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    María Magdalena Campos-Pons Shows Her Santería-Influenced, ‘Poetic Surrealist’ Art at the Brooklyn Museum, a Long Overdue New York Survey

    You may not know the name María Magdalena Campos-Pons yet, but the Cuban-born artist—who draws on the global legacy of colonialism and her own family history—has long built up significant art-world credentials outside of New York.
    In addition to appearing in prestigious international exhibitions such as Documenta 14 and the Sharjah Biennial, she has also had her work acquired by institutions including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Just this week, she was named a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, an honor that comes with a $800,000 grant.
    Now, those pieces are all on loan to the Brooklyn Museum—which added Campos-Pons to its own collection earlier this year—for the 64-year-old artist’s first museum survey show since 2007 (at the Indianapolis Museum of Art), and her first major New York exhibition.
    “María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold” at the Brooklyn Museum with her sculptural installation Spoken Softly With Mama (1998). Photo by Paula Abreu Pita.
    The first work on view, an ambitious installation titled Spoken Softly With Mama, “is just art history canon, period,” Carmen Hermo, associate curator at the museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, told me during a recent tour of the exhibition.
    First shown at MoMA in 1998 and now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, the piece combines video projection, sound, cast glass sculpture, and hand embroidery in a moving tribute not only to the artist’s female relatives, but the broader history of Black women’s domestic work, both for their own families, and in the employ of white ones.
    “In the videos, you see Magda kind of performing these poetic surrealist type of evocations of that labor,” Hermo said.
    María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Secrets of the Magnolia Tree (2021). Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo ©María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
    Hermo organized the show with Mazie Harris, a curator at the Getty, where the show will conclude a tour that includes stops at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina, and the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, bringing together a selection of more than 50 works that engage with complex subjects such as motherhood, racial identity, the legacy of slavery, police brutality, and the migrant crisis. (A tribute to Breonna Taylor is on loan to the Brooklyn Museum from the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.)
    A photographer, painter, sculptor, and performance artist, Campos-Pons was born in 1959, the year Fidel Castro came to power. In defiance of the official state atheism of her youth, the artist taps into her spirituality in her work, often referencing Santería, an African diasporic religion with roots in West Africa’s Yoruba faith that has influences from a wide range of cultures, including Catholicism.
    María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Red Composition (1997), from the series “Los Caminos (The Path).” Collection of Wendi Norris. Photo ©María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
    Campos-Pons’s grandmother was a Santería priestess; her father, an herbalist. Key to many pieces are Santería’s pantheon of Orishas, seven deities said to have traveled to the Americas during the slave trade to safeguard their people.
    One self-portrait depicts Campos-Pons as Yemaja, the mother of all Orishas, naked from the waist up save for blue body paint of the ocean waves. The artist is posing with two baby bottles of her own breast milk and a hand-carved wooden boat, symbolizing the goddess’s nourishing of her people even as they are forced to leave behind their homes.
    María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Untitled (Breast and Bottle Feeding) (1994), from the series “When I Am Not Here/Estoy Alla.” Collection of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth. Photo ©María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
    A significant portion of the exhibition is dedicated to the artist’s large-scale Polaroids, 20-by 24-inch prints she began creating as part of a multi-year residency with the photography company in the 1990s. Campos-Pons uses the individual images to create unique multi-panel photographs that are monumental in scale and look like performances frozen in time.
    “That idea of the combination of the fragments coming together as one is so crucial to the work. She also describes it as the topography of diaspora,” Hermo said. “This idea that you’re taking multiple experiences and dislocations and geographies and connections and sort of combining them all together.”
    María Magdalena Campos-Pons, When I Am Not Here/Estoy Allá, Tríptico I, (1996). Photo ©María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
    Forced to leave an increasingly unstable Cuba following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Campos-Pons moved first to Canada before settling in Boston. (She’s called Nashville home since 2017.) Unable to visit her family for years, the artist imbued her work with a sense of homesickness and loss, but also a rootedness in her identity and family history, as well as her physical body.
    The 1990 mixed-media wall-relief sculpture Soy una Fuente (I Am a Fountain), just acquired by the Detroit Institute of Arts at Christie’s in March—where it sold for four times the high estimate—illustrates many of those themes and Campos-Pon’s strong feminist underpinnings.
    María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Soy una Fuente (I Am a Fountain), 1990. Collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Photo ©María Magdalena Campos-Pons.
