Exhibitions

Formerly a train station, the grand central nave of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris has retained its high ceilings and streaming natural light, making it the ideal exhibition space for historic sculptural masterpieces.
Now, the familiar collection of traditional statues has been enlivened by American artist Kehinde Wiley’s twist on the classical European tradition. At the centre of the hall, a large-scale canvas of a woman wearing bright street clothing, hangs beside two monumental sculptures.
These new works are an extension of the artist’s ongoing “DOWN” series which, since 2008, has reimagined famous depictions of fallen figures, such as Hans Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (c. 1520), but using contemporary subjects. In this case, Wiley was specifically inspired by the museum’s marble statue Woman Bitten by a Serpent (1847) by the French sculptor Auguste Clésinger.
That work is directly quoted in Wiley’s painting Women Bitten by a Serpent (Mamadou Gueye), which focuses instead on the Senegalese athlete Mamadou Gueye, depicted in a yellow Louis Vuitton top, blue jeans and white sneakers.
Each of Wiley’s subjects are laid down or, in the case of An Archeology of Silence, dropping from the seat of a horse in an inversion of the majesty we have come to expect of traditional equestrian portraiture. These poses might suggest calm repose—or violence and death.
“Whilst playing with the stereotypes of Western painting and sculpture, Kehinde Wiley carries an up-to-date message concerning the violence of contemporary society,” said Christophe Leribault, president of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie, in a statement. “I wanted to display these works as an actual strand of those collections at the Musée d’Orsay that have been such an inspiration to him and of which he offers a fascinating rereading.”
Born in 1977, Wiley is known for his reinvention of art historical tropes and conventions to center contemporary Black subjects and experiences. The exhibition is an extension of his concurrent show at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice. See images of the installation below.
“Kehinde Wiley” is on view at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, through January 8, 2023.
Woman Bitten by a Serpent (1847), by Auguste Clésinger at the Musée D’Orsay. Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images.
Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
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

Organizers of the Venice Biennale have announced that Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa will oversee the 60th International Art Exhibition, set to be held in 2024. In a pair of firsts, Pedrosa is both the first Latin American and the first from the Southern Hemisphere to curate the event.
In a statement released by the goliath art festival on December 15, the board followed the suggestion of its president, Roberto Cicutto, in appointing Pedrosa, who is the current artistic director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. The Biennale’s dates have also been agreed upon, with the sprawling city-wide event set to run from April 20 to November 24, 2024.
“Pedrosa is an esteemed curator and director known for competence and originality,” Cicutto said in a statement, “Now more than ever, La Biennale might address contemporary art not to provide a catalog of the existing, but to give form to contradictions, dialogues, and kinships.”
Over the past two decades, Pedrosa has become a leading figure platforming and shaping Brazil’s contemporary art scene. From his position in São Paolo, he has curated solo shows dedicated to the likes of Tarsila do Amaral, Beatriz Milhazes, Wanda Pimentel, and Ione Saldanha. He led the Pampulha art museum in Belo Horizonte during the early 2000s and has considerable experience working on large art festivals, including the Istanbul Biennial, the San Juan Triennale, and the Shanghai Biennale.
In December this year, he received the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies in recognition for creating the “Histórias” series, which spotlights under-recognized histories of art.
“I am honored and humbled by this prestigious appointment,” Pedrosa said in a statement. “The Biennale is certainly the most important platform for contemporary art in the world, and it is an exciting challenge and a responsibility to embark on this project. I look forward to bringing artists to Venice and realizing their projects.”
Central to Pedrosa’s appointment was a sense of continuity with Cicutto, noting that the decision grew out of the experience of working with Cecilia Alemani in 2022. “It is essential to build on what emerged from the previous exhibition to direct our next choice,” Cicutto said.
In 2023, the Venice Biennale of Architecture will run from May 20 to November 26.

More Trending Stories:
The Art World Is Actually Not Very Creative About What It Values. What Would It Take to Change That?
‘It’s My Damaged Rembrandt’: New Book Asserts a Downgraded Portrait of the Dutch Master Is the Real Deal
Introducing the 2022 Burns Halperin Report
Possibly the Oldest Pair of Levi’s Jeans, Salvaged From an 1857 Shipwreck, Just Auctioned for a Deep-Pocketed $114,000
Mr. Brainwash, Made Famous in the Banksy Documentary, Opens His Own Art Museum Where Guests Enter Through the Gift Shop
Click Here to See Our Latest Artnet Auctions, Live Now
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

