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    in Exhibitions

    A Once-in-a-Generation Cezanne Show Asks Us to Look Through the Artist’s Eyes: Slowly, Deliberately, and at Every Brushstroke

    “Why Cezanne? Why today?” 
    These were the questions the curators of a new, once-in-a-generation retrospective of the French painter at the Art Institute of Chicago asked themselves as they went to work a few years back. When it comes to Cezanne, who, perhaps more than any other artist, laid the groundwork for the 20th-century avant-garde, how do you say something new—and how do you say it in a way that can be understood by someone who’s never picked up a brush? 
    The curators, Gloria Groom and Caitlin Haskell, decided to look closely at Cezanne’s canvases for their answers—examining, through advanced imaging techniques, how the artist confronted his own questions about the urgency of painting through every brush stroke he ever made.
    What they found was that we can all still learn something about the medium by doing the same thing.
    Paul Cezanne, Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) (c. 1894–1905). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
    On view in the Art Institute’s show, simply titled “Cezanne,” are 80 oils, 40 watercolors, and drawings, and two of full sketchbooks. Included are some of the artist’s greatest hits, such as The Bather (1885) and The Basket of Apples (c. 1893).
    With loans from five different continents—including pieces once owned by Matisse, Picasso, and other contemporaries who considered themselves among Cezanne’s biggest fans—it’s the largest retrospective dedicated to the artist in more than a quarter-century. (After its run in Chicago, the exhibition will travel to the Tate Modern this October.) 
    The show, Groom explained, asks its visitors to slow down and adopt a discipline and deliberateness like Cezanne himself brought to his work. “He really is an artist who worked very slowly, came back to it very thoughtfully. That’s why Impressionism was not for him.” 
    Paul Cezanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine (c. 1887). © Courtauld Gallery / Bridgeman Images.
    You may also notice, at this point in the article, that I’ve elided the accent over the “e” typically found in Cézanne’s name. So does the exhibition. That’s the way the artist wrote it, the curators explained, and so it’s the version they adopted for the show’s title, catalogue, and wall texts as well. It may seem like a semantic change, but it symbolizes something more: the organizer’s dogmatic dedication to Cezanne’s own vision. 
    You’ll find subtle examples of that commitment elsewhere in the show, too. For instance, Groom and Haskell worked with conservators to remove all traces of synthetic varnish from the eight oil paintings owned by the Art Institute, which had been applied in years past, leaving their respective surfaces bare—another preference of Cezanne’s. 
    That same group of paintings were put through a “whole battery of imaging techniques,” including x-ray infrared analyses, Haskell said, as she and her partner looked to Cezanne’s meticulous techniques for their own curatorial cues. “When you do that and you start thinking about painting really on the level of the mark, what you begin to have is a type of painting that is pretty honest about the way it’s constructed—and gets you thinking about the way it’s constructed,” Haskell added.
    Paul Cezanne, The Basket of Apples (c. 1893). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
    Fruit-filled still-lifes, sun-baked landscapes, bathers beset by verdant flora: Cezanne revisited the same subjects over and over again. In a show like the one on view in Chicago, the repetition can make his artworks feel like studies—the efforts of a painter perfecting his craft before applying it to more sophisticated scenes. And in a way, that’s true: Cezanne never stopped honing his technique. 
    But with that repetition, the show reveals something else too. 
    “What you start to see over the course of the exhibition is an artist who is trying to figure how to make a painting for himself and who is doing that by constructing his work sensation by sensation,” said Haskell.
    “He’s trying for something quite different,” Groom added, “trying to express how he feels in a stroke that will communicate to us a feeling of emotion. It’s hard to express, like anything that has to do with intangibles and art.”
    “That was a liberating thing for artists,” he concluded. “We as a public have to work a little harder to fully appreciate what he’s doing.” 
    “Cezanne” is on view now through September 5, 2022, at the Art Institute of Chicago.
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    in Exhibitions

    African Nations Are More Present at the Venice Biennale Than Ever—But Not Always on Their Own Terms

