Art & Exhibitions

They’re the team known for viral sensations—cartoonish big red rubber boots based on an anime character; an ATM that publicly displays the bank balance of all those who use it, in the manner of a video game; and Nike Air Jordan Max 97 sneakers that contain a drop of holy water from the River Jordan. Now, the collective MSCHF—call them artists, call them a start-up, call them Internet pranksters, but definitely call them “mischief”—has trained its penetrating gaze on New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they have secretly replaced the handles, water lines, and other parts of a bathroom sink, right under the staff’s noses.
In an Instagram Reel, disguised voices coming from pixelated faces discuss the… performance? Robbery? Stunt? “I think we should do the Met,” said one. “You want to steal some art?” responded another. “No. I want to steal a sink.” They specify that before absconding with pieces of the plumbing, they’re replacing them with better parts, so it does seem like a victimless crime, if not even a favor. If guards come, they figure, they’ll just say they’re plumbers. And anyway, if they get busted, they asked, “What’s changed?”
The piece, while ultra-modern in its readiness for social-media virality, actually refers to an ancient thought experiment. It’s called Met’s Sink of Theseus (2024) in reference to the Ship of Theseus, or Theseus’s Paradox, which asks whether an object that has had all its parts replaced is still essentially the same object. 
Still from a MSCHF Instagram reel.
Met’s Sink of Theseus appears in “Art 2,” the collective’s new show at Perrotin’s Los Angeles outpost, where it is displayed fully reassembled, with clear plastic replacing the porcelain basin (which they did not steal).
There were several factors that made the Met and a sink the perfect targets, said the collective’s Kevin Wiesner and Lukas Bentel on a FaceTime call while installing the show. 
“They’re one of those institutions that has such cachet that anything that goes in or out of there gains in value,” said Wiesner. “It’s the same sink as you can find in who knows how many other buildings in New York. But we now have work in the Met Museum.”
They also have an odd popular appeal, he added: “Weirdly, the bathrooms are fairly well-documented by celebrities who attend the Met Gala and go to the bathrooms to take photos.”
And, Bentel added, the disassembled-and-reassembled nature of the piece recalls certain artifacts in the museum’s collection. “There are a lot of artworks in that museum that were taken from various places and then assembled there,” he said.
The mini-heist comes at a moment when museums are under serious scrutiny for their security practices. The British Museum recently has seen hundreds of objects stolen, and a wave of thefts of Chinese antiquities at Western museums has given rise to speculation that the Chinese government may be resorting to rogue practices to get the objects repatriated. MSCHF’s members were definitely concerned about Met security, though. “There were a number of stressful moments,” Bentel said. “Not to get into too much detail, but there were a number of times when we thought it would go not well for us.”
The museum declined to comment. 
The prank takes its a place in a century-long tradition of plumbing, sinks, and toilets as art. Marcel Duchamp’s first readymade, Fountain (1917), was a urinal turned on its side. Robert Gober’s 1980s sink sculptures, missing all the functional fixtures, lent uncanny bodily associations to these domestic basins. In 2016, Maurizio Cattelan installed a golden toilet, straightforwardly titled America, at the Guggenheim Museum, and a 2018–19 public art installation in New York’s Madison Square by Arlene Schechet was inspired by a residency at a toilet and sink factory.
Referring to this long line of bathroom art, Bentel joked, “At one point we hope to assemble the whole set.”
“I don’t know if it’s the oldest sink in the museum,” Wiesner said. “Some have been converted and updated, whereas this one is from the early 1900s and has all stock parts that are very easy to find and replace.” They declined to say exactly which bathroom the replaced sink is in, but they did let on that it’s closer to the Temple of Dendur (certainly one of those specimens that was brought to the museum piece by piece) than not.
MSCHF, Public Universal Car (2022). Courtesy of MSCHF and Perrotin.
The new show treats the theme of second acts. It also features works like Public Universal Car, a 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser that allowed thousands of people nationwide to access a single vehicle with duplicate keys. Another piece consists of 250 identical small wooden sculptures of fish hanging on a wall; one of them is a Picasso work, raising the question of whether a single collector will buy up the whole “school” or whether various buyers will try to pick the “right” one. 
MSCHF, Botched Painting (Ecole Siennoise, fin du XVIIe siècle Vierge à l’enfant terrassant le dragon), 2023. Courtesy of MSCHF and Perrotin.