    “It has these elements of the body fragmented again, but effusive, leaking,” Hermo said. “There’s menstrual blood, there’s shit, there’s tears, there’s breast milk, there’s a little fetus floating there in the center, and then what Magda describes as the most potent output of a woman—which is her words, coming from the mouth. It’s this idea of the artist defining herself, as a body, as a creator of life, but then also specifically as a Black woman.”
    “María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold” is on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, September 15, 2023–January 14, 2024.

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    Artist Lucy Sparrow Is Back in New York With a Pop-Up Bagel Shop Made Entirely of Felt—and She’s Sewing Sandwiches to Order

    For her third New York solo show, British artist Lucy Sparrow wanted to do something special. So, to follow up 2017’s blockbuster felt bodega and the upscale stuffed grocery store of 2019, she’s back with her most interactive work to date, a cross between Jewish appetizing store and delicatessen where she’ll be sewing bagel sandwiches to order, $250 a pop.
    Considering the price of lox at Russ and Daughters on the Lower East Side—nearly $60 a pound—it’s not a bad deal. Each and every component is lovely hand stitched by the artist, who has spent about nine months in preparation for the show, and you can choose up to eight toppings from the counter.
    Some are traditional, like slices of smoked salmon, hand-painted rounds of tomatoes, glittering pickle spears, and strings of shiny black beads for the caviar. There’s also satiny fried eggs or fluffy scrambled ones if you want a bacon egg and cheese, and sweet options such as Nutella and berries, as well as less conventional offerings including mozzarella, jalapeños, and hummus.
    The bagels also come in 13 flavors, including the Instagram-famous rainbow variety, and cost $50 sans filling.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted bagels at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    The pop-up exhibition is called, naturally, “Feltz Bagels”—a Jewish surname that doubles as a nod to Sparrow’s preferred material. (She loves using the relatively inexpensive fabric because it comes in such a wide variety of colors, allowing her to recreate almost anything in her cute and cuddly style.)
    Because Sparrow doesn’t have any Jewish heritage, she did lots of research to make sure she got the details for Feltz Bagels right, including visiting Russ and Daughters and Katz’s Deli, both of which were in full support of her handmade creations. (The former even provided babka for the exhibition press preview, served alongside Sparrow’s stuffed slices, naturally.)
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted babka alongside the real deal from Jewish appetizing store Russ and Daughters at the press preview for “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo courtesy of the artist.
    “My work is always focused on community experiences and the amazing everyday products that bring us all together. There really is no greater example of this than the traditional bagel bakeries of the Lower East Side of New York that have been nourishing much more than the stomachs of the city’s residents since the late 19th century,” Sparrow said in a statement.
    Organized by Montauk gallery TW Fine Art, this is the second iteration of Feltz Bagels, after a run in Montauk this summer. (Sparrow has also created her own McDonald’s, a British corner shop, and a Los Angeles supermarket, among other projects.) To meet expected demand—her first NYC show, “8 ‘Till Late” had to close early when everything sold out—Sparrow created 30,000 individual works for the occasion.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted caviar tins at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    The shop’s offerings go beyond bagels to include other foodstuffs popular with the Jewish community, including yarn-covered latkes, shiny tins of caviar, and Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup.
    There’s even a special tribute to the Jewish religion, with a shelf featuring a fabric Hanukkah menorah and Passover Seder plate made by Sparrow, with chocolate gelt, matzos crackers, and Manischewitz kosher wine. (On the other hand, there’s a secret back room selling pork products, hard liquor, and tiny baggies of marijuana, among other illicit substances, with thick stacks of felt money.)
    Lucy Sparrow at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo courtesy of the artist.
    There’s also a wide range of baked goods for sale at Feltz’s, including the iconic black and white cookies, croissants, and diminutive rugelach for just $10 a piece, as well as various types of junk food. (The bags of Cheetos Puffs, with their delightful depiction of Chester Cheetah, deserve a special mention.)
    It’s a true New York moment, with all the best of Jewish food culture in one place (traditionally, meat and cheese products are sold at separate stores in keeping with kosher dietary law, but I think it’s fair to let things slide in the name of art).
    And, as a reminder of just what a culinary melting pot is, you can also order a $50 cup of coffee in the traditional blue and white Greek to-go cup, reading “we are happy to serve you”—a fitting tagline for Sparrow’s feel-good art.
