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    Artist Grace Weaver’s Buoyant, Sensual Paintings of People Moving Through Everyday Life Are on View at James Cohan—See Them Here

    As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.

    “Grace Weaver: Steps” at James Cohanthrough September 12, 2020
    What the gallery says: “In her striking portrayals of the tragicomic everyday, Grace Weaver examines the charged social and cultural conditions that underlie self-concept, intimacy, and individual experience. Depicting elastic-limbed figures that collide on street-corners and tumble down steps, Weaver’s new paintings turn an incisive yet empathetic eye onto the self-conscious performativity and precarious footing of her contemporaries. In her work, the body itself becomes scenario: playful, sweeping lines and dense planes of luminous color act as linguistic elements, each directing [their] own physical weight and affect onto her female subjects.
    Weaver’s paintings are an exploration of what she terms a ‘theater of public life’… These scenes allow her to build an audience within the painting, creating a chorality within the picture plane. The cast of characters, like Weaver, are as much subject to performing a strata of social anxieties as they are to wryly observing them.”
    Why it’s worth a look: Weaver’s deft drawings and charcoal studies, which are full of lyricism and emotion, recall Eadweard Muybridge’s landmark 19th-century motion-study photographs, with each erasure marking another aspect of the body’s movement through space.
    The paintings that result from Weaver’s many preparatory works are flattened with color, but not diminished in affect: the bright orange and hot pink of the female characters, outlined almost as animation cels, are hilarious and heartwarming. The balloon-shaped extremities and accordion-pleated skirts of some figures are reminiscent of Olive Oyl’s elasticity, and the tight-lipped portrait Choker II calls up an image of Daria, the surly heroine at the heart of MTV’s animated sitcom. Both are models of imperfect, fallible women—all the better for their foibles.
    The “Steps” noted in the show’s title could be a simple reference to the physical flights of stairs the subjects clumsily traverse. But it could just as easily be an allusion to the steps of performance, the process of maturity, and the many hurdles of simply going about life.
    What it looks like:

    Grace Weaver, Affront (2020).© Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Misstep (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Droop (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Limbo (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Study for ‘Limbo’ (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Transfer (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Step (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Choker II [detail] (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Stunt (2020). Courtesy of James Cohan Gallery.© Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Crying (I, Upwards) (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Confrontation (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Crying (II, Downwards) (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Shame (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Sunshower (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Choker I (2020).  © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

    Grace Weaver, Split Leap (2020). © Grace Weaver 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo by Phoebe d’Heurle.

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    in Street Art

    Nomad Carpet by Guerrilla Spam in Milan, Italy

    One of the most active and committed artistic projects in Italy is certainly the one best known as Guerrilla Spam. It was born in 2010 in Florence (Tuscany), in the form of spontaneous poster art in urban spaces where artworks were not often signed. Within a few years, the artistic collective gained visibility and attracted the attention of archaeological and contemporary art museums all over the country.
    The project today alternates the practice of poster art, paste up to public muralism interventions in Italy and abroad, by creating artistic and educational projects focused on the importance of the theme of migration . We enter in Guerrilla Spam imaginary by discovering the beauty of different cultures living in the same geographical territory

    Their latest work, Nomad Carpet, was designed site specific for the project Imagine Piazza Tirana curated by BASE Milano and Bepart with the contribution of the Municipality of Milan.
    Piazza Tirana and its basketball court have become a sort of Monument of the imagination, coloring itself with digital figures and animations with the aim of transforming the visual narrative of Giambellino, an emblematic neighborhood on the southwestern outskirts of Milan. Thanks to the support of the guys living in the neighborhood, the basketball court has maintained its sporting function alongside the decorative one.

    The concept of the work is told to us by one of the protagonists of the collective:

    ” The carpet is an object that has always performed two parallel functions: a practical and an ornamental one. It was born and developed among the nomadic populations, who change settlements frequently and who, with the carpet, move the soil of their home. It is a daily object that must be used: it is the space on which we meet to talk, eat, where weddings and holidays are celebrated, where we sleep and pray.
    But the carpet is also an artistic object that decorates and beautifies the space, which identifies a certain family, village or culture of origin based on colors and symbols.
    The metaphor of the carpet is used here to redefine a space, in particular a basketball court, transforming it into a new place for the community, a new meeting place. Just like on a carpet you can meet in this new ideal square to be together “.

