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      Photographer Harry Benson Captured Candid Images of the Stars, Including the Beatles and Liza Minnelli. Here Are the Stories Behind 6 of His Iconic Photos

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      A major new retrospective at the Southhampton Arts Center is giving due recognition to the Scottish photojournalist Harry Benson, who has spent over seven decades capturing some of pop culture’s most legendary figures. Featuring musicians, models, actors, and athletes, “A Moment in Time: Iconic Images by Harry Benson” runs until July 15.
      Born in Glasgow in 1929, Benson started out as a tabloid photographer before landing a job at LIFE magazine. His work has also been published in TIME, French Vogue, Newsweek, People, Architectural Digest, Town & Country, and Vanity Fair, and his subjects have included the Kennedys, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, and Queen Elizabeth II. Making best use of this unique access to high profile subjects, Benson has a knack for producing images that feel natural and carefree.
      Henry Benson visiting the exhibition at Southampton Arts Center. Photo: Rob Rich.
      “Having started my career on London’s Fleet Street, I work very quickly and try not to influence the person I am photographing,” he told Artnet News. “I photograph what I see and what I see should inform.”
      Now aged 93, he is still snapping away and has shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse at his most exciting jobs in a new Magnolia Pictures’ documentary Harry Benson: Shoot First.
      One of Benson’s best known images is an action shot of The Beatles having a pillow fight at the George V Hotel in Paris in 1964. The band’s high spirits must have been buoyed that night by the news that I Want to Hold Your Hand had topped the American charts and they were invited to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Benson traveled with them on their American tour and never returned to the U.K.
      Two decades later, in 1992, he visited Truman Capote near his summer home in Wainscott, Long Island and immortalized the writer’s carefree excitement as he paced over the dunes towards the beach. “Truman was a tough man who was always ready to oblige for a photograph; he is truly missed,” said Benson in a press statement.
      Truman Capote in the sand near his summer home in Long Island in 1982. Photo: © Harry Benson.
      One day in 1971, Benson was walking home from the offices of Life magazine when he saw Francis Coppola in conversation with Al Pacino and Diane Keaton outside Radio City Music Hall. Instinctually, he grabbed his camera and within moments had secured a behind-the-scenes shot of the filming of The Godfather, which remains one of the most celebrated movies of all time.
      Al Pacino and Diane Keaton speaking to Francis Ford Coppola on the set of The Godfather in 1971. Photo: © Harry Benson.
      In one 1978 snap, New York’s breathtaking skyline, which frames the twin towers, is as much the artist’s subject as are actress and singer Liza Minnelli and her friend, the acclaimed fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick, known mostly as simply Halston. The pair are seen sharing a moment of laughter at his atelier on the 21st floor of the Olympic Tower.
      Actress and singer Liza Minnelli with her friend, the fashion designer Halston, in New York City in 1978. Photo: © Harry Benson.
      Among the many musicians and rock stars who have posed before Benson’s camera is The Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, who was performing at Madison Square Gardens in 1969. Memorably, Tina Turner and Janis Joplin also took to the stage as opening acts.
      Portrait of Mick Jagger in 1969. Photo: © Harry Benson.
      Benson also turned his lens back on the magazine world, authoring a portrait of one of its greatest titans, Diana Vreeland. The Paris-born fashion writer was editor-in-chief of American Vogue from 1963 to 1971 and later a special consultant to the Costume Institute as the Met.
      Portrait of former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland. Photo: © Harry Benson.
      The rapturous whoops and cheers of students at Harrow School in London take centre stage of a photograph documenting Sir Winston Churchill’s visit to his alma mater in 1960. The boys greeted their former prime minister with an updated rendition of their school song, adding the line “and Churchill’s name shall win acclaim through each new generation.”
      Sir Winston Churchill visits his alma mater Harrow school in 1960. Photo: © Harry Benson.
      “A Moment in Time: Iconic Images by Harry Benson” is on view until July 15 at the Southampton Arts Center.
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      Dozens of Neapolitan Masterpieces From the Capodimonte Museum Are Now on View at the Louvre in Paris. See Them Here