    See more photos from the exhibition below.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted cash register and coffee at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Custom bagel toppings at Lucy Sparrow’s “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Lucy Sparrow’s “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted latkes at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted black and white cookies at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted menorah and seder plate at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    The illicit back room at Lucy Sparrow’s “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Lucy Sparrow’s felted food at “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    The illicit back room at Lucy Sparrow’s “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    Lucy Sparrow’s “Feltz Bagels,” her new New York City bagel shop art show. Photo by Sarah Cascone.
    “Lucy Sparrow: Feltz Bagels” is on view at 209 East 3rd Street, New York, October 3–31, 2023. 
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    Artist Kerry James Marshall’s First Commissioned Portrait Captures the Quiet Authority of Renowned Scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

    American artist Kerry James Marshall has produced his first-ever formal portrait, choosing to depict the renowned African American scholar and historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., often known as Skip. The work has been donated to Gates’s alma mater, the University of Cambridge, and is now on public view at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum.
    The gift is a major coup for the regional museum—becoming only the second painting by Marshall to enter one of the U.K.’s public collections. Celebrated for his typically lively scenes in which Black people enjoy everyday pleasures like a backyard barbecue, a trip to the hair salon, or a day spent by the river, Marshall recently became the most expensive living Black artist.
    Gates, a Harvard professor of African American studies and a prolific writer, met up with Marshall at the Fitzwilliam earlier this week to unveil the work. The pair, whose long-time admiration of each other has formed the basis for a fond friendship, were in a jocular mood as they recalled the circumstances that led up to the portrait.
    Shortly after majoring in History summa cum laude at Yale in 1973, Gates was the first African American to receive a fellowship to study abroad from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Though he had been “raised to be a doctor,” he enrolled in English Literature at Clare College, Cambridge, eventually finding a passion for African and African American literature thanks to the mentorship of Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. “I owe this place quite a lot,” he said, reflecting on the encouragement he received to pursue academia. “I feel indebted.”
    Kerry James Marshall, Henry Louis Gates Jr (2020). Photo courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
    Nearly 50 years later, in 2020, the university offered Gates an honorary degree. The scholar offered to commission his own portrait for the college’s graduate common room, calling up his friend Marshall for a favor. Despite never having worked on a formal portrait, he “agreed right away,” and the painting was swiftly allocated to the Fitzwilliam instead. “Once they realized this was a Kerry James Marshall work of art, it could not be in a common room with a bunch of students spilling beer all over it,” joked Gates.
    “It was a no brainer. This was not something you could say no to,” said Marshall. “Skip Gates is the W.E.B. DuBois of my generation. These are the people who made being a public intellectual something achievable.”
    The sensitive portrayal of Gates shows him seated in an office, turning away from a pile of his own books to face the viewer. “I was interested in painting a picture that had a certain presence that gave Skip the authority he deserved for the stature he has achieved,” said Marshall.
    And what of Marshall’s precedent for avoiding portraiture? “Of course, it’s not because I can’t,” he said. “I’ve been invested in making art that is based on ideas, art as a philosophical pursuit. And I make images of people who have a presence in history of which there are no images.”
    “The reason I paint figures black is because the Black figure operates as a rhetorical figure,” said Marshall, referring to the unmixed, unadulterated shades of black that he uses for skin tones. “It’s always been stated that black is not a color and you should never use the black that comes out of a tube, but those blacks have a chromatic reality too,” he explained. “My mission was to make those black figures become as chromatic as every other color in the painting. Black is being treated as if it’s a complex color too.”
    The shift to portraiture required a slightly different approach. “When it comes to making a painting of Skip, he did ask me, ‘what color am I gonna be?’” recalled Marshall with a laugh, to which Gates exclaimed, “I wanted to be black!”
    “I didn’t do that, because to change people… to misrepresent somebody as a color they are not, is akin to blackface,” said Marshall, adding that he decided to make the portrait more true-to-life with naturalistic skin tones.
    The pair also used the painting as a starting point to talk more generally about how race relations have changed in the U.S. over the course of their lifetimes. Gates spoke out against the Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 vote to reverse affirmative action, which was introduced in the 1960s. “I wouldn’t have gotten in to Yale without affirmative action,” he said. “The class of 1966 had six Black men graduating, the class that entered Yale with me in 1969 had 96 Black students, and we went on to integrate the power elite. Since 1970, the Black middle class has doubled.”
