographs re-photographed from existing sources…composed together with phrases typeset in Futura Bold italic and presented in red lacquered wood frame.”

A poster of a strange looking person rendered in black and white with the words 'Our Leader' rendered on top

The paste-up photocopying may be long gone but Kruger’s punchy aphorisms and unflinching strength (at nearly eighty) are still firmly evident in “THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU” at London’s Serpentine Gallery. It’s been twenty years since Barbara Kruger’s last solo show in the capital and “THINKING…” is an undoubtedly power-packed addition to London’s art calendar. Part retrospective, part recent work, the Serpentine has given over all of its five gallery spaces to Kruger’s large-scale thoughtforms, mixing do-overs of early works with contemporary video and standalone sound pieces.

Barbara Kruger’s multimedia layers of meaning

(Untitled) Remember Me (the two words laid over a Man Ray-esque grayscale all-seeing eye) is soundtracked by 2021’s Untitled (I love you) sound piece, in which a woman’s voice says nothing more than “hello?” and then “I love you”. Add a question mark to the image’s title and its nature changes altogether. Untitled (No Comment) is a huge LED screen video piece featuring found footage and sound. An acrobat bends himself in half while a male voice patronizingly praises women’s work around the house. There are single, loud clock strikes and snatches of quotations from Voltaire and Kendrick Lamar. A satnav tells someone off for their lack of empathic capacity. Amidst images of a talking cat and blurred-out Insta selfies, another anonymous voice says “thank you for sharing”.

Two large conjoined walls of red and black text

Upgrading from paper collages to LED screens suits Kruger’s work—after all, she was making memes before memes were a thing. Double screens for new artwork Untitled (Artforum) show text revealing itself as it’s typed. White pages eventually packed with black words, an invisible hand then adds notes and marginalia in red for added clarity. This is the art of the twin twenty-first-century overs: over-explaining and oversharing.

The desperate urge to be understood in a clamorous, look-at-me-please world. The three screens for Untitled (Pledge, Will, Vow) showcase worked and re-worked snatches of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, last will and testament legalese and formal marriage vows. Some video screens are static LED images (backlit, never has Kruger’s trademark red looked redder). First exhibited in 1987 and now a motionless video artwork, the expression on the ventriloquist dummy’s face in Untitled (Our Leader) is as judgemental and unknowable in its stare as it ever was. In the age of #MeToo, 1989’s Untitled (Your body is a battleground), with its women’s face, one half shown as a photographic negative, possesses further layers of meaning.

Untitled (I shop therefore I am) from 1987 is here too, of course—the Descartes quote about thinking and being developing onscreen into a series of consumerist and emotional phrases. There’s a whole room dedicated to Untitled (FOREVER). The floor is covered with an extract from Orwell’s 1984 (the O’Brien speech that begins: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever”), and the longest wall is filled with a section of a 1928 Virginia Woolf lecture. The ‘you’ from Woolf’s “You. You are here, looking through the looking glass, darkly…” is magnified as through a looking glass lens, with walls on either side crowded in text that ends, “THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU”.

Barbara Kruger is constantly revising her work, and this post-analog tweaking pays off. By keeping her intellectual and political wheels in motion (and swapping the Xerox machine for HD digital images and sound), she continues to lead the pack in her role as social commentator and narrator, neatly avoiding accusations of fustiness on the way. Her text and appropriated imagery remain rhetorical and funny, harrowing and sarcastic, and the new pieces show Barbara Kruger is still adept at flipping the bird at rotten establishment targets, from the patriarchy to capitalism and beyond.

THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU” is on view at the Serpentine Gallery in London through March 17. Booking ahead is advisable. 

Rhizome’s 7×7 Models a Deeper Collaboration Between Art and Science

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The intersection of art and technology gets a lot of press these days. In any given headline, it might be the “next frontier.” Or where cultural innovation happens. On some days, it’s spawning new job titles (e.g., curator of digital initiatives). And it always feels bright and shiny and optimistic and most importantly, new, even though artists have been experimenting with new technologies since the dawn of technology itself.