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      Naples and Paris share a checkered history, one bound by Catholicism, pastry, and a centuries-old artistic exchange—and fractured by conflict and Napoleonic occupation. Its principal art institutions, however, are getting along famously.
      The Capodimonte Museum has just sent 70 Renaissance masterworks to get cozy with period counterparts from the Louvre’s collection. It’s a six-month show, one whose opening saw the French and Italian presidents in attendance, and the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, joyously declare “it’s Neapolitan season.”
      “Naples in Paris”, which is set to run through January 24, 2024, is being billed as the largest-ever exhibition focused on the Italian Renaissance. It may well be and, even if size isn’t everything, it’s a well-curated affair. All the great Italian painters are present and accounted for—Michelangelo, Massacio, Raphael Caravaggio, Bellini, Titian, Artemisia Gentileschi and more—with Capodimonte filling in the gaps in the Louvre’s inestimable collection (since the 17th-century French Kings Louis III and XIV preferred the Venetian and Roman schools over the Neapolitan).
      Caravaggio, The Flagellation (1607). Image: courtesy Capodimonte.
      It’s a remarkable and rare collaboration between two vast European museums. Though, with the former Bourbon royal palace undergoing major renovations through 2024, “Naples in Paris” has come about more through pragmatism than fraternal love.
      Sylvain Bellenger, Capodimonte’s director, is also hoping associating with the world’s most famous museum might draw attention to the Naples institution. “Many visitors will already be familiar with some of the masterpieces in the Capodimonte collection,” Bellenger said in a statement, but the museum is “still unknown by the public at large” since most tourists head to Pompeii and Herculaneum instead. Maybe this grand outing will do the trick.
      Massacio, La Crucifixion (1426). Courtesy: Capodimonte
      The exhibition is spread across three separate spaces inside the former seat of the French monarchy. The Grande Gallerie, as the name suggests, makes the biggest statement. Thirty-one Capodimonte paintings are interwoven with the Louvre’s works by Titian, Caravaggio, and Guido Reni. Standouts are Massacio’s The Crucifixion, a work backed in brilliant gold that brings the viewer to the level of Mary Magdalene, who swoons at the feet of Jesus, her hands contorted. Differently captivating is Parmigianino’s Portrait of a Young Woman, a figure who in dress, pose, and gaze seems of an indeterminable age. To Bellenger’s point, she’s a figure we recognize, though we might not know which museum she lives in.
      In the Salle de l’Horloge, the institutions turn to drawings, or cartoons, of which Capodimonte boasts more than 30,000. The most celebrated here were inherited from Fulvio Orsini including Raphael’s Moses before the Burning Bush, a charcoal work of no flame and full expression, with the prophet crouched and calm in the presence of his lord. Another is Michelangelo’s preparatory cartoon for the Vatican’s Group of Soldiers, exhibiting intricate armor work and a quiet intimacy not commonly associated with 16th-century military men. The Louvre, in response, offers up work by Raphael and his pupil Giulio Romano.
      Michelangelo, Group of Soldiers (1546–50). Image: courtesy Capodimonte.
      The Salle de la Chapelle takes a broader focus, staging a miscellany of wonders from Naples: an El Greco and a Titian here, a miniature Filippo Tagliolini sculpture and a gilded casket of silver and crystal there. It’s a space that shows the full diversity of the Capodimonte collection, largely courtesy of its Farnese and Bourbon families.
      The two museums “are symbols of the historical links between France and Italy,” des Cars said in a statement. “This exceptional and unprecedented partnership is a perfect example of my vision for the Louvre’s future role in Europe and museums.”
      See more images from “Naples in Paris” here:
      Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1514–15). Image: courtesy The Louvre.
      Parmigianino, Portrait of a Young Woman (Also known as Antea, c. 1535). Image: courtesy Capodimonte.
      Annibale Carracci, Pietà with Saint Francis and Saint Mary Magdalene (1600–25). Image: courtesy the Louvre.
      Annibale Carracci, Pietà (1599–1600). Image: courtesy Capodimonte.
      Correggio, Venus and Cupid with a Satyr (1524–27). Image: courtesy the Louvre.
      Titian, Danae (1544–45). Images: Capodimonte.
      José de Ribera, The Clubfoot (1642). Image: courtesy the Louvre.
      Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (c. 1612–13). Image: Capodimonte.
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      A Major Show of Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern Considers the Medium As a Tool for World-Building. Here Are 5 Exhibiting Artists You Need to Know

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      During the colonial period, the camera became something of an imperial device, as Western images defined narratives about the history, culture, and identity of the African continent. Now, in its first major exhibition of contemporary African photography, the Tate Modern in London is showcasing the work of a new generation African artists using the medium on their own terms.
      “A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography” features 36 artists—working in photography, video, and installation—who represent different generations and a wide span of geography. Each offers their own unique perspectives on Africa and its relationship with the wider world, informed by history while looking to the future with hope.
      The exhibition is curated by the museum’s international art curator, Osei Bonsu, together with assistant curators Jess Baxter and Genevieve Barton and former assistant curator Katy Wan.
      “It’s not a traditional photography survey. I don’t really think that Africa can be summarized or distilled into one large exhibition,” Bonsu told Artnet News. “This was more of an attempt to tell very specific stories about Africa through the lens of artists who were either living and working on the continent, or were paying homage to many of the traditions and visual practices that, in my opinion, best reflected the way that we see photography in Africa.”
      Khadija Saye, Andichurai, “in this space we breathe” (2017). Photo courtesy of the artist.
      Osei Bonsu: “Khadija Saye was an artist who tragically died very young. But rather than focusing on the circumstances surrounding her death, we really wanted to show her contribution to the landscape of contemporary African photography.
      An artist of Gambian/British heritage, Khadija’s work is testament to her mixed faith upbringing, with a Muslim father and a Christian mother. These images are an attempt to ground herself within that spiritual understanding of her own identity through the traditional Gambian rituals.
      It’s a tribute to her ancestral background and faith through photography. She used a wet collodion tintype process, which was popularized in the 19th century and is rarely practiced any longer. It’s a labor intensive process that leaves much to fate and to chance.
      When the artist spoke about the experience of working this way, she related it to kind of spiritual transcendence in which the process becomes somewhat of a kind of a means of surrendering to the chemical outcome. The process captures these very irregular and almost kind of ghostly presences of herself.”

