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      ‘We Changed People’s Mentality’: What It Was Like on the Ground in Egypt as Officials Unveiled the Pyramids’ First-Ever Contemporary Art Show

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      The pyramids of Egypt have survived for 4,500 years, despite the more recent waves of tourists and camel-entrepreneurs encircling these magnificent feats of architecture. Now, for a brief three-week period, contemporary art will also share space on the Giza Plateau with a ring of 10 site-specific art projects in the exhibition, “Forever is Now”, curated by Simon Watson and organized by Art D’Égypte.
      Art D’Égypte, founded in 2016 by the Alexandria-born French-Egyptian arts consultant Nadine Abdel Ghaffar, has a track record of inserting contemporary art into historic sites in Cairo and creating a dialogue between past and present. As Ghaffar explained just before the opening of the Giza exhibition: “Ancient Egypt and this civilization influenced the whole world and our message is a token of appreciation and a sign of hope.”
      It took three years of negotiations with UNESCO, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism and several embassies to achieve her dream of installing contemporary works near the pyramids at Giza, the country’s most famous archaeological site. “For [authorities], it’s a site of antiquities, it’s heritage, but contemporary art is not appealing to them,” Ghaffar said. “We changed people’s mentality and now they actually say that the art makes these ancient walls speak.”
      JR’s Greetings from Giza on opening day. Courtesy of the artist and Forever Is Now. Photo: MO4NETWORK.
      On Thursday, October 21, the public had its first opportunity to test out whether contemporary art enhanced or detracted from the last remaining Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World. Rather than merely block the view—an impossibility given that the Great Pyramid is over 475 feet tall—these art works transform seeing into an experiment in interactivity. JR nailed it with Greetings from Giza, a billboard of a hand that seems to be removing the top of the pyramid when viewed from the proper angle, and visitors lined up to take photographs of the comical sight.
      L.A. artist Gisela Colón (who recently participated in Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s Park) took a less ironic tack by placing Eternity Now (Parabolic Monolith Sirius Titanium—a 30-foot-long and 8-foot-high mound made of aerospace-grade carbon fiber—at the foot of the Sphinx. Resembling a rising sun, it reflected shades of gold as the light shifted over the course of a day. Colón, who grew up in Puerto Rico, worked with a Latinx-owned aerospace company to realize the sculpture, bringing a collaborative spirit to the project. “My team is over 150 people and all of us who took part in this are so proud. I get to contribute to a little part of 4,500 years of history and it is a conversation across time,” she said. “It’s about unifying the human race and how we are all globalized now, and artists can lead that conversation.”
      Gisela Colón, Eternity Now (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Forever Is Now. Photo: MO4NETWORK.
      The artist João Trevisan, a newcomer from Brazil, explored parallel colonialist histories with Body That Rises, a tower of wooden railroad ties, a possible crate for an imaginary obelisk, while Egyptian artist Sherin Guirguis invited visitors to push-pull the moving parts of her monument to feminism, Here Have I Returned.
      Ai-Da, an artificial intelligence art-making robot created by British artist Aidan Meller, was temporarily detained in customs for fear that she could be used for spying, but she eventually made it to the opening. Other participating artists included Alexander Ponomarev (Ukraine), Lorenzo Quinn (Italy), Moataz Nasr (Egypt), Shuster and Moseley (UK), Stephen Cox (UK), and Sultan bin Fahad (Saudi Arabia).
      Opening day at Forever Is Now.
      “Honestly, I had to go to bat for certain artists, I would not take no for an answer,” said Simon Watson, an art advisor and independent curator who had a gallery in Manhattan’s SoHo district in the 1980s and is now based in Brazil and New York.
      After visiting Egypt five years ago at the invitation of Cairo artist Ibrahim Ahmed, Watson was approached by Ghaffar about a year ago to help organize “Forever Is Now”, and he had to perform what he calls “a waltz between the artists and the bureaucrats.” He is thrilled with the results. The pyramids are massive and could have overshadowed the exhibition if not for Simon’s strong vision. “Now, the site is going to attract new audiences,” he said. “People will be asked to think about the themes there through a new lens.”
      Planned during the pandemic, there were many challenges to this show. In addition to the bureaucratic tangle involved with staging contemporary art at a UNESCO World Heritage site, there was the issue of raising funds for the project. Art D’Égypte was supported by a long list of partners including the local sponsors EgyptAir, Afridi Bank, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, Abou Ghalib Motors and global shipping company DHL. Cooperation from the American, British and French embassies in Egypt was also essential, although it created additional hurdles around the selection of artists.
      Many of the artists also had to raise their own funds for the fabrication and installation of their monumental sculptures, with Watson’s assistance. “Every year, we start a project without a budget, without knowing how we are going to finish, but I believe in the universe and the ‘fairy dust’ that helps us every time,” Ghaffar said. One downside is that this enormous endeavor will end on November 7, too short a run at such an incredible site.
      Lorenzo Quinn, Together (2021). Courtesy of the artist and Forever Is Now. Photo: MO4NETWORK.
      Ghaffar is something of force of nature, accomplishing a great deal with an all-women team in a country where inequality is pervasive. Recently awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest honor recognizing a significant contribution to the arts and literature, she is determined to change not only Egypt’s perception of women but also build an appreciation for its own contemporary art.
      Part of Art D’Égypte’s mission and a sign of its success is its ability to bring contemporary artworks out into public spaces where tourists and pedestrians must see them. The company has previously worked with UNESCO on three previous projects: “Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New exhibition” at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 2017, “Nothing Vanishes, Everything Transforms” at the Manial Palace and Museum in 2018, and “Reimagined Narratives” on Al-Muizz Street in historic Cairo in 2019.
      Opening just weeks before “Forever is Now”, Ghaffar also organized a series of temporary exhibitions in 12 empty shops and local cultural centers downtown to create the Cairo International Art District, funded mainly by Al-Ismaelia Real Estate Investment.
      The city already has a vibrant contemporary art scene and there are several Egyptian artists who have strong international careers such as Youssef Nabil, Ghada Amer and street artist Ganzeer. But there are many more who deserve recognition, like Moataz Nasr and Sherin Guirguis, both featured in “Forever is Now”. Standing nearby the Great Pyramid, Ghaffar said of her most recent effort to draw more attention to Egypt’s potential as an arts hub: “We are showing the transcendence between our history and contemporary art, which I view as a lens to our society today.”
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      For the First Contemporary Art Show at Egypt’s Pyramids, JR Transformed the Ancient Wonder Into a Partially Levitating Mass

