Eliana Willis

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    in Street Art

    Coverage: “Domesticity” Group Exhibition at Volery Gallery, Dubai

    Last March 15th, Volery Gallery opened Domesticity, its inaugural exhibition curated by Sasha Bogojev Curator and Contributing Editor at Juxtapoz Magazine. The group exhibition presents a selection of all-new, previously unseen, original works by 17 international artists. The presentation revolves around the exploration of interior spaces as the fated environment for mankind. The exhibition brings together works by artists whose practice has always been revolving around the depiction of their domestic environment, such as Cherkit; Lozano; Ralaivao and Treiber. As well as the works of artists whose interest frequently switches between their outdoor and indoor surroundings, including Brown; Dieng; Heidkamp and Yanai. Also presented are artists whose work results from diverse studio/homebound explorations and that includes Ayotunde; Barriga; Benzo; Kerwick and Kindberg. Domesticity primarily pays tribute to our destined old/new habitat. Depicting different angles of universally recognised domiciliary settings along with details capturing the familiar warmth of home surroundings, the works are also imbued with the thread of tension, anxiety, or even eeriness. With troubling uncertainty awaiting behind the walls of these safe enclosures, the artists are capturing the beauty and cosiness of the abode while suggesting the outside’s gloom.With the hope that the coming months will allow us all to switch our focus back beyond our doors and windows, Domesticity is symbolically marking this historic moment in time and the way it affected our eternal need to capture and express ourselves. -Sasha BogojevScroll down below and take a look at more images of the exhibition and its opening night. Photo Credits: Alina Khamatova, CBB Photography More

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    in Exhibitions

    This Dollhouse-Sized Museum Exhibition Will Show Tiny Works by Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, and Other Artists—See Images Here

    In what may be the tiniest museum show ever, England’s Pallant Gallery will showcase work this summer by more than 30 of Britain’s most famous artists—and it will all be no bigger than the length of a No. 2 pencil.
    The show, titled “Masterpieces in Miniature,” features an architectural model gallery lined with original tiny works by artists including Rachel Whiteread, Maggi Hambling, Grayson Perry, John Akomfrah, Tacita Dean, and Lubaina Himid.
    The works span all media, from Damien Hirst’s half-inch spin painting to Edmund de Waal’s tiny ceramic sculpture atop a petite pedestal. Even Akomfrah’s stirring film installations have been compressed into a photographic triptych that fits inside one lilliputian gallery. Another prize is the inclusion of a miniature print from the late photographer Khadija Saye’s series “Crown,” the only work not destroyed in the Grenfell Tower fire that also claimed the artist’s life.
    1934 Model Art Gallery. Photo: Barney Hindle © Pallant House Gallery.
    The dollhouse-sized space will be the third model gallery in the Pallant’s collection, following in the footsteps of the “Thirty Four Gallery” and “The Model Art Gallery 2000.” The first, created in 1934 at the request of art dealer Syndey Burney to raise money for charity, featured works by Vanessa Bell, Ivon Hitchens, and Henry Moore. To mark the new millennium, Pallant House Gallery commissioned “The Model Art Gallery 2000,” itself a replica of the gallery’s white cube extension, and showcasing artists from the collection of Colin St. John Wilson, including Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, Antony Gormley, Anthony Caro, and Howard Hodgkin.
    Model Art Gallery 2020. Photo: Barney Hindle © Pallant House Gallery.
    The trio of model galleries comprise a micro time capsule of more than 80 years of British art, encompassing artists from the Bloomsbury Group, the Pop art era, and the Young British Artists of the 1990s.
    The collaborative project is “filled with optimism and hope for the future: about creating something positive out of all of this disruption and uncertainty,” said Pallant House Gallery director Simon Martin in a statement. “All the usual complex considerations about curation and display have come into play, about different media and forms of art including painting, drawing, sculpture, site-specific installation, and photography.”
    Martin adds that he plans for the exhibition to travel to other venues in the future.
    During the past year of lockdown, numerous other artists have turned to the small stage as well, including curator Filippo Lorenzin and artist Marianna Benetti, who created a miniature art gallery for their urbane pet gerbils, and a Brooklyn-based artist who launched a contest for creatives to share their dream homes rendered in miniature clay dioramas.
    See more images from the show below.
    Edmund de Waal, and show and end (2020). Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. (Donated by the Artist, 2020) © Edmund de Waal.
    Gary Hume, Archipelago (2020). Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. (Donated by the Artist, 2020) © Gary Hume.
    Bob and Roberta Smith, Look (2020). Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. (Donated by the Artist, 2020) © Bob and Roberta Smith.
    Maggi Hambling, Naked Night (2020). Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. (Donated by the Artist, 2020) ©Maggi Hambling.