      Zina Saro-Wiwa’s “Invisible Man: The Weight of Absence”
      Zina Saro-Wiwa, from “The Invisible Man” (2015). Photo courtesy of the artist.
      Osei Bonsu: “Zina Saro-Wiwa is an artist of Nigerian heritage who is based in the U.S., but grew up in the U.K. She worked as a journalist and is widely recognized for her work as a filmmaker and as an artist.
      In “Invisible Man,” you see the artist reckoning with the her experience of loss in her own family, notably the death of her father, a climate activist and Nobel Prize nominee. She is posing in these photographs in a mask, because when one puts on a mask, you enter a realm between the living and the ancestral world.
      In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, masks became very desirable objects, both as objects of ethnic culture and for the avant garde. But these masks were part of the way that African people related to their environment, the cosmos, to their ecosystems, and are still part of a living culture. The mask still has a very particular relationship to environment and to the way people relate to the ecosystem, which is under threat due to ongoing extractive practices particularly in relation to oil.
      There’s a beautiful quote on the artist’s website saying that she was told that these masks were too heavy for women to carry. So, she had her own mask commissioned as a protest against this very gendered practice of excluding women from the politics of masquerade.
      “Invisible Man” is one of the more poetic attempts for an artist to think about African history and cultural heritage, but really through their own lived experience.”

      Sabelo Mlengani’s “Country Girls”
      Sabelo Mlangeni Couple Bheki and Sipho, 2009. From the series “Country Girls.” Photo courtesy of Tate and the artist.
      Osei Bonsu: “Sabelo Mlengani is a South African photographer who grew up in the province which is where the “Country Girls” series was shot. It’s a very personal reflection of LGBTQ life within the South African countryside.
      We often associate these queer lives with kind of cosmopolitan environments, but there are also queer people who fashion their own identities within the countryside. The artist makes his subjects visible through these very intimate family portraits that both celebrate the kind of communities that are portrayed, but also think about their precarity and the vulnerability.
      What he does by looking at this community is to upend or challenge many of the assumptions that people have that this is a recent trend or it’s kind of Western import. Queer culture, queer subjectivity is actually part of everyday life and very much in the spirit of the country.
      We’ve included the ‘Country Girls’ series in an area of the exhibition titled ‘The Family Portrait,’ because we often see more conventional or normative depictions of family. This was an attempt to think about a more expanded idea of family that had more to do with one’s chosen family rather than one’s biological family.”

      Dawit L. Petros’s “The Stranger’s Notebook”
      Dawit L. Petros, Untitled Epilogue II Catania Italy (2016), “The Stranger’s Notebook.” Photo courtesy of the artist.
      Osei Bonsu: “Dawit L. Petro is an artist, now based in Chicago, whose family migrated from East Africa to Canada. In this work, he’s thinking about the longer histories of migration and border crossing, and his own experience as an outsider in many contexts.
      This series was created over a year-long period of traveling Africa to Europe along the Mediterranean coast, retracing the journeys of migrants seeking better lives—the kind of sites of journeys of border crossings that we know often end in tragedy.
      In the photographs, taken in Sicily and Mauritania—sites of arrival and departure for migrants—the subjects are holding mirrors that [reflect] back to the viewer, revealing coastline, power lines, all of these kinds of liminal spaces beyond the reach of the camera. ‘Stranger’s Notebook’ is a meditation on the ways in which we often aren’t able to humanize those who are the statistics on the global news reel, whether it be the refugee crisis or successive forms of of economic migration around the world.
      It’s an attempt to grapple with the complexities of what it means to represent a subject that is unrepresented. And it makes you think not only about the contemporary implications of migration, but the much longer interconnected history and relationship between Africa and Europe.”
      “A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography” is on view at the Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG, July 6, 2023—January 14, 2024.

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      Moving Beyond Killer Robots, a New Show Explores How Artificial Intelligence Can Be Deployed to Care for Humans

