More stories

  • in

    The Postponed Philip Guston Show Will Now Open in 2022 With New Contributions From Artists and Historians

    A massive Philip Guston retrospective, “Philip Guston Now,” whose postponement sparked an uproar, will now be “Philip Guston in Two Years.” The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has confirmed the show will open in 2022, not 2024, as previously stated.
    “Navigating the exhibition schedules of four institutions, amid a global pandemic, has been complicated, but we are glad to be able to share a new schedule for the tour of ‘Philip Guston Now’ beginning in 2022,” said NGA director Kaywin Feldman in a statement. “This additional time will allow us to slow down, get past COVID, and bring the gallery’s community together in person for challenging conversations that will help inform how we rethink the exhibition.”
    The new timeline will see the show debut at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from May 1, 2022 to September 11, 2022. It will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from October 23, 2022 to January 15, 2023 and to the NGA from February 26, 2023 to August 27, 2023. The tour wraps up with an international stop at London’s Tate Modern from October 3, 2023 to February 4, 2024.
    The four museums behind the show had announced last month that they would postpone the opening “until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted.”
    A visitor looks at the work Riding Around by Philip Guston in Hamburg, Germany in 2014. Photo by Bodo Marks/picture alliance via Getty Images.

    News of the delay of the exhibition, which was initially supposed to open in early 2020 (before an earlier lockdown-induced postponement), sparked widespread outcry among artists, curators, and others who accused the organizers of self-censorship.
    A petition demanding the show open without further delay attracted signatures from more than 2,600 art professionals, while one of the organizing curators, the Tate’s Mark Godfrey, was reportedly suspended over social media comments calling the decision “patronizing to viewers.”
    In pushing back the show, the museums were particularly concerned—especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the US over the summer—about the reception of Guston’s paintings of members of the Ku Klux Klan, which show hooded figures going about their daily lives.
    Philip Guston, Scared Stiff (1970), sold by Hauser & Wirth for $15 million at Art Basel in 2016. The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy of the estate and Hauser & Wirth.

    “Making the decision to postpone this show was not, as some have claimed, the silencing of an artist,” said MFA Boston director Matthew Teitelbaum in a statement. “I wanted to take the extra time, at this unpredictable moment, to make sure that Guston’s voice not only was heard but that the intent of his message was fairly received.”
    While Guston’s revolutionary visual language, fueled by his anti-racist beliefs, “was, and is, his inspiring achievement,” Teitelbaum added, “it became very clear to me that these images were being received by others in a far different light than the way in which I understood them. For some, the images were painful.”
    The original show’s catalogue included texts commissioned from African American artists Glenn Ligon and Trenton Doyle Hancock, who incorporates Klan figures inspired by Guston’s work into his paintings. But organizers determined they needed more time—and a more diverse team—to contextualize the images further.
    The revised exhibition will incorporate reflections from more contemporary artists on what these historic works mean to them. Historians and other experts will speak about Guston’s KKK paintings in video clips. Visitors, too, will be invited to share their reactions.
    The institutions have not yet decided if any Black curators will be joining the exhibition’s currently all-white curatorial team, but Teitelbaum said there will be “more diverse voices contributing to the preparation of historical framing materials that allow us to appreciate the context in which Guston worked and achieved his vision.”
    In a statement, Guston’s daughter Musa Mayer, who emphatically opposed the postponement, said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the new schedule and revised approach.
    “I believe it is essential for the exhibition to contextualize the depth of my father’s social conscience, allowing the hooded figures and other imagery to reclaim their meaning, including but also moving beyond specific references to the Ku Klux Klan,” she said. “What we need now, as so many have pointed out, is to actually see Philip Guston’s paintings and drawings in all their complexity, without reductive characterizations.”
    Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

  • in

    ‘I Want to Bring the Sky Down’: Watch Artist James Turrell Craft Extraordinary Works With the Radiant Power of Light

    As we settle into winter, the waning daylight hours are becoming more and more precious. Pioneering light and space artist James Turrell has spent his entire career trying to help viewers understand and appreciate that fleeting light as something valuable, on par with gold or silver.
    In an exclusive interview with Art21 filmed back in 2013, Turrell reflects on his journey to make art experiences through harnessing the power of light.
    “It’s not something that you form in the hands, like wax or clay,” he says. “You don’t carve it away like with wood or stone. You don’t assemble it like welding.” 

