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    As Four Major Italian Museums Sell NFT Reproductions of Masterpieces, Some Say Digital Editions Could Be Better Than the Real Thing

    Cash-strapped museums suffering from a drop in visitor numbers and income during the pandemic may have found a lifeline in the form of a new partnership with a tech company and a commercial gallery.
    Four major Italian museums, including the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, have signed onto an ambitious project that will see them sell editioned digital replicas of priceless masterpieces from their collections as NFTs.
    The project debuted at London’s Unit gallery, in an exhibition titled “Eternalizing Art History,” which displayed digital replicas of six famous Italian masterpieces by the likes of Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. These authorized digital copies are shown on digital screens set within handmade replicas of the artworks’ original frames. Each of the digital works (dubbed DAWs by the tech company that made them, Cinello) has been certified on the Ethereum blockchain and can be traded as an NFT. They are available in editions of nine—a common edition size for sculptural works—that are priced at between €100,000 and €250,000 ($114,000–$284,000) apiece.
    The participating museums—Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera and Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, and the Complesso Monumentale della Pilotta di Parma—have signed off on the reproductions in exchange for 50 percent of the net revenue from the sale of the works, which will fund their art conservation programs. (The remaining 50 percent is split evenly between the gallery and its tech partner).
    Leonardo da Vinci, Ritratto di Musico (Portrait of a Musician), conceived in 1490, digitized in 2021 DAW® (Digital Artwork). Image by Eva Herzog.
    The move is part of a broader effort to tour works that cannot be moved due to their fragile state of conservation, and to show them to audiences experiencing more limited travel options. But, as professor Guido Guerzoni of Bocconi University said at the unveiling of the exhibition, the commercial endeavor is about more than just reaching new audiences.
    “Museums need revolution if they want to survive,” he said. “In one year of the pandemic, European museums lost 70 percent of their visitors, and between 70 and 80 percent of their revenues. These numbers are impressive but the Italian situation was even worse. If we consider only state-owned museums [… ] this was 85 percent of visitors and almost 90 percent of their revenue.”
    The professor added that while the pandemic forced museums to reconnect with local audiences, this strategy is not sustainable in the long run for museums like the Uffizi, which rely on revenue from international tourism. In the absence of physical visitors, museums rushed to deploy digital strategies to reach audiences—which themselves require a huge investment—but few of these digital initiatives have actually been successful revenue generators. Initiatives like this, which may have been regarded as “unthinkable” a few short years ago, are now being lauded as entrepreneurial solutions to the real world problems institutions are facing.
    Joe Kennedy, director of Unit London, told Artnet News that there has been “overwhelming interest” in the project so far, with five sales confirmed, and a further 12-15 expected to be confirmed by next week.
    Raffaello Santi (Raffaello Sanzio), Madonna del Cardellino (Madonna of the Goldfinch). Conceived in 1506, digitized in 2021 DAW® (Digital Artwork). Courtesy of Le Gallerie degli Uffizi (Florence) and Cinello.
    Audiences at the opening were divided on a philosophical question: whether experiencing the digital reproductions could ever be considered a like-for-like experience with standing in front of their originals. “The DAWs are not intended to compete with the original paintings. It’s important to recognize that they are reproductions,” Unit’s Joe Kennedy told Artnet News, adding that their mobility allows them to reach new audiences and reveal the fascinating history and context of the original paintings. “They act as a storytelling tool which ensures these iconic works live on through new generations of art enthusiasts and only enhances the magical experience of viewing the original painting in person.”
    But in an age where the metaverse and NFTs are in fashion, this view of the sacredness of the original—while perhaps shared by this reporter—might not be the only answer to this question. Panelist Serena Tabacchi, Cinello’s partnership manager, considered the experiences indistinguishable, and artist Misan Harriman postulated that getting up close and personal with the high quality copies could offer an “even better” experience for audiences. 
    “I don’t know if the aura of the original is the same thing in our time,” art historian and Unesco Florence director Carlo Francini said, referencing Walter Benjamin’s seminal text The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which argued that the “aura”—or the unique aesthetic authority of a work of art—is absent from a mechanically produced copy. “Maybe now we are totally evolved digital spirits.” 
    Installation view, “Eternalizing Art History,” Unit London, Image by Eva Herzog.
    Indeed, if the “Immersive Van Gogh” phenomenon has taught us nothing else it is that people—some of whom may never have an interest in seeing the originals—will flock, and pay well, to experience digital reproductions. To some of these audiences, the copies of masterpieces by Leonardo, Caravaggio, Rafael, Modigliani, and Francesco Hayez could hold just as much sway as their originals. 
    While the initiative seems like a no-brainer for museums, which have educational missions, and bank accounts to fill, the idea raises an interesting quandary. Considering the fragile state of conservation of many of these masterpieces—cited as one of the motives for the project—it is very well possible that these digital copies could outlast their original counterparts. Which in turn begs the question of institutional responsibility concerning ownership of these priceless objects, and whether they should be so cavalier about them disappearing into private hands.
    “Eternalizing Art History: From Da Vinci to Modigliani” is on view at Unit London through March 19. 
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    Walter Price, Julie Mehretu, and Amy Sillman on the Works They Made in Honor of Toni Morrison for a New Exhibition on the Author