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      Would you let a robot wash you? This question was posed by artist group Blast Theory while investigating the ethics of artificial intelligence in care systems. The Brighton-based collective is showing in “A.I.: Who’s Looking After Me?” at Science Gallery London (until January 20), which brings doctors, patients, artists and scientists together to explore key issues surrounding A.I. and care.
      “In a care setting, being washed by a robot is a realistic possibility,” Blast Theory’s Matt Adams told Artnet News. “There’s this tension where you might not want a robot to do something so intimate; you want human contact. But the flip argument is, it’s better for a robot to wash you so you’re not dealing with the embarrassment of another person; you have some privacy. There are these tensions between what impersonal means versus private.”
      Fear and suspicion of A.I. is escalating, raising questions of privacy, artistic authenticity, and human redundancy. The exhibition avoids easy resolutions, exploring the entangled benefits and risks of artificial intelligence in contemporary life. “A.I. is here,” Siddharth Khajuria, director of Science Gallery London, told Artnet News. “It’s not dystopian or future hopeful. It’s present and messy.”
      The gallery, connected with King’s College London, combines diverse knowledge bases. “We need to bring different perspectives together to grapple with increasingly knotty societal problems,” said Khajuria. “The projects that feel messy in the best sense are collaborations between patient groups, medical engineers, and artists. When you encounter them, it will be tricky to know whose imagination has led or shaped it.”
      Installation view, Wesley Goatley, Newly Forgotten Technologies (2022).Courtesy of Wesley Goatley. Photo by George Torode.
      Projects include sound artist Wesley Goatley’s immersive installation about defunct voice assistants and Fast Familiar’s exploration of the romance potential of a machine which has learned everything about love on the internet. For Vine, Dr Oya Celiktutan, Head of the Social A.I. & Robotics Lab at King’s Department of Engineering, collaborated with soft robotics studio Air Giants and King’s students Jeffrey Chong, Theodore Lamarche and Bowen Liu. The result is a “huggable” robot, which interacts emotively with visitors.
      “I’m interested in non-verbal communications between people,” Celiktutan told Artnet News. “I’m interested in how we can imitate that with robots so they can be clear and build trust with humans. This robot really doesn’t have any resemblance to a human, but with this basic shape it can communicate and connect using nonverbal movements.”
      In stark contrast with the violent image of robots often stereotyped in movies, Vine invites trust and touch. “One of the big questions is ‘What can we do to make a robot seem more approachable?’” said Chong. “Also, what can a robot do for you to be able to trust and want to interact with it? What buttons can it press on the human brain or what behaviours can it display to make you think of it as a conversational partner?”
      Vine’s cuddly appearance raises the question of aesthetics in robotics. “Soft robotics are interesting because they look cute,” said Lamarche. “I think a lot of the time people are scared of A.I. because of job replacement, but soft robotics see a lot of interest in the health sector where there are not enough people. There is an example the PARO robot, which is a little seal. It can be used for dementia patients and has a gentle soothing light to keep people physically and mentally interacting.”
      Installation view, “AI: Who’s Looking After Me?” at Science Gallery London, King’s College London, 21 June 2023 – 20 January 2024. ©George Torode.
      Artist Mimi Ọnụọha delves behind the scenes of A.I., focusing on the human workforce that enables it to run. While the end user may see A.I. as independent from humans, many systems require vast amounts of manual tagging. Ọnụọha’s The Future is Here! investigates the working spaces of the crowdsourced labour force, which largely operates remotely from bedrooms, front rooms and cafes in the Global South.
      “It’s so tedious and intense,” Ọnụọha told Artnet News. “It’s important work but they won’t be paid the same as A.I. specialists or researchers. A.I. saves time, but whose time?” She points out the similarities between this labour distribution and the injustices of longer-running industries, such as fast fashion. “They are old patterns of labour architecture, but the aims are for this new technology.”
      Ọnụọha does not call for an about turn on our relationship with these technologies, but a considered approach to their use. “We need to insert a little friction into how people approach these tools,” she said. “What is this ecosystem and how do we want it to be? What types of power differentials are we considering? If folks can consider this while at the same time holding the potential of A.I., I think that’s great. We’re past the point of being able to throw it out. The question becomes how to think strategically.”
      Mimi Onuoha, The Future is Here! (2019). Courtesy of Mini Onuoha.
      While most of the projects focus on human relationships with A.I., Blast Theory invites a third species into the conversation: house cats. For Cat Royale, the group, its collaborators, animal behavioral experts and welfare officers set up a controlled experiment. For 72 hours over three-hour stints, cats were observed interacting with a robotic arm offering a “game” every six minutes, such as dragging a feather or throwing a ball. The system gradually learned each cat’s response, calculating the happiness levels of each game and adapting its offerings.
      Of all animals, cats added an interesting dimension because of their standoffish nature. “Cats are famously imperious, opinionated and not biddable,” Adams said. “There was something interesting about a cat out of all animals that we have a close relationship with. They aren’t going to just be gulled into accepting something.”
      The resulting video raises questions about the role of humans. Naturally, this kind of care system in the home could supplant the owner. “There were moments where the robots were playing a game with a cat and it almost felt like the cat was enjoying it more than if it was playing with a human,” said Adams. “The human is kind of an interrupting, disrupting factor. The cat wants to do prey behaviour, but if a human is there, they are making noises and have emotional weight. They might be a power figure, potentially the owner of the pet. Of course, that is threatening to us humans who want to be special.”
      The exhibition is a timely reminder of the extent to which A.I. is entangled with humans, reflecting the good and evil that already exist within our structures. “Ultimately robots are what we make of them,” said Chong. “I think the reason scary robots are so popular in the media is because it reflects a fear that we have of other humans. It’s a reflection of the danger inherent in humanity.”
      Kahjuria agrees with this take, highlighting the importance of questioning the underlying prejudices that underpin A.I. systems. “There’s so much emerging technology that is deliberately presented to feel magical and sleek,” he said. “But ultimately, all A.I. is the result of humans in a room making decisions, and there is usually a certain kind of person in those meetings and a certain power dynamic. Those conversations embed value systems and prejudices into the products they churn out. I hope the show will remind people just how human this stuff is.”
      “AI: Who’s Looking After Me?” is on view at Science Gallery London, King’s College London, through January 20, 2024.
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      In Pictures: Black Artists Use A.I. to Make Work That Reveals the Technology’s Inbuilt Biases for a New Online Show

