Eliana Willis

This week, the Obama Presidential Portraits go on view at the Art Institute of Chicago—the first stop on a 11-month-long, five venue tour. And the museum, which is now operating at full capacity, is expecting big crowds. 
With the exception of two days, tickets to see the paintings by artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald are already sold out for the rest of June, a spokesperson for the Art Institute told Artnet News. 
For the remainder of the portraits’ two-month stint, general admission tickets will be released in batches. Lines are expected to be long, and the institution will implement a  virtual queuing system to manage crowds, allowing ticket holders to explore the museum while they wait.
Visitors will find the artworks on the ground floor of the Art Institute’s contemporary wing, where the paintings will be displayed side-by-side for the first time since they were unveiled in February of 2018. (As is tradition, portraits of former presidents and their respective spouses live in different exhibition spaces at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.)
It’s a fitting spot to kick off the tour: Barack and Michelle Obama had their first date at the museum in the late 1980s.

“The Obamas and the museum help define Chicago for people outside Chicago,” the Art Institute’s president and director James Rondeau told the Washington Post this week. 
The portraits, he went on, tell a story of “a president and a first lady, a narrative of all the firsts they represent. But seeing them on the wall together, they are perhaps a little more Michelle and Barack Obama. They carry all of the historical precedents, and they carry some of their humanity.”
The official portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, painted by Wiley and Sherald, respectively, attracted mass crowds upon being installed at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in early 2018, leading to smashed attendance records and stories of gallery-goers breaking into tears. 
In the two years and change that the artworks were on view at the museum, well over four million people saw them, a representative from the NPG said—and that’s a conservative estimate.
People stand in line to see the commissioned portrait of former President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery on February 20, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images.
After Chicago, the portraits will make consecutive two-month stops at the Brooklyn Museum (August 27–October 24, 2021); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (November 7, 2021–January 2, 2022); the High Museum of Art (January 7, 2022–March 13, 2022);  and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (March 27, 2022–May 30, 2022), in that order.
These five tour destinations were chosen for their connection to the artists and the Obamas, the NPG’s director, Kim Sajet, told Artnet News upon announcing the tour last year. Wiley was born in L.A. and is now based in Brooklyn, for instance, while Sherald went to college in Atlanta.
“Because of the attention the portraits brought to the museum, so many people discovered the Portrait Gallery for the first time. They came to see the portraits and then stayed to look at everything else,” Sajet said. “I hope that is exactly what will happen at the museums where they’ll go on tour.”
“The Obama Portraits” will be on view at the Art Institute of Chicago June 18 through August 15, 2021.
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Last week marked the long-awaited reopening of the Halls of Gems and Minerals at New York’s American Museum of Natural History.
Among the many upgrades to the formerly dated space, last renovated in 1976, is a new exhibition gallery that will host special exhibitions.
The inaugural show, “Beautiful Creatures: Jewelry Inspired by the Animal Kingdom,” is curated by the jewelry historian Marion Fasel and features 104 piece of jewelry made over the past 150 years—essentially, since the museum’s founding in 1869.
“It brings together extraordinary jewelry, inspired by fish, birds, butterflies, panthers, lizards, even spiders and jellyfish among others, fashioned by jewelry artists from around,” museum president Ellen Futter said at the press preview.
According to legend, when actress María Félix commissioned this necklace, she carried live baby crocodiles into Cartier in Paris to serve as models for the design. The realistic sculpting of the gold includes the scutes of a crocodile’s skin. There are 60.02-carats of fancy intense yellow diamonds and 66.86-carats of emeralds in the setting. Photo by Nils Herrmann, Cartier Collection ©Cartier.
One section of the show is dedicated to late 19th-century jewelry inspired by insect collecting, a popular fad of the period that grew in part out of the collections of institutions like the American Museum of Natural History. There’s an emerald and gold weevil and a stag beetle brooch made of diamonds, rubies, gold, and white gold.
Also on hand is the famous Cartiér panther, as well as a snake necklace made by the house featuring no fewer than 2,473 diamonds, for a total of 178.2 carats.
But the jeweler’s most remarkable contribution to the exhibition is undoubtedly a crocodile necklace created for actress María Félix in 1975.
“The legend is that she walked into Cartier in Paris with a small crocodile and said ‘make me a necklace’—and they did!” Fasel said. It contains 60.02-carats of intense yellow diamonds and 66.86-carats of emeralds.