    One week before the 59th Venice Biennale was due to open this spring, Jimmy Ogonga, the curator of the Kenya Pavilion, still hadn’t received funding from Kenya’s ministry of culture.
    It was the second time Ogonga had staged a pavilion for his home country, taking over after two scandalous editions in 2013 and 2015 in which Kenyan artists were all but left out. Ogonga was determined to correct the record and present an exhibition showcasing work by Kenyan artists that spoke directly to the socio-cultural and political issues they face.
    “It is the Olympics of the art world,” Ogonga told Artnet News. “A country like ours plays a big role in the Olympics. We have some of the most amazing runners in the world. When we go to Venice, we don’t need to break records or win the Golden Lion, but we need to be there so we can be present with the rest.”
    Though African countries have been increasingly visible in Venice in recent years, several national pavilions have been beset by lack of funding and local criticism of curatorial choices.
    Over the past decade, prices for modern and contemporary art from the African continent have skyrocketed, making the category one of the fastest growing in the market. One could say there has been an African art Renaissance of sorts—but why has this not been felt with the same force at the Venice Biennale?
    “So far, Africa’s representation on a national level in Venice has been a mess,” Cameroonian curator Simon Njami told Artnet News. “The nations have not understood that art can be a soft and efficient political tool.”
    Artist Kaloki Nyama with his work at the Kenyan Pavilion,, “Exercises in Conversation,” at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia.
    The Case of Kenya
    Ogonga said this year’s pavilion, which included artists Dickens Otieno, Wanja Kimani, and Kaloki Nyamai, has been the nation’s most successful to date. “The Kenyan art scene has worked with its government in a mutual and non-combative way,” he said.
    During Kenya’s debut in 2013 and then in 2015, a couple of Italian curators presented exhibitions dominated by Chinese and Italian artists. After its second showing in 2015, several prominent Kenyan artists protested, demanding that the government provide them proper representation in Venice. It worked—and the exhibition was publicly disowned by the Kenyan government. In 2016, Ogonga was appointed to set in place a roadmap for how to present Kenya and its artists in Venice.
    “There was a complete lack of synchronicity between what was shown in Venice and what the art scene in Nairobi was trying to do,” Ogonga said. He added that the history of the art scene in Kenya has been riddled with problems, including how its artists are treated and represented internationally. Part of the issue stems from a lack of art infrastructure, an issue shared by many other nations around the globe: Kenya has no national arts council, no national gallery, and poorly funded art schools.
    This is what often leads to foreign players taking over national pavilions on their behalf, Ogonga said. He noted that while outside proposals may sound legitimate at first, they have, in some instances, turned out to be “self-serving” initiatives.
    Ghana Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice Biennale 2022. Photo: David Levene.
    Beset by Challenges
    All told, this year, only nine African nations—Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, South Africa, Namibia, Uganda, and Egypt—were present at the Venice Biennale. While the number is certainly an increase from previous years, it is by no means representative of the breadth and diversity of 54 countries’ artistic cultures.
    It is even less representative when the art of those few African nations present has been metaphorically hijacked by foreigners using national pavilions in Venice for their own gain, as some nations, like Kenya, have claimed.
    A related discussion surrounded Namibia’s inaugural pavilion this year. Italian Marco Furio Ferrario curated his first-ever art show with the work of a white Namibian man born in Johannesburg, South Africa; the selection prompted outrage from the Namibian and international art communities.
    Cameroon, which also made its debut this year in Venice, saw its pavilion co-curated by Sandro Orlandi Stagl, who was behind Kenya’s embattled 2015 presentation. The project has two locations: one, an NFT exhibition organized by Global Crypto Art DAO, features the work of 20 artists—not one is Cameroonian. The second presents work by four Cameroonian artists and four international artists.
    Meanwhile, Ghana, which made a splash at its debut in 2019, had no government funding this year, meaning that its curator, Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, had to procure the funds herself.
    Challenges persisted when this year’s Egyptian pavilion curiously remained closed during the Biennale’s opening days. It presented an installation of giant pink balloons and digital works called “an artificial intelligence media installation” by Egyptian artists Mohamed Shoukry, Weaam El Masry, and Ahmed El Shaer. A prominent member of the Egyptian art scene said the closure was due to “technical difficulties,” but Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr, who represented Egypt at Venice Biennale in 2017, told Artnet News that when he showed five years ago, the ministry had not allocated a budget to pay docents to man the pavilion. 
    “I think Egypt should stop participating in the Biennale for a while until we renew the interior of the art scene inside the country,” Nasr told Artnet News.
    Angéle Etoundi Essamba at the Pavilion of Cameroon “Il tempo delle Chimere/The Time of the Chimeras.” Photo: Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia.
    Returns on Investment
    While some could criticize the Biennale itself for not having a more thorough screening process, African ministries of culture also have a role to play in ensuring their country is properly represented (they must, after all, ratify their own national pavilions). Most states do not invest enough in art and when nations refuse to get involved, the private sector takes over. 
    “The investment needed to stage a national pavilion is huge and many of these countries need to invest first and foremost in public art engagement and support at home,” Hannah O’Leary, head of modern and contemporary African art at Sotheby’s, told Artnet News. She noted that the art market must be included in these considerations. “Very few artists from Africa are represented by blue-chip galleries who can provide them major financial and marketing support to participate in the Venice Biennale, safe in the knowledge that significant sales will follow at Art Basel and beyond.”
    O’Leary further noted that, while we are seeing a marked improvement in the market for art from Africa over the past decade, “the fact remains that the vast majority of artists and galleries based in Africa sell at price points that do not justify that sort of investment.”
    African curators like Simon Njami believe the solution lies in nations believing in the power and need for a national art program. “As long as African nations don’t have a consciousness of the importance of the Venice Biennale, then Africa won’t be well represented,” he said, adding that it costs around $300,000 to $500,000 to participate. “What does that represent in the national budget of a state, even the poorest? Peanuts. We need to build the infrastructure and the dialogue at home.”
    The Egypt pavilion, represented by the artists Islam Abdullah, Ahmed Chiha, Ahmed Abdel Karim, during press previews for the 58th International Art Biennale on May 08, 2019 in Venice, Italy. Photo: Stefano Mazzola/Awakening/Getty Images.
    A Brief History of Africa in Venice
    The issues that have come up in recent years are not new. Though Africa has actually been present at the Biennale since the 1920s, the show has never reflected the full diversity and strength of the continent’s cultural production—especially in the years before and just after decolonization began. An exception was Egypt, which in 1952 established the first permanent—and to this day, only—African pavilion in the Giardini. South Africa debuted at the Venice Biennale in 1950, participating during the following two decades until anti-apartheid protests led to its exclusion.
    During the 1960s and ’70s, the issue of independence was often the main preoccupation of African countries and their artists, so it is not entirely surprising that they rarely appeared in international art events until the 1980s. Over the years, Africa’s lack of national pavilions was partially made up for by collateral projects: In 1999, the creation of the African Art in Venice Forum led to the implementation of an exhibition program devoted to contemporary African art.
    In 2007, Robert Storr, curator of that year’s biennale, proposed that an African pavilion be created. His idea sparked outrage—how could an entire continent be represented by a single pavilion? The late Congolese collector Sindika Dokolo took up the idea and funded the project, yet the pavilion remained controversial as it largely presented his personal holdings. 
    Some years later, a big win came when, in 2013, Angola’s debut participation garnered it the prestigious Golden Lion Award for best national pavilion. Other participating African nations across Venice—which at the time included South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast and Kenya—celebrated in unison.
    Installation view, “Radiance – They Dream in Time,” 2022 Uganda Pavilion. Photo: Francesco Allegretto
    The Victories
    This year’s biennale marked successes for Africa, too. Uganda’s debut, a sleekly curated show by Shaheen Merali, featured Ugandan multidisciplinary performance and installation artist Acaye Kerunen and painter Collin Sekajugo. It was awarded a special mention for the Golden Lion.
    “The Milk of Dreams,” the Venice Biennale’s central exhibition, also offered a strong showing of artists from the continent. Of the 213 artists from 58 countries invited by Cecilia Alemani, 12 represent the African continent. Notable were the dreamy large-than-life paintings of Zimbabwean Portia Zvavahera, which pair her emotional life with the spiritualism of indigenous Zimbabwean and Apostolic Pentecostalist beliefs of her upbringing. Ethiopian Elias Sime presented vibrant abstractions made from fragments of computer wire and electrical debris.
    “It has been very important throughout the process of organizing this exhibition to meet artists and cultural practitioners from the African continent,” Alemani, who did much of her research and studio visits remotely, told Artnet News. She worked with three advisors from Africa—Nontobeko Ntombela, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh, and Marie Hélène Pereira—who helped research and recommend artists. Alemani said she was particularly pleased to showcase work by three emerging talents from Southern Africa—Igshaan Adams and Bronwyn Katz from South Africa and Zvavahera from Zimbabwe.
    Some, however, believe Biennale organizers and curators in general need to invest more in discovering global art scenes, including that of Africa, to bring more balanced representation to these international events.
    “In this edition in particular, it is more than manifest that virtually every African artist included had been exhibited at Frieze London and or at Art Basel in the previous year, and less than half of those African-born artists in the exhibition live and work on the continent,” Valerie Kabokov, director of First Floor Gallery Harare, in Zimbabwe, told Artnet News. “If Venice is to be a genuine pulse-taking of contemporary art around the world, something has to change.”
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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: See Gilded Manuscripts That Span 1,500 Years in a New London Exhibition About Gold and the Written Word