    “The right is trying to end all that,” Gates added. “They’re saying, I don’t know how Kerry James Marshall is in the Met, and now the Fitzwilliam, but that’s over. They are in panic because they saw too much power, too quickly for Black people and they’re trying to roll back the clock.”
    “All these things are possible,” said Marshall. “They were possible for [Gates], they’ve been possible for me. I don’t see how they are not possible for anybody who doesn’t take the opportunity and do the work that’s required. That’s how I see the world,” he added. “And in terms of progress that needs to be made, because of the position I have now, I’ve been able to dramatically change the lives of a lot of people. That’s all I can do so that’s where I focus my attention.”

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    At the Musée d’Orsay’s High-Tech New Van Gogh Show, an A.I. Version of the Artist Will Answer Visitors’ Questions

    The pandemic-induced craze for “immersive Van Gogh” experiences has waned, forcing one leading provider to file for bankruptcy earlier this year. Now, for its new exhibition dedicated to the beloved Post-Impressionist, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris is trying out an even more high-tech approach—involving virtual reality, A.I., and NFTs—to try and reignite some of that same enthusiasm.
    The show, “Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise: The Final Months,” which opens today and runs through February 4, 2024, will feature some 40 works produced during the last two months of the painter’s life, in 1890, shortly after his year-long stint at the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy. During this time, Van Gogh made more than 74 paintings, some of which are among his most renowned.
    Toward the end of the traditional exhibition, the power of A.I. allows visitors to interact with Van Gogh, whose digital manifestation appears via video screen and takes questions from his audience in French. The artist’s insights are gathered from the many letters he wrote in his lifetime, which were used as input data to inform his A.I. reincarnation. It appears that no subjects are off limits, including Van Gogh’s mental health struggles and his decision to cut off part of his left ear, about which various news reports suggest he has received an exhausting number of inquiries.
    “While I did face mental health struggles, my move to Auvers-sur Oise was not motivated by a desire to end my life,” he at one point reassured visitors, according to AFP. He also declared on no uncertain terms that his favorite color is yellow.
    Still from Le Palette de Van Gogh. Image: © Lucid Realities – TSVP – Musée d_Orsay – VIVE Arts.
    Elsewhere, visitors are invited to explore “La Palette de Van Gogh (Van Gogh’s Palette),” the museum’s first V.R. offering. The exhibit plays to Van Gogh’s legacy as one of art history’s most vibrant colorists by using his final palette from his time living in Auvers as a portal to transport visitors out of the gallery and into a palette-inspired landscape, developed thanks to ultra-high-resolution scans of the object’s surface. Traversing the painterly daubs of color that remain stuck to the board over 130 years since Van Gogh’s death, visitors are shown how these vivid hues match up to those present in some of the artist’s masterpieces. In more surreal scenes, isolated brushstrokes leap from the palette and flutter through the air like confetti or a flock of tiny birds before landing on a canvas in perfect formation to make a finished painting.
    “Artist tools can often fall to the wayside of art historical discourse but have the capacity to offer a rich insight into the artist’s work and process,” said Celina Yeh, executive director of VIVE Arts, which produced the V.R. experience, in an email. “A high-resolution scan of the palette forms the basis of an imagined virtual landscape inspired by the painter’s world and use of colour, allowing visitors to have a uniquely interactive and sensory experience of the artist’s major works from this period.”
    Still from Le Palette de Van Gogh. Image: © Lucid Realities – TSVP – Musée d_Orsay – VIVE Arts.
    The journey through Van Gogh’s unique visual language is narrated by Marguerite, a daughter of Van Gogh’s homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet, who Van Gogh painted twice in 1890. The Gachets’ sitting room, where Marguerite posed, has been recreated for the V.R. experience with the help of Van Gogh expert Wouter van der Veen. Though she was just 19 when they met, Marguerite had the foresight to hold onto Van Gogh’s last palette, which she donated to the French state in 1951 before it was given to the Musée d’Orsay.
    “The imagined perspective of Marguerite Gachet, further invites the viewer to consider what Van Gogh’s life would have been like in his final days, the places and people he would have encountered and that feature in some of these paintings,” according to Yeh. VIVE Arts made the experience in collaboration with the Paris-based production companies Lucid Realities and Tournez s’il vous plaît. An extended version with a wider range of works by Van Gogh is being prepared for global release in 2024.
    Despite the complete nosedive of interest in NFTs, the museum will also be offering collectibles made by digital artists who have been inspired by the show as part of its first foray into Web3. This endeavor launches a year-long partnership with the Tezos Foundation.