    Production still from the Art21 “Extended Play” film, “James Turrell: ‘Second Meeting.’” © Art21, Inc. 2013.

    After bouts of experimentation, Turrell landed on the idea of the skyspace, where a square patch of a ceiling in an enclosed space opens up into the heavens, allows visitors to peer through void and into the sky.
    In the video, he sits and contemplates the sky in his work Second Meeting, which was originally installed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 1986.
    “I want to bring the space of the sky down to the top of the space you’re in, so that you really feel at the bottom of the ocean of air,” he tells Art21. “We do create the reality in which we live.”
    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.
    Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

  • in

    American Painter Inka Essenhigh’s Surrealist Scenes Offer a Very Enjoyable Distraction From the News—See Them Here

    “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery GalleryThrough November 14, 2020

    What the gallery says: “As found throughout Surrealism and other modern avant-garde movements, Essenhigh’s paintings tend be uniquely episodic, while still sharing themes of flora and fauna. They are touched by a curious self-containment and an interiority of the force of imagination. Her works display dimensional narratives that require close-up viewing, creating a visceral dialogue, one viewer at a time. Each is marked by bright, rich color, and a decision to revel in the “little world” schema of psychology with a fluidity between people and their things.”

    Inka Essenhigh, Mission Chinese Restaurant (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, NY.

    Why it’s worth a look: Who couldn’t use a bit of escapism right now? In American painter Inka Essenhigh’s fantastical world, the goblinesque creatures and their environments seem to be lit from within, whether cast in the cool light of the predawn morning or in the deep burnt orange of a Chinese restaurant. With nods to surrealism and animation, Essenhigh’s landscapes are populated by characters from folklore and mythology, in some cases existing only as faceless shadows. At a time where the real world is filled with screaming headlines and endless stressors, Essenhigh’s magic garden offers a lovely, transporting respite.
    Miles McEnery Gallery is located at 525 West 22nd Street.
    What it looks like:

    Inka Essenhigh, Forever Young (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, Mushroom King (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Installation view, “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery Gallery. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

    Inka Essenhigh, Dawn’s Early Light (2019). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Installation view, “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery Gallery. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

    Inka Essenhigh, Orange Fall (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, Predawn in Early Spring (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, The Last Party (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, Purple Pods (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, Full Bloom (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, Purple Pod Beans (2019). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Inka Essenhigh, Queen Anne’s Lace (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY.

    Installation view, “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery Gallery. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

    Installation view, “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery Gallery. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

    Installation view, “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery Gallery. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

    Installation view, “Inka Essenhigh” at Miles McEnery Gallery. Image: Christopher Burke Studio. Courtesy of the artist and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

    Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

  • in

    “We Travel The Space Way” by RUN in Rovigo, Italy

    Italian artist RUN just worked on a massive mural in the city of Rovigo, Italy. The title of the mural is “We Travel The Space Way”. The mural was done on the circular wall of the Rovigo Sports Hall that extends into 540 square metres. The architecture of the building reminds RUN of a star observatory, thus, the concept of the mural.
    The work depicts a series of characters immersed in a sky full of stars. It represents an invitation to travel with our imagination from one planet to another. The artist’s usage of only 5 colours with the predominance of blue, gives the painting a strong and dreamy feeling.

    Giacomo Bufarini, also known as RUN, is a London based Italian artist whose works can be seen adorning streets from China to Senegal. His recognisable style shows a level of detail and complexity rarely seen in street art today, evidenced through his vivid rendering of interlocking bodies in symbolic poses, pattern like, friezes in bright, arresting colours.

    b-sm = 300×250; sm > none;

    Scroll down below for more images of the mural. More

  • in

    “Cocina” by Pastel in Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Argentinean muralist Pastel recently finished a new work located in Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires. It is entitled “Cocina” and was painted on Plaza Roca water tower, that was built on 1950’s. The mural features floral designs and motifs that are visually integrated into the vegetation of the square.

    b-sm = 300×250; sm > none;

    This large-scale project is part of the celebrations for the 131st anniversary of Villa Ballester, together with the integral maintenance of the square. In addition, #BallesterCiudadCultural has an ongoing schedule of artistic activities.