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      For the first time in its ​​4,500-year history, the Great Pyramid of Giza—renowned as one of the most significant creations of the ancient world—is hosting a contemporary art show. 
      “Forever Is Now” is the name of the exhibition, made up of large-scale artworks installed along a trail leading up to the world’s wonders. The highlight is a new steel-and-mesh sculpture by French artist JR: it depicts a giant hand holding a postcard of one of the pyramids that, when viewed from the right angle, creates the illusion that the top of the ancient structure has separated from and is levitating above its base.
      ​​Gisela Colón, Alexander Ponomarev, and Lorenzo Quinn are also among the 10 international artists participating in the show, which is open to the public from today through November 7, 2021. (The robot artist Ai-Da’s inclusion was nearly blocked by customs officials who feared she was a spy.)

      With support from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and UNESCO, “Forever Is Now” was organized by Art D’Égypte, a private firm that—per the company’s own description—aims to “preserve Egypt’s heritage and advance the international profile of modern and contemporary Egyptian art.” The exhibition marks the firm’s fourth annual installation at an Egyptian heritage site since 2017 (with the exception of 2020).
      Nadine A. Ghaffar, founder of Art D’Égypte, called the exhibition a “token of hope for humanity and a humble tribute to a civilization that stands the test of time.
      “Egyptian culture is a gift to humanity, and the purpose of this exhibition is to showcase these treasures in a dialogue with the contemporary on an international scale,” she said in a statement. “Ancient Egypt has influenced artists from around the world, and so we bring the world to Egypt and Egypt to the world through art.”

      In an Instagram post, JR explained that he was invited to participate in the Egypt show following his wildly popular installation at the Louvre in 2016. With his new sculpture, titled Greetings from Giza, the artist is also dipping a toe into the world of NFTs for the first time. 
      He cut the installation’s image file into 4,591 pieces—the approximate age of the pyramids—so that “each piece becomes one NFT,” he explained in a separate post. “The pieces are very similar to what my monumental installations look like from very close—black and white dots, a bit abstract—but then make sense when all assembled together.” 
      The artist added that he has hidden “743 hieroglyph rarities,” each with a secret message, throughout the collection. Registration for the NFTs opened today on a dedicated website, where they will soon sell for what appears to be ​​$250 a pop.
      In the meantime, see more images of the artworks in “Forever Is Now” below. 

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      A Trove of Recently Rediscovered Watercolours by Hilma af Klint Are Being Sold by David Zwirner, But Only an Institution Can Buy Them