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    in Exhibitions

    The Getty Museum Just Acquired a Recently Rediscovered, Auction Record-Setting Work by Artemisia Gentileschi

    The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has made a major acquisition: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Lucretia (ca. 1627), a striking portrait of an ancient Roman noblewoman pictured moments before she stabs herself with a dagger.
    The painting had languished in a private collection in Lyon, France for decades before appearing at auction in 2019, when it sold for a record-breaking $5.3 million at Paris-based Artcurial, six times its high estimate. The previously little-known work set a record at auction for Gentileschi. In a statement preceding the sale, the auction house said that Lucretia was “worthy of the great museums of the world”; now it has been proven correct.
    The Getty acquired the painting from an anonymous collector. A spokesperson did not respond to a query about whether the acquisition was a gift, purchase, or mix of the two. Gentileschi works are hard to come by—there are only 40 in public collections, a small portion of which are in the United States.
    The subject of this work—the noblewoman who sought to die by suicide after being raped, according to legend—is particularly resonant for Gentileschi, who was raped by her teacher Agostino Tassi at the age of 17. The horrific experience set the tone for Artemisia’s chosen subjects, which often depict strong women who have suffered sexual violence.
    “Her achievement as a painter of powerful and dramatic history subjects is all the more remarkable for the abuse and prejudice that she suffered in her personal life—and which is palpably present in Lucretia’s suicide, and other of her paintings where the central protagonist is a wronged or abused woman,” Getty director Timothy Potts told the Los Angeles Times, adding that the painting “will open a window for our visitors onto important issues of injustice, prejudice, and abuse that lie below the beguilingly beautiful surfaces of such works.”
    Artemisia Gentileschi, Jael and Sisera (1620). © Szépmüvészeti Múzeum / Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
    While the rape trial of her teacher made headlines during her life and would go on to define Gentileschi’s story for centuries, recent exhibitions and scholarship have expanded our understanding of her work and identity. London’s National Gallery organized a show of 29 paintings by Gentileschi, its first-ever exhibition dedicated to a female artist, which closed in January 2021. The artist’s turbulent life is also the subject of a forthcoming scripted TV series from ViacomCBS International Studios.
    In 2016, the Getty acquired a work by Artemisia’s father and teacher, Orazio, depicting Danaë (ca. 1621), which Potts described at the time as a “masterpiece of 17th-century Italian painting.” The Getty also owns Orazio’s Lot and His Daughters, which has been a hallmark of the museum’s Baroque holdings since 1998.
    In an announcement, the Getty museum noted that Artemisia Gentileschi’s work will be on view when the institution reopens “in the coming weeks,” though a concrete date has not been set. Los Angeles museums were recently given the green light to reopen, following those in San Francisco and the rest of the Bay area, after having been closed for nearly a year.
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    in Exhibitions

    Painter Amy Sherald’s New Show in Los Angeles Encourages Patient Looking and Quiet Contemplation—See Images Here

    In these turbulent times, creativity and empathy are more necessary than ever to bridge divides and find solutions. Artnet News’s Art and Empathy Project is an ongoing investigation into how the art world can help enhance emotional intelligence, drawing insights and inspiration from creatives, thought leaders, and great works of art.