    Whoever said you can’t judge a book by its cover never had the experience of beholding a truly illuminated manuscript, adorned with (no small amount) of solid gold. A new exhibition at the British Library in London—titled, simply, “Gold”—brings together a selection of 50 gilded books, scrolls, and documents drawn from 20 countries and spanning 1,500 years.
    The objects on display literally radiate, and beyond being important texts—both religious and political treatises are on display—they are awe-inspiring in and of themselves. Even the word for the art of writing in gold, “chrysography,” sounds like an incantation.
    The variation in size and technique is also impressive, ranging from a narrow strip of solid gold measuring more than 6.5 feet long inscribed with a treaty between the Zamorin of Calicut and the Dutch dating to the 17th century. It is only on close inspection that you can actually make out the script, written in the Dravidian language of Malayalam—but there it is, etched in solid gold.
    There is also a 13th century Quran bound in deep red leather with the earliest known example of gold tooling, and the Queen Mary Psalter from the 14th century, one of the most extensively illustrated and gold-detailed biblical manuscripts of all time.
    “For centuries, gold has been fundamental to makers across the world for embellishing the written word,” the show’s co-curator Eleanor Jackson said in a statement. “Many of these objects were originally owned by royalty, and they would have been seen by only a select few. We are so pleased to be able to bring them together on public display for everyone to enjoy.”
    Below, see more objects from “Gold: Spectacular Manuscripts from Around the World” on view at the British Library through October 2, 2022. 
    Treaty between Calicut and the Dutch inscribed in Malayalam on a strip of gold over two metres long, India, (1691). Courtesy of the British Library.
    The Harley Golden Gospels, Carolingian Empire, (ca. 800). Courtesy of the British Library.
    The Golden Haggadah, Northern Spain, (ca. 1320). Courtesy of the British Library.
    A rare copy of the Lotus Sutra in a lavishly decorated scroll with gold and silver ink, Japan (ca. 1636). Courtesy of the British Library.
    Charter and Gold seal of Emperor Baldwin II, Netherlands, (1269). Courtesy of the British Library.
    Quran containing the earliest known example of gold tooling on a leather binding, Morocco, (1256). Courtesy of the British Library.
    A tiny octagonal Quran from Persia bound with gold and contained in a jade case, 1(6th or 17th century). Courtesy of the British Library.
    The Queen Mary Psalter, London, (early 14th century). Courtesy of the British Library.
    Kinzan emaki illustrated scroll of gold mines, Japan, (ca. 1810-1820). Courtesy of the British Library.
    Gold seal of Emperor Baldwin II Netherlands (1269). Courtesy of the British Library.
    Illuminated tughra or name of the Ottoman sultan at the top of a land grant, Romania (1628). Courtesy of the British Library.
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    In Pictures: Anselm Kiefer Marks Venice’s 1,600th Anniversary With a Startling Vision of Ice and Fire