    Francisco Díaz aka Pastel is an artist and architect based in Buenos Aires. Pastel sees painting as a way of counteracting social gentrification. Similarly, his use of floral imagery ties into ideas of human nature and greater awareness toward our surroundings.
    Check out below more closeup and overview images of “Cocina”. More

  • in

    After a Traumatic Jail Sentence, Kurdish Artist Zehra Doğan Has Opened a Poignant First Solo Show in Her Home Country of Turkey

    By the length of her thick black hair, the artist and writer Zehra Doğan exudes pride as a Kurdish woman. She wears an elegant nose ring and henna under her lower lip, and speaks of her life and art in Turkish, the language of her oppressors. Her first solo show in Turkey, which recently opened, follows her release from three Turkish jails.
    “I proved myself as an artist to the whole world, except for my country,” says Doğan, speaking from London on a video call. The exhibition’s title follows that thinking. “Not Approved” opened on October 9 at a small art space in Istanbul’s Pera district called Kiraathane24, a rare bastion for arts activism in Turkey, including for LGBTQ+ and refugee artists.
    The show includes clothing and materials she snuck out of prisons in Mardin, Tarsus, and Diyarbakir, where she was jailed at different times between 2016 to 2019; the latter city of Diyarbakir is her hometown, a place Kurds know as the capital of Kurdistan. Throughout the exhibition’s four rooms, there is scrawled-over newsprint, found material, pieces of writing, as well as paintings, all which champion Kurdish feminism.
    Yet her political status still overshadows her creative work. “When you Google the name Zehra Doğan, you always see the news that Zehra Doğan was arrested because of artworks,” says Seval Dakman, who co-curated the show with M. Wenda Koyuncu, both of whom identify as Kurdish. “But we don’t know the artworks of Zehra Doğan.”
    Installation view. Courtesy Zehra Doğan.

    An Imprisoned Artist
    Doğan exemplifies the struggle of Kurdish youth who are caught between armed statelessness and cultural survival in the midst of Turkey’s increasingly violent conflict with Kurds, a battle that has been ongoing for decades, but which became more heated since 2015. The Kurdistan Workers Party has been dubbed by the Turkish government as a terrorist organization and many politically active Kurds have been imprisoned.
    In 2017, Doğan was jailed for three years after being arrested the year before on terrorism charges for her news reporting, as well as for sharing on social media an image of a painting she made of a Kurdish village destroyed by the Turkish military.
    It was while in prison, at age 25, that she finally learned to write in Kurdish, and much of the show in Istanbul features her handwriting in the language, whether on cloth or within the pages of a notebook. She writes about the harsh reality of bodily confinement and political silencing as a Kurdish woman.
    Courtesy Zehra Doğan.

    “I cannot say that my activism in my artwork is only about feminism or only about Kurdish political issues, or about human rights. I’m Kurdish. I’m also a feminist. These two things can not be separated from each other. This is my life,” says Doğan. “I always fight against patriarchy, and at the same time I have fought against them as a Kurdish woman.”
    Her sentencing brought her international acclaim, particularly in the art world. Her work was on view at the most recent Berlin Biennial. In 2018, she was featured in a major public piece by the street artist Banksy expressing concern over her imprisonment. Others, including artist Ai Weiwei and the Memory Museum in Rojava, Kurdistan, have collaborated with Doğan.
    Yet in Turkey, little is known of her work beyond the painting that led to her jailing. “My country hasn’t accepted me,” says the artist. “None of the galleries in Turkey invited me to exhibit, except for Kiraathane24. I wanted to prove myself as an artist in my country.”
    Zehra Doğan’s Womanhood. Courtesy Zehra Doğan.

    Difficult Memories
    The show does not spare the hardships of Doğan’s jail time. There are sketches of tortured faces in ruddy, blacked paint on newspaper; elsewhere, a public phone is installed with calling cards and a note reading “the world’s shortest 10 minutes,” a nod to the Kurdish diaspora’s struggle to keep connected with one another through persecution. Beside the phone work, a piece titled Womanhood features a simple white dress, browned and sketched with big-eyed faces, outlined black and adorned with Kurdish-style earrings. She snuck it out of jail as dirty laundry.
    “This comes from impossibilities,” says Dakman, who is also the owner of Carre D’Artistes Istanbul, a pro-democracy art gallery chain based in France. “She didn’t have the material for art in prison. She demanded it, but they called her work propaganda.” As a result, Doğan used what she could source: menstrual blood, hair, and clothes. “If you are always under oppression, you are always finding solutions,” the curator adds.
    Zehra Doğan’s Pain of Shahmeran. Courtesy Zehra Doğan.