    The late, great Toni Morrison, a giant of U.S. literature, died in 2019, at the age of 88. (Her 90th birthday would have been this Friday.) Her absence looms large in the American culture—which is why the author was a natural subject for New Yorker critic Hilton Als’s latest curatorial outing at David Zwirner Gallery.
    The group exhibition, “Toni Morrison’s Black Book,” is named after her 1974 book, a visual scrapbook presenting a variety of historical sources about African Americans. (It follows Als’s Zwirner tribute to another Black writer, James Baldwin, as well solo shows he organized about Alice Neel and Frank Moore.)
    There was no shortage of artists eager to participate in the tribute to Morrison. The final list includes Walter Price, Julie Mehretu, Amy Sillman, Joseph Cornell, Jacob Lawrence, Kerry James Marshall, Helen Marcus, Chris Ofili, Irving Penn, and James Van Der Zee, among others.
    We spoke to Price, Mehretu, and Sillman about their relationship to Morrison’s work, the importance of her legacy, and how the author inspired their contributions to the exhibition.

    Walter Price
    Walter Price, Thinly coded language (2019). © Walter Price. Courtesy Greene Naftali, New York.
    I had not heard of the The Black Book before being approached by Hilton. From the beginning, I thought Hilton’s concept was profound. He made a show that we can see and feel, a show that brings together great artists to express the gratitude of Toni’s legacy. Within those cold white walls, Hilton has given us the warmth of emotions.
    When I made the works for the show, I was specifically thinking about The Black Book. I thought about the magic of Henry Box Brown escaping [slavery] in a three-foot box. I thought about Jack Johnson’s strength and shamelessness to continue to box under unfair rules. I thought about Bessie Smith being a pioneer of the blues.
    Toni Morrison is such an important author because she has expressed the complexities of Black life. She speaks to the Black audience, while diminishing the role of the white audience. I think that is very clever and important. Toni Morrison’s writing resonates with me for because I can feel it!

    Julie Mehretu
    Julie Mehretu, A Mercy (after T. Morrison) (2019-20). © Julie Mehretu. Collection of Marguerite Steed Hoffman.
    I have known of The Black Book for a long time. There are archives of blackness that are essential pillars of the culture. The Black Book, along with The Image of the Black in Western Art, FESTAC ’77 by Chimurenga, the 1619 Project by Nicole Hannah Smith, and many more, are crucial books and collections of visual archives.
    I made the painting for this show specifically in response to re-reading A Mercy during the late spring weeks of quarantine, just after Hilton approached me about the project. It is a book that goes back to the origin of the making of this country and the various struggles and violences in that endeavor. We were in the midst of a wildly out-of-control pandemic with a criminally absent and vacant leader at the helm of the most powerful nation of the world. The precarity and far-right nativist political vertiginousness of our time was extremely palpable and terrifying.
    The underpainting of this piece was created from a Rorschach of the inverse of an image from the white supremacist United the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. It’s a blurred image that creates spectral forms that play with the subliminal and the visceral haunting and fear being regurgitated by white supremacy, and generated by the years of the Trump administration. The painting is a direct response to both to those sources and the book A Mercy.