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    Pokémon Gogh: What the Viral Mash-Up Between a Museum and a Japanese Brand Reveals About Their Shared Priorities

    On Saturday morning at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, a healthy throng gathered as is usual in front of the post-Impressionist master’s famous Sunflowers. A decent measure of shoulder-bumping was needed to catch a glimpse of The Potato Eaters. But the biggest crowd at the world-famous museum, by far, was the one that had formed an orderly queue outside the gift shop before 10.30 a.m.
    This behaviour was, if nothing else, a marked improvement on what was seen in viral video footage of the frenzy on opening day of the institution’s much-hyped “Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum” exhibition. The collaboration was announced earlier this month with the kind of high-budget trailer Nintendo would use to launch a new video game.
    You might have seen the footage of museum visitors picking clean the gift shop of its Pokémon merchandise in a manner reminiscent of a Black Friday Walmart stampede. Shoppers were clamoring for a number of limited edition t-shirts, postcards, tote bags and teddy bears mashing up the beloved pocket monsters with the famous Dutch painter’s works. What you might have missed, however, is that “Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum”—the show serving as the propulsion mechanism for all this hype—is tiny.
    “Pokémon at the Van Gogh Museum” the Van Gogh Museum. Photo courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
    I did not have a measuring tape handy, but it’s likely that Pokémon takes up far more real estate in the gift shop than its exhibit takes up floor space in the gallery itself.
    Running until January, the exhibit amounts to six paintings adhered to a temporary wall in the foyer of the museum’s first floor. Each follow the same formula, inserting Pokémon from the eponymous cartoon, card and video game sensation, into the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.
    While it is the commercial element of this partnership that has so far caught the most attention, it would be unfair to dismiss the fruits of the exhibit out of hand. This was not entirely produced by some marketing machine. Artists have put their name to the works on view.
    Naoyo Kimura, who has been an illustrator for the Pokémon Trading Card Game since 2001, composed a Pikachu inspired by Van Gogh’s Self Portrait with Grey Felt Hat. Sowsow (styled sowsow), Pokémon card illustrator since 2018, is responsible for Eevee taking Van Gogh’s place in the straw hat, but more notably, the appearance of Snorlax on the bed in Van Gogh’s The Bedroom. The results are charming and certainly worth a chuckle, though no critic would ever claim that this is intended as a serious reinterpretation of Van Gogh’s work.
    Sowsow, Munchlax & Snorlax inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s The Bedroom (1888). Courtesy of the Pokémon Company International, ©2023 Pokémon/ Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak.
    So, why is the Van Gogh Museum learning into all of this? Van Gogh rarely painted animals, especially not in the kind of close focus on display here.
    Instead, the museum found—or shoe-horned—its justification for the display within Van Gogh’s own correspondence. A quote, taken from a letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, is emblazoned above the works and reads: “We wouldn’t be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful.” The display goes on to note that Van Gogh was himself a collector of Japanese prints, and was likely inspired by Japanese art.
    It’s not the most tenuous connection, but neither is it an especially high-minded point on which to hinge such a venture. Perhaps for this reason it feels like these six paintings offer little analysis of Van Gogh’s own work, little thought as to where any overlap in style might lie, and a little too obvious a focus on the marketing slam dunk that is giving Pikachu a little hat. Indeed, it seems possible that the idea arose because Van Gogh painted sunflowers, and there is a Pokémon—named Sunflora—who is literally a sunflower.
    Tomokazu Komiya, Sunflora inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1889). Courtesy of the Pokémon Company International, ©2023 Pokémon/ Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak.
    The pocket-sized exhibition is also rather jarring in the context of the rest of the museum. As you travel upwards through the permanent collection, you’ll soon be reading the details of the troubled painter’s death via a self-inflicted gunshot wound and the deterioration of Theo Van Gogh’s health in the aftermath of his beloved brother’s demise. If you are a fully grown adult with the mind to comprehend such things, it’s hard to think of the how and where and why Pokémon fit into this narrative.
    Will the exhibit increase the Van Gogh Museum’s reach, and global appreciation of his work? It’s possible. It’s possible that by engaging with the rest of the museum through the Pokémon workbook that children might develop a nascent appreciation of Van Gogh’s work, though it would be misleading to suggest that children are anything but a small minority of those who have forked over the $21 admission fee.
