Author: Ann Williams
Four years after being hit with bankruptcy, Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History may become part of the Smithsonian Institution.Although the Weitzman already has an affiliation with the Smithsonian, becoming one of nearly 20 museums under the Washington, DC-based organization’s umbrella would make it eligible for federal grants and bring greater visibility and prestige. On March 20, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both houses of the US Congress introduced legislation to review the Weitzman’s potential as a Smithsonian outpost. The bill would create a nine-person commission to study the feasibility of the move, reporting their findings to…
Lovingly depicted in French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert’s new documentary, the elegant boat moored on the River Seine in Paris could easily be mistaken for a tourist trap. The adamant, as the ship calls it, is actually part of the psychiatric network of the Saint-Maurice Hospital. On board, outpatients interact under the guidance of a small team of doctors and volunteers. Beyond its striking modern design and unusual setting, something else sets it apart adamant: Art plays a key role in the clinic’s approach to psychiatric therapy. For the medical professionals and patients on board, the therapy is a form of…
ArtCath PoundCaspar David Friedrich Wandering on the sea of fog, the year 1817. © SHK / Hamburger Kunsthalle / bpk. Photo by Elke Walford. Courtesy of Hamburger Kunsthalle.Caspar David Friedrich Chalk Cliffs in Rügen, 1818. © Photo: SIK ISEA, Zurich Philipp Hitz. Courtesy of the Hamburger Kunsthalleby Caspar David Friedrich The Wanderer Over the Sea of Mist (ca. 1817), his enigmatic figure standing on a rock surveying the misty landscape before him, is an icon of the Romantic art movement. The painting is so well-known that it is perhaps difficult for us to understand how innovative it was when it…
a study of the guard Four formaldehyde sculptures created by Damien Hirst and dated to the 1990s have been alleged to have been created in 2017. In the first of two reports, published on March 19.an unidentified source says Hirst’s company, Science, “instructed employees to artificially age the sculptures, making them appear as if they were made in the 1990s.”Science representatives have confirmed that the three aforementioned sculptures were physically made in 2017: the pigeon; Myth Explore, Explain, Explode; and Cain and Abel, Hirst dates them to 1999, 1993-99 and 1994, respectively. Earlier dates refer to when the works were…
Hundreds of artists, cultural workers and activists gathered on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on New York’s Fifth Avenue on Sunday (March 24) to publicly call for the most visited museum in the US to call for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. and undertake to preserve the cultural heritage of Palestine. Demonstrators unfurled a 30-by-50-meter quilt with designs sewn, painted and printed by more than 60 artists expressing solidarity with the Palestinians.The quilt was organized by an international group of artists inspired by the Names Project Aids Memorial Quilt., started in 1987 as a memorial…
They are apparently art museums public spaces, but, in general, them to operate privately, like corporations, at least until the directors and their employees are safely retired. That is my experience as an outsider. When Thomas Hoving, director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977, published his 2009 autobiography, I was struck by his aggressive personal narrative. In the last chapter of the memoir he writes: “My low self-esteem was very clearly disguised in my constant display, my addiction to publicity and my intolerable ‘me-me-me’ attitudes and actions.” I doubt that any of his descendants will…
Thaddaeus Ropac has announced the representation of the Hans Josephsohn Estate in collaboration with Kesselhaus Josephsohn, an archive and exhibition space dedicated to the Swiss sculptor from St. Gallen. The gallery will collaborate with Galerie Max Hetzler, Skarstedt Gallery and Karma International to promote Josephsohn’s work. A solo exhibition is planned in July 2024 in Salzburg, and a retrospective curated by the artist Albert Oehlen in October 2024 at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris.Josephsohn, who died in 2012, is celebrated for a six-decade career that reshaped the landscape of contemporary sculpture. His work reimagined the possibilities of figurative sculpture,…
More than 150 people occupied London’s Science Museum on Saturday to protest against a new gallery sponsored by part of the Indian conglomerate Adani, which has links to coal mining and arms manufacturing.The museum has been accused of allowing the Adani Group, the world’s largest private coal miner, to “green” its operations by sponsoring the Energy Revolution: Adani Green Energy gallery. through the renewable energy subsidiary. The new gallery, which opens on Tuesday, highlights how renewable energy can help tackle climate change.An investigation by research group Culture Unstained, using documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, revealed that the museum…
West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD)—the arts district at the southern tip of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peninsula, on the shores of Victoria Harbor—is making its mark on the world’s cultural scene. This week, the WKCD is hosting a major summit that brings together more than 20 directors and commissioners from 12 countries, along with 1,000 delegates (Linking cultures/High bridgesMarch 24-25).At the summit, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, the organization behind Hong Kong’s art hub, signed a number of memorandums of understanding with more than 20 cultural institutions from around the world to foster relationships with other institutions and cultural centres.…
An Andy Warhol screen print of Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong is mysteriously missing from a California collection. The 1972 artwork was last seen in a secure vault located in the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion at Orange Coast College (OCC) before staff reported the discovery of the piece on March 13. After an internal investigation, the school’s campus security department sent an alert to the OCC community on March 20 asking for help. The Costa Mesa Police Department (CMPD) is investigating the case. “I don’t know how many people knew there was a Mao print on the vault,” said…