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      A 2018 exhibition on the pioneering spiritual abstractionist Hilma af Klint’s (1862–1944) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York essentially rewrote the art history books, recognizing the Swedish artist at long last as the inventor of abstraction. Now, her work is returning to the Upper East Side, where David Zwirner will unveil a recently discovered group of eight watercolors.
      The exhibition features one of two copies of “The Tree of Knowledge,” a series of watercolors on paper the artist made between 1913 and 1915. Until recently, it was assumed that the Hilma af Klint Foundation owned the only copy of the works, but it turns out she made a second version for her friend Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy, a spiritual and philosophical movement that inspired the artist.
      When Steiner died in 1925, the artwork passed to Albert Steffen, his successor as president of the Anthroposophical Society, as well as a poet and painter. His foundation, the Albert Steffen Stiftung in Dornach, Switzerland, only recently realized it was sitting on a trove of af Klint’s work, which now belongs to a private collector.
      “I am thrilled to be exhibiting ‘Tree of Knowledge’ by Hilma af Klint, which has such a fascinating history. This is the only major work that exists outside of the foundation’s collection,” Zwirner told Artnet News in an email. “The fact that she personally gave this set of watercolors to Rudolf Steiner, whose philosophical beliefs deeply influenced her, is remarkable.”
      Hilma af Klint. As seen in Beyond the Visible, a film by Halina Dyrschka. Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber.
      Af Klint began experimenting with abstract, symbolic paintings in 1906, years before similar innovations from more widely credited artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich. Her route to abstraction, of course, was not through the avant-garde art community, but through the spiritual and supernatural world.
      Her work was forgotten for decades, in part due to specifications in her will that prevented it from being exhibited, as she believed society was not ready to understand her otherworldly vision.
      That view may have been prescient, since af Klint’s work has only become wildly popular in recent years. Her show at the Guggenheim proved an unlikely blockbuster, attracting a record of over 600,000 visitors during its run in 2018 and 2019, and she inspired a 2020 documentary film, Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint.
      Installation view, “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future.” Photo by David Heald, ©Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
      The first part of a seven-volume catalogue raisonné for the artist came out in February, and af Klint is currently featured in “Women in Abstraction” at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (through February 27, 2022).
      At Zwirner, the works will be available for sale to institutional buyers, price on request. Despite the artist’s growing fame, only 51 works have ever been offered at auction, with a top price of just 1,600,000 SEK ($165,825) set in 2019, according to the Artnet Price Database. The previous record of 220,000 SEK ($35,871) had stood since 1990, and only nine other works have topped four figures.
      “Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge” will be on view at David Zwirner, 34 East 69th Street, New York, November 3–December 18, 2021.
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      In Town for Paris Art Week? Here Are 7 Must-See Museum Shows From Martin Margiela, Marlene Dumas, and Other Artists

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      The Frieze tent in London’s Regent’s Park has barely been disassembled and yet eyes have already shifted to Paris. This week, the French capital will welcome FIAC back to the Grand Palais Éphémère for the fair’s 47th edition, this year boasting 170 exhibitors. Elsewhere, the quirkier Paris Internationale will again set up shop in an intimate, residential building at 168 Avenue Victor Hugo, from where the smaller fair will continue its mission to champion emerging galleries.
      Also participating in Paris Art Week are the city’s art institutions, a number of which are mounting a slew of high-caliber exhibitions, the quality of which is so laudable—so “must-see”—that you might even be up prompted to consider cutting fair time in favor of an old-fashioned museum excursion.
      Here are seven you won’t want to miss.
      “Ouverture” at Pinault Collection
      Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Vigil for a Horseman (2017). ©Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Exhibition view, “Ouverture”, Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection, 2021. Courtesy the artist and Pinault Collection. Photo by Aurélien Mole.
      Still fresh from its May unveiling, the new Bourse de Commerce–Collection Pinault continues to bask in that undeniable sparkle of the new. Collector François Pinault’s long-awaited Parisian venture now proudly stands in the Les Halles district, occupying a historic building revitalized under the guidance of visionary architect Tadao Ando.
      Celebrating the museum’s inauguration is “Ouverture,” an ambitious group presentation of 200 works by 32 artists, installed across all 10 exhibition spaces. Works by David Hammons, Cindy Sherman, Maurizio Cattelan, Sherrie Levine, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Antonio Obá, Urs Fischer, and Kerry James Marshall appear in a sprawling display where each artist on view is a heavyweight in their own right.
      Pinault Collection, 2 rue de Viarmes, 75001 Paris; through December 31, 2021.
      “Anne Imhof: Natures Mortes”at Palais de Tokyo
      Anne Imhof, ROOM VI (2021). Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Buchholz and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Andrea Rossetti.
      Demand for tickets to “experience” the German artist’s newest project has gotten so intense that Palais de Tokyo implemented nightly extended hours through the show’s close. (At the time of writing, only eight “exceptional” days remain.) In signature Imhof fashion, “Natures Mortes” is touted more as a spectacle than an exhibition, taking over the Parisian center’s entire space with “an all-embracing, polyphonic work” of music, painting, drawing, and, of course, performance.
      The Golden Lion winner also invited a cast of 30 artist “accomplices” to participate in a mysterious team venture that involves fellow artists Oscar Murillo, Precious Okoyomon, Jutta Koether, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
      Palais de Tokyo, 13 Avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris; through October 24, 2021.
      “Marlene Dumas: Le Spleen de Paris and Conversations”at Musée d’Orsay
      Marlene Dumas, Hafid Bouazza (2020). Courtesy Marlene Dumas. Photo: © Peter Cox, Eindhoven.
      In an ode to Baudelaire and his enduring influence, esteemed contemporary painter Marlene Dumas produced 15 new works born from a collaboration with the late author and translator Hafid Bouazza, and timed to the bicentenary of Baudelaire’s birth, in 1821. Poetry and literature are well-known factors that shape Dumas’s work, and this new series was inspired by the legendary French poet’s collection Le Spleen de Paris. Portraits of figures such as Baudelaire and artist Jean Duval are displayed alongside still lifes that respond to a poem, or contain image motifs, such as a rat or a bottle, referenced within the poetry collection.
      Musée d’Orsay, Esplanade Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, 75007 Paris; through January 30, 2022.
      ‘Bonaventure (Trafficking worlds)’at Fondation d’Entreprise Pernod Ricard
      “Bonaventure (Trafiquer les mondes).” Installation view, from left to right: Minia Biabiany, Meris Angioletti, Gina Folly. Photo: Thomas Lannes, 2021.
      Curated by Lilou Vidal, this group exhibition—also known as the 22nd Pernod Ricard Foundation Prize show—brings together (you guessed it) the nominees currently up for the award, which since 1999 has been recognizing artists under 40. Themes of storytelling and the occult dominate this year’s iteration (its title, bonaventure, refers to the uncertainty and risk involved in fortune telling), with rising stars such as Tarek Lakhrissi and Gina Folly included in the lineup of nine participants.
      Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard, 1 cours Paul Ricard, 75008 Paris; through October 30, 2021.
      Martin Margielaat Lafayette Anticipations
      © Martin Margiela.
      Even though the trend of “fashion as art” has already peaked—and at this point is veering dangerously close to cliche—Lafayette Anticipations combats such associations head on by noting in the press text that Martin Margiela, founder of French fashion house Maison Margiela, “has always been an artist.”
      Margiela is categorized here as an iconoclast, whose work across various media influenced his unbiased approach to material, providing him an attitude that regards a Caravaggio painting or a box of hair dye with equal significance. The show, organized by distinguished curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, is framed as a single artwork in itself, encompassing installations, sculptures, collages, paintings, and films, all being shown publicly for the first time in a “labyrinthine” setting.
      Lafayette Anticipations, 9 rue du Plâtre, F-75004 Paris, October 20, 2021 – January 2, 2022.