    “Amy Sherald: The Great American Fact”at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angelesthrough June 6

    What the gallery says: “Amy Sherald is acclaimed for paintings of Black Americans at leisure that achieve the authority of landmarks in the grand tradition of social portraiture—a tradition that for too long excluded the Black men, women, and families whose lives have been inextricable from the narrative of the American experience.
    Subverting the genre of portraiture and challenging accepted notions of American identity, Sherald attempts to restore a broader, fuller picture of humanity. She positions her subjects as ‘symbolic tools that shift perceptions of who we are as Americans, while transforming the walls of museum galleries and the canon of art history—American art history, to be more specific.’”
    Why it’s worth a look: Sherald, who spent the past year making the five pictures in this show, is famously a slow-moving, intensely focused artist. Her reduced production allows her to carefully articulate the sorts of details that characterize her precise paintings: the soft smear of pink on the dog’s nose in A Midsummer Afternoon Dream (2020), the broken fencing along the dunes in An Ocean Away (2020). Her careful painterly fluency encourages appropriately patient, measured looking that is rare in the 21st century.
    How it can be used as an empathy workout: The show draws its title from educator Anna Julia Cooper’s 1892 book The Great American Fact, in which she argues that Black Americans are “the one objective reality on which scholars sharpened their wits, and at which orators and statesmen fired their eloquence.” In Sherald’s works, the objective reality of “public Blackness,” as the show’s press release puts it, comes through in portraits of everyday people, living quiet yet proud lives. Perhaps more than anything, these figures invite an empathetic viewer, someone willing to approach the painting with kindness and humility.
    “Her paintings,” as the gallery says, “celebrate the Black body at leisure, thereby revealing her subjects’ whole humanity. Sherald’s work thus foregrounds the idea that Black life and identity are not solely tethered to grappling publicly with social issues, and that resistance lies equally in a full interior life and an expansive vision of selfhood in the world.”
    What it looks like:
    Amy Sherald, A Midsummer Afternoon Dream (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
    Amy Sherald, A Midsummer Afternoon Dream (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
    Amy Sherald, A bucket full of treasures (Papa gave me sunshine to put in my pockets…) (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
    Amy Sherald, An Ocean Away (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
    Amy Sherald, Hope is the thing with feathers (The little bird) (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
    Amy Sherald, As American as Apple Pie (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
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    in Exhibitions

    Watch Julie Mehretu Surround Herself With Unfinished Canvases Until She Finds a Work’s ‘New Point of Entry’

    Looking at one of Julie Mehretu‘s mammoth canvases is like peering into an alternate reality—the intersecting lines that crisscross in all directions conjure architectural plans and blue prints, but also relief maps and musical compositions. Often there are larger shapes that hover amid the chaos, anchoring it for a moment and orienting the viewer, but always maintaining abstraction, and room for subjectivity.
    After a critically acclaimed exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Ethiopia-born artist’s mid-career survey has arrived at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where viewers can appreciate the work’s real-world touchstones in the museum’s skyline views.
    In 2010, Mehretu was featured in an exclusive interview as part of Art21’s Extended Play series, where she is seen in her Berlin studio contemplating one of her calligraphic compositions. “Some days, you’ll have a great, great day and work for the entire day,” she tells Art21, “and make headway, and have realizations and leave in the best place because you had this intense engagement.”
    But, like anything else, some days aren’t so productive. Because of the all-over-ness of the works, Mehretu often finds “a new point of entry” that allows her to reengage with the picture, she says. Ultimately, being surrounded by her work—she often has multiple paintings and drawings in various states of completion at any given time—affords Mehretu the time and space she needs.
    “I think that’s part of the work,” she says, “just being in here… really realizing the painting.”
    Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s Art in the Twenty-First Century series, below. The brand new 10th season of the show is available now at Art21.org. “Julie Mehretu” is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through August 8, 2021.
    [embedded content]
    This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking artists. A new series 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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    in Exhibitions