    An Anselm Kiefer at the iconic Palazzo Ducale in Venice reimagines La Serenissima’s centuries-long history, and in particular focuses on a fire that ravaged the floating city in 1577 and severely damaged the palace.
    In one work, Kiefer depicts Piazza San Marco engulfed in flames; in another, the city is frozen; another still depicts the empty casket of St. Mark, Venice’s patron saint. 
    “Kiefer’s work arises from the past, from the fire which erased its memory, and out of the destruction caused new ones to grow,” the show’s curator, Gabriella Belli, the director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.
    The show, titled “Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (These Writings, When Burned, Will Finally Give Some Light),” marks the city’s 1,600th anniversary. It includes 14 works made of materials including zinc, lead, gold, clothing, and even parts of shopping carts, that the artist made during the pandemic. 
    Altogether, the series explores themes like decay, memory, and creation. 
    The paintings, also inspired in part by the Italian philosopher Andrea Emo (1901–1983), are temporarily affixed over frescoes by Tintoretto and Jacobo Palma the Younger, acting like “a layer of contemporary history over the ancient,” Belli said.
    See more images from the show below.
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    Anselm Kiefer, Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce (Andrea Emo) (2022), installation view. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy Gagosian and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia
    “Anselm Kiefer: Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce” is on view at the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, Italy through October 29, 2022. 
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    in Exhibitions

