Author: Ann Williams

Javier Arce, “Sobre lo cerca (Waka)” (2023), oil on canvas, 11 x 10 inches (all photos by Lauren Moya Ford/Hyperallergic) Javier Arce, “Sobre lo cerca (Waka)” (2023), oil on canvas, 11 x 10 inches (all photos by Lauren Moya Ford/Hyperallergic) Javier Arce, “Sobre lo cerca (Waka)” (2023), oil on canvas, 11 x 10 inches (all photos by Lauren Moya Ford/Hyperallergic) SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain – As the world entered its first pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020, Javier Arce lived in a mountain village in Cantabria, a small, sparsely populated region in northern Spain. With supplies dwindling and art…

Winding through Materials for the Arts’ 35,000-square-foot home is as close as visiting Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. At the beginning of the year, the sprawling warehouse in Queens was filled with Christmas decorations, ornaments, pink evergreens, and lavish soap boxes, along with paper and books, envelopes, archival photos, all kinds of fabric, buttons, beads. , and cut There are also hospital lab coats, Javits Center furniture and vintage typewriters and computer towers, CDs and file folders. Filled with the outcasts of contemporary New York City life waiting to be brought out of the darkness, the list goes on. Most of…

Phillips’ “New Now” auction brought in $5.5 million last night in New York. The sale was led by an untitled work by Wade Guyton from 2007, which sold for $241,300—more than three times the low estimate of $70,000 (all prices include taxes). In the evening there was a 72% sale rate by lot, with 149 of the 208 lots on offer finding buyers. “It was wonderful to see the great depth of international bidding at our New York ‘New Now’ sale, with nearly 50 countries participating by phone, online and in the saleroom,” said Avery Semjen, associate specialist at Phillips…

LONDON – It’s one thing for a museum to commission a survey of its past colonial activity, as many UK institutions are doing after the Black Lives Matter movement and specifically the 2020 demolition of the Colston statue. Another is to encourage open dialogue to move forward as a society. This is the aim of the Royal Academy in the exhibition Entangled Pasts 1768–Present: Art, Colonialism and Change, which marries works from its 250-year history with contemporary responses from 50 RA-affiliated artists. His curation is at once academically rigorous, profound and emotionally moving. Although framed by the history of RA,…

Los Angeles-based sculptor Alison Saar has been commissioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the city of Paris to create a public sculpture for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The sculpture will be inaugurated on the Olympic Day of June 23.The artist—the daughter of artist Betye Saar, a prominent figure in the Black Arts Movement—will focus on international diversity, equality and peace.”My hope is that this artwork, a gift to the people and the city of Paris, will become a gathering place for the public to experience the spirit of friendship and interconnection across cultures and borders,”…

LONDON – Almost all political movements soften their influence over time. As the mainstream changes, the razor’s edge of contemporary debate becomes part of a longer timeline. By the time artistic production becomes a museum, it is over, firmly locked in the past. Women in rebellion! Art and Activism in the United Kingdom 1970–1990 is a classic example of this: a massive spectacle covering British feminism from the 1970s to the 90s, pressing different groups and causes into a neat timeline. This exhibition occupies the large galleries on the ground floor of Tate Britain and is overflowing with material, much…

Art MarketArun KakarThe 2024 Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR) benefit auction is special to its cause and curators. This year’s sale, which will take place at Artsy from March 15-28, is organized by collectors Rob and Eric Thomas-Suwall. The duo is known for amassing an enviable collection of work by female and mid-career female and queer artists, which they share on The Icy Gays on Instagram. Rob (a surgeon) and Eric (a professor of political theory) have also channeled their artistic passions into supporting arts organizations that align with their vision of supporting LGBTQ+ and women artists. They first came…

DETROIT – Art historians often credit white men as pioneers of modern abstraction, from Piet Mondrian to Jackson Pollock. But there is an alternative lineage of non-figurative composition built by women, people of color, and fiber artists: quilt making. As archives like the Quilt Index prove, for every straightforward, functional quilt, there are a dozen that boldly experiment with abstract form, color, motifs. and material, sometimes because of need and poor material, but sometimes because of joy, self-expression and artistic experimentation. Detroit fiber artist Carole Harris, now 81, can’t remember exactly when she learned to sew. “It’s always been there.…

A version of this essay appeared earlier Reformulatedhas Art in America A newsletter about the art that amazes us and the works that work on us. Sign up here to be picked up every Thursday. Growing up, Anu Põder wanted to be a dancer. But his small body did not meet the discipline’s impossible standards, so he turned to art, where fit physiques soon became his main concern. The resulting feminine forms—made of fat, surgical plastic, and fashion found materials—make up Estonian artist Anu Põder: Space for My Body, a retrospective at Switzerland’s Muzeum Susch, a picturesque private institution carved…

Van Gogh’s self-portrait is the perfect cover for many books about the painter. It illustrates not only the art, but also the artist. But, unfortunately, even major publishers and their famous expert writers have occasionally been tricked into choosing a misleading image: at least four fake self-portraits have been included on book covers.The will to liveCover of Irving’s Stone’s The will to live (1934) and the false “self-portrait” (1920s) Grosset & Dunlap, New York and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCThe will to live, Irving Stone’s best-selling novel, has shaped the way we perceive Van Gogh since its publication in…