Other one-of-a-kind of pieces in the exhibition include the Étoile de Mer Brooch made by Salvador Dalí for philanthropist Rebekah Harkness. She would wear it on her shoulder, so the starfish’s limbs would drape down her arms for an elegantly surreal accessory.
“It demonstrates extraordinary mounting of gems,” Fasel added. “It has diamonds and rubies on the arms that are totally flexible to the point of being like mesh.”
Two of Verdura lion’s paw shell brooches, made from lion’s paw scallops purchased by the Italian designer Duke Fulco di Verdura in the American Museum of Natural History’s gift shop in 1940, are on display in “Beautiful Creatures,” including this one. Photo courtesy of Stephen Webster.
The curator also managed to track down two pieces of animal jewelry with direct ties to the museum itself in the form of a pair of lion’s paw shell brooches by Italian designer Fulco di Verdura, who worked in New York.
“He got the shells from the gift shop here, took them across Central Park, and had his craftsmen set the diamonds along the crevices of the shell,” Fasel said. “He rather poetically thought it looked like water receding from the shell and shining in the sun.”
See more photos from the exhibition below.
This Boucheron stag beetle brooch was made in 1895 from diamonds, rubies, gold, and white gold. The jewel has a removable pin on the back, making it possible to wear it as a pendant, hair ornament, or brooch. Photo ©Boucheron.
This Van Cleef & Arpels lion brooch is from the collection of philanthropist Brooke Astor, whose patronage of the New York Public Library has led to speculation that the piece might have been a nod to the marble lion statues that flank the main branch’s entrance on Fifth Avenue. Photo ©Sotheby’s.
Reptiles jewelry in “Beautiful Creatures” at the American Museum of Natural History. Crocodile necklace, Cartier Paris, (1975), Yellow diamonds, emeralds, rubies (eyes) and gold; (Left) Snake ear clips, Cartier Paris, (1971) Rubies (eyes), diamonds (eyes), gold, pink gold and enamel; Salamander brooch (c. 1900), Demantoid garnets, diamonds, rubies (eyes) and gold; Lizard brooch (c. 1880) Demantoid garnets, diamonds, rubies (eyes), gold and silver; Tortoise clip brooch, Cartier Paris, (1962) Sapphires, diamonds, turquoise, platinum and gold; (Bottom) Tarantula brooch, Hemmerle (1995), Horse conch pearl, Umba sapphires, diamonds, colored diamonds and gold; (Right) Tortoise brooch French (c. 1900), Diamonds, rubies (eyes), gold and platinum; Tortoise brooch, David Webb (1971) Nephrite, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and gold. Photo D. Finnin/©American Museum of Natural History.
Pavé-set amethysts and 71 cabochon rubies cover the curved surface and articulated arms of this gold starfish brooch, which was designed by Juliette Moutard for René Boivin. Experts think only four examples of the starfish brooch were made during the 1930s. Photo by D. Finnin ©American Museum of Natural History.
American designer Joel Arthur Rosenthal has created only a few snake necklaces. This one, made in 1990, features JAR’s signature blend of pavé-set precious and semiprecious stones (sapphires, amethysts, and diamonds) in a silver and gold setting. French actress Jacqueline Delubac nicknamed the necklace “Dudule” after she acquired it from JAR. The moniker, a proper French name, could have been a play on Delubac’s last name. Photo courtesy of FD Gallery.
This tarantula brooch was part of a series of animal-themed jewels created by the family-owned German firm Hemmerle between 1979 and 1996. The natural 111.76-carat brown horse conch pearl in the rear segment of the tarantula is believed to be one of, if not the, largest natural horse conch pearls in the world.Photo by D. Finnin ©American Museum of Natural History.
Jewelry based on creatures of the air in “Beautiful Creatures” at the American Museum of Natural History. Photo D. Finnin/©American Museum of Natural History.
“Beautiful Creatures: Jewelry Inspired by the Animal Kingdom,” is on view in the Halls of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History, 200 Central Park West, New York, from June 12, 2021. 
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To mark its 175th anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution is staging a massive celebration in the form of a sprawling exhibition featuring works from many museums under the Smithsonian umbrella. To tie them all together, the organization is also commissioning site-specific art commissions from Beatriz Cortez, Nettrice Gaskins, Soo Sunny Park, Devan Shimoyama, and Tamiko Thiel and p/.