    Amy Sillman
    Amy Sillman, Paradise, (An Alphabet for Miss Morrison) (2021). © Amy Sillman.
    In response to Hilton’s invitation, I had the idea to invent an alphabet for Toni Morrison, or a set of letters somewhere between an alphabet and hieroglyphics. I made a big stack of drawings based on the bodies in her novels, how they appeared, moved, leaned, etc. Then Hilton and I collaborated by arranging nine of the letters into a word to be “read” from left to right.
    When I saw the whole show, I realized that Hilton had created a whole in-between zone, somewhere between a written essay and a visual exhibition, where everything was transitive: figures became letters, sculptures became stories, photographs were narratives, a handwritten letter was a picture, artworks were artifacts, and vice versa, all crisscrossing back to the work of Toni Morrison, whose powerful imagination invokes a world in which all conditions and relations could be different.
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    An Immersive Art Installation Designed to Be Experienced With Closed Eyes Will Headline a Rebranded Festival of Brexit in the U.K.

    An ambitious immersive artwork designed “to be experienced with your eyes closed” will begin touring around the U.K. in May as part of the rebrand of a pricey initiative originally planned for the celebration of Brexit.
    Inspired by an experimental 1959 creation by artist-inventor Brion Gysin, Dreamachine promises audiences—with their eyes closed—an opportunity to experience colorful, kaleidoscopic patterns and hallucinated visions created by flickering light. The experience will be accompanied by a tailor-made soundscape, as well as what organizers describe as one of the largest scientific research projects to take a deep dive into the collective human psyche.
    Bryon Gysin, right, and his Dream Machine, with William Burroughs, ca. 1970, London.
    The work is a collaborative effort spearheaded by Collective Art, which brings together Turner Prize-winning artists Assemble and Grammy- and Mercury-nominated composer Jon Hopkins together with a team of technologists, scientists, and philosophers. It is one of the 10 projects commissioned as part of “Unboxed: Creativity in the U.K.,” formerly known as the “Festival of Brexit,” the £120 million ($163 million) extravaganza initiated by Theresa May’s government to celebrate British culture after the country cut ties with the European Union. The festival is funded by the four governments of the U.K.—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales—and commissioned in partnership with Belfast City Council, Creative Wales, and EventScotland.
    The work will tour London, Cardiff, Belfast, and Edinburgh between May and October 2022, presented with Cardiff Council, Northern Ireland Science Festival, W5 Belfast, Edinburgh International Festival, and Edinburgh Science Festival. More than 100,000 visitors are expected to be able to experience this mysterious work for free.
    Collective Art, Dreamachine (2022). Photo: Christa Holka.
    Gysin’s original vision was to create a device that could replace television, allowing each individual to “create” their own cinematic experiences by immersing themselves into the images generated by the flickering light. Gysin hoped such unique viewing experiences could keep people away from passive consumption of mass-produced media.
    More than six decades later, Collective Art pushes Gysin’s vision further, creating an immersive environment woven from layers of music, technology, neuroscience, philosophy, and architecture. Visitors are led to a room and seated in front of the machine with their eyes closed. A soundtrack by Hopkins, who has worked with Brian Eno and Coldplay, guides visitors to a transcendental state.
    Audiences will be asked to participate in the science research project “Perception Census” to look into “the unseen diversity of the nation’s inner worlds,” organizers said. Details of the project, as well as dates, ticketing information, and venues, will be announced in late March.
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    The Most Significant Hans Holbein Show to Grace a U.S. Museum in 40 Years Is a Rare Chance to Bask in His Splendorous Paintings