And therein lies the challenge one faces when considering what exactly is happening at this much-publicized intersection. On one hand, the phrase is applied, seemingly broadly, to everything from NFTs and the ever-morphing works of Refik Anadol to the kinds of immersive installations pioneered by Sandro Kereselidze’s Artechouse. On the other, what reportedly exists at the intersection of art and technology seems strangely circumscribed. There’s computer-generated art and art inspired by technology at these crossroads but very little science.

Or to put it another way, it seems there’s a lot more digital art being created at the intersection of the arts and technology than there are radical pairings of art and science. It may come down to people simply being more open to art borrowing from science and engineering than the reverse, even though there are plenty of notable examples of art inspiring scientific discovery. Niels Bohr in his development of the non-intuitive complementarity principle of quantum mechanics, for example, drew inspiration from Jean Metzinger’s cubist works.

Claims that the dividing line between science and art is artificial come off as hyperbolic, but both scientists and artists are dreamers who channel their creative energies into untangling the world’s mysteries and building new things. It’s logical to consider what the intersection of art and technology could look like if the focus was on deep collaboration instead of just tapping into one or the other as a source of inspiration.

Modeling a stronger synergy of art and science

On a Saturday in late January, scientists, engineers, artists and the curious gathered at the New Museum in New York City for the relaunch of Seven on Seven (7×7), an event born out of a 2010 hackathon that paired seven engineers with seven artists to demonstrate what could happen when they worked together. The lineup of past participants is a fascinating who’s who of art and tech: Tumblr founder David Karp, Internet entrepreneur Jonah Peretti and Aza Raskin of the Center for Humane Technology… new media artist Tabita Rezaire, moving image artist Hito Steyerl and performance and installation artist Martine Syms. In 2015, Ai Weiwei collaborated with the hacker Jacob Appelbaum. This year, Boston Dynamics’ Spot took to the stage with dancer Mor Mendel as part of a collaboration between Boston Dynamics Director of Human-Robot Interaction David Robert and artist Miriam Simun with Hannah Rossi.

Scientist–artist collaboration can take many forms: art-based communication can make science more accessible… new technologies become mediums in the hands of artists. What’s less common is what one Eos article calls “ArtScience,” which involves “artists and scientists working together in transdisciplinary ways to ask questions, design experiments and formulate knowledge.” 7×7, which is organized by the born-digital art and culture organization Rhizome, puts ArtScience on display by design. According to Xinran Yuan, this year’s producer and co-curator, it’s as important for the public to see collaboration between artists and scientists in action as it is to see the final output.

That output was fascinating and surprisingly moving—Ginkgo Bioworks Head of Creative Christina Agapakis and artist Xin Liu’s yeast that lactates stood out—though I personally would have liked each duo’s presentations to be longer. Other 2024 7×7 participants included Replika AI CEO and Founder Eugenia Kuyda with artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson; Nym Technologies CEO and Co-Founder Harry Halpin with artist Tomás Saraceno; Runway CEO and Co-Founder Cristóbal Valenzuela with comedian, writer, and actor Ana Fabrega; and engineer and entrepreneur Alan Steremberg with artist Rindon Johnson; and quantum physicist Dr. Stephon Alexander working with comedian, artist and musician Reggie Watts.

The focus of this year’s event was A.I.—specifically, the role it might play in our lives moving forward. It’s a blisteringly hot topic in the art world, given the emergence of tools that many artists argue are, at best, plagiarism machines and, at worst, livelihood killers.

“I’m glad that I’m alive right now at this really precarious time in human history and to be involved with A.I.,” Watts said at the end of an engaging and pleasantly optimistic talk on the potential of artificial intelligence in not only music but also improvisational creation. He was, however, pragmatic about the role artists need to play in the development of the technology. “I think it’s important for artists and technologists, but especially artists, to get ahead of the curve… even if you arrive at ‘this isn’t for me,’ be there at the table to have an opinion so it can be steered in a direction that’s most useful.”

Simun also feels it’s important to consider the question of what our future with A.I. will look like. “A question I asked during my performance is: What would happen if we defined intelligence less on how well someone/something knows, and rather on how well they react to unexpected, ambiguous, and uncertain situations?” she told Observer. “If this was the metric by which we defined intelligence, how might we build our robots and our A.I. differently?”