      “Bianca Bondi: The Daydream”at Fondation Louis Vuitton
      Bianca Bondi, detail of The Daydream (2021). Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. © Adagp, Paris, 2021, © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Marc Domage.
      For her first one-person museum outing in France, Bianca Bondi has erected an indoor garden which drew original influence from Mexican cenotes, a form of region-specific topography that is heavily steeped in myth. The artist’s multisensory installation is situated around a central well outfitted with synthetic lungs, or alveoli. The well serves as the site’s primary energy source, by which its lungs regularly emit a colored, fragrant saline solution that “nourishes” the vegetation, flowers, and creepy-crawlers dwelling on branches in this half-fake, half-natural ecosystem. Bondi, who was born in South Africa and now lives in Paris, is an artist to watch: She also has a concurrent solo show at Fondation Carmignac in Porquerolles, France, and is slated to participate in the 2022 Gwangju Biennale.
      Fondation Louis Vuitton, 8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi Bois de Boulogne, 75116 Paris; through January 24, 2022.
      Jean Claracqat Musée Eugène Delacroix
      Jean Claracq, Working Class Hero (2021). Courtesy the artist and Galerie Sultana. Photo: Romain Darnaud.
      As part of FIAC’s programming, the emerging painter Jean Claracq has debuted seven new paintings at Musée Delacroix. Created in direct response to two Delacroix works from the Old Master’s namesake permanent collection, Claracq’s compositions examine the tension inherent in contrasting perceptions. Produced in the artist’s typical small-scale format, these new paintings encourage a dialogue with those of Eugène Delacroix. Despite centuries of separation, Claracq possesses distinct similarities to the most influential artist of the French Romantic school, particularly in their shared attempts to capture an individual’s internal distress, especially as it may be influenced by a sense of helplessness in a chaotic world.
      Musée Eugène Delacroix, 6 Rue de Furstemberg, 75006 Paris; through November 1, 2021.
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      Machu Picchu Is Sending Inca Empire Treasures on Tour for a Rare Series of International Exhibitions and Virtual-Reality Experiences