    One piece in “Not Approved” recalls Kurdish mythology. The story of Shahmeran, a half woman and half snake, is sketched over Doğan’s Kurdish handwriting from her imprisonment in the touristic city of Mardin in a piece called Pain of Shahmeran. Doğan depicts the mythical figure as a contorted woman giving multiple births, her sad face recalling antique mosaic portraiture in Turkey’s southeast. Shahmeran is bound hand and feet by hair, donning the characteristic red shawl traditionally worn by Kurdish women. The figure recurs across several works in the show, sometimes obscured by hair and blood, elsewhere unashamedly menstruating.
    “With my artworks I try to fight with my society—not only the Turkish government,” Doğan says. “I am fighting with patriarchy in Kurdish society. We have to fight with them as women.”
    Since being released in 2019, Doğan remains subject to threats as an artist, a woman, and a Kurd. Despite her love for her homeland, Doğan says she is unable to return because of security concerns.
    But that has not curbed her ability to reach out to young Kurds to encourage them to prioritize cultural activism in the midst of Kurdistan’s armed struggles. In November, she plans to perform at a conference on human rights at Geneva University with Ai Weiwei. Her time in jail will continue to haunt and inform her powerful art practice and her activism, she says: “I didn’t leave my way of being in prison. I am always adding something new and different to my life and art.”
    Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

  • in

    Photographer Andres Serrano Unveils What Is Likely Jeffrey Epstein’s Final Portrait, Shot Just Months Before His Death

    Artist Andres Serrano is no stranger to inciting controversy with his work—and his latest outing, “Infamous” at New York’s Fotografiska, is no exception. The exhibition includes a portrait of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, shot just months before the disgraced financier’s apparent suicide while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
    The portrait wasn’t initially taken for inclusion in the show, which focuses on a new series of photographers of racist memorabilia and other historic depictions of race that Serrano has purchased on eBay and other online auctions.
    “After he died, I decided I had to put Jeffrey Epstein’s portrait in ‘Infamous’ because there’s no one more infamous than Jeffrey,” Serrano told Artnet News in a recent interview.
    The portrait of a smiling, distinguished-looking Epstein speaks eloquently to one of the show’s core themes: the banality of evil and the rotten core at the heart of our nation, built on the backs of slave labor.
    Andres Serrano, Infamous (Jeffrey Epstein), 2019⁣. Photo ©Andres Serrano, courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

    Artifacts that Serrano purchased for “Infamous” include an 1822 bill of sale for a young boy name Joshua and a 1910 postcard with a photograph of a lynching. Days before the show’s opening, however, curators at Fotografiska made the decision to pull five of the most disturbing images from the show, including the lynching postcard.
    As an artist who has made it his mission to provoke viewers, Serrano felt ambivalent about the move. “I was very surprised—it was unexpected,” Serrano said of the late-in-the-game change. “The times are changing and people, they’re cautious… I’m okay with that.”
    (A Fotografiska spokesperson said the works’ removal was a curatorial decision based on wall space, cohesiveness of the show, and lack of further context on select images. “It was important to the museum that the images were properly contextualized,” the spokesperson said. “These decisions were not made to censor the work.”)
    When the museum gave Serrano the opportunity to present the works on Instagram instead, where they could be proceeded by content warnings, he took it.
    “America might think it’s lily-white and innocent, but it’s not,” Serrano said. “I love America, but let’s be clear about America. America was born of blood. It was founded with the blood of the Native American people who were murdered for their land.”
    The Story Behind That Epstein Image
    The show offers plenty in the way of haunting imagery, including the Epstein portrait, which comes with a stranger-than-fiction backstory. Serrano agreed to shoot Epstein’s photograph in exchange for a 16th-century statue of the Madonna.
    Serrano, who collects Renaissance art, had tried to purchase the sculpture and a matching statue of St. John from an antique shop in 1995—only to learn that a man called Epstein had beaten him to the punch, splitting up the pair.
    Andres Serrano wanted to buy this 16th-century Madonna statue in 1995, but Jeffrey Epstein beat him to it. The artist finally got the sculpture in 2018, in exchange for taking Epstein’s portrait. Photo courtesy of Andres Serrano.