    But whatever the artistic or narrative merit of inserting Pokémon into the work of Van Gogh, the presumably commercial motivation for the collaboration has borne immediate fruit.
    Photo by Carl Kinsella.
    Days after opening, punters remain gathered at the bottom of the museum’s exit steps, proffering fistfuls of cash to those prepared to part with their trading cards bearing the visage of a post-impressionist Pikachu in a little felt hat (which visitors can claim by filling out an activity booklet clearly designed for small children). Someone tried to buy mine for €50 (I instinctively said no and later questioned my judgement).
    Ebay is now flooded with the cards, with some selling for as much as $2,439. By erecting this small temporary wall in the lobby of their first floor, the Van Gogh Museum has provided the brushstrokes for a scalper’s very own Starry Night.
    Those who remember the advent of the trading card game in the late nineties and early aughts will remember the seemingly-childlike aspiration that the cards would be worth a fortune some day. Today, Pokémon materials have been known to fetch enormous prices at auction. An unopened first-edition set of 11 Pokémon booster packs, originally priced at around $10 per pack in 1999, sold for $408,000 at Heritage Auctions in 2021.
    Meanwhile, the highest price ever fetched for a Van Gogh painting at auction stands at $117 million, achieved in 2022 and very likely a decided mark up on what was originally paid for the work. With that in mind, it’s hard not to see the true reason why the remix of the two cultural phenomena has so readily captured the public imagination.
    While the art itself leaves much to be desired, the exhibit succeeds in tilling the common ground so important to both Pokémon and the art world at large: the creation of rarity, and the mechanisms to convert that rarity into cold hard cash.
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    Mural for Amnesty International by Mahn Kloix in Paris, France

    Art to celebrate the courage of human rights defendersIn the 12th arrondissement of Paris, a wall is now dedicated to the defense of human rights. The fresco, created by Marseille street artist Mahn Kloix, celebrates through six portraits the courage of human rights defenders who fight every day around the world for our fundamental rights.It is a long wall, 20 meters long and 5 meters high, on which six portraits burst out like screams. A few thin lines of white sharp on a dark wall and faces supported or constrained by friendly or hostile hands. One adjusts a veil on the head of lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. The other is placed on Doctor Mukwege’s shoulder. Still others hide their eyes, obstruct a mouth, support a face, a neck. Hands as signs of solidarity or oppression towards the courageous human rights defenders celebrated by this wall, the first dedicated to human rights in the capital. A symbolic space made available by Paris City Hall to celebrate freedoms, promote fundamental rights and fight against all discrimination.Discover the stories of the six human rights defenders they have chosen to highlight :Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian figure in the defense of human rightsA prominent lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh has become an emblematic figure in the defense of human rights in Iran. Known for her long-term fight against the death penalty, she has also distinguished herself in recent years for having defended women who defy discriminatory laws imposing the compulsory wearing of the veil in her country. Because of her human rights work, which has lasted for more than ten years, she has been persecuted by the Iranian authorities. In 2012, she received the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament. In 2019, she was sentenced to 148 lashes and 38 years in prison. She is currently still detained in Evin prison in Tehran and continues to risk her life to defend the lives of others.Doctor Mukwege, the man who repairs womenNobel Peace Prize winner in 2018, Doctor Mukwege is internationally known as the man who “repairs” women. During the twenty years of conflict that shook the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of women were raped. Faced with these atrocities, Dr. Mukwege leads an incessant fight. Her fight: operate on these women whose bodies have been mutilated and denounce the impunity enjoyed by the guilty. Through his care and compassion, thousands of victims of rape and other sexual violence have been able to overcome their physical injuries.Despite an assassination attempt, death threats and attacks against his family, this exceptionally courageous doctor continues to campaign against sexual violence committed during conflicts. Although he travels all over the world to share his testimony, he now lives cloistered in his country, in the Bukavu hospital where he works, under the protection of the peacekeepers of the United Nations mission. But he is no longer alone in his struggle. Women, whose physical integrity he restored and helped to regain their dignity, are now fighting alongside him.Chelsea Maning, US Army whistleblowerChelsea Manning was a member of the United States Army. She was working as a military intelligence analyst when, witnessing human rights violations, she decided to leak thousands (700,000!) of confidential army documents that pointed to possible war crimes committed by the US military, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. For this courageous act, she was arrested in June 2010 and then placed in detention. In 2013, she was tried by a United