Eliana Willis

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    in Street Art

    “About William Lanson” by David de la Mano in New Haven, Connecticut

    Spanish contemporary artist David de la Mano recently finished a new mural located in Ninth Square at 33 Crown Street, New Haven, Connecticut entitled “About William Lanson”. It is a 330 meter square mural that took the artist 6 non-consecutive days (due to snow and rain) to paint.

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    This project was born in 2018 and is an initiative of SITE PROJECTS (a private non-profit organization that commissions world-class works of art, programming and public events project by project in partnership with local agencies and organizations that enhance cultural heritage and diversity. New Haven).

    SITE PROJECTS believes that public art is an essential part of a healthy and democratic society. It enriches, inspires, and educates, enhancing our sense of place, purpose, and potential. SITE PROJECTS commissions site-specific world-class public art that brings 21st century avant-garde art to historic New Haven, CT. By speaking in the universal language of art, we stimulate community conversations and interactions that embrace diversity and bridge social and economic differences.

    The organization’s proposal for this mural project was to generate a metaphor for the figure of the black businessman and engineer William Lanson, an extraordinary figure in New Haven of the early 19th century who made possible the industrial success of the 19th century New Haven, CT.

    Almost certainly a runaway slave, Lanson beat incredible odds to become a highly successful businessman, one of Connecticut’s first black entrepreneurs.He was one of the first leaders among free blacks and was praised by the white establishment for his commercial achievements.

    It was Lanson who discovered a way to extend the city’s dock to New Haven Harbor, facilitating the growth of the city as a port when no one else could hold the piles firm in the sand and mud. He amassed an entire neighborhood of businesses and homes.

    This project on Lanson is about barriers and extraordinary people, the ability to overcome and how these people are able to see beyond. He also wants to make them visible so that they serve as example by example to people who are in their situation and live adversity with despair. We all look for references that help us to build our own path and William Lanson is undoubtedly and will be a reference for all.
    Check out below for more images of the mural. More

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    in Street Art

    Sneakerwolf “LOVE” Print Release – November 20th

    Japanese graffiti artist Sneakerwolf will be releasing a new print entitled “LOVE” this 20th of November, Friday at 20:00 JST.

    “LOVE” is a 4-color silkscreen poster aluminum silver dripped on Japanese traditional paper (WA-SHI). It comes in an edition of 20. Signed and numbered by the artist.

    Sneakerwolf is street artist and designer living in Tokyo and “Kanji-Graphy” is his one-of-a-kind art which reflects the typeface design of Kanji-Graphy-Japanese character graphic. He have previously worked with Nike, PUMA and New Balance. Sneakerwolf also own his footwear label, LOSERS. The artist is also well-versed in other mediums – namely illustration, sign and window painting.

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    You can purchase “LOVE” through Sneakerwolf’s online shop https://sneakerwolf.myshopify.com More

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    in Exhibitions

    Before She Died, Artist Anne Truitt Completed a Series of ‘Sound’ Paintings. Now, They’re Seeing the Light of Day for the First Time

    “Something strange is happening to me.” 
    So explained Anne Truitt in a letter to her daughter in the fall of 2003, one year before her death at age 83. “Certain ways in which I have made my work ever since 1961 have simply—very simply, silently and without saying goodbye—departed from me.”
    Truitt was talking about making “Sound,” a new body of work that would go down as one of the last in her decades-long career. 
    Each of the 14 entries in the series comes in the form of a square piece of paper covered edge to edge in thick, monochromatic swaths of paint—a pensive study in color, abstraction, and, yes, sound. They went on public view for the first time last week at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York (through December 19).
    Anne Truitt, Sound Eleven (2003). © Estate of Anne Truitt, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