    Enjoy the aerial photos with drone taken by Ilaria Tullio and the shots of the making of by Davide Chiesa and stay with us to stay up to date on the latest news on the Italian street art scene.

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    in Street Art

    “Pensées du bouffon rouge” by Pboy in Paris, France

    French muralist Pascal Boyart, aka PBoy, has recently completed a new mural titled “Pensées du bouffon rouge” (Contemplation of the Red Jester) in Rue de Montmorency, Paris 3ème. This amazing 6mt wide acrylic painting depicts the famous “Stańczyk” Red Jester by Jan Matejko (1838-1893) plus some modern additions to reflect about the current problems that riddle the global economy. Stańczyk was the court jester when Poland was at the height of its political, economic and cultural power during the era of the Renaissance in the 16th century. He was a very popular figure, an eloquent man considered more than a mere entertainer, using satire to comment on the nation’s past, present, and future.

    Passionate about drawing since his youth, Pascal Boyart grew up in Paris near La Chapelle, the birthplace of European graffiti. During the last 15 years he covered the walls of Paris with his realistic figurative frescoes inspired by an evident fascination for monumental portraits. Pboy is notably the first mural painter to affix a Bitcoin QR code for donations, to support his future works with no intermediaries involved. The mural has been painted in two days on the facade of the Galerie W Landau, as part of the W-Art United Festival. Check out below for more images of the Red Jester.

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    ‘The World Is Ripe for Remaking’: Watch Artist Theaster Gates Revitalize Crumbling Buildings Into Bustling Community Centers

    Everything Chicago-born artist Theaster Gates sees, hears, touches, even imagines, is material just waiting to be transformed into art.
    In 2016, in an exclusive interview with Art21 as part of its “Art in the Twenty-first Century” series, Gates explained his circuitous career route.
    He began as an urban planner with an interest in religious studies, defecting along the way to try his hand at being a potter.
    “I stopped making pots and was looking for a thing to do, and remembered that I had good hands,” he says in the interview, recalling how his father, a roofer by profession, had taught him from an early age to build things.
    With this realization, the artist began to set his sights on large buildings as the raw materials for his work, transforming crumbling buildings into revitalized community-gathering spaces, balancing art with social responsibility.
    The structures, which Gates strips and transforms into sculptures, are sold as bonds or investments to benefit rehabilitation projects, which many banks declined to fund.
    Newly restored buildings are turned into repositories for Black culture, and there is even space for artists to live.
    “The world is ripe for a making, for a re-making, for a re-shaping,” he says in the Art21 interview.
    “Can art and culture change communities?” he asks. “It does all the time… I’m asking questions of what the Black world might look like if we invested in it, if we gave a damn.”
    Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century, below.
    [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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    The Venice Biennale Is Staging an Introspective Archival Exhibition This Summer About How Major Events in History Shaped Its Legacy

    While the Venice Biennale may be postponed until 2022, the organization that oversees it will celebrate its 125th anniversary this summer with an exhibition that, for the first time ever, brings together all six of its departments—art, architecture, cinema, dance, music, and theater.
    Each the departments’ six artistic directors are collaborating on the archival show, titled “The Disquieted Muses. When the Biennale Meets History,” which looks at La Biennale foundation’s winding and, at times, fraught history.
    “Interdisciplinary collaboration is something completely new for La Biennale,” Cecilia Alemani, who spearheaded the show and is set to curate the next Venice Biennale, tells Artnet News. “In particular, we will focus on when the institution clashed with different moments in Italian and world history, be it crisis and war, but also when it was faced with the introductions of new languages and transformations of the biennial itself.”
    The exhibition will be on view from August 29 to December 8 at the central pavilion of the Giardini, which usually hosts half of the central group art exhibition. Given the detailed-oriented nature of documents and other ephemera on view, there will be no attempt to bring the show online
    About 95 percent of the show will draw from the wealth of documents within the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts in Venice. There will also be items and works on view from a large group of Italian foundations, as well as a handful of loans from the Tate Modern and the Peggy Guggenheim collection. Alemani says the institution’s archive, which was was founded in 1928, is a “living history” that includes letters, contracts, video, and pictures, as well as artist sketches and even “gifts” that participating artists may have left behind.
    Police charging the student in St. Mark Square during the demonstration against the Biennale, Venice, 1968. A section of the exhibition will look at this historic moment. Photo by Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche/Getty Images.