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      The Boca Raton Museum of Art is hoping to bring the magic of Machu Picchu to Florida this fall with an unprecedented showcase of golden treasures paired with a virtual reality experience that will transport visitors to the famed Inca city in the clouds.
      “Many of these objects, in fact most of them, have never left Peru,” museum director Irvin Lippman told Artnet News. “It’s kind of extraordinary.”
      The 192 artifacts, many of which come from Andean royal tombs, are on loan from the Museo Larco in Lima, Peru. Boca Raton is the first stop in an international tour organized by World Heritage Exhibitions, which has previously staged shows on such topics as King Tut, Pompeii, and the the Titanic. A portion of the proceeds will go to Inkaterra Asociación, a nonprofit dedicated to conservation and biodiversity of the Amazon, and the Ministry of Culture of Peru.
      Many of the objects on view don’t come from Machu Picchu itself, which was a kind of Incan resort, but from other parts of Peru. Though it is the best-known remnant of the Inca Empire today, Machu Picchu was only inhabited for roughly 100 years before the mountainous retreat was abandoned in 1572. But the empire had united a number of Andean civilizations already had established rich cultures for thousands of years prior.
      Ear ornament of gold, shell, and stone (turquoise or malachite), depicting eight iguanas. Four of the iguanas are gold and four are turquoise (1 AD-800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      “We have in this exhibition some 3,000 years of a variety of cultures that were in Peru, and of course it culminates with the Inca Empire,” Lippman said. “Once people see the objects, they will have a better idea of the people who built Machu Picchu. People will come away with a renewed appreciation for these strong cultures that dominated South America.”
      A selection of funerary objects provide a window into Andean cosmology, and a way of understanding a society that had no written language.
      Frontal adornment of 18-karat gold headdress depicting a feline head with half-moon headdress and two birds (ca. 1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      “One of the major themes you’ll see in these objects is duality. There are wonderful metal vessels that are half gold and half silver, silver being the moon and gold being the sun. It reinforces the concept of duality, rain and drought, man and woman, the overworld and the underworld,” he said.
      The show fills both floors of the Boca Raton Museum, culminating in a virtual-reality journey to Machu Picchu. The sweeping footage was filmed by drone during the pandemic, when in-person visits to the historic site were suspended—allowing the filmmakers to capture the popular tourist destination free of crowds.
      “The climb will be so much easier,” Lippman said, “here at sea level in Boca Raton.”
      See more objects from the exhibition below.
      Ai Apaec, copper funerary mask with applications of shell and stone, depicting an anthropomorphic visage with feline fangs (ca. 1 AD –800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Ai Apaec, copper funerary mask with applications of shell and stone, depicting an anthropomorphic visage with feline fangs (ca. 1 AD –800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Gold and turquoise nose ornament depicting figure with half-moon and club-head headdress, circular ear ornaments and loincloth, holding a rattle (ca. 1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Ai Apaec, copper funerary mask with applications of shell and stone, depicting an anthropomorphic visage with feline fangs (ca. 1 AD –800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Frontal adornment of 18-karat gold headdress depicting a feline head with half-moon headdress and two birds (ca. 1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Frontal adornment of gold headdress depicting feline head with feathers, bird-beak nose, and figure with headdress of plumes and triangular pendants, depiction of two animals (monkeys) on the upper part, stepped designs with volutes and two-headed- serpent designs on the lower part (ca. 1300 AD-1532 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Huaca de la Luna adobe bricks with colorful bas relief of creator god Ai Apaec of the Moche or Mochica culture. Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Gold-silver-copper alloy ear ornament with depiction of ten human heads with half-moon headdress, circular earornaments, and breastplate. Necklace of spherical beads made of a gold-silver-copper alloy. (ca. 1300 AD–1532 AD) Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Set of forty-two circular metal discs of gilded silver, shown in hypothetical use on a shirt (ca. 1250 BC–1 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      Sculptural stirrup spout bottle depicting ananthropomorphic figure with supernatural traits (hero Ai Apaec) holding aknife or tumi (1 AD–800 AD). Collection of the Museo Larco, Lima, Peru. Photo courtesy of World Heritage Exhibitions.