    “It’s as if a person had decisively walked quietly out of a room I am used to living in and in which I were thoroughly accustomed to a powerful presence,” the artist continued in the letter. “I am surprised. What is left is ‘sound,’ some kind of energy without name. More force, no name.”
    “Yesterday while walking around,” Truitt went on, “it occurred to me that the ‘name’ of the things I am making out of the beautiful delicate strong paper…is SOUND.”
    For those familiar with the artist’s greatest hits—her totemic sculptures or expansive Color Field paintings—the “Sound” series might come as a surprise. The profound interest in color that imbues much of Truitt’s work is there, but the finish is different. Whereas older efforts evinced clean—if imperfect—surfaces, these works on paper are expressive and aggressive and rough.
    And yet, as Matthew Marks director Cory Nomura explains, what distinguishes the “Sound” series within the artist’s catalogue is also what makes it unmistakably Truitt. 
    “She continued to innovate within a particular language throughout her entire practice,” Nomura tells Artnet News. “It never became a rote operation. Everything was made deliberately and with intense meaning and thought behind it.” 
    Anne Truitt, Sound Seven (2003). © Estate of Anne Truitt, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

    “Anne Truitt: Sound” is the seventh solo presentation of the artist’s work at Marks. (The show is also featured on the dealer’s virtual exhibition platform.) 
    Since the gallery began working with Truitt’s estate 12 years ago, Nomura notes, it has been making its way through the bodies of work she left behind. During that time, the market for her art has also grown significantly. Truitt’s 15 priciest auction sales—which comprise sculptures, paintings, and works on paper—have all come since 2012, according to the Artnet Price Database. The top five, including a 1983 sculpture that sold for a record $325,000 at Sotheby’s, have taken place since 2018.
    The artist has also received growing institutional attention as art historians seek to expand the story of Minimalism. In 2017, Dia:Beacon unveiled a long-term exhibition of Truitt’s work dating from the 1960s to the 1980s.
    “Anne Truitt: Sound” will be on view at Matthew Marks Gallery November 12–December 19, 2020.
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    in Exhibitions

    Artists Take on Intimacy, Voyeurism, and Suspense in White Cube’s New Alfred Hitchcock-Themed Show—See Highlights Here

    “Rear Window” online at White CubeThrough January 19, 2021

    What the gallery says: “In the 1954 thriller, a photojournalist is confined to his New York apartment after breaking his leg and succumbs to an obsession with watching his neighbors. The audience is made complicit in his voyeurism as, unable to tear himself away from his window, he witnesses dramatic scenes unfold within his field of vision.
    Featuring paintings and photographs by Ellen Altfest, Jeff Burton, Gillian Carnegie, Julie Curtiss, Judith Eisler, Celia Hempton, Danica Lundy, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Laurie Simmons, Jeff Wall, and Carrie Mae Weems, this exhibition invites us to consider how artists construct scenes and suggest narratives, whilst exploring the idea of ‘the gaze’ which Hitchcock’s film was instrumental in formulating.”
    Why it’s worth a look: White Cube’s newly launched online viewing room kicks off with an homage to Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchhock curated by director Susanna Greeves. It feels right for this era of life under lockdown, as the pandemic resurges and cold weather creeps in. So many of us are now are limited to only looking these days, as the fear of spreading germs relegates us to a life mediated by screens.
    The artists included in this show have focused on the idea of the gaze, exploiting and manipulating it—but also finding new and deeper meaning through looking slow, and long, and with interest. Artists Jeff Wall and Laurie Simmons both construct tableaux that are similar to film directors, while Jeff Burton’s photography is drawn directly from his experience working in the porn industry. A treat all around.
    What it looks like:

    Jeff Wall, Summer Afternoons (2013). © Jeff Wall. Courtesy White Cube.

    Jeff Wall, Summer Afternoons (2013). © Jeff Wall. Courtesy White Cube.

    Carrie Mae Weems, Scenes & Takes (2016). © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

    Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Darkroom Mirror (_2070021), (2017). © Paul Mpagi Sepuya. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter, Los Angeles.

    Celia Hempton, Jay, Minnesota, United States, 31st August 2017 (2017). © Celia Hempton. Courtesy the artist and Southarn Reid.

    Laurie Simmons, Long House (Pink Bedroom), (2004). © Laurie Simmons. Image courtesy the artist and Salon 94, NY.

    Julie Curtiss, The whispers (2020). © the artist. Photo © Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Courtesy of White Cube.

    Julie Curtiss, Le serpent qui danse (2020). © the artist. Photo © Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Courtesy of White Cube.

    Danica Lundy, Captain (2020). © Danica Landy. Courtesy of the artist and Super Dakota, Brussels.

    Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Playing harmonica) (1990-99). © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

    Laurie Simmons, The Boxes (Ardis Vinklers) Ballroom, (2005). © Laurie Simmons. Image courtesy the artist and Salon 94, NY.

    Laurie Simmons, Study for Long House (Red Shoes), (2003). © Laurie Simmons. Image courtesy the artist and Salon 94, NY.

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    in Street Art

    “St. George” by Bozko in Sofia, Bulgaria

    Graffiti artist Bozko just finished my new mural for the 2020 Edition of our urban art project “Urban Creatures”. The mural entitled “”St. George” is located in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is Bozko’s interpretation of the old biblical scene, which he finds more and more corresponding to the current reality.

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    Bozhidar Simeonov, also known as Bozko, is a Bulgarian artist who lives and works in Sofia. Besides street art, he works in illustration, comic books, animation and set design. His characters are easily recognizable and strangely appealing in a morbidly adorable way.

    Image credits: Vladimir Gruev More

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    in Exhibitions

    Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Is Building a Remarkable and Poetically Fleeting Memorial to Those Lost to the Coronavirus

    The COVID-19 pandemic has not only killed nearly 1.3 million people worldwide—it has also made rituals of collective bereavement dangerous and practically impossible. 
    “It’s not natural,” says artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, whose native country of Mexico is home to a particularly festive form of honoring the departed. “People feel like they’ve been suspended.”
    A new artwork by the Mexico City-born, Montreal-based artist proffers a poetic alternative tailor-made for this globalized, techno-mediated moment.
    For the work, Lozano-Hemmer developed an AI-operated machine that transforms user-submitted photographs of the deceased into temporary portraits plotted out in grains of sand. 
    On a live stream, viewers can watch as the images take shape in the artist’s studio across 30 minutes, as a robotic arm methodically deposits granules until a figure coalesces.
    Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, A Crack in the Hourglass (2020), detail. Courtesy of the artist.

    But just as quickly, the board tilts forward, the sand slips, the image dissolves, and only a black backboard remains.
    “That’s what helps you understand that this is over, and that you need to let go,” Lozano-Hemmer tells Artnet News. 
    The title of the work, A Crack in the Hourglass, is a central metaphor about our broken sense of time in the pandemic.
    “What happens if the hourglass has a fissure and sand starts to empty out?” Lozano-Hemmer told Artnet News. “More importantly, how can we move the hourglass to collect the sand that’s been lost [to put it] into something that’s meaningful?” 
    The project was commissioned by the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City and was originally intended to be installed on site. But the logistical realities of the pandemic soon made that impossible. (The museum is officially closed for the rest of the year.)

    As an alternative, Lozano-Hemmer devised a digital platform that would allow users to submit photos of the dead accompanied by personalized dedications. 
    The pivot makes sense: the online format has shifted the work from a local memorial in Mexico City, to a more widely accessible snapshot of the pandemic writ large.
    On the project’s website, you can scroll through the archive of portraits already completed. As of November 12, around 50 portraits have been made. (The project launched on November 7.)
    Critically, the sand is recycled for each portrait—a reminder, Lozano-Hemmer says, that in death we’re all equal. 
    Perhaps more meaningful, though, is that the artwork brings people together, which is harder—and more crucial—than perhaps ever before.
    Watch A Crack in the Hourglass live, or submit your photo, at www.acrackinthehourglass.net.
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    in Exhibitions

    ‘The Most Beautiful Artistry Is Hidden’: Watch Photographer Jeff Wall Bend Reality to Stage His Stunning Tableaux

    Often when looking at photographs, we assume they are true, that they recorded an actual event in a particular moment in time, captured with the alchemy of light and sealed with a chemical reaction.
    But photographs are just as often—and perhaps, more often than not—faked. They are staged, cropped, edited, amplified, quieted, and tied to very specific perspectives. Photographs are rarely, if ever, “true.”
    The Vancouver-based photographer Jeff Wall, who investigates precisely this in his work, is dedicated to probing this boundary between reality and fantasy, and seamlessly blending fact and fiction.
    In an exclusive interview with Art21 as part of the Extended Play series, Wall explains his 2014 work Changing Room, which shows a woman in the midst of trying on clothes inside what looks to be a department store’s fitting room.
    Her bottom half is clad in a floral-patterned skirt, while she pulls a wildly printed frock over her head, obscuring her face. We can see that she’s standing opposite a mirror, flush against the changing room wall.