    C-C-Cool New Shhhhhhhhow? London’s Design Museum Hosts the World’s First Exhibition Dedicated to ASMR

    A sedative tingling feeling that slowly forms on the scalp, prickling as it descends its way over the entire body before finally becoming an immersive physical experience that collapses the acoustic and visual environments into an all-encompassing sensorial climax. 
    No, this isn’t an orgasm, it’s a new exhibition looking at those who experience ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. 
    Tobias Bradford, That Feeling / Immeasurable Thirst (2021). Ed Reeve for Design Museum.
    “Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR,” which features artists as diverse as Björk and Bob Ross, looks at how this phenomenon, experienced by millions of people online, including through a number of wildly popular TikTok accounts, can be turned into a physical, immersive exhibition of art and design. 
    Now open at the Design Museum in London, the exhibition features a cornucopia of sublime experiences designed to mimic the multi-sensory world of ASMR. 
    Bob Ross, Morning Mist (1985). Ed Reeve for Design Museum.
    From a 1988 clip of Björk eloquently describing how television works, to a wall-mounted installation of a mechanical tongue laced with synthetic saliva by Tobias Bradford, to the idyllic videos of the late Bob Ross calmly discussing the finer points of painting, the exhibition begs viewers to take a closer look at intimacy.
    As viewers enter the expansive, womb-like exhibition, their first encounter is with a glossary of terms designed to educate the uninitiated.
    The wall text defines terms like ASMRtist (someone who creates works of ASMR), frisson (the sensation of “aesthetic chills”), and misophonia (denoting one who is emotionally affected by common sounds like breathing or chewing), before finally moving into a tactile environment that features everything from poetry to installation to industrial design and furniture. 
    In total, it features over a dozen artists whose works have been assembled by curator James Taylor-Foster of ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, who became interested in making the exhibition after noticing the immense cultural impact the movement had online. 
    “Ultimately, ASMR is a community,” Taylor-Foster told British Vogue. “[It’s a] cultural field, site of imagination, and a form of design in a broader sense. It’s risen out of a world of speed and anxiety, proving slowness is important and provides an intimacy that’s needed.”
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    in Street Art

    New installation by Felipe Pantone at Hï Ibiza, Spain

    Art and music collide in Ibiza as The Night League, the team behind world-famous clubs Hï Ibiza and Ushuaïa Ibiza, unveil a striking new art installation by Argentinian-Spanish visual artist Felipe Pantone. The highly acclaimed artist has transformed the Hï Ibiza facade into a kaleidoscope of colour, ready to welcome the many thousands of clubbers who will descend on the Spanish island this summer.Felipe Pantone is known for his eye-catching artworks that play with shades of colour. He has exhibited in New York, London, Paris, Brussels, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Madrid, and has produced a number of distinctive murals around the world. For this new Ibiza installation, Pantone has given Playa d’en Bossa superclub Hï Ibiza a bold, dynamic and vibrant new look. The spectrum of colour on display at the entrance of the venue is instantly recognisable as Pantone’s trademark style.​​Speaking about the new installation, Pantone said: “Hï Ibiza is a place I know and love as I have enjoyed many great nights out there. So, I was honoured when the team reached out about this collaboration. I wanted to bring a piece of my energy – a super dynamic composition. As soon as you walk in, it’s like a slash of intensity. It invites you into the venue and gives you a taste of what you will experience once inside the club.”This unique collaboration marks the first ever time that pioneering nightlife and entertainment company The Night League and award-winning club Hï Ibiza have invited an artist to reimagine the club’s exterior.CEO & founder of The Night League, Yann Pissenem, commented: “Art and creativity are at the heart of The Night League’s DNA and it’s long been a wish to fuse my passion for music and art on the island. It’s an honour to display Felipe’s work at Hï Ibiza. Much like the music artists that perform at the club every night throughout the summer, this is an artist who pushes the boundaries of creativity and brings joy to all who see his work”.Pantone’s new work of art will be on display all season long at Hï Ibiza. The futuristic club will also play host to a series of high profile music artists and events throughout the summer, including underground favourite Afterlife by Tale Of Us, Grammy Award winning house hero Black Coffee, Australian superstar FISHER, David Guetta & MORTEN’s FUTURE RAVE, 21st-century disco Glitterbox, and American House duo The Martinez Brothers, along with Latin music heavyweights J Balvin, Anuel AA and Nicky Jam.Check out below for more photos of the mural. More