    Ray Johnson Spent the Final Years of His Life Developing an Enigmatic Photography Project. It’ll Go on View Next Summer

    Never-before-seen photographs by Ray Johnson—the famously unfamous artist known for Neo-Dada collages, prankster performances, and inventive mail artworks—made in the final years before his death will go on view in New York next summer.
    The show, which is tentatively scheduled for June 2022 at the Morgan Library and Museum (it was already delayed once by the pandemic), is organized Joel Smith, the head of the museum’s photography department.
    By the early 1990s, Johnson had stopped exhibiting his work in galleries, all but abandoning the New York art scene for Long Island. Those closest to him, including his longtime dealer, Frances Beatty, wondered if he had stopped making art altogether. 
    Months after his death by suicide in January 1995, Beatty rummaged through his house and archive, finding something unexpected: piles of shoeboxes packed with photographic prints and negatives, all made from disposable cameras.
    Courtesy of the Morgan Library & Museum © The Ray Johnson Estate, New York.
    “When I first discovered them, I thought they were just photographs Ray took,” Beatty tells Artnet News. “I didn’t really process them as being significant, and I didn’t process them as being works of art. Then, later on—many years later—I opened up one of these envelopes and thought, ‘Holy moly! This is an entire project.’”
    Unsure of what to do, Beatty called Smith, who recognized their potential, for advice.
    “The intelligence and manic quality never really let up,” Smith says of Johnson’s last years. “You can see that he was still really operating at the same level as he always was. It was just in this very attenuated medium.”
    Johnson hadn’t quit art after all; he just found a new form—and, in a sense, a new audience.
    Ray Johnson, Untitled (headshot and Terry Kistler silhouette with payphone) (1992). Courtesy of the Morgan Library & Museum © The Ray Johnson Estate, New York.
    “Making the photographs is his way of showing his work,” Smith adds. “The camera becomes his audience.”
    The artist made at least 3,000 original photographs in total, most quasi-conceptual in that classic Johnson way. There are numerous duplicates too: Johnson apparently took advantage of his local photo shop’s buy-one-get-one-free policy for seniors.
    In all, the artist spent the last three years of his life driving around the North Shore of Long Island with cheap cameras and hand-made props that he would stage in various locations for shots. 
    Courtesy of the Morgan Library & Museum © The Ray Johnson Estate, New York.
    Many verge on self-portraits, such as one picturing a cardboard cut-out silhouette of Johnson’s head, set against a piece of beached sea wood. Others are more abstract, such as a layered assemblage of found photos wedged into the rectangular casing of a payphone. He called the props “movie stars.”
    The show’s title, “Please Send to Real Life,” is a reference to a note the artist wrote on one of his last prints. The request was literal: he was asking a friend to mail the shots to the bygone Real Life magazine.
    But for an artist who saw puns everywhere—including in his own work—double meanings were surely present.  
    Next month, David Zwirner will open a separate career-spanning show in New York positioning Johnson as a seminal queer artist, while an exhaustive survey of his work, with special attention paid to his many collaborations, will open at the Art Institute of Chicago in November.
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    in Exhibitions

    As the Market for Digital Art Heats Up, König Galerie Is Hosting a Show on the Virtual Blockchain World Decentraland