The show, titled “Futures,” will be held at the Smithsonian’s storied Arts and Industries Building, which has been largely closed to the public for two decades. Dating to 1881, the building, which served as the first home for the U.S. National Museum, has undergone a $55 million renovation and is once again ready to welcome the public with an interdisciplinary, immersive exhibition asking them to consider how art and technology continue to shape our world.
The show is due to open in late 2021; after its closure, the building will undergo another round of renovations before opening permanently.
“We have tried to get a piece from each other Smithsonian museum to reflect that diversity of knowledge and celebrate that legacy within the construct of the future,” Ashley Molese, the Arts and Industries Building curator, told Artnet News.
Expanded Present, an iridescent installation by Park, will greet visitors outside, surrounding the doorway with a sparkling cloud—because when a building has been closed for 20 years, you need to have something letting the public know you’re open for business.
Soo Sunny Park, Expanded Present. Concept Design courtesy of the artist.
The piece, which will change in appearance based on the time of day and shifting weather conditions, is made from reflective materials such as fencing, metal studs, and dichroic glass, which was invented by NASA.
Once inside, there will be more than 150 objects to examine, including artifacts of scientific and technological advancement placed alongside works engaging the tools of the future.
Highlights include the solar panels that Jimmy Carter installed on the roof of the White House during his presidency in the 1970s and the prototype of Virgin’s Hyperloop used in a successful test late last year. There’s  also the Bakelizer, the original machine that chemist-entrepreneur Leo Hendrik used to produce the first synthetic commercial plastic.
Soo Sunny Park installing work at the Rice Gallery. Photo by Nash Baker courtesy of the artist.
In addition to the commissions, other artworks will be scattered throughout the exhibition, including Stephanie Syjuco’s altered photographs of Filipinos put on forced display in “Living Villages” at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis—shown alongside a pamphlet from the event from the Smithsonian collection.
But it is the five art commissions that will serve as anchors throughout the show.
For her piece Chultun El Semillero, Cortez was inspired by chultunes, underground storage chambers built by the Maya in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. She’s filled her own welded steel versions with living plants, seeds, and other tools.
“She’s had the structure be excavated from the earth to create these future space time machines that are transporting knowledge and seeds and medicine to this indeterminate place in the future,” Molese explained.
The Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian.
Thiel and p/’s ReWildAR uses augmented reality to show viewers a Washington, D.C., that has returned to nature, transforming the halls into a re-wilded garden. The artist consulted Smithsonian horticulture experts to determine what the environment might look like if climate change continues unchecked.
“Tamiko was doing A.R. installations before anyone else was using that technology in the art world,” Molese said. “She’s imagining a moment in time in the future where… the landscape in Washington, D.C., has warmed and altered.” (Viewers can download an app to wander through the AR space, or use iPads provided by the museum.)
Gaskins also explores new technologies with her “Featured Futurists,” portraits of such figures as Buckminster Fuller and Octavia Butler made using a A.I. neutral network application called Deep Dream.
Nettrice Gaskins, Octavia Butler from “Featured Futurists.” Image courtesy of the artist.
Shimoyama based his installation The Grove on utility poles, creating a sort of manmade forest where visitors can sit and reflect on the show and our more tumultuous recent history.
“You come to a kind of clearing where you’re greeted by these stunning bedazzled Swarovski crystal-covered totems,” Molese said. “It’s almost a mourning garden or a labyrinth.”
Despite the many challenges facing our world and the creation of intentional moments of meditation, the exhibition strikes a purposely optimistic note.
“‘Futures’ is dedicated to a hopeful vision of a future that we choose, not one that we fear. We wanted to create it almost as a choose your own own adventure, defining pathways that build a more equitable, relatable, and inclusive future,” Molese said. “It was a very conscious choice not to be too dystopic in our vision.”
“Futures” will be on view at the Smithsonian Institution, Arts and Industries Building, 900 Jefferson Drive, SW, National Mall, Washington, D.C., November 2021–July 2022. 
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Damien Hirst‘s over-the-top art has landed in Rome, where works from his love-it-or-hate-it series “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable” are on view alongside antiquities and Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces at the Galleria Borghese.
The Galleria Borghese’s storied art collection, started by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 17th century, includes life-size sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Caravaggio paintings, and classical antiquities. They are displayed amid richly decorated marble halls—an ornate setting that offers the perfect backdrop for Hirst’s elaborate “Treasures.”
“Inserted among the masterpieces of the Galleria’s collection, these works celebrate the desire for variety held by the museum’s founder, Cardinal Scipione Borghese,” the museum said in a statement.