    The large central pavilion will be broken into “rooms” with displays designed by the firm formafantasma. One section will look at the years of fascism between 1928 and 1945, focusing on the work of the Futurists as well as degenerate-labeled musicians during World War II and the film festival’s wartime awards to Leni Riefensthal’s fascist propaganda film Olympia.
    Other section focal points include the Cold War, highlighted by Peggy Guggenheim’s breakthrough show of her collection at the then-unused Greek pavilion, which introduced modern art to what was then a highly traditional biennial; then the show heads into the 1968 student protests, which were brought to Venice’s doorsteps. The show goes on to ebb and flow throughout the structural changes of the 1970s and into the introduction of postmodernism. It finally arrives at the 1990s with the beginning of globalization and the star-making historical pavilions such as Hans Haacke’s 1993 German pavilion and the 1999 exhibition curated by Harald Szeeman.
    “Each of [the artistic directors] has traced the historical arc they thought would best illustrate the key points of La Biennale throughout its history,” said La Biennale president Roberto Cicutto in a statement. “I would like to thank all of them, and their staff, for working on this despite the current difficulties and all their other duties.”
    When it comes to Alemani’s own upcoming show in 2022, she says it is still hard to imagine how the world will look then. “Since I was appointed in January, I have had to restart my plans for the show three times,” she says. “I am taking a deep breath and trying to listen and learn about the changes in the world, good and bad.”
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    in Street Art

    5th Anniversary Edition of The Crystal Ship in Ostend, Belgium

    Although the 5th anniversary edition of The Crystal Ship was cancelled last April due to the pandemic, sitting still is just not their thing. They recently have invited DFace, Case Maclaim and Elisa Capdevila to paint new murals in Ostend, Belgium. The new locations Zelliklaan, Duinhelmstraat, and Wetenschapspark were all outside the city centre to guarantee safe visiting of our artworks.
    This 2020, The Crystal Ship’s theme is Home Is Where the Heart Is. 
    The Crystal Ship is an annual art event that turns the coastal town of Ostend into Belgium’s leading open-air gallery, with over a dozen world-renowned street artists setting sail for it. They have covered Ostend with murals, sculptures, installations, and just about everything you don’t expect to see in a popular holiday spot.
    Scroll down below to see more images of this year’s artworks.

    Mural by Case Maclaim in Duinhelmstraat | Photo by Jules Cesure

    Mural by Case Maclaim in Duinhelmstraat | Photo by Jules Cesure

    “Mermaid’s Tale” by DFACE in Zelliklaan | Photo by Jules Cesure

    “Mermaid’s Tale” by DFACE in Zelliklaan | Photo by Jules Cesure

    Mural by Elisa Capdevila in Oostende Science Park, Wetenschapspar | Photo by Jules Cesure

    Mural by Elisa Capdevila in Oostende Science Park, Wetenschapspar | Photo by Jules Cesure

    Mural by Elisa Capdevila in Oostende Science Park, Wetenschapspar | Photo by Jules Cesure

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    ‘The Death of Marat’ Defined the French Revolution. Here Are 3 Things You Might Not Know About Jacques Louis David’s Masterpiece