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    in Street Art

    “HOGAR” by BOAMISTURA in Getafe, Spain

    The artistic collective Boa Mistura inaugurates two murals in the new Livensa Living student residence located on the Carlos III University Campus in Getafe. On the more than 107 square meters of interior and exterior walls, the people of Madrid have left their unique artistic mark, starting with colorful and harmonious typefaces to condense messages that embrace and communicates with the viewer.HOGAR y UNIÓN are the foundations and essence of Livensa Living and now, also, the words that are highlighted in the new artistic work of Boa Mistura. Acting as immense canvases, they encapsulate the essence of a generation, of a life stage and of a transforming space. The murals represent the essence of everything that happens in a residence: a meeting point and refuge. Hogar y Union: “important roots building stories and memories for life”, as the artists point out.Starting from the superimposition of the characters of the words and playing with geometry and color, Boa Mistura wanted to express the idea of ​​understanding the residence as an anchor that defines and builds us, leaving an indelible trail in each of the tenants.The artistic action, curated, managed and supervised by Rebobinart, has been carried out from April 18 to May 6 and will be inaugurated at the beginning of the next academic year, in September 2022. Added to this intervention is the one already completed in the residence of students Livensa Living Granada Fuentenueva with the work of Marina Capdevila and the next intervention of Uriginal in the new project Livensa Living Studios Madrid Alcobendas.Check out below for more photos of the mural. More

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    ‘It Honors Millions of Ancestors’: Watch Artist Kara Walker Build a Mobile Musical Monument to Enslaved People

    If you happen to wander into the National Gallery’s sculpture garden in Washington, D.C., right now you’ll come face to face with a 19th century-style wagon. On its covered sides, stark black silhouettes enact unsettling scenes of slavery. It’s a striking object in any context, but especially when it appears just a stone’s throw from the National Monument, the White House, and the Lincoln Memorial.
    The wooden vessel is actually a steam calliope, a musical instrument that pushes compressed air or steam through large whistles to produce loud music. Titled The Katastwóf Karavan (2018), the calliope is a work by artist Kara Walker, who collaborated with musician Jason Moran on its initial presentation at the Prospect.4 triennial in New Orleans in 2018.
    In its original site, stationed along the Mississippi River at Algiers Point, the work stood adjacent to former slave trading posts, where people were legally bought and sold like cattle.
    Kara Walker’s The Katastwóf Karavan in the National Gallery Sculpture Garden. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
    In an exclusive interview with Walker and Moran filmed as part of Art21’s Extended Play series, the two artists reflected on how legacies of slavery are imbued in sites across America, and how the calliope serves as a modern-day monument.
    “I wanted to really create this paradoxical space where the ingenuity of American manufacturing—the same genius that brought us chattel slavery—could then become the mechanics through which those voices that were suppressed reemerge for all time,” Walker said, noting that the work “honors millions of ancestors.” 
    The calliope historically was movable, and Walker concieved of her contemporary iteration in the same manner, planning for it to travel around America, serving as a sort of mobile memorial, unlike the hulking stones and bronzes that typically serve as such markers.
    “When you have monuments or commemorative things that just exist, they sit there and they disappear,” she said. The calliope, on the other hand, “always needs to be activated,” ensuring that the voices will continue to be honored.

    Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s Extended Play series, below. “Kara Walker’s The Katastwóf Karavan” is on view at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden through May 19, 2022.

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    This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of news-making artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series, like New York Close Up and Extended Play, and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.
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