      “Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru” is on view at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida, October 16, 2021–March 6, 2022. 
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      Check Out Artnet Gallery Network’s Virtual Exhibition at 50 United Nations Plaza’s Stunning Duplex Penthouse

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      Located at New York’s iconic United Nations Plaza, the 50 United Nations Plaza (“50UNP”) duplex penthouse balances grandeur with gallery-like precision, making it a jaw-dropping setting for world-class artworks. In this one-of-a-kind space, stunning floor-to-ceiling bay windows showcase the sprawling metropolis outside, while the refined interior—designed by famed architects Foster + Partners—offers a serene, even meditative response. 
      Now, the Artnet Gallery Network has curated a virtual exhibition that takes inspiration from the residence’s unique features. One finds the harmony of natural elements in features like the glass-enclosed fireplace, distinctive oak details, and the 33-foot infinity-edge pool. The artworks selected by the Artnet Gallery Network are meant to emphasize the architectural details of this 9,700 square foot space. The duplex’s soaring ceilings, which rise up to 13-feet are particularly suited to large-scale sculptures—a rare asset for any collector. 
      Emerging artist Patrick Hurst’s stainless steel sculpture The Mind of Others presents an evocative, seemingly gravity-defining silhouette at the center of the spacious living room which spans the entire 73-foot east face of the building, with unobstructed views of the river and beyond. In addition to its grand living and dining areas, the lower floor includes a state-of-the-art kitchen with generous counter and storage space, as well as two guest bedrooms and a private terrace facing the Manhattan skyline. A curved oak and stainless steel staircase leads upstairs to the half-floor master suite, ipe wood deck and pool, and separate guest bedroom and entertainment room with an adjoining kitchen. 
      Dale Enochs, Postindustrial Mandala. Courtesy of Long-Sharp Gallery.
      An introspective centerpiece in the expansive entertainment room, Dale Enochs’s Postindustrial Mandala casts a captivating circle of light that in cooler months will echo the room’s electric fireplace and overlook the private outdoor pool year-round. 
      Ferruccio Gard, Untitled. Courtesy of Cris Contini Contemporary.Ferruccio Gard, Effetto Colore in Op Art. Courtesy of Cris Contini Contemporary.
      Two of Ferruccio Gard’s uplighting op-art creations add pops of color and geometry to the room. Across from the entertainment room is the master lounge, part of the half-floor master suite, which allows for more secluded relaxation and access to the pool.  
      Kim Jaeil, Vestige. Courtesy of Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
      Jeffrey Robb, FL-KM12941336. Courtesy of Cris Contini Contemporary.
      In a spacious second-floor guest bedroom, Kim Jaeil’s Vestige (Space Silver) offers a fascinatingly textured work that captures the eye almost as much as the views of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Jeremy Robb’s Rorschach Flower, too, offers a reflective space to pause and contemplate in the master bedroom suite.
      Anila Quayyumb, Hidden Diamond – Saffron. Courtesy of Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
      Meanwhile, in the intimate space of the guest bedroom with northwest views, Pakistani artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s hanging sculpture Hidden Diamond fills the interior with dynamic shadows and lights that mimic the effect of sunset between the city buildings.
      Nic Fiddian-Green, Still Water. Courtesy of Sladmore Gallery, London.
      Moving out onto the second terrace, a moment of pause is offered in Nic Fiddian-Green’s towering Still Water (2016) a monumental equestrian bust that defies the buzzing motion of the city beyond with its powerful sense of serenity.
      These artworks draw out the careful details of the 50UNP duplex penthouse, which are rare in new construction. The thought given to the space is in many ways tied to the residence’s history; 50UNP has been spearheaded by third-generation developers William Lie Zeckendorf and Arthur Zeckendorf. The Zeckendorfs’ grandfather, William Zeckendorf Sr., first purchased 17 acres of land along New York’s East Rivers in 1946 and offered the space home for the United Nations in a deal supported by the Rockefeller family. Sixty years later, his grandsons purchased the property directly across from the United Nations, which they have developed in homage to their grandfather (and to note, their maternal grandfather, Trygve Lie was the first Secretary-General of the United Nations). This spectacular duplex penthouse is a tribute to their family legacy and a place where artwork thrives.
      This one of a kind indoor/outdoor space is available for immediate occupancy and provides a perfect balance for today’s work at home lifestyle.  For more information about this stunning property, please visit 50UNP.com and contact the Sales Office to schedule a private tour.