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      A new online exhibition of artworks by Black artists from Africa and its Diaspora explores the misrepresentations of Black identity by A.I., which they say offers “a fragmentary, perhaps even violent, picture.”
      As is now well understood, data, and consequently A.I., reproduces the same human biases that are ever-present in our everyday real lives. In response, “In/Visible” on the digital art platform Feral File brings together work that is “defiantly visible” by Black artists who are using A.I. to tell stories despite its inevitable shortcomings.
      “Black artists using A.I. today have to work harder than their white counterparts to get results that they feel accurately represent them,” Senegalese curator Linda Dounia told Artnet News. “They achieved this with persistence and stubbornness, endlessly re-prompting, correcting distortions, and editing out stereotypes. While Black artists should be celebrated for the incredible persistence they show using a tool that barely understands them, it really shouldn’t be this hard for them to participate in the emergence of new technologies.”
      Classic examples of A.I. bias in Dounia’s experience include face and body distortions, lack of detail or definition of features like hair and inability to understand cultural references like types of braid or attire. “A prompt about a ‘building in Dakar’ will likely return a deserted field with a dilapidated building while Dakar is a vibrant city with a rich architectural history,” she also noted of A.I.’s replication of common stereotypes.
      “For a technology that was developed in our times, it feels like A.I. has missed an opportunity to learn from the fraught legacies that older industries are struggling to untangle themselves from,” she added. “‘In/Visible’ is a way for Black artists to feel less lonely in their experience of A.I., to have their challenges expressed in a way that resonates materially and emotionally, to reject the normalization of their exclusion in emerging technologies.”
      In her curatorial statement, Dounia further elucidated the ways in which data fail to adequately capture ambiguity, while also failing to offer an “objective” reflection of our reality. “Logical measurements of the mysteries of the universe and instruments capable of pulverizing elusiveness to its most objective bits,” is how she described data. “Yet, what we measure, and where and how we measure it, are affected by who we are and our positionality relative to others.”
      “In/Visible” is currently on view on Feral File. Preview works from the exhibition below.
      Adaeze Okaro, Planet Hibiscus, #33. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Minne Atairu, Blonde Braids Study II. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Linda Dounia, Chez Jo. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Zoe Osborne, Summer Edition. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Nygilia, Confetti. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Serwah Attafuah, PERCEIVED. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      AFROSCOPE, Proof of Spirit – Act II. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Arclight, UNTITLED. Images courtesy of Feral File.
      Rayan Elnayal, Cities and spaceships. Images courtesy of Feral File.
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      Art Shines in Washington, D.C., This Summer. Here Are Four Ways to Make the Most of the Cultural Highlights

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      Washington, D.C., may be the seat of the United States federal government, but it also harbors a robust cultural scene. From national landmarks like the Jefferson Memorial and Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial to contemporary art venues like the Hirshhorn Museum and the new Rubell Museum, plus the largest concentration of Smithsonian institutions, there is no shortage of art and culture in the nation’s capital.
      We’ve curated a list of must-see special exhibitions and permanent installations perfect for a summer jaunt to the district, complete with restaurant recommendations to round out your experience.

      National Gallery of ArtSculpture Garden
      There is perhaps no better a spot for art viewing in D.C. than the National Gallery of Art, particularly its sculpture garden located on the National Mall. Sprawling and magical, the garden is oriented around a fountain that in the winter transforms into an ice skating rink, and in the summer provides a welcome respite from the heat.
      Marc Chagall, Orphée (1969). The John U. and Evelyn S. Nef Collection. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
      Monumental modern and contemporary sculptures are installed across all six acres of the garden, serving as an art-filled oasis amid the concrete jungle. Highlights include Marc Chagall’s Orphée (1969), a tile mosaic loosely inspired by Greek mythology and originally commissioned by art patrons John and Evelyn Nef for their own garden. Crafted in Murano glass and stones from Carra, Italy, the work was gifted to the museum in 2009 and remains a jewel of its collection.
      Alexander Calder, Cheval Rouge (Red Horse) (1974). Courtesy of Calder Foundation, New York, and the National Gallery of Art.
      Elegant geometric sculptures by Tony Smith, Barry Flanagan, Mark di Suvero, Scott Burton, David Smith, and Joel Shapiro also dot the landscape, punctuated by colorful offerings like Alexander Calder’s jaunty Cheval Rouge (Red Horse) (1974), Roy Lichtenstein’s House I (1996), and Robert Indiana’s AMOR (1998). One of Louise Bourgeois’s spiders perches like an open umbrella over a bed of greenery, while Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s large-scale steel sculpture Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1998) is a surreal sight.
      Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1998–1999). Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
      Now that you’ve gotten your fill of this garden of earthly delights, it’s time to refuel. We suggest a dip into Dirty Habit, a deceptively named upscale restaurant about one block north of the National Gallery, serving delectable drinks that will revive even the weariest traveler. From there, you’re just steps from Riggs, a 19th-century bank building recast as an ultra-luxe hotel where the rooms have been fashioned after a safety deposit box. Café Riggs is beloved by locals, as is the subterranean Silver Lyan bar, housed in the bank’s original vault. Alternatively, the Conrad—designed by Pritzker Prize-winning firm of Herzog & de Meuron—offers a more modern take on five-star hospitality with its clean lines and Calacatta marble walls. Estuary, the hotel’s restaurant, emphasizes fare sourced from nearby Chesapeake Bay, such as mouthwatering Maryland crab rolls.