“King Pleasure,” a sprawling exhibition at Chelsea’s Starrett-Lehigh building that centers Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life through rare artifacts from his estate, has welcomed over 160,000 visitors since opening in April.
The show is the first organized by Basquiat’s sisters Jeanine Heriveaux and Lisane Basquiat. It features re-creations of the artist’s childhood home and his storied studio apartment—and, as of December 7, a ready-to-wear apparel and accessories collection interpreting the artist’s work, designed by nine fashion talents for the show’s Those Who Dress Better program in partnership with Black Fashion Fair.
Fresh twists across the limited-run capsule collection are on view in “King Pleasure” through December 15, with more accessible designs available for sale in the adjacent “King Pleasure” Emporium and on Black Fashion Fair’s website.
Hanifa for the Those Who Dress Better program. Courtesy of “King Pleasure.”
“The driving inspiration behind the Those Who Dress Better program was the estate’s desire to support these nine emerging fashion designers, artists, designers, and entrepreneurs,” Programming Director Anthony Konigbagbe told Artnet News. “Fashion was very important to Jean-Michel.”
Black Fashion Fair worked with the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat to curate New York-based Black designers on the rise: Theophilo, Brandon Blackwood, Hanifa, Who Decides War, Johnny Nelson, Bed on Water, Advisry, Homage Year, and Head of State. When “King Pleasure” opened, each designer was invited to explore the exhibition, to get inspired by Basquiat’s persona, and select which artworks to interpret.
Bed On Water, an interdisciplinary art house that also specializes in graphic design, photography, and art, envisioned the artist’s harsh lines as soft dresses, sometimes with billowing folds. Lauded by the CFDA and Beyoncé alike, Hanifa made the artist’s timeless ‘Ideal’ logo look even newer, in a slinky yet sunny yellow bodysuit that melts into gentle tangles of thick yarn. The label Johnny Nelson contorted metal and stones into rings, echoing Basquiat’s crown motif.
Shanel Campbell from Bed On Water for the Those Who Dress Better program. Courtesy of “King Pleasure.”
What would the artist himself wear? Konigbagbe pointed to pieces by Keith Herron’s brand Advisry, including a mask, a layered and printed “King Pleasure” long-sleeve jersey, and printed jeans featuring Charles The First (1982), considering them “worthy of Jean-Michel’s own personal style.”
“The jersey is a nod to Jean-Michel’s famously worn Wesleyan lacrosse practice jersey from his 1981 Art/new york interview with Marc H. Miller,” Konigbagbe wrote.
A December 7 reception celebrated the designers’ one-week stint in “King Pleasure.” The entire exhibition will complete its run on January 1, 2023.
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

After a long and winding road, a painting depicting Dutch Golden Age master Rembrandt van Rijn is back on view in the Netherlands for the first time in more than five decades. The question of who actually painted Rembrandt in a Red Beret, however, remains unanswered.
Last month, the picture went on display at the Escher in Het Paleis, a former royal palace in The Hague named for its collection of work by Dutch graphical artist M.C. Escher. Its presentation was timed to coincide with the publication of a new book, Rembrandt in a Red Beret: The Vanishings and Reappearances of a Self-Portrait, which details the surprising history of the artwork.
The publication was commissioned by the picture’s current owner, Johann Eller. And writing it convinced the book’s author—art historian and Rembrandt expert Gary Schwartz—that the work is an autograph self portrait.
“It was accepted unconditionally as a Rembrandt from 1823 to 1969,” he told the New York Times. “It’s a canonical image, and no one else painted those kinds of images. I simply don’t see why it would be doubted.” The painting depicts the master at around the age of 37.
Dutch Rembrandt specialist Gary Schwartz poses next to Rembrandt in a Red Beret, either by Rembrandt van Rijn or his studio, at the Escher in Het Paleis in the Hague. (Photo by Bas Czerwinski/ANP/AFP via Getty Images).
But as he began investigating the work’s checkered past at the behest of its current owner, Schwartz uncovered a twisting tale far more intriguing than a simple question of authorship.
The first known record of the painting dates to 1823, when it was in the collection of King Willem II of the Netherlands. His son, Prince Hendrik, displayed it at the Het Paleis from 1850 to 1879. The canvas was inherited by Wilhelm Ernst, a German grand duke, who lent it to the Grand Ducal Museum, in Weimar, Germany, in 1909. There, it was stolen in a 1921 heist.
It was a daring theft that involved scaling the building, climbing up a lightning rod, and entering through a window. At the time, a newspaper noted that the robbers had made off with a “world-famous self-portrait of the Dutch master, a work from his best period, painted one year later than the famous Night Watch in Amsterdam.”
Later reports claimed that two men confessed to the burglary, but the painting was never recovered, despite a reward of 100,000 Deutsche Marks.
From there, the trail went cold for over two decades, until 1945, when a woman named Anna Cunningham showed up at the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio and presented the painting to the museum’s director Siegfried Weng. He immediately recognized the stolen canvas—by then heavily damaged—and suspected it had been looted during World War II.
Cunningham’s husband, a plumber named Leo Ernst, had told her a different story. He claimed that while visiting New York City in 1934, he got drunk with a group of German sailors and woke up to find three mysterious canvases in his hotel room the next morning. He said he had kept the Rembrandt in his closet ever since.
After briefly exhibiting the picture at the Art Institute, Weng decided to turn it over to the Art Looting Investigation Unit in Washington, D.C., led by Charles Henry Sawyer, one of the Monuments Men who had worked to preserve and recover cultural heritage during the war. The government confiscated the work, and for 20 years it was housed at the National Gallery of Art in D.C.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided it was high time that the U.S. returned artworks seized during the war. The government sent the portrait of Rembrandt to West Germany in 1967, with the painting eventually making its way back to an heir of Wilhelm Ernst, who sold it in 1983 to Eller. (Schwartz’s research involved combing through declassified government documents for mentions of the canvas.)
Since a 1969 update to Abraham Bredius’s catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s work, Rembrandt in a Red Beret has been attributed to the Dutch master’s pupil Ferdinand Bol, or dismissed as the work of the artist’s studio—or even as a later copy.
Schwartz believes that the poor condition of the work is negatively influencing experts’ opinions about the piece, which is now being shown publicly for the first time in 55 years.
“It’s my damaged Rembrandt,” he said. “Because there’s so much missing and it has been painted over, it makes the wrong impression when you see it for the first time.”
Should scholars come to agree with Schwartz’s assertion that it is a Rembrandt, its value would skyrocket.
“Rembrandt Back in The Hague” is on view at the Escher in Het Paleis, Lange Voorhout 74, 2514 EH The Haag, Netherlands, until January 29, 2023.
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