What scientists gain by working with artists

We’re culturally comfortable with art informed by science but less so by science informed by art—and that means we may be missing out on opportunities for innovation. Matthias C. Rillig, professor of ecology at Freie Universität Berlin, has considered the question in his own lab, which has an established artist-in-residency program, and among the many benefits of art-technology he has identified, idea generation stands out. “In conversations with the artist, unusual terms or connections appear,” he wrote last year. “One recent example of this was the term ‘soundscape stewardship’ that occurred in a conversation with Marcus Maeder,” which led to a paper in Science.

Observer spoke with David Robert shortly after 7×7 about why Boston Dynamics collaborates with artists. “Putting the robot in other contexts, besides what it’s doing for its ‘job’ to earn its keep helps us figure out what’s possible,” he said. Working on projects with artists, he explained, can help engineers understand not only whether people like or don’t like a robot but also what aspects they like or dislike, which can suggest avenues for improvement.

On the other hand, he added, “people project on them all the time and that’s a hard thing to design around.” Boston Dynamics has arguably done a top-notch job of getting people excited about robots, and it this point, it’s hard not to anthropomorphize Spot, which is bright yellow, moves like a happy dog and can be outfitted with what is functionally an arm but makes the robot look something like a friendly apatosaurus. It’s also currently painting with artist Agnieszka Pilat at this year’s National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Triennial and has danced with BTS, walked the Coperni runway during Paris Fashion Week and given many kids and adults their first view of a real robot in action at Boston’s Museum of Science.

 

On the other hand, there’s still a ways to go—even with the maximum encutification of robots (see, for example, the University of Manitoba’s Picassnake), people make jokes about killbots and the coming robot apocalypse. “It totally makes sense, given all the narratives that we’ve grown up with,” Robert said. “Most people haven’t had a direct experience with a robot.”

The arts can change that. Simun’s 7×7 piece, as danced to the music of Igor Tkachenko and DJ Dede, offered an alternative to the imaginary robots we grew up with. “I hope the performance I created enabled the audience to gain a new and different perspective on the adoption of robots in our daily lives,” she said. “How are these robots being programmed to behave? To interact with us? To interact with their surroundings? … What kind of relationships with machines do we want, what will we get and what can we dream of?”

In the end, the answer to those questions will be determined by the types of dreamers who took the stage at the New Museum—those for whom art is more than science’s ambassador and technology isn’t just another artist’s tool.

A Rare Rediscovered Banksy Heads to Auction

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Graffiti painting of helicopters on stone block

A rare work by Banksy, the elusive British artist famed for his humorous and at times political street art, is heading to auction years after it was rediscovered and rescued by a team of restoration specialists.

In 2008, the owner of an office building in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood was flipping through a book dedicated to Banksy’s local work when he recognized his own property in one of the images. After racing down to the building, he found the art had been painted over—but not entirely. A small section of a helicopter propeller from the original work was still visible at the top.

“We were astounded to discover that our newly purchased office building was the canvas for an artwork of this significance,” said the owner, who has chosen to remain anonymous, in a statement.

The work was originally painted by Banksy in 2006, as documented by his former manager Steve Lazarides in BANKSY CAPTURED (Volume 1). Entitled Happy Chopper, its depiction of helicopters is a regular motif used by Banksy, who has included the aircraft in past works like his 2003 Wrong War placards. The painting was considered to be a security risk by the building’s former owner, who subsequently covered the work in black paint and neglected to mention its existence when selling the property.

A complicated restoration process

Upon discovering that he was now in possession of a Banksy, the building’s current owner enlisted the Fine Art Restoration Company, a London-based company which had previously restored Banksy works. The restoration process was a complicated one—for starters, Happy Choppers couldn’t be removed as one piece for fear of it breaking apart, and instead was removed from the building in sections. “To our knowledge, no one had attempted to rescue a fragile work of high-profile street art like this before,” said the owner.

Banksy’s medium of spray paint also presented challenges. “As these murals do not use a medium traditionally found in art, our conservators investigated the chemistry of the original pigments and developed new techniques suitable for the safe treatment of aerosol art,” said Chris Bull, director of the Fine Art Restoration Company, in a statement. The year-long process included cleaning pollutants, city air and pests that had contaminated the work’s surface and removing overpaint and local graffiti that had been added on top of the work.