    In 1793, Jacques Louis David, the official artist of the French Revolution, painted the Death of Marat as a tribute to his slain friend, the revolutionary propagandist Jean-Paul Marat, in the wake of his assassination. The painting, which is today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, remains one of the defining images of that era. Most museum goers are at least cursorily familiar with the image and the story behind it.
    So you probably know that the assassination in question took place during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, and that David’s depiction was used as Jacobin propaganda. You may know that Marat was killed by one Charlotte Corday, who gained entrance to his house by promising to give Marat dirt on enemies of the Revolution, then stabbed him. You may know that Marat is pictured in a bath tub because he had a skin condition that he was treating, and that the note shown gripped in his hand is meant as evidence of Corday’s trickery, showing a message from her asking for his help.
    Here are three facts about the painting that go a little deeper.  
    1) It May Be His Tribute to Another Revolutionary as Well: Caravaggio
    Caravaggio, Entombment of Christ (1603). Collection of the Vatican Museum.

    You may not think of austere Neoclassicism as connected to the bombastic Baroque. But scholars have called the Death of Marat David’s “most intense masterpiece of Caravaggism.”
    As a student, David was likely very inspired by Caravaggio, who was not the most fashionable reference in France at the time. With its draped arm and stigmata-like, bloodless wound, the figure in Death of Marat echoes Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ (1603). Marat’s dramatically lit, slack-jawed face also echoes Caravaggio’s Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (1610).
    Caravaggio, Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy (1610). Image via Wikimedia Commons.

    The French Revolution rebelled against the church, and thus made religious iconography forbidden during this period. But the reference to Caravaggio’s works helped David render Marat a Revolutionary martyr. Since Marat’s newspaper was called “The Voice of the People,” and Caravaggio was famous (or infamous) for inserting images of the common people into Biblical scenes, the influence really makes sense.

    2) Corday, Not Marat, Would be Celebrated in Art for Decades After ‘The Death of Marat’ 
    Jean-Jacques Hauer, Charlotte Corday (1793). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    Charlotte Corday, the assassin, is not depicted in David’s picture, which is part of what gives Marat’s figure its beautified, otherwordly status. During her trial, an unrepentant Corday stated she had acted to stop Marat from further fueling the Reign of Terror, saying, “I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand,” before being sent to the guillotine.
    Corday’s dying wish was that her portrait be taken. National Guard officer Jean-Jacques Hauer, who had already taken some sketches of the prisoner, created her likeness in the hours just before her execution.
    In the decades that followed, opinion on the Revolution turned, and so did opinions on the Death of Marat. David had to have the painting hidden away when he was exiled to Brussels. Meanwhile, Corday continued to be the subject of paintings and poetry that pictured her as a heroine, earring the nickname the “Angel of Assassination” by the mid-19th century.
    Paul Jacques Aimé Baudry, Charlotte Corday, posthumous (1860). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    Paul Baudry’s 1860 image of the same scene, made during the Second Empire, paints Corday into the image, as if flipping David’s image by 90 degrees to open up the view on the event.
    But Jean-Joseph Weerts’s The Assassination of Marat (1880), featuring a steely Corday faced by a musical theater style explosion of angry French revolutionaries, has to take the cake for alternative renditions of of the scene.
    Jean-Joseph Weerts, The Assassination of Marat (1880). Image via Wikimedia Commons.

    3) Charles Baudelaire Brought ‘Marat’ Back to Life
    The painting lingered in relative obscurity well after David’s death in 1825. The family even tried to sell it, unsuccessfully.
    Charles Baudelaire, considered one of the first art critics as well as a modernist poet, gets credit for reinvigorating public enthusiasm for the painting. In 1846, upon seeing it in a small exhibition of works of David and Ingres in Paris, he penned an ode to the work that specifically placed its emotional truth above the politics of the day, and so set the stage for it to be revered beyond its immediate Revolutionary context:

    There is something at once both tender and poignant about this work; in the icy air of that room, on those chilly walls, about that cold and funereal bath, hovers a soul. May we have your leave, you politicians of all parties, and you too, wild liberals of 1845, to give way to emotion before David’s masterpiece? This painting was a gift to a weeping country, and there is nothing dangerous about our tears.

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