Another group of works refers to 2012’s viral “Beast Jesus,” which came into being when a well-meaning amateur Spanish artist tried to restore a painting at her church, with results that were an aesthetic disaster but tourism gold. MSCHF bought a handful of antique religious paintings and hamfistedly “restored” them, with the question of whether, they, too, could increase their value (a bit like the parts of the Met sink).
MSCHF, Microscopic Handbag (Hermes), 2024. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of MSCHF and Perrotin.
Parodying fashion drops is Microscopic Handbags, consisting of 3D-printed accessories that are visible only under a microscope, recalling the ancient Indian fable of the weavers who deceive a ruler by giving him a robe that supposedly is visible only to those worthy of seeing it. When he models his imaginary finery, a child calls out, “the emperor has no clothes.” 
Speaking of clothes, Wiesner and Bentel admitted that, in their artist duds on FaceTime, they didn’t exactly look like plumbers, raising the question of how they passed. They declined to say who exactly visited the museum, not wanting to expose any individual to liability (perhaps the same reason the faces and voices are disguised in the Instagram video though the members’ identities are known).
They did seem to fool some people, though, said Bentel. “Visitors would come out of the stall and say, ‘I don’t want to make more work for you, but the toilet is really leaking in there.’”
“Art 2” is on view at Perrotin, 5036 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, through June 1, 2024.
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Japan’s oldest public art museum had grand plans for its 90th anniversary celebrations. It wanted to host a Takashi Murakami exhibition. It was less keen, however, on paying the shipping costs and insurance premiums associated with schlepping Murakami’s work from Europe and North America.
Its solution was to invite the superstar Japanese artist to create an entirely new body of work, one that riffed off Kyoto’s past, present, and future. After all, the museum argued, despite Murakami’s international reach, his studio was Tokyo-based, and at age 62, he was still relatively young and up to the task.
View of the entrance to “Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto.” Photo: Kozo Takayama/Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.
The pitch came from Shinya Takahashi, Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art’s general manager, who boasts a long and fruitful relationship with the artist. Murakami obliged and result is “Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto,” set to run through Sept 1, an exhibition of more than 170 works, the vast majority of which are new.
So new, in fact, some are unfinished. Inside the show, there’s a notice informing visitors that works will be updated over the course of the exhibition’s run by Murakami and his assistants.
Installation view of Rakuchu Rakugai Zu Matabei Iwasa Rip by Takashi Murakami at “Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto” at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art. Photo: Kozo Takayama/Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.
Two works that are neither new nor unfinished are the pair of 14-foot statues that visitors encounter at the exhibition’s entrance: Embodiment of “A” and Embodiment of “Um.” The ghoulish, club-clutching twins are guardians, the likes of which tradition says should be called upon in times of misfortune. Murakami created them in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, placing them on multicolored plinths, as though pieces for a giant board game.
Murakami has forever smashed together traditional and modern here he does so in the context of his host city. For much of Japan’s Edo period, 1603 to 1868, Kyoto was the nation’s cultural heart, a wellspring of painting, architecture, and the performing arts.
Installation view of “Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto” at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art. Photo: Kozo Takayama/Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.
The centerpiece of this conversation is perhaps Rakuchu Rakugai Zu, a 43-foot long reimagining of Iwasa Matabei’s Scenes In and Around Kyoto. The 17th-century painting presents a city shrouded in golden clouds out of which everyday scenes emerge—a man sells melons, a shrine festival takes place, women go shopping. Murakami reimagines the original, apparently with planning help from A.I., and sprinkles on his own icons.
Another turn to Kyoto’s painting tradition comes with Murakami’s presentation of Wind God and Thunder God. The pair were tackled by many of the Edo period’s finest painters and Murakami follows the playfulness of Ogata Korin’s celebrated work (now housed in Tokyo National Museum) and fills it with characteristic color and whimsy.
Installation view of Murakami’s sculptures “Kaikai” and “Kiki” at “Takashi Murakami Mononoke Kyoto” at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art. Photo: Kozo Takayama/Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.
For all that’s new, there’s plenty that serves as a reminder, or introduction, to the faces and figures around which Murakami has built his brand over the past two decades. There are sculptures of Kaikai and Kiki, his green-eyed, jaw-agape monsters. A technicolored Mr. DOB, supposedly his answer to Mickey Mouse, made in 1993. Outside, in the pond of the museum’s garden, he’s installed a giant golden Flower Parent and Child.
There have always been murmurs that Murakami remains an artist who is better appreciated abroad than at home. This is the artist’s first exhibition in the country eight years, though contrary to the museum’s claims, it seems unlikely to be his last.