Now, the fully restored painting is ready for a new home. It will hit the auction block later this month when it highlights the Spring Fine Art Auction for Anderson & Garland, an auction house based in Newcastle. Happy Choppers, which contains an estimate of between £500,000 ($633,000) and £700,000 ($886,000), will be on view in the auctioneer’s saleroom ahead of its March 20 sale.

“Previously gracing the side of an office block, it has been painstakingly restored and professionally adapted to domestic proportions,” said Fred Wyrley-Birch, director of Anderson & Garland, in a statement. “We are hoping that institutions will be interested in this important piece so that enthusiasts of Banksy’s work can enjoy it for years to come.”

Paris 2024 Unveils Surprisingly Whimsical Posters for the Olympic and Paralympic Games

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Two posters fit together to show detailed illustration of Paris

A surfing wave in Tahiti, a pair of breakdancers and some 40,000 hand-drawn figures—these are just some of what’s depicted in the official posters for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games, as unveiled today (March 4) by the Paris 2024 organizing committee.

Created by French illustrator Ugo Gattoni, the posters make up two halves of a whimsical Parisian fresco packed with athletic and national motifs. With Gattoni’s signature fine lines and intricate detail, it’s no surprise that the entire hand-drawn process took around 2,000 hours to complete.

“For the first time at the Summer Games, the Iconic Posters take the form of a diptych, with the same artistic direction,” said Tony Estanguet, the organizing committee president, in a statement. “They are two independent posters telling the story of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which, when placed side by side, tell the whole story of Paris 2024.”

SEE ALSO: Art Trumps Amusement at LA’s ‘Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy’

Symbols of the games themselves can be found through the poster’s inclusion of the Olympic Rings and a racing yacht that is set to carry the Olympic flame, which are shown alongside iconic French landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Paris Metro and Seine River. More than 40 sports from the Olympics and Paralympics Games are also included in the artwork, including new additions like breakdancing, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing—the latter of which will take place at the Teahupo’o wave in French Polynesia, found in the background of the poster. Gattoni notably drew the same number of male and female figures, a reference to the fact that the Paris 2024 Games will be the first gender-balanced edition with 50 percent female athletes.

“For me, this design has to be timeless,” said Gattoni, whose posters will be displayed at the Musée d’Orsay from March 5 to March 10, in a statement. “Its originality lies in its surreal and utopian aspect, both in its composition and in the thousands of details that feature in it,” he said. The artist counts high-profile brands like Hermès and Cartier among his regular clients. Luxury companies are set to have a prominent presence in the upcoming games. LVMH is one of the largest sponsors, and winning athletes will receive medals designed by jeweler Chaumet. 

Woman holds up large poster

The art of Olympic posters through history

Olympic and Paralympic posters are an iconic part of the games, according to Estanguet. They “have gradually become artistic works in their own right, providing a foretaste of each edition of the Games,” he added. This wasn’t always the case—during the first half of the 20th century, official Olympic posters were produced primarily as a form of advertising and to provide practical information about the event, especially before the games began using the radio in 1928 and television broadcasts in 1936.

Since the 1950s, however, the official posters have become symbols of the identity and values of the individual games, often featuring the work of renowned artists. The 1984 Los Angeles Games, for example, saw Robert Rauschenberg design an official poster depicting three interlocked stars, while Rachel Whiteread was tapped to create a poster filled with colorful circles for the 2012 London Games.

In addition to producing official posters, the Olympic and Paralympic Games often commission artists to create additional works interpreting specific Olympic ideals or sports. This practice led to David Hockney’s famed The Diver, the striking image used to promote the sport at the 1972 Munich Games. And don’t forget Speed Skater, the motion-filled screenprint created by Andy Warhol for the 1984 Games in Sarajevo. For the upcoming Paris 2024 Games, additional posters will be produced by artists Adam Janes, Clotilde Jiménez, Gilles Elie, Elsa and Johanna, Pierre Seinturier, Fanny Michaëlis and Stéphanie Lacombe.