    He might technically be “the younger,” but he still died 500 years ago. He’s also responsible for the best painting show in New York right now.
    I’m speaking, of course, of Hans Holbein the Younger, the German-Swiss artist who pushed Renaissance painting to new heights in the 16th century. Beginning in Basel, and later in England, where he served as court painter to King Henry VIII, Holbein made his mark with portraits of nobles, merchants, and scholars. Many of these works form a quietly momentous survey currently on view at the Morgan Library and Museum.
    “Holbein: Capturing Character,” as the show is called, is billed as one of the only major solo exhibitions dedicated to the painter ever mounted in the United States. It might be the last we’re treated to in our lifetimes, too, being the product of the kind of intercontinental, inter-institutional collaboration that is exceptionally rare and exceptionally expensive.
    “Holbein’s paintings and drawings are the crown jewels of museums that own them,” the show’s organizers, John McQuillen and Austėja Mackelaitė, said in a joint email to Artnet News. “Such institutions can be reluctant to part with their most prized pieces. Many of the works are also fragile, which can make travel difficult or even impossible.” 
    Hans Holbein the Younger, A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?) (ca. 1526–28). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    Indeed, logistical concerns with loans, transport, and insurance were among the biggest obstacles McQuillen, Mackelaitė, and their fellow organizer, Getty Museum curator Anne Woollett, had to overcome in putting the show together. The multi-year process was made all the more complicated by the pandemic. 
    The Holbein exhibition actually debuted last fall at the Getty in Los Angeles, but that version and the one on view at the Morgan differ in significant ways. Some institutions only agreed to loan certain prized pieces for a short period of time, allowing for inclusion in one, but not both, shows. The Frick, for example, lent Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More to the Morgan, and his painting of Thomas Cromwell to the Getty. Both pieces rank among the portraitist’s best. 
    All in all, the exhibition features loans from 10 U.S. institutions and collectors, and 13 from overseas. Roughly 60 pieces spanning the artist’s entire career are included view, 31 paintings among them. Particularly significant gets for the museum include Holbein’s portraits of Erasmus of Rotterdam (circa 1532), A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?) (circa 1535–40) and Simon George (circa 1535–40). 
    Hans Holbein the Younger, Simon George (ca. 1535–40). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    The Morgan and the Getty were responsible for the last American exhibition dedicated to Holbein, a smaller display of the artist’s drawings that took place in 1983 and 1984. “The fact that it has taken almost 40 years for a more comprehensive overview of Holbein’s artistic practice to be assembled in the U.S. speaks to the difficulty of negotiating loans of the artist’s works,” McQuillen and Mackelaitė said.
    For the curators, Holbein’s work is just as compelling now as it was then—and perhaps even more so. 
    “Holbein is one of the few artists who was extremely successful and popular in his own time, and whose work has never gone out of fashion,” they said. “His extraordinary mastery over the medium of oil paint led him to create highly naturalistic images, which are filled with tactile, closely observed details that simultaneously delight and seduce.”
    Those details, the curators explained, are what make the artist’s output special. Whereas other painters focused on their sitters’ features, Holbein honed in on their physiognomy—the physical traits, that is that can reveal a person’s desires, disposition, or social status—as well as their garb. They are also the central preoccupation of the show (hence the title, “Capturing Character”).
    “Although Holbein was not the only Renaissance artist who used portraits to create statements of visual identity for his patrons, the intensity of his preoccupations with these issues distinguishes him from many of his contemporaries,” the curators said.   
    See more works from the Morgan’s exhibition below.
    Hans Holbein the Younger, The Wife of a Court Official of Henry VIII (ca. 1534). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    Hans Holbein the Younger, Preparatory drawing of Simon George (ca.1535). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    Hans Holbein the Younger, Erasmus of Rotterdam (ca. 1532). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    Hans Holbein the Younger, Terminus, Device of Erasmus (ca. 1532). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    Hans Holbein the Younger, A Court Official of Henry VIII (ca. 1534). Courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum.
    “Holbein: Capturing Character” is on view now through May 15, 2022 at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.
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    Complete With a Bedazzled Dildo and Miniature Sex Dungeons, a New Show at the ICA London Celebrates Sex Workers’ Rights