    What does painting and sculpture look like in a digitally-defined world? That’s the big question looming behind a new show at Berlin’s König Galerie, which brings together 50 young artists who recalibrate “traditional” artistic forms to today’s technomediated attention economy, where personalities are brands and “likes” are the yardstick of success.
    The 70 artworks included in the show, titled “THE ARTIST IS ONLINE,” look less like the stuff of the Met and Louvre than the makeup of an Instagram feed or camera roll.
    And what about art that exists in a world that is digital? To address that question, the gallery is hosting a second, complementary exhibition in Decentraland, a virtual world on the blockchain, where computer-savvy users can explore—via avatar—a ones and zeros version of König. There, more than 30 digital works can be purchased as NFTs. The “land” on which the gallery sits in the blockchain platform was loaned by a collector named Shahin Tabassi.
    Chloe Wise, Rachel, Floridian boy-scout, after bibimbap (2020). Courtesy of KÖNIG GALERIE.
    The show is not only König’s first foray into the world of NFTs but, according to Anika Meier, the German curator who co-organized the effort with gallerist Johann König, the first example of any gallery setting up shop on the popular blockchain platform.
    “For us it’s important to show that digital art is a thing that has the same qualities of painting and sculpture,” Meier told Artnet News, referring to considerations like light and color and composition. 
    Ry David Bradley, Company Clouds (2021). Courtesy of König Galerie.
    Among those featured on the gallery’s real-life walls are artists Rachel de Joode, Sarah Slappey, and Chloe Wise. Several others, such as Ry David Bradley and Thomas Webb, have worked in NFTs before, and are contributing to both iterations of the show.
    “We’re working with people who have been doing this for [years],” Meier said. For example, for the artist duo Banz and Bowinkel, who are included in both versions of the new show, “it’s like it’s raining in the desert. Everyone is suddenly interested in what they are doing, but right now the focus is a bit off because people are concerned about prices,” she said. “We hope we can shift the focus a bit.”
    A view inside König Galerie’s Decentraland show.
    “THE ARTIST IS ONLINE” is on view at König Galerie now through April 18, 2021.
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    in Street Art

    Coverage: “Art Bodega” Group Show at K11 Art Mall, Hong Kong

    The word “Bodega” means “grocery” in Spanish, which we call “士多” (Store) in Hong Kong. The character of a grocery store is one-stop, all-inclusive, and most importantly, friendly. Galleries and art have always been a little distant from the public, they are often labelled as high class and unaffordable, it seems that everyone in the field is often comparing each other’s taste and wealth in an unhealthy manner.b-sm = none; sm > 728×90;b-sm = 300×250; sm > none;This fallacy is probably deeply ingrained in many people’s hearts in Hong Kong. In view of this, Matt Chung, the founder of Art Streaming and Off The Record, curated “Art Bodega” during the difficult times that the world is still facing, and broughttogether five artists to the K11 Art Mall.Artists from different countries include Jon Burgerman from the UK, Maria Imaginario from Portugal, Timothy Gatenby from the UK, Gunwoo Park from South Korea, and 2timesperday from Hong Kong, brought forces to create this art pop-up exhibition with food as a main theme.The exhibition consists of PIZZZA vinly figure and his original paintings specially made by Jon Burgerman and Off The Record, iconic pastelle colored lollipop sculptures handmade by Maria Imaginario, Timothy Gatenby’s reinterpretation of famous Anime characters with fast food items, Gunwoo Park, which is an expert at recreating objects with masking tape and LED lights, produced a few Hong Kong people’s childhood delicacies for his first Hong Kong exhibition, and lastly, 2timesperday from Hong Kong used his popular Illustration technique on Instagram to produce five prints related to food, hoping to let viewers reflect on humanity. During the epidemic, it is difficult for everyone to leave their house or even have a proper meal at a restaurant with friends. Under this special situation, through “Art Bodega”, hopefully everyone can be reminded that any type of interaction in person should always be cherished, while enjoying “food” in an art form, art can also be served as food for thought.During the epidemic, it is difficult for everyone to leave their house or even have a proper meal at a restaurant with friends. Under this special situation, through “Art Bodega”, hopefully everyone can be reminded that any type of interaction in person should always be cherished, while enjoying “food” in an art form, art can also be served as food for thought.Take a look below for more photos from “Art Bodega”.Works by Gunwoo ParkWorks by Gunwoo ParkWorks by Gunwoo Park, Layered masking tapes and LED“Pizzza” Vinyl toy by Jon BurgermanWorks by 2timesperdayWorks by Maria ImaginarioWorks by 2timesperday“When life gives you twists and turns” by Maria Imaginario, 2021Works by Tim GatenbyWorks by Tim Gatenby More