The Met Pays Tribute to New York’s Great Black Artists

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The halls of a museum exhibition

Among New York neighborhoods, Harlem has long stood out for its immense impact on culture. Early in the Twentieth Century, it emerged as an epicenter of music, art, theater, literature and dining—the result of the mass exodus of millions of Black Americans from diverse backgrounds who left the rural south to settle in the urban north. More than 175,000 people came to Harlem, including artists, writers, musicians and great thinkers who would pave the way for the Harlem Renaissance’s most recognizable names: W.E.B. Du Bois, Josephine Baker, Augusta Savage, Cab Calloway and many more.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recently opened show, “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism,” pays tribute to it all with an exhibition featuring over 160 artworks by Black artists from the 1920s through the 1940s, in what is the first survey of the subject in the city since 1987.

The exhibition is divided into sections that highlight everything from activism to nightlife, featuring what the Met calls “the first African American-led movement of international modern art,” and showcasing the work of artists like Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Winold Reiss, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee and Laura Wheeler Waring. Also shown are portrayals of African diasporan subjects as rendered by Matisse, Munch, Picasso and a handful of others.

SEE ALSO: Robert Alice Is Behind the First Collection of Generative Art NFTs at Christie’s

The start of “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” recognizes writer and philosophy professor Alain Leroy Locke, whose 1925 book of cultural criticism, The New Negro, set forth principles of “a new vision of opportunity” for African Americans and helped shape the Harlem Renaissance and, with it, American culture as a whole. There’s a portrait of the writer by Winold Reiss, alongside a copy of his book, which includes the essay ‘The Legacy of the Ancestral Arts,” that invited black artists to embrace African aesthetics. There are also portraits of thinkers like Zora Neale Hurston, presented in a portrait by Aaron Douglas.

A painting of people eating outdoors under umbrellas

The section titled “Everyday Life in the New Black Cities” is full of stunning paintings, including Hale Woodruff’s 1930 The Card Players, depicting a cubist-inspired scene of pool players in a dark bar and Pool Parlor, a 1942 painting by Jacob Lawerence—the first example of the artist’s work to be included in the Met’s permanent collection.

Overall, the exhibition is wide-ranging and thoughtful in both its curation and presentation. Photo highlights include the James Van Der Zee photo Couple, Harlem, from 1932, with its stylish couple in fur coats posing with their Cadillac on a street lined with brownstone buildings.

A black and white vintage photo of two people in fur coats posing next to a 1930s style car

Women are highlighted throughout the show, which is refreshing. In a section devoted to “Portraiture and the Modern Black Subject,” a 1943 portrait by William H. Johnson called Woman in Blue depicts a woman staring confidently into the painter’s gaze—it looks as if she’s wearing a uniform, signaling the strength of the working woman. There are pieces by women artists, including Laura Wheeler Waring’s Yellow Roses on view, and plenty of representation: a photo of acclaimed singer Josephine Baker taken in 1925 by Adolph de Meyer shows her in all her glamorous glory.

A major highlight of the exhibit is the room of paintings by Aaron Douglas, who created monochromatic, graphic images of silhouettes of African Americans throughout history real and imagined. Some of the most exciting sections are the galleries devoted to the Black nightlife that came to define Harlem and the “Artist as Activist” section, which explores the civic activism at the core of the Harlem Renaissance. William H. Johnson’s Moon Over Harlem, which depicts police brutality after a race-related riot in August of 1943, is particularly moving.

A stylized collage of people on a street under an orange moon

The exhibition ends with a tribute to Harlem: the 15-foot-long 1970 mural The Block by artist Romare Bearden. It depicts a block of mid-century buildings in the NYC neighborhood, including the block where Bearden, a member of the Harlem Artists Guide, had his art studio on 125th Street. He worked in the same building as artist Jacob Lawrence and poet Claude McKay, and his depiction takes the viewer back to old New York, capturing its bustling essence in a lively street that continues to be a hub of African American cultural life.

A Harlem Renaissance exhibition at the Met was arguably long overdue, but don’t let that stop you from checking it out now. One show can’t cover the wide breadth of a decades-long art movement but “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” does much to capture its impact and legacy. It’s a strong introduction to what should be a lifelong journey into the lives of these influential artists and luminaries.

A museum exhibition dominated by painted portraits

The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” is on view through July 28.





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