    London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts has opened a groundbreaking group exhibition inspired by the sex worker rights movement.
    Titled “Decriminalized Futures,” the show includes works by 13 international artists who create moving images, embroidered works, books, sculptures, and works in other media to address the multiplicity of contemporary sex-worker experiences.
    The show, on view through May 22, advances through interpersonal narratives, histories, and artistic expressions, making a compelling case for sex workers to assert their human and labor rights.
    While selling sex is legal under U.K. law, related activities such as soliciting, renting premises for the purpose of sex work, and working with other sex workers, remain criminalized. 
    “Full decriminalization of sex work is the rallying cry that unites the sex worker rights movement across the world,” co-curators Yves Sanglante and Elio Sea said in a statement. “Under this banner, sex workers and their allies have fought tirelessly for strong workers’ rights, an end to exploitation, an end to criminalization, and real measures to address poverty.”
    Chi Chi Castillo and May May Peltier, still from Stone Dove.
    The works on view present various feminist and intersectional perspectives on sex work and interwoven issues faced by sex workers, people of color, trans people, migrants, and disabled people. In also explores sex work thought racial and social justice movements, migrant rights, labor rights, mental health issues, gender, joy, and pain.
    Works include a series of life-size linocut self-portraits by artist Khaleb Brooks exploring the relationship between body, gender presentation, and sexuality; four vignette-style films by artist Chi Chi Castillo and May May Peltier focusing on sex work and queerness through the experiences of four sex workers of color; and an altar of plants, zines, medications, and a bedazzled dildo created by queer Pakistani-Egyptian artist and stripper Aisha Mirza. 
    “What do I feel about being objectified from an art perspective, as opposed to from a sex worker’s perspective? I think it’s great,” London-based Spanish queer sex worker and poet Letizia Miro told Artnet News.
    “I was just talking to a colleague about this and I feel celebrated in a way that goes beyond activism. The beauty and experience and depth of emotion is being celebrated, as opposed to being super politicized or victimized or glamorized.”
    Installation view of Yarli Allison and Letizia Miro, This Is Not For Clients (2021). “Decriminalised Futures” ICA. Photo ©Anne Tetzlaff.
    Miro collaborated with Canadian-born-Hong Kong artist Yarli Allison on a two-channel video installation titled This Is Not For Clients (2021). Installed among large sculptural objects, including doll-house-scaled sex dungeons, the semi-fictional documentary explores the story of an imagined “ideal” sex worker from the perspective of a fictional client.
    Through digital modeling and animation, Allison has created a kind of hyperreal narrative that transcends Miro’s real-life experiences into a fantasy realm, making visible the complexities—some of them dark—that go into clients’ imagined ideals, and the precarious position of sex workers.
    “I was thinking about gender expectations and stereotyping,” Allison told Artnet News. “How do you satisfy that kind of client’s needs, and how do these fantasies work as a coping mechanism?”
    The exhibition is hosted in partnership with political arts organization Arika, and is part of an ongoing project led by organizers from the sex worker-led collective SWARM (Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement). There is also an associated events program including poetry readings, screenings of sex worker-made films, panel discussions, and artists’ workshops.
    “Decriminalized Futures” is on view at the ICA London through May 22.
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    Artist Retrospective: Franco Fasoli aka JAZ