    Epstein soon learned that he owned a work of art Serrano coveted, and they met several times over the years to discuss it. (Serrano clarified these were business meetings attended by the artist’s wife, Irina Movmyga, and never involved dinner, parties, or Epstein’s infamous private jet or island.)
    Fueled by an overwhelming desire to reunite the two religious statues, Serrano agreed in 2018 to a trade: Epstein’s portrait for the Madonna. The financier followed up—improbably, three months before his arrest in July 2019 and four months before his death—to secure his half of the deal.
    “I have no doubt that Jeffrey Epstein was a monster and pedophile,” Serrano added. “I would have dealt with the the devil himself for that Madonna. And apparently, I did.”
    Epstein’s portrait appears in the exhibition alongside a 2004 photograph of Donald Trump that artist shot for his “America” series, highlighting the president’s ties to the disgraced financier.
    Andres Serrano, Donald Trump (2004). Photo courtesy of Galerie Nathalie Obadia.

    Taking Inspiration From Donald Trump
    “Infamous” grew out of Serrano’s last exhibition “The Game: All Things Trump,” featuring $200,000 worth of Trump memorabilia he purchased at auction. (A book about the project was released last month.) With everything from the flight manual for the short-lived Trump Shuttle to a tiny cake given as a favor at his wedding to Melania Trump, the installation speaks to Trump’s efforts to dominate the American consciousness—and his ultimate success.
    “I liked to think that Donald Trump used the flag so much, he embraced America so much, that finally he made her his,” Serrano said. Focusing so closely on the president was far from a pleasant experience—aside from the rush from his auction victories.
    “A second Trump term is a free-for-all—he’ll go for broke,” the artist said. “You’re not even going to recognize America.”
    Andres Serrano, Black Dolls- Sandy, Vintage Rag Doll from the series “Infamous.” Photo ©Andres Serrano, courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

    He has reservations—albeit much less dramatic ones—about Joe Biden, too. “Biden is a nice guy. He’s regular Joe,” Serrano said. “But I worry that Biden will be an appeaser who will try to go to the middle.” He is more excited about the potential vice president, Kamala Harris, who he photographed for the New Yorker.
    Still, a potential Biden presidency would be far better for the country, he says—although less artistically fruitful. “I don’t think Biden inspires art,” Serrano said. “The thing about Donald Trump is if you hate him, he inspires you to do some anti-Trump work.”
    Andres Serrano, Old Glory I–II, 1920’s American 48 Star Flag from the series “Infamous.” Photo ©Andres Serrano, courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

    A onetime target of the Culture Wars, Serrano is concerned about the future of the US art scene, but doesn’t necessarily blame the president for the current state of affairs. He is more worried about artists and arts workers growing gun-shy of engaging with controversial subjects.
    “What I fear is that a wave of self-censorship is going to occur,” he said. “I see it happening already with the [postponement of the] Philip Guston exhibition.”
    An “Infamous” Follow-Up 
    After throwing himself into Trump imagery, Serrano took a similar approach to an even more bracing subject for his latest series on view in “Infamous.” Many of the objects he photographed are overtly racist, designed for mass consumption such as advertising.
    The project was completed last year, before the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests it sparked, which Serrano described as “an awareness and awakening that has been long overdue.”
    Andres Serrano, The Perfect Song Featuring Amos N Andy, 1930s Music Sheet from the series “Infamous.” Photo ©Andres Serrano, courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

    “Although we don’t have lynchings anymore, we do have killings of Black people by the police on a regular basis,” he said.
    The objects in his photographs “basically had one intent, and that was to dehumanize Black and Brown people, to make fun of them and turn them into caricatures,” said Serrano.
    He maintains it is important to see these images, and to realize how the attitudes that led to their creation still persist in some swaths of US society. To understand our current state of racial discord, we can’t look away from this ugly history.
    Andres Serrano, Carnival Games-Chuck, Vintage Early 20s Century Board Game from the series “Infamous.” Photo ©Andres Serrano, courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels.

    Indeed, even after delving into racist imagery for months on end and confronting the removal of his own work from his exhibition, Serrano isn’t sure if there’s ever a place for censorship in art. “That’s a tough question,” he said. “I don’t know where the line is, but that’s the reason that I’m an artist.”
    “Andres Serrano: Infamous” is on view at Fotografiska, 281 Park Ave South, New York, October 23, 2020–March 14, 2021.
    Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More