      Dumbarton Oaks Museum“Hugh Hayden: Brier Patch”
      Installation view of “Hugh Hayden: Brier Patch” at Dumbarton Oaks. Photo: Kevin McDonald. Courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks.
      Start your day in the historic enclave of Georgetown, in the northwest corner of the city, with a cup of joe and a bagel from local favorite Call Your Mother Deli (eat here and, yes, call her!). You can’t miss the bubblegum-pink building with a line snaking out the front door and down the cobblestones.
      Then head north toward Dumbarton Oaks (1703 32nd Street), the Harvard University research center, museum, and garden. Against the backdrop of a Philip Johnson-designed pavilion and classic Federal-style house museum, the landscape—designed by Beatrix Farrand—is a prime example of the Country Place Era style, boasting an orangery, rose garden, and ellipse. It’s here that the museum inaugurated a series of contemporary art interventions in 2009, and where Texas-born, New York-based artist Hugh Hayden’s dreamlike installation has taken root.
      Installation view of “Hugh Hayden: Brier Patch” at Dumbarton Oaks. Photo: Kevin McDonald. Courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks.
      New Yorkers may recall Hayden’s brilliant Brier Patch from its original setting at Madison Square Park, and now it has a new life in Washington, D.C. A total of 100 wooden elementary school-style desks are situated in clusters, from which white cedar tree branches sprout. Why does one seed prosper and grow when others lay dormant? What is the right environment to help a student thrive? These are some of the big questions that Hayden’s installation asks.
      When in a college town, do as the students do and stop into Martin’s Tavern, a no-nonsense Georgetown haunt famous for its presidential sightings. Before his turn at the White House, John F. Kennedy is said to have proposed to Jackie here, and Harry and Bess Truman were regulars with their daughter Margaret while she was a student at nearby George Washington University.

      U.S. National Arboretum
      Washington D.C., U.S. National Arboretum, Bonsai and Penjing Museum tree display. Photo: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
      The District of Columbia is, of course, known for its many historic monuments and memorials, not to mention the Capitol building, Washington Monument, and Tidal Basin, but one of the lesser-known gems is this outdoor museum. The Arboretum (3501 New York Avenue) is a stunning expanse of 446 acres that houses a wealth of displays including the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, the Gotelli Conifer Collection, and the Flowering Tree Walk, where you can take in the glorious colors of the azalea blooms.

      The National Capitol Columns at the United States National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

      The crown jewel of the museum, however, is the permanent installation of the National Capitol Columns. The twenty-two ornately constructed Corinthian columns are arranged in a formation that brings Stonehenge to mind. The stately sandstone columns, quarried from Virginia, were originally designed to support the East Portico of the Capitol and served as the impressive backdrop for the inaugurations of presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, but were removed in 1958 and later relocated to these 20 acres of meadow.

      Inside the Paris-inspired restaurant Le Diplomate in Washington, D.C. Photo: Tom McCorkle for the Washington Post via Getty Images.
      Now on to Le Diplomate. You might do a double take when you enter the lively French-style brasserie, with its evocations of Parisian cafe culture and a clientele that reads like a who’s who of Beltway pundits. The tricolore of the French flag features prominently, as does vintage Tour de France memorabilia lining the walls. There’s not a bad seat in the house—if we’re being diplomatic.

      Glenstone MuseumOutdoor sculptures & Ellsworth Kelly
      Approach to the Pavilions at Glenstone. Photo: Iwan Baan. Courtesy of Glenstone Museum.
      One of the newer additions to the Washington D.C. art landscape is the truly spectacular Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland (12100 Glen Road), where the minimalist estate founded by collectors Mitch and Emily Rales to house their contemporary art collection meshes beautifully with the surroundings. It might be just 15 miles outside the nation’s capital, but Glenstone feels as if it’s from another planet—a lush, art-filled planet boasting more exhibition space than either the Whitney in New York or the Broad in Los Angeles.
      Installation view of Ellsworth Kelly’s Yellow Curve (1990) at Glenstone. © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation. Photo: Ron Amstutz. Courtesy of Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
      Though it opened in 2006, it was an expansion in 2018 that catapulted the museum to the level of world-class art institution. Currently on view is the extensive survey “Ellsworth Kelly at 100,” the centennial of the late American artist featuring works from his 70-year career. Kelly’s oeuvre runs the gamut from cerebral meditations on form to colorful geometric paintings—like those from the canonical “Spectrum” series. But it’s his landmark large-scale floor painting Yellow Curve that takes pride of place inside the museum, taking up more than 600 square feet of floor space in its first exhibition since it was conceived in 1990.
      Jeff Koons, Split-Rocker (2000). © Jeff Koons. Courtesy of Glenstone Museum.
      Don’t leave Glenstone’s grounds without witnessing first-hand the visual delights of Jeff Koons’s crowd-pleasing Split-Rocker topiary sculpture. Half dinosaur and half rocking horse, the florally festooned work boasts its own computer-controlled irrigation system, designed to monitor which zones require more or less water at any given time and for each individual species. Marigolds, zinnias, and petunias, oh my!
      Visit Artnet’s Summer Itineraries in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. 
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      A Pair of Collectors Spent Decades Amassing 4,000-Plus Historic Photos of Men in Love. See the Tender Images, Now on View in Geneva