    Born into a family of artists, Franco Fasoli is one of the first urban artists to practice in Buenos Aires in the 90s under the name JAZ. He quickly evolves towards muralism, evolving towards a stylized figurative style. Today he is one of the best known and most talented artists on the Argentinian scene.One of the main features of his latest work is the exploration of different scales and materials for his pieces. From large-format paintings in public spaces to small works on bronze or paper, the fluctuation of contexts and resources has been the fuel of his art. The tension between the global, dominant culture, and the sub-cultures as a space of resistance, has been the subject of study in his work, both at the conceptual level and in his actions throughout his career.Mural in Barcelona, Spain, 2021Tigers, wildcats, and animal-human hybrids make frequent appearances in the graffiti, murals, paintings, sculptures, and collages of Franco Fasoli. The combats of zoomorphic characters in his works usually question the themes of the quest for identity and social divide.The artist over the years has exhibited in numerous countries worldwide, as he participates to international festivals and constantly works towards the productions of mural interventions.Check out below some of our favorite works from JAZ.“The Rapture” in Madrid, Spain, 2015On “The Rapture” JAZ ttok a break from his current style inspired by the sharp collage works, the images depict majestic Minotaur carrying and grasping the muscly horse. Using minimal color palette consisting of dark brown and black, the pieces look like blown up chalk drawings on a blank white paper. With these works the artist is commenting on the aggressive and survival lifestyle of modern world while using an icon of Spanish culture that is the bull.In his own words “Painting murals was alway my best way to communicate with people, explore the B sides of the cities and become a little part of them. It’s like a sport, a social exercise, a gift.”Mural in Berlin, Germany, 2014“Eat This” in Cozumel, Mexico, 2015JAZ has completed his giant mural for SeaWalls and PangeaSeed which just took place on the streets of the island of Cozumel in Mexico. The SeaWalls Street Art festival aim is to help saving Mexico’s Oceans and Endangered Marine Life, One Public Mural at a Time. The Argentinean muralist super impressive and vibrant piece warns us against harvesting sharks fins for soup.Mural by JAZ in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2014Mural by JAZ in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2014With this mural in Buenos Aires, JAZ teamed up with Pastel in their home town of Buenos Aires and created this double piece.Using different color palette for each of the images, they created these two piece that look like a mirrored image at a first glance. With Jaz’ signature anthropomorphic characters, juxtapozed with Pastel’s floral imagery, the piece has a strong contrast effect. Both color wise between two pieces, but also with easy, calming feel of the flowers and plants, against aggressive looking characters depicting football hooligans.Mural in Villa Soriano, Uruguay, 2013Mural in Cape Town, South Africa, 2013JAZ worked on a mural in Cape Town for the excellent Acrylic Walls Project last 2013. Through blending unconventional materials such as bitumen (asphaltic paint and petrol), he always delivers a huge mural that resemble a delicate watercolor.Mural in Barcelona, Spain, 2015Mural in Montreal, Canada, 2015Mural in Kyiv, UkraineMake sure to check out and follow our #FrancoFasoli page for more updates on the talented artist! More

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    16 Standout Gallery Exhibitions to See in L.A. During Frieze Week, From Phyllida Barlow’s Los Angeles Debut to a Group Show on Manet

    Los Angeles’s burgeoning gallery scene is offering an embarrassment of riches during Frieze Week, with a rash of openings timed for the fair’s opening day. Here’s our list of must-see gallery shows to check out while you’re in town.

    “Will Gabaldón: This Must Be the Place” at Various Small FiresOpening February 15
    Will Gabaldón, 48 Landscape (2021). Photo courtesy of Various Small Fires, Los Angeles.
    For his first show with Various Small Fires, Chicago artist Will Gabaldón has made a series of oil-on-panel landscape paintings of scenes rendered from memory—or even imagined. The exhibition’s title comes from the 1983 Talking Heads song “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody),” here suggesting a place that can only be encountered through art.
    Various Small Fires is located at 812 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles.

    “The Rose Garden: Enrique Martinez Celaya” at UTA Artist SpaceFebruary 16–March 12, 2022
    Enrique Martínez Celaya, The Laughter (2022). Photo courtesy of UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills.
    Enrique Martínez Celaya delves into our collective memories of crisis and chaos in an exhibition inspired by T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Words from the writer’s poems are written on the floor of the gallery, which hosts large-scale paintings and sculptures meant to represent both our world and our inner selves. The artist also has solo shows at the at the University of Southern California’s Doheny Memorial Library (February 22–April 9) and the Fisher Museum of Art (through April 9.)  
    UTA Artist Space is located at 403 Foothill Road, Beverly Hills, California.

    “Raqib Shaw” at Dries Van NotenFebruary 16–March 26, 2022
    Raqib Shaw, High on Hope (2021). Courtesy of Dries Van Noten, Jeffrey Deitch, and White Cube.
    Dries van Noten is teaming up with Jeffrey Deitch and White Cube on a solo show of work by Raqib Shaw. His astonishingly detailed paintings are drawn from childhood memories of his mother’s garden in Kashmir, reimagined here in fantastical scenes where nature and the city collide.
    Dries Van Noten is located at the Little House, 451 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles.

