Author: Ann Williams

When Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Ghana on an official visit in 1999, the British High Commission called in Gerald Annan-Forson for a private photo session with the monarch. A few years earlier, Annan-Forson had made a habit of standing in front of Buckingham Palace with the dream of one day taking pictures of the Queen or the royal family. The commission’s request was surprising. “I said, ‘Well, wait a minute. He’s coming with all these reporters. Why me?'” he recounted, talking to ARTnews In a recent interview from Accra, the capital of the West African country. “They said, ‘Well,…

A unique 19th-century Maori feather cloak, created from thousands of green parrot feathers woven into a grass cloth, has been put on display at Scotland’s new £27m Perth Museum.The cape is a special object for the descendants of its makers: Maori people were invited to Perth to pray and sing over it, as it was carefully packed for transport, and traveled to the British Museum in London, where conservation work was carried out. A closed Facebook group enabled exchanges between two museums in the UK, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in New Zealand and Māori communities.The cape is in Perth’s collections…

Swiss art dealer, auctioneer and collector Eberhard Kornfeld bequeathed five paintings to the Kunstmuseum Bern, including a 1919 work by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Junkerboden and Alberto Giacometti’s 1965 portrait, Carolina.The other paintings in the legacy, which will be on display at the Kunstmuseum from Friday, are from 1893 by Alfred Sisley. The church of Moret Sur Loingby Sam Francis Blue, Red and Yellow (1958), and Giovanni Giacometti’s self-portrait from 1909.Kornfeld was a longtime patron of the Kunstmuseum and had previously donated graphic works by Maurice de Vlaminck and Alfred Kubin and a mobile by Alexander Calder.Giovanni Giacometti, Self portrait (1909)Museum…

It’s like trying to get into a club with a fake ID… (Screenshot by Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic through @seanieviola Xn) Kim Kardashian allegedly turned down the Judd Foundation’s offer of authentic Donald Judd furniture in exchange for deleting a video. The Judd Foundation filed a lawsuit against Kardashian and her Los Angeles-based interior design firm Clements Design after the celebrity claimed she had “Donald Judd desks” that were found to be inauthentic. According to the suit, Clements Design manufactured the table and chairs “in the style of Donald Judd,” according to an invoice that included photographs of Judd’s original designs. The…

The Gwangju Biennale, Asia’s most prestigious recurring arts festival, has announced the artists participating in its 2024 show, which opens on September 7 in the South Korean city. The exhibition is this time curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, a French curator known for theorizing the relational aesthetic style of the 1990s. As is typical of Bourriaud’s exhibitions, his Gwangju Biennale comes with an ambitious framework that sees sound as a means of structuring life as we know it. Its title is “Pansori, the soundscape of the 21st century”, the 17th century. which refers to a 20th century Korean music genre. “In…

Brazilian dealers Jaqueline Martins and Maria Montero are merging their galleries to create a new joint venture, Martins&Montero. Both Martins, Galeria Jaqueline Martins, and Montero, who founded Sé Galeria, will close their individual spaces in São Paulo and jointly open another in the city next month. Martins&Montero will also take over the second location of Galeria Jaqueline Martins in Brussels. All employees of both galleries will be retained in the merger, and each artist previously represented by Jaqueline Martins or Sé will transfer to the Martins&Montero roster. Founded in 2011, Galeria Jaqueline Martins has grown to represent 30 artists, including…

Wine labels often display information mandated by legislation or regional requirements. However, that space above a bottle has infinite possibilities for design and semiotics. There are as many labels as there are wines and producers. Just as we know not to judge a book by its cover, scholars have also learned not to judge a wine by its label. The exceptions to this rule are the First Growth wine labels of Château Mouton Rothschild, which not only introduced important changes in the production of fine wine, but also created the standard for the way these wines are presented to the…

On Thursday, April 18, at Palazzo delle Prigioni, “Public Forum: Thinking Like an Island” presents public programs on “island thinking” during the opening week of the 60th Venice International Biennale. This schedule is linked Yuan Goang-Ming: The Daily WarTaiwan Collateral Event, organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The opening day evening, “Public Forum: Thinking Like an Island” will highlight island thinking as a survival methodology and touch on what it means to be an island in a time when rising tides are a reality. Artist Yuan Goang-Ming, curator Abby Chen and three curators from the Asian Art Museum (San…

Inigo Philbrick, the New York dealer who was later sentenced to seven years in prison for an $86 million wire fraud, has been released. He was sentenced in May 2022, serving a little less than four years in prison—more than three years less than originally expected. He initially announced his release on March 1 Daily Mail, who cited a source at the Federal Bureau of Prisons; a Vanity Fair The article published that month reported that he had been placed under house arrest and would be released on supervised release for two years. Philbrick’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, confirmed his release…

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama has been awarded the inaugural Sam Gilliam Award, a new honor presented by the Dia Art Foundation and the Sam Gilliam Foundation. The prize, which includes a $75,000 gift and a public Dia program in the fall of 2024, was established in 2023 to support artists who have made a significant contribution in any medium. This collaboration was presented by Dia with Sam Gilliam’s work from 2019 to 2022. Born in 1987 in Tamale, Ghana, Mahama is known for his large-scale textile and found object installations, repurposing materials to encourage reflection on the social implications of…