As Italy looks to rebound from the pandemic, which has limited tourism, the government sees the opening of the Hirst show as the start of “a new renaissance for Italy,” minister of culture Dario Franceschini said in a statement.
Damien Hirst, Cerberus (Temple Ornament) (2009). Photo by A. Novelli © Galleria Borghese Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
Featuring expensive materials such as bronze, rock crystal, Carrara marble, and malachite, Hirst’s sculptures—which initially debuted in Venice in 2017—come with an elaborate (and untrue) backstory. Purportedly 2,000 years old, they were supposedly uncovered in the cargo of a sunken ship rescued off the coast of East Africa in 2008, part of an underwater archaeology venture funded by the British artist (hence the coral and barnacles encrusting some of the works).
Even though Hirst produced a flashy Netflix mockumentary about the so-called recovery effort, there were always hints that the dramatic backstory was nothing more than a fantastical fiction. Cif Amotan II, the freed slave said to have amassed the massive collection in the first or second centuries, is actually an anagram for “I am fiction.”
The works, which reportedly cost $65 million to produce, debuted at the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana in 2017 to decidedly mixed reviews. (There was also an animal rights protest involving large quantities of poop.) Artnet News called it “a contemporary-art spectacle of unparalleled ambition,” while ARTnews said it was “undoubtedly one of the worst exhibitions of contemporary art staged in the past decade.”
The Galleria Borghese exhibition also features works from Hirst’s polka-dotted “Colour Space” series, which has never been shown in Italy before. The paintings are a departure from his well known “Spot Paintings,” made with mechanical precision on a uniform grid, in that they are much looser, with circles of varying sizes and shapes overlapping one another, betraying the presence of the artist’s hand.
See more photos of the show below.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ratto di Proserpina (1621–22) and Damien Hirst, Grecian Nude (2013). Photo by A. Novelli ©Galleria Borghese Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
Damien Hirst, Hydra and Kali (2015). Photo by A. Novelli © Galleria Borghese Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
Damien Hirst, Female Archer (2013). Photo by A. Novelli ©Galleria Borghese Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
Damien Hirst, Reclining Woman (2012). Photo by A. Novelli ©Galleria Borghese Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
Damien Hirst, Neptune (2011). Photo by A. Novelli ©Galleria Borghese Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
Damien Hirst, Fern Court (2016) and The Skull Beneath the Skin (2014). Photo by A. Novelli, ©Galleria Borghese, Ministero della Cultura © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved DACS 2021/SIAE 2021.
“Damien Hirst: Archaeology Now” is on view at the Galleria Borghese, Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, Rome, June 8–November 7, 2021. 
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“New Grit: Art and Philly Now” makes a heckuva case for Philadelphia as a creative capital.
The show, surveying 25 artists based in the city, opened alongside Frank Gehry’s big, highly anticipated expansion of the Philadelphia Museum of Art last month. Gehry’s work adds multiple access points, a dreamy underground promenade, and sweep of new gallery spaces—but the goal was clearly not to do anything that would disrupt the grand, stately museum’s vibe.
That leaves “New Grit” to project the museum towards the future. And its curators land the trick wonderfully.
Almost everything in the show hits. Overall, the tone of “New Grit” feels both engaged with the world and personally invested. The show has heartfelt and bracing moments, but also offbeat and even funny ones.
A visitor to “New Grit” viewing two works by Ken Lum. Photo by Ben Davis.
Wonderfully textured abstractions by Howardena Pindell play off the wonky tapestries Mi-Kyoung Lee made from twist ties. There are large, witty text paintings by Ken Lum that channel the verbose titles of 19th-century books to tell contemporary stories. And there’s a pleasingly strange installation by Doug Bucci of intricate little sculptures floating in an endless circuit on water.
There’s really too much good stuff. Here are just five artists that stick out as reference points.

Judith Schaechter
Judith Schaechter, Over Our Dead Bodies (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
For sheer formal verve, Judith Schaechter’s intricate stained-glass works stick in my head. Radiant in color, with the feeling of needing to be read like some exciting coded surface, they are dense with details of swirling flora and fauna and suggested narrative.

Kukuli Velarde
Kukuli Velarde, San Sebas (2011) from the “Corpus” series. Photo by Ben Davis.
Equally great are Kukuli Velarde’s painted ceramic figures from her “Corpus” series. They represent pre-Columbian deities bursting forth from the shell of Baroque Catholic icons, merging into new gene-spliced contemporary entities.

Tiona Nekkia McClodden More