States court martial and sentenced to 35 years in prison. After seven years in prison, the former WikiLeaks informant was finally released in May 2017, before being imprisoned again in March 2019. The reason: she refused to testify about Julian Assange before a grand jury. On March 11, 2020, two days before a hearing which was to rule on her refusal, she again attempted suicide in prison. A judge finally ordered his release the next day.Malala Yousafzai, incredible courage in the face of the TalibanMalala Yousafzai embodies the fight of millions of children and girls: that of the right to education. When she was only 11 years old, young Malala began writing a blog under the pseudonym “Gul Makai” for the BBC. She tells from her point of view as a little girl about daily life under the rule of the Taliban in Pakistan. In October 2012, the Taliban attacked his school bus and shot him in the head. This attack sparked a wave of international indignation. Seriously injured, she was transferred to the United Kingdom for treatment.Malala is an example of incredible courage. In 2013, she received the highest distinction granted by Amnesty International, the Ambassador of Conscience award.So here I am… one girl among others. I speak — not for me, but for all girls and boys. I raise my voice – not so that I can shout, but so that those who have no voice can be heard. Those who fought for their rights: Their right to live in peace. Their right to be treated with dignity. Their right to equal opportunities. Their right to education.Malala Yousafzai, at the United Nations General Assembly, July 12, 2013In 2014, at just 17 years old, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the youngest winner in the history of this prize.Malala is still a refugee in the United Kingdom today and continues her fight for the education of children around the world.Greta Thunberg, Fridays for FutureIn 2018, the world heard about Greta Thunberg for the first time. A Swedish teenager who decided to skip school every Friday to protest in front of the Swedish Parliament until it takes strong measures to fight climate change. Since then, his initiative, which aims to raise awareness of the climate crisis, has spread like wildfire across the world. With her, millions of young people around the world took part in the “Fridays for Future” school strike days. Protests took place in more than 100 countries, including Australia, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, the Philippines and Uganda.Acting according to your conscience means fighting for what you believe is right.On several occasions, her activism led to her being arrested: in Germany during an anti-coal demonstration, in Norway during a demonstration with the indigenous Sami people for the demolition of wind turbines declared illegal because they encroached on reindeer pastures; etc. In 2019, the climate change activist received the 2019 Ambassador of Conscience Award, the most prestigious award given by Amnesty International to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and courage in defending human rights .Angela Davis, icon of the feminist and anti-racist movementsAngela Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Coming from an African-American family, she experienced racism and the system of racial segregation very early on. With her parents, she discovers the horror of slavery that marked her family. In the predominantly white neighborhood where her family settles, she discovers the horror of the Klu Klux Klan. Very early on, his political consciousness was formed. Very quickly, her destiny took shape: she would become a figure of feminism and anti-racism.The battles of his life are multiple: against the prison system, police brutality, the death penalty and all forms of oppression. Icon of Black Power, she became a Marxist activist in post-Cold War anti-communist America, but also a symbol of the fight for the release of political prisoners. As a result of her activities, Angela finds herself on the FBI’s wanted list. In the 1970s, when she was arrested and thrown in prison, public opinion sided with her and a “Free Angela Davis” support committee was created. Many personalities showed their support: from the Rolling Stones, who dedicated the song Sweet Black Angel to him, to John Lennon and Yoko Ono who sang Angela. Around the world, protests are taking place to demand his release. She was finally released in 1972, free of all charges.Throughout her life, Angela Davis also fought for the rights of women, particularly black women. For her, feminism is intrinsically linked to racism, and some people find themselves at the crossroads of oppressions. Black women must therefore fight simultaneously against sexism and racism. This is what we call the intersectionality of struggles.Even today, at a time when America continues to face police violence and Black Lives Matter, it continues to fight for minorities and against all forms of oppression. More

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    New work by WRDSMTH in Chicago, USA