      [email protected]
      212.906.0550G-Z/10 UNP Realty, LLCSee additional images of the breathtaking duplex below. 
      The floor-to-ceiling windows create the sensation of being within the sky itself.
      Four master-sized bedrooms allow ample space for luxurious living and home offices with uninterrupted skyline views.
      The majestic, 33-foot infinity pool with unparalleled outdoor space.
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      in Exhibitions

      ‘You Have to Experience It in the Radical Present’: How Anicka Yi’s Ultra-Sensorial Tate Commission Resists the Age of Instagram Art

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      In the aftermath of Kara Walker’s monumental fountain, Carsten Holler’s playground of slides, and Olafur Eliasson’s unforgettable indoor weather project, I had certain expectations for Tate Modern’s latest Turbine Hall commission, which opened yesterday. But the U.S. artist Anicka Yi, who has been tapped for the annual project, has a more subtle flavor than her noisier predecessors.
      A squeal of delight in the audience directed my attention upwards to the bridge across the cavernous room where a fleet of jellyfish-like balloons floated close to the ceiling. For her installation, Yi has invented these hybrid biological and technological creatures called aerobes, which are classified either as “xeno-jellies” whose forms have been inspired by ocean lifeforms or “planulae,” from different types of mushrooms.
      Filled with helium and propelled around the room by rotors, they look like they come from an alien planet but are more benign than H.G. Wells’s tripod creatures. As I drew closer, I realized that they were emitting a faintly pleasant aroma; one floated above me and performed a gentle twirl.
      Installation view of Hyundai Commission Anicka Yi at Tate Modern, October 2021. Photo by Will Burrard Lucas.
      The installation is rooted in the artist’s ongoing interest in shifting the relationship between technology, humans, and the biological world. It proposes a different kind of ecosystem: Her floating creatures imagine new ways that machines could inhabit the world alongside humans, rather than the traditional understanding that they function to serve humans, or work against us in some dystopian capacity.
      “I wanted to open up that dialectic and expand the conversation;” Yi said in a press conference at the unveiling of the work. “Machines don’t necessarily have to serve us or scare us in order to coexist with us.”
      Taking this idea as her starting point, Yi explained how she started to think about the concept of “wilding” machines; eliminating their functionality, and asking what it would look like to live with them then. Inspired by how organisms learn through their bodies and senses, as well as technological advances within the field of soft robotics, Yi endowed the aerobes with a sort of sensory intelligence. They respond to information, including the scents of the building, sources of heat, and an awareness of their place in space relative to each other. 
      Once raised in the air, they are completely autonomous, driven by this artificial life program—a software that can be likened to the mind—that simulates and seeks to understand complex biological behaviors. Their unpredictable movements imbue them with a sense of life; the squeal of delight I had heard was a child reacting to them as animals and not machines.
      Anicka Yi, “In Love With the World,” Hyundai Commission, Tate Modern. Photo by Joe Humphrys, courtesy Tate.
      The sensorial element to the installation also resists the ability to be captured on Instagram. It has an evolving scentscape that you have to physically take into your body to experience, part of a genre that Yi called “metabolic” art. 
      “You have to experience it in the radical present, in your body and mind as one,” she said. The changing odors emitted around the aerobes have been inspired by different eras of the surrounding Bankside area, from marine scents related to pre-human era to the spices thought to ward off the black death in the 14th century to smells from London’s industrial age.
      The scents are subtle and offer up no clear illustrative associations. When I was there, there was was a faintly spicy, not unpleasant, smell of patchouli. When asked what was intended to evoke, Yi informed us wryly that the inspiration was cholera. It’s intentionally a surprise as Yi aims to expand our relationship to smell. We expect to instantly recognize something and categorize it as good or bad, but these confusing scents are not straightforward; they ask you to heighten your awareness, and breathe deeply.
      “Yi has worked with smell and scent for a long time, and partly in terms of questioning the primacy of the visual, and the visual as principally male, rational, industrial, technocratic, and Western,”  the exhibition’s co-curator Achim Borchardt-Hume told Artnet News. “Whereas our experience of the world encompasses all the senses.”
      Installation view of Hyundai Commission “Anicka Yi: In Love With the World” at Tate Modern, October 2021. Photo by Will Burrard Lucas.
      The artist is also interested in the politics of air, in how scent can alter your perception of space, and make you aware of the air around you in ways that you weren’t before. Indeed, as I experience the same awareness of the odors and gasses in a room, and the potential risks they carry, I was instantly more aware that I was sharing the air with others.
      “Engaging with the air, especially in the age of Covid, it’s an especially rich material to unpack,” Yi said. She wanted to foreground the olfactive questions with the pandemic and to really underscore the air that we’re sharing. Indeed, questions of how how we inhabit the world, climate emergency, and coexistence between humans and other species, have taken on a whole new importance over the past two years. Many people who got sick actually lost their sense of smell; I was one of them, and I don’t think I ever fully appreciated how crucial it was to my experience of the world—from determining if something was burning to recalling past experiences—until I lost it.
      “Air is this charged site for social discourse, and with the pandemic and climate crisis it is this substrate that ties us all in this very symbiotic coexistence that we cannot escape,” she said. “We are all these vessels of interdependence and we have a responsibility toward each other.”
      And that’s what the Turbine Hall commission has always done: brought people together. The show places Yi in dialogue with the works before her, such as Superflex’s three-man swings that required people to work together to enjoy them. So, too, does her work underscore how we—as either biological or technological entities—are all in this together.
      “Anicka Yi: In Love With the World” is on view at Tate Modern through January 16.
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      in Exhibitions