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      More than 20 years ago, Hugh Nini and his partner Neal Treadwell were browsing in an antique shop in Dallas, Texas, when they came across a 1920s photo of a young male couple in which they were sure they saw clandestine love. Struck by the risk the pictured couple had taken by showing themselves intertwined physically, in everyday clothing in an American suburb, Nini and Treadwell saw themselves. 
      Their collection of images of men in love now encompasses more than 4,000 photographs from about 1850 to 1950, spanning events like the Civil War, two World Wars, and the Great Depression, and coming from all across the world. A selection was published in a book, Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love, 1850s-1950s, in 2020. Reviewing it in Rolling Stone, Jerry Portwood said it was “gorgeous” and called it “a promise we keep to these forgotten men, acknowledging their devotion, who loved despite all the odds.”
      Portwood also hoped the book would become a museum show, and at Geneva’s Rath Museum (the temporary exhibition space of the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire), he now has his wish with the exhibition, “Loving: the Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell Collection.” Zurich-based artist Walter Pfeiffer helped to curate the show from a selection offered by Nini and Treadwell. The show came as a result of museum director Marc-Olivier Wahler meeting the book’s publishers in 2019.
      Photograph, undated, with a note: “Edward and his chum.” Courtesy of the Nini-Treadwell collection © Loving by 5 Continents Editions
      The photos and the subjects are anonymous, and the men pose as straight couples might: in bed, on board a ship, in a photo booth, or even simulating a wedding. They include workers, businessmen, students, and servicemen. 
      And they’ve mostly stayed anonymous despite the exposure in the book, which was published in various languages around the world simultaneously.
      “Surprisingly, we have had no one reach out to say that they are related to anyone in our book,” said the collectors in an interview with the museum. “However, people who have our book have sent us photos of their relatives that they believe could be a part of our next book.”
      There is one couple which has been identified, according to the collectors. 
      “A professor from Vienna, and others, have reached out to us saying that the couple on pages 210/211 are in fact Rupert Brook, a famous poet, and Duncan Grant, a famous artist, both from the U.K.,” they said. “If you look at photos of these two men from the early 1900s, they are more than similar. They are a match.”
      “One enduring philosophical question is: ‘If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’” the collectors asked in their book. “The correct answer is yes—or no. If these couples loved each other and memorialized their love with a photo, but no one else saw it, did their love exist or matter? This book is filled with fallen trees whose sound, though delayed, is now being heard for the first time.”
      See more photos from the show below.
      Photograph, 1951, with a note: “1951”, “Davis & J.C.” Courtesy of the Nini-Treadwell collection © Loving by 5 Continents Editions
      Photograph, United States, undated. Courtesy of the Nini-Treadwell collection © Loving by 5 Continents Editions.
      Photograph (n.d.). Courtesy of the Nini-Treadwell collection. © Loving Continents Editions.
      Photograph, United States, undated. Courtesy of the Nini-Treadwell collection © Loving by 5 Continents Editions.
      “Loving: the Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell Collection” is on view at the Rath Museum, Rue Charles-Galland 2, 1206 Geneva, through September 24.
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      See Highlights From a Museum Show About New York’s Legacy in Art and Pop Culture, From De Niro’s ‘Raging Bull’ Robe to Alice Neel’s Harlem Scenes

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      When the Museum of the City of New York decided to mark its centennial with a massive show exploring what the city has meant to artists, let’s just say it did not lack for exhibits.  
      More than 400 objects have been assembled for “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture,” all capturing how the city has served as muse, setting, and subject for visual artists, filmmakers, writers, fashion designers, and musicians over the past century. The stories they have told in and about New York City have been as abundant as they are diverse. 
      “Nobody feels neutral about New York,” Sarah M. Henry, the museum’s chief curator and interim director, told Artnet News. “The warts-and-all quality to this observation and the ways in which artists have drawn attention to the flaws of New York is as much part of the story as the odes to the things that we love about the city.”
      Installation view of “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture” at the Museum of the City of New York. Photo: Brad Farwell for Museum of the City of New York.
      The show is divided into distinct segments.

      Tempo of the City surveys visual representations of the city streets evoking both joy (as in Sex and the City) and stress (Taxi Driver); Destination NYC spotlights New York’s most iconic spaces, from its beaches to its rooftops; At Home in New York explores how artists have depicted the comforts and challenges of living in the city.  