    “Momentary Pause” at Casa Perfect February 17–March 18, 2022
    Chen Chen and Kai Williams, Stone Rose Table Lamp (2022). Photo courtesy of Casa Perfect.
    Contemporary design, craft, art, `and technology come together in this group show about change and self-discovery organized by Future Perfect. Featured artists include Piet Hein Eek, John Hogan, Cody Hoyt, and Bradley L. Bowers.
    Casa Perfect Los Angeles is at 1650 Carla Ridge, Beverly Hills.

    “Anne Truitt: White Paintings” at Matthew Marks GalleryFebruary 17–April 2, 2022
    Anne Truitt, Arundel XLIII (1977). Photo courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles.
    This is the first show of Anne Truitt’s “Arundel” series since their debut at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1975. There, one critic reportedly called for the government to cut the institution’s public funding in response to the spartan works, which feature a uniform white background, a handful of graphite lines, and a few titanium white brushstrokes.
    Matthew Marks is located at 1062 North Orange Grove, Los Angeles.

    “Phyllida Barlow: Glimpse” at Hauser and WirthFebruary 17–May 8, 2022
    Phyllida Barlow, Undercover 2 (2020). Photo by Furukawa Yuya, courtesy the artist and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
    For her first L.A. solo show, Phyllida Barlow worked on site at the late-19th- and early-20th-century industrial buildings that house the gallery to create new large-scale works that are tall enough for viewers to walk under.Hauser and Wirth is located at 901 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles.

    “Womanhouse” at Los Angeles Nomadic DivisionFebruary 18–April 2, 2022
    Karen LeCoq and Nancy Youdelman, Leah’s Room in the original “Womanhouse.” Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Nomadic Division.
    It has been 50 years since Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro organized “Womanhouse,” an all-female art show about the home at an abandoned East Hollywood mansion, featuring the work of students from the CalArts Feminist Art Program in Los Angeles. LAND is partnering with Anat Ebgi Gallery on a new exhibition exploring the spirit of experimentation and collaboration that fueled the project and West Coast Feminist art in the first half of the ’70s, with work from the period and ephemera and photographs from the original “Womanhouse.”
    “Womanhouse” will be on view at 4859 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles. 

    “Luncheon on the Grass” at Jeffrey DeitchFebruary 19–April 23, 2022
    Cecily Brown, Luncheon on the Grass (2021–22). Photo by Genevieve Hanson, courtesy of the artist.
    Taking a page from art history 101, Jeffrey Deitch presents a group show of over 30 contemporary artists reimagining Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), considered by many to be the first Modern paining. Following in the footsteps of luminaries from Claude Monet to Pablo Picasso are new works by the likes of Nina Chanel Abney, Karen Kilimnik, Naudline Pierre, Christina Quarles, Walter Robinson, and Salman Toor, as well as a 1979 Robert Colescott.
    Jeffrey Deitch is located at 925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles.

    “Leilah Babirye: Ebika Bya ba Kuchu mu Uganda (Kuchu Clans of Buganda)” at Gordon Robichaux February 20–April 3, 2022
    Leilah Babirye, Abambowa (Royal Guard Who Protects the King), 2020. Photo courtesy of Gordon Robichaux, Los Angeles.
    In her wood and ceramic sculptures, Ugandan artist Leilah Babirye imagines an alternate queer history for the Bugandan clan system that still shapes the culture of the city of Kampala. These kuchu statues take their name from a code word used among the region’s trans community, elevating trash and other found materials to create totems that celebrate a group threatened under Ugandan law. Babirye herself sought asylum in the U.S. due to the anti-gay discrimination and criminalization she faced at home.
    Gordon Robichaux is located at 1464 West Temple Street, Los Angeles.

    “Noelia Towers: Opening an Umbrella Indoors” at De BoerThrough February 26, 2022
    Noelia Towers, Remember Me. Courtesy of De Boer.
    Chicago painter Noelia Towers was born in Barcelona, where, according to family lore, she was cursed from infancy when her parents refused to give a Romani woman money on the day of the artist’s baptism. She likens that bad luck to that of opening an umbrella indoors, the title of the show and the subject one of the exhibition’s works, painted in photorealistic style based on photos Towers took of herself.
    De Boers is located at 3311 E. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles.