    Street artist WRDSMTH has recently entered into an exciting partnership with the newly launched luxury cannabis edibles brand, The Bettering Company (TBCo.).WRDSMTH, renowned for his ability to inspire and motivate through his art, finds a kindred spirit in The Bettering Company. Both entities share a common mission deeply rooted in driving positive change and fostering improvement. This partnership serves as a promising beginning to a series of collaborations with artists, signifying an ongoing initiative that aims to merge art and cannabis in unique and impactful ways. Together, WRDSMTH and The Bettering Company are poised to create a space where creativity and luxury converge, delivering experiences that transcend traditional boundaries.TBCo. has made a noteworthy entrance into the market as a premium cannabis brand, offering a meticulously curated selection of edibles infused with real fruits, herbs, teas, spices, and jams. These gourmet creations are crafted by skilled chefs and consistently maintain their vegan and gluten-free qualities, catering to consumers who value the thoughtful artistry behind their consumption.Take a look below for more photos of WRDSMTH’s latest project. More

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    Artist Interview: Shepard Fairey

    Shepard Fairey: I’m Shepard and I’m an artist, and an activist best known I guess for my Obey Street Art and Clothing line, and of course the “Hope” Obama poster that I made as a grassroots tool to aid the Obama’s campaign. Or maybe the, “We the People” posters that I created for the Women’s March on Washington.Matthew A. Eller: Perfect, and can you tell me a little about this beautiful Blondie Print you are currently signing?Shepard Fairey: Well I have worked with Lisa Project on a few different projects over the years including in 2016 painting this Blondie mural depicted in this print. So when the opportunity came up to paint this image on a wall at Bleeker and Bowery, right across from where CBGB’s used to be, I couldn’t turn it down. I absolutely loved the idea because my first solo art show in New York in 1998 was at the CBGB’s Gallery, plus I love all the music that came out of CBGB’s like The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Bad Brains played there a lot, and of course Blondie.Additionally, in 2016 I worked on Blondies album package for their “Pollinator” album, and the flower and the bee at the top right corner of the mural is from that album art. I was extremely excited to do something that tied in with a band like Blondie that I loved historically, but who I had also worked with recently. So this print is based on the mural that I previously painted across from CGBG’s, which is now coming down and I’m replacing it with a new mural of the one and only Bad Brains. It’s just great that this mural is now being memorialized with this really beautiful large format screen print by Gary Liechtenstein with the proceeds helping the LISA Project fund future murals and events. And just in time because as of this morning it’s just a yellow wall. We already started on prepping for Bad Brains!Matthew A. Eller: How is this new Bad Brains mural going to be different then the old Blondie one?@obeygiant, @glenefriedmanShepard Fairey: So this Bad Brains mural is basically an update to the first Bad Brains collaboration I did in 2008. In that image three out of the four photos were based on pictures taken at CBGB’s. Only the HR image in that 2008 collaboration was photographed at the Whiskey in LA. So to keep it geographically relevant, I talked to Glenn (Friedman) and said, “You know, why don’t we re-illustrate HR? But Glenn was so partial to his shot of HR that I ended up re-illustrating two of them. So this will be something special when it’s finished that people haven’t seen exactly before, but it’s definitely reminiscent of the 2008 piece.Matthew A. Eller: Were Bad Brains your first choice for the mural?Shepard Fairey: Well, my first choice after Blondie , but I also love, the Talking Heads, I love Richard Hell and the Voidoids who were all in the running, but I think that having an opportunity to remind people that Bad Brains are the first all black hardcore band (honorable mention off course to A Band Called Death the first all black punk band). And even though they’re from DC originally, that first album cover with the Capital being struck by Lightning was recorded on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and they played CBGB’s all the time. So they are as important as anybody who was part of that history of the first wave of New York punk. They were a very crucial band. They heavily influenced that next wave of New York hardcore bands like the Cro-Mags, and Agnostic Front to name just a few. All of those bands were massive fans of Bad Brains. So I feel honored to get to paint a mural to represent that era.Matthew A. Eller: I know that skateboarding culture and Punk Rock has been a huge influence on your work. For this new Bad Brains mural you used Glen E. Friedman’s Bad Brains photos as we just discussed a bit, and he got his start as a photographer for Thrasher and later captured every punk band and hip-hop artist you can imagine. Can you talk a bit about this fusion of skateboarding culture and your art?Shepard Fairey: I grew up in South Carolina and skateboarding was my gateway to creatively as well as my social life. Skateboarding was rebellious, it was creative, just like street art. Street art was re-enacting things on landscapes that weren’t supposed to be written on. But punk was just as in your face if not even more outspoken. It was political and I became very interested in it especially later when I started doing my street work, I was massively influenced to say the least. I already at this point in my life was skateboarding, making t-shirts, stickers, skate zines, and putting up flyers with glue. So I thought, well I wanna do work on the street… but I want to do it with techniques that I already have been using and refining. So pasting up posters seemed to fit the best.Matthew A. Eller: There also seems to be a common thread between the two because skateboarding and street art both involve objects that you need to destroy to create something new. More