      9 Gallery Shows to See in London During Frieze Week, From a Ron Mueck Retrospective to a Motley Crew of Ominous Skeletons

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      It’s Frieze week in London, and ahead of the fairs opening to VIPs tomorrow, here’s our pick of what’s on view beyond The Regent’s Park across a selection of galleries in London.

      Elizabeth NeelPilar CorriasThrough October 23
      Installation view, Elizabeth Neel, “Limb after Limb,” at Pilar Corrias. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias, London.
      In “Limb after Limb,” Elizabeth Neel presents a new body of work made in isolation on her family’s farm in rural Vermont. The large-scale paintings on canvas echo the natural environment and the physical and psychological tolls of isolation through a process of abstraction. Also on view is a short documentary about the artist by her brother, Andrew Neel, which explores her practice and fraught experience living as an artist within the legacy of her grandmother, Alice Neel.
      “Limb after Limb” is on view at 2 Savile Row, London, W1S 3PA.
      Simeon BarclayWorkplaceThrough October 29
      Installation view, Simeon Barclay, “England’s Lost Camelot,” at Workplace.Courtesy of the artist and Workplace, London.
      The U.K. artist Simeon Barclay has created new multimedia works and an installation for “England’s Lost Camelot,” on view at Workplace’s West End gallery. Taking its cue from Arthurian legends and the persistence of the figure of the gallant knight in British folklore and iconography, he follows this medieval legend through popular culture as well as his own personal biography, unpacking how these tropes play a role in determining notions of class, race, and gender.
      “Simeon Barclay: England’s Lost Camelot” is on view at 40 Margaret Street, London, W1G 0JH.
      Ösgür KarEmalinThrough November 10
      Özgür Kar, Death with flute (2021). Photo: Stephen James. © Özgür Kar, courtesy of the artist and Emalin, London.
      In “Storage Drama,” his first solo outing with Emalin, Turkish artist Özgür Kar presents three of his eerie “Death” sculptures, minimally animated drawings of musically inclined skeletons that ruminate on the nature of existence with humor and heft. There’s a timelessness to the anxiety expressed, evoking at once medieval manuscripts and plague traditions, but also the banal phrases of online exchanges and our contemporary moment of global disease. Scored by improvised woodwind riffs on an ominous tritone known as the “Devil’s Interval,” viewers might find themselves in a bit of a trance. As one of Kar’s characters puts it: “You either get the vibe or you don’t.”
      “Storage Drama” is on view at 1 Holywell Lane, London, EC2A 3ET.
      Ron MueckThaddaeus RopacThrough November 13
      Ron Mueck, Dead Dad (1996–97). © Ron Mueck, courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac, London, Paris, Salzburg, and Seoul.
      Spanning 25 years of Ron Mueck’s career, this historical exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac features some of the Australian sculptor’s most celebrated pieces plus never-before-exhibited works. Mueck’s famous sculpture Dead Dad (1996–97) is on view in the U.K. for the first time since it shocked in the Royal Academy’s storied 1997 “Sensation” exhibition, as is a new, as-yet-unseen cast-iron outdoor sculpture of a skull, Dead Weight (2021), which clocks in at a whopping one tonne. A moving figure of a young Black man with a stab wound, Youth (2009/2011), speaks to the urgency of addressing urban crime. From the small-scale to the monumental, the works on view evoke the gamut of human emotions and experiences.
      “Ron Mueck: 25 Years of Sculpture 1996–2021” is on view at 37 Dover Street, London, W1S 4NJ.
      “Sorry It’s a Mess, We Just Moved In!”LAMB ArtsThrough November 13
      Clara Hastrup, Untitled (Leek) (2021). Courtesy of LAMB Arts, London.
      This lively group exhibition explores everyday objects and the role they play in shaping and holding onto identity, asking whether, in a digital age, the physical carries more significance, or less. Curated by Roya Sachs, it places blue-chip names such as Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Erwin Wurm, and Isa Genzken in dialogue with works by emerging artists, such as Clara Hastrup’s photographs of “Perishable Sculptures,” to ask how we relate to objects, from throwaway items to functional commodities to treasured tokens of memory.
      “Sorry It’s a Mess, We Just Moved In!” is on view at 32 St. George Street, London, W1S 2EA.
      Noah DavisDavid ZwirnerThrough November 17
      Noah Davis, 40 Acres and a Unicorn (2007). © The Estate of Noah Davis, courtesy of the Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner.
      Curator Helen Molesworth has selected works by the late U.S. artist Noah Davis that span his brief but bright career for the first presentation of the artist’s dreamlike, figurative paintings in the U.K. The show is a follow-up to an acclaimed exhibition at David Zwirner in New York in January 2020, and while there are some repeats, most of the works on view will be different. Significantly, the London edition imports a version of the artist’s ambitious social-practice project, the Underground Museum, installed in the gallery’s upper level. Headquartered in an underserved Black and Latinx neighborhood in Los Angeles, the initiative is a Black-owned and -run art space that shows museum-quality work. Highlighting the importance to Davis of community, the show includes a sculpture by the artist’s widow, Karon Davis, and the film BLKNWS, by his brother, Kahlil Joseph, famed in his own right.
      “Noah Davis” is on view at 24 Grafton Street, London, W1S 4EZ.
      Issy Wood Carlos/IshikawaThrough November 20
      Issy Wood, The sides (2021). © Issy Wood. Courtesy of the artist; Carlos/Ishikawa, London; and JTT, New York.
      The young painting sensation Issy Wood’s exhibition “Trilemma” at Carlos/Ishikawa will scratch your brain—and not just because all the paintings are on velvet. The artist created this series of ‘depression’ paintings during lockdown in response to her contracted surroundings, and in works based on snippets of screenshots from the films and TV shows she was watching, there is an eerie sense of nostalgia for a world that once was. The show also includes a foray into installation with a suite of painted, velvet-upholstered Carlo Scarpa furniture entitled What if you showed up (2021) installed in the middle of the gallery.
      “Issy Wood: Trilemma” is on view at Unit 4, 88 Mile End Road, London, E1 4UN.

      “Social Works II”GagosianThrough December 18
      Installation view, “Social Works II,” at Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, London. Courtesy Gagosian.
      This group exhibition on view at the gallery’s Grosvenor Hill location is the sequel to recently-appointed director and curator Antwaun Sargent’s inaugural show at Gagosian in New York. It places front and center artists of the African diaspora whose projects extend beyond the walls of the gallery and into social practice. From architect Sumayya Vally’s wall fragment that functions as a site for research and ritual to historical collages by Black Arts Movement pioneer (and Turner Prize–winner) Lubaina Himid, the exhibition probes the ways that geography informs identity and perception in different communities and spaces.
      “Social Works II” is on view at 20 Grosvenor Hill, London, W1K 3QD.

      A.A. MurakamiSuperblueThrough Summer 2022
      New Spring (2017). Photo: Juriaan Booij. Courtesy of COS x Studio Swine.
      The Tokyo- and London-based duo A.A. Murakami—made up of Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves from Studio Swine—has been tapped to debut Superblue in London, following the global launch of the experiential art powerhouse in Miami in May.
      For “Silent Fall”—on view at Pace’s former Burlington Gardens space—the pair is presenting a new, Instagram-friendly multi-sensory experience that immerses audiences in a seemingly infinite forest of glowing trees. Their branches emit misty bubbles, which unleash different scents of nature, from pine to moss, when they burst. It’s part of the artists’ “ephemeral tech” installations, which use sophisticated technology to recreate organic experiences, and offers a glimpse of a future world in which we are trying to recreate a sense of the sublime in a nature that is lost.
      “Silent Fall” is on view at 6 Burlington Gardens, London, W1J 0PE.
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