    “Rachel Harrison: Caution Kneeling Bus” at Regen ProjectsThrough February 26, 2022
    “Rachel Harrison: Caution Kneeling Bus” at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, installation view. Photo courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
    Catch new works from Rachel Harrison, who uses readymade objects to make handmade, abstract sculptures. She’s also debuting paintings based on photos taken with the smartphone app Scanner Pro. Harrison sparingly paints atop partially distorted landscapes featuring glitches generated by the app’s algorithm.
    Regen Projects is on view at 6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles.

    “Jonas Wood: Plants and Animals” at David Kordansky GalleryThrough March 5, 2022
    Jonas Wood, BBall Studio (2021). Photo by Marten Elder, courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
    Made over the last three years, the colorful, highly detailed paintings in Jonas Wood’s new show started out as photographs, drawings, and collages before reaching their final form in oil and acrylic canvases. These scenes of interior spaces and the natural world seemingly come to life in their vibrancy.
    David Kordansky Gallery is located at 5130 W. Edgewood Place, Los Angeles.

    “I Do My Own Stunts” at Spazio AmanitaThrough March 7, 2022
    Mickey Lee, Wanton Fields (2022). Courtesy of Spazio Amanita.
    Spazio Amanita has brought together a buzzy list of woman painters—Cristina de Miguel, Mickey Lee, Ruby Neri, and Karyn Lyons, among others—for this group show celebrating the physicality of art-making. Unlike massive workshops, these artists “do their own stunts,” so to speak, allowing the voice of the woman creator to retain its power.
    Spazio Amanita is located at 1015 Cahuenga Boulevardd, Hollywood.

    “Tori Wrånes: Mussel Tears” at Shulamit Nazarian Through March 12, 2022
    Tori Wrånes, ECHO FACE, VEGA|ARTS Vega Scene Copenhagen. Photo by Frida Gregersen, courtesy the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles.
    Combining elements of performance, sound, painting, and sculpture, multi-disciplinary artist Tori Wrånes mines her birthplace, the fishing town of Kristiansand, Norway, for inspiration for her own fantastical world. A soundtrack of foghorn sounds periodically in the galleries, while sculptures borrow the form of oblong mussels shells a vital, if threatened part of the local ecosystem that helps filter the coastal waters.
    Shulamit Nazarian is located att 612 N. LaBrea Ave, Fairfax, Los Angeles.

    “Olafur Eliasson: Your Light Spectrum and Presence” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery Through April 2, 2022
    “Olafur Eliasson:  Your Light Spectrum and Presence” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, installation view. Photo courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles.
    Olafur Eliasson’s long-term fascination with visible light can be seen—no pun intended—in this exhibition of 11 circular paintings from his “color experiment” series, dating from 2012 to 2021. Created in consultation with a color chemist, the paintings attempt to match an exact tone of paint to each nanometer of light in the spectrum.
    Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is located at 1010 N. Highland Avenue, Los Angeles.

    “Digital Combines” at Honor FraserThrough April 2, 2022
    Daniel Temkin, Right-Triangular Dither 15% Teal. Photo courtesy of Honor Fraser, Los Angeles.
    The 20th century had Robert Rauschenberg and his combines. Now, the age of NFTs brings us “Digital Combines” at Honor Fraser, a potential new genre proposed by artist Claudia Hart that allows physical paintings and a related digital file with relevant metadata to become one single conceptual object. The group show features Nancy Baker Cahill, Jakob Dwight, Claudia Hart, Tim Kent, Gretta Louw, LoVid, Sara Ludy, Daniel Temkin, and Saya Woolfalk, with contributing scholar Charlotte Kent.
    Honor Fraser is located at 2622 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. 
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    Myneandyours in Doha, Qatar

    Our friend Myneandyours recently returned from the lovely city of Doha in Qatar where he worked his magic on a brand new mural.Invited by the good people from POW! WOW!, the British artist brought to life a super fun and vibrant piece which will surely be enjoyed by the locals for years to come.Based in Dubai, UAE, Myneandyours has been painting around the middle-east for several years and he continues to positively impact changes in visual landscapes in cities around the world.Check back with us soon for more updates from Urban Art in the Middle-East…POW WOW Festival Doha at Al Sadd Metro Station 2021 More