      Interactive exhibits dot the show, including a sound installation loaded with 100 songs inspired by the city’s five boroughs and a digital bookshelf, masterminded by design studio Dome Collective, where visitors can listen to books read by the likes of Matthew Broderick, Ronnie Chieng, and Tessa Thompson.  
      A highlight, though, is You Are Here, an installation that immerses viewers in more than 400 film scenes shot of and about New York. Do the Right Thing and Ghostbusters are represented, as are clips from Working Girl to Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Midnight Cowboy, all cleverly and thematically stitched together by production company RadicalMedia.  
      Installation view of “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture” at the Museum of the City of New York. Photo: Brad Farwell for Museum of the City of New York.
      A vast project, MCNY planned and pulled the exhibition together over five years, a period that overlapped with 2020’s lockdowns. According to Henry, it was a moment that surfaced for the museum team how New York’s distinct qualities could also make it most vulnerable to a pandemic. That discrepant view, as the show points out, is just the tip of the complexity of inhabiting—let’s face it—the greatest city in the world. 
      “We’re not the visitor center and New York doesn’t need it either,” said Henry. “What the exhibition is about is these conflicting perspectives, experiences, and emotions that a place as complicated and challenging as New York City can evoke.” 
      Here are eight unmissable highlights from the exhibition.

      Edward Hopper, New York Movie (1939) 
      Edward Hopper, New York Movie (1939) at “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture.” Photo: Min Chen.
      One of Hopper’s lesser-seen works, on loan from MoMA, this painting depicts an usher, pensive against the backdrop of an opulent movie theater. The painter’s signatures are in full bloom here—from the visual sumptuousness of the New York setting to the haunted atmosphere of urban alienation. 

      The robe and gloves Robert De Niro wore in Raging Bull (1980) 
      Robe, trunks, and boxing gloves from Raging Bull at “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture.” Photo: Min Chen.
      One of the most striking costume choices in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-sweeping film, this ensemble, designed by John Boxer and Richard Bruno, was most prominently seen in scenes recreating boxer Jake LaMotta’s bouts at Madison Square Garden. It will only be on view for three months. 

      Alice Neel, 108th and Madison (1945) 
      “I love you Harlem,” artist Alice Neel wrote in her journal in the early 1940s, “for the rich deep vein of human feeling buried under your fire engines.” That affection for her neighborhood, Neel would also paint into her street scenes that immortalized El Barrio, she wrote, for “your poverty and your loves.” This particular oil depicts the city’s sanitation workers going about their job not far from the MCNY itself. 

      Elinor Carucci, Emma in Her Room, Shelter-in-Place Time, Corona Days (2020) 
      Elinor Carucci, Emma in Her Room, Shelter-in-Place Time, Corona Days (2020). Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery.
      Over lockdown, photographer Elinor Carucci turned her camera onto her own family in isolation, capturing her husband and teenage twins, Eden and Emma (seen here), sheltering in place in their 950-square-foot apartment. Her series would illustrate not just an individual, but a shared reality—further mirrored in Kadir Nelson’s Homecoming (2021), a painting, included in the show, that depicts the bliss of a post-vax reunion.  

      The pendant from Uncut Gems (2019) 
      Pendant from Uncut Gems, with the Carrie Bradshaw tutu ensemble from Sex and the City. Photo: Brad Farwell for Museum of the City of New York.
      You know that highly meme-ed scene from Uncut Gems where Adam Sandler, playing a jeweler, holds up this diamond-encrusted Furby pendant and declares, “I started this shit”? Well, that object is here, the work of designer Catherine Miller who oversaw the molding, casting, and setting by hand of the 14-carat gems on the instantly iconic medallion.  

      Jimi Hendrix’s handwritten lyrics for “My Friend” (1968) 
      Jimi Hendrix’s handwritten lyrics. Photo: Min Chen.
      Hendrix lived in New York City for four years starting in 1966, during which he left his mark on studios like Electric Lady and apartments in Greenwich Village and the Upper East Side. The city, too, left its mark on the musician, who, in his song “My Friend” transformed Harlem into a fantastical setting for an encounter with “a stagecoach full of feathers and footprints.” 

      The T-shirt Chloë Sevigny wore in Kids (1995) 
      T-shirt from Kids. Photo: Brad Farwell for Museum of the City of New York.
      Straight from Sevigny’s own collection, this T-shirt saw her character Jennie through one life-changing day of hard partying, drug use, sex, and skateboarding in Larry Clark’s seminal film Kids. Sevigny calls the item one of her “most treasured possessions.” 

      Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach (1988) 
      Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach (1988) at “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture.” Photo: Min Chen.
      Ringgold’s story quilt, which narrates the creative reveries of the artist’s eight-year-old heroine Cassie Louise Lightfoot, is included here for its framing of a Harlem rooftop as a site for socializing, dreaming—and flight. “My women are actually flying,” Ringgold said of her “Women on a Bridge” series, of which this quilt forms a part. “They are just free, totally.” 
      “This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture” is on view at the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Ave, New York, through June 21, 2024. 
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