    Production still from the Art21 “Extended Play” film, “Jeff Wall: An Impossible Photograph.” © Art21, Inc. 2017.

    “It’s not a mirror image, because if you look at the hangers, they say ‘Barneys’ on them, not backwards,” Wall says in the video. “Therefore, the only thing that you can be seeing is what the mirror sees. So, that’s a picture that can’t be made.”
    This slippage between fact and fiction is at the heart of Wall’s work.
    “If you pay attention to that picture and enjoy it and look at it—get involved in it—it’ll come to you. And when it comes to you, it’ll be exciting” he says.
    So the next time you scroll through Instagram or flip through the pages of a magazine—or take a look at one of Jeff Wall’s photographs—remember his words: “The most beautiful artistry is hidden.”
    Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Extended Play, below. The brand new 10th season of the show is available now at Art21.org. 
    [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

    Lithuania’s Award-Winning Venice Biennale Pavilion Is Coming to an Abandoned Swimming Pool Just Outside Berlin

    Lithuania’s Golden Lion-winning pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, Sun & Sea, is heading to Germany, where it will be staged in out-of-service 1928 Bauhaus swimming pool. A melancholy opera set on a sandy beach, the performance presents a future where the effects of climate change have reached catastrophic levels, but still do little to disturb carefree sunbathers.
    Theater director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, playwright Vaiva Grainytė, and composer Lina Lapelytė debuted the piece at Vilnius’s National Gallery of Art in 2017. In Venice, the production, translated into English, attracted long lines and immediate critical buzz for its pressing ecological themes and unique staging. Audiences watched from a balcony up above as singers in bathing suits lay on their beach towels, paging through magazines and snacking on strawberries, singing mournfully about the end of the world.
    In Germany, Sun and Sea will go on view May 1, 2021, at E-Werk Luckenwalde, a former East German coal plant less than hour outside of Berlin that was reborn last year as an art center. The swimming pool next door, E-WERK artistic director Helen Turner told Artnet News in an email, was “first built to make use of the power station’s excess heat energy and as a leisure activity for the station’s workers.”
    In keeping with the venue’s efforts to remain carbon neutral, the production will be powered entirely by Kunststrom—which translates to “art current,” or “art stream”—a type of 100 percent renewable electricity produced by German artist Pablo Wendel’s nonprofit art project and energy provider, Performance Electrics gGmbH.
    Co-artistic directors, Helen Turner and Pablo Wendel with their dog Coal in the Bauhaus Stadtbad, 2019. Photo by Lukas Korschan for the FACE.

    “After a challenging year, in which we have been intensely confronted with our own mortality, it is important to continue championing change and remember that our greatest long-term threat to humanity still remains climate change,” Turner said. “Sun & Sea exists as a stark reminder why we must continue to fight for change, to our industry and society as a whole.”
    As in Venice, the project will be crowdfunded, with a campaign due to launch in January to raise the €40,000 to pay for sand, beach chairs, and salaries for 28 performers. (In the meantime, E-Werk is inviting potential donors to reach out via email.)
    Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte, Lina Lapelyte, Sun & Sea (Marina) at Lithuania Biennale Arte 2019, Venice. Photo ©Andrej Vasilenko.

    To ensure the safety of both performers and viewers, tickets, which will be free, are limited. Audiences will watch from the pool’s upper balconies.
    Returning as curator for the German presentation is Lucia Pietroiusti, curator of general ecology at London’s Serpentine Galleries. She’s the guest curator for E-Werk’s annual Power Night program, which will also include new commissions from artists Isabel Lewis, Himali Singh Soin, and Tabita Rezaire.
    “[Sun and Sea] will be essentially the same work as Venice, except for the qualities that the venue brings to the piece when experiencing it,” Pietroiusti told the Art Newspaper. “An empty swimming pool comes with a whole different kind of underlying catastrophe, at least for me.”
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