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The final artwork created by the artist Jamie Reid, known for his designs for the punk band the Sex Pistols during the 1970s, will be going on display for the first time this month at Brighton’s Enter Gallery. “Jamie Reid, A Lifetime of Radical Gestures” opens on April 25 and will celebrate the life of Reid, who passed away in August 2023, showing work from the artist’s “Rogue Materials” series, which he made between 1972 and 2021. Fifty photographs will also be on display, chronicling Reid’s life.
Reid was born in 1947, raised in a “diehard socialist” household. He met Sex Pistol’s manager Malcolm McLaren when the pair were studying at Croydon College of Art, and McLaren introduced him to the band with whom Reid would be forever associated. Over his lifetime, Reid worked on several left-wing publications including the West Highland Free Press and the Suburban Press.
Reid’s designs are synonymous with the 1970s punk spirit, most notably his iconic collaged work for the cover of the Sex Pistol’s 1977 single “God Save the Queen,” an image that was so scandalizing it offended workers at the printing plant. Despite his anti-establishment beginnings, Reid artworks are highly coveted by commercial galleries, fashion brands, and now fetch high sums at auction. A promotional poster for “God Save the Queen” previously owned by Sid Vicious, Sex Pistol’s bassist, sold at Sotheby’s London for $49,796 in 2022. Collectors of Reid’s work include Vivienne Westwood, Madonna, and Angelina Jolie, and his work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and National Portrait Gallery.
“Radical ideas will always get appropriated by the mainstream… That’s why you have to keep moving on to new things,” the artist told Another Man in a 2018 interview. 
Jamie Reid’s “God Save the Queen” machine print on view in 2022, ahead of a Sotheby’s London auction. Photo: Daniel Leal / AFP via Getty Images.
Reid’s final artwork, a homage to his single cover for Sex Pistol’s “Anarchy in the U.K.,” shows a torn Union Jack flag, held together with safety pins. The print was approved by Reid and his foundation the Arcova Trust before his death in 2023. Anarchy in the UK (2024) is being released in two new silkscreen editions, one sized 67 by 100 cm (26.4 by 39.4 inches) in an edition of 200, and another sized 100 by 150 cm (39.4 by 59 inches) in an edition of 76—a reference to the year the Sex Pistols released the record.
“A Lifetime of Radical Gestures” was co-curated by the gallerist and archivist John Marchant, a friend and representative of Reid’s who announced the passing of the “artist, iconoclast, anarchist, punk, hippie, rebel and romantic” in an Instagram post.
“I am very happy that we are partnering with Enter Gallery to launch this exclusive editioned print of Jamie Reid’s infamous ‘Anarchy In the U.K.’ flag, as we have a great history of working together to offer Jamie’s world-renowned art and messages to collectors,” he said. “Jamie and I started work on this edition last summer and although Jamie is no longer with us, I am pleased that this classic work is finally available as a tribute to his incredible legacy.”
Enter Gallery’s Head of Buying, Helen Hiett, said: “Enter Gallery had the pleasure of working closely with Jamie Reid over several decades. He was a true visionary, always fighting for equality and justice via exciting, rebellious, and risqué works that provoked a reaction. In this retrospective, we honor his fascinating life and creativity, and can’t wait to bring his iconic work to the people of Brighton and beyond.”
“Jamie Reid, A Lifetime of Radical Gestures” is on view at Enter Gallery, 13 Bond Street, Brighton, from April 25 to May 2.
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A new exhibition at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam brings together a large collection of funeral paintings from post-Ptolemaic Egypt, some loaned from the Louvre and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Known as the Fayum portraits, the bulk these artifacts were unearthed in the necropolis in Egypt’s Faiyum region, where they were found laid over the faces of mummified bodies. As one of the rare surviving Classical art forms, these works are unique for several reasons.
The first concerns their medium. Most of the art produced during classical antiquity survives in the form of statues and monuments. Not because that’s all the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians made—they had rich painting traditions—but because stone is much more durable than paint, which survived only in the rarest of instances. Just as the frescoes from the ash-covered ruins of Pompeii were preserved through volcanic eruption, the Fayum portraits survived as a result of Egypt’s desert climate.
A Fayum portrait. Photo courtesy of Musée du Louvre, Department des Antiquités égyptiennes.
The second reason concerns their subject. Where the vast majority of Greco-Roman artwork depicts gods, mythological heroes, and quasi-divine emperors, the Fayum portraits are snapshots of ordinary people. The exhibition’s title, “Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits,” is fitting, for when you stare at some of these portraits, you interact with individuals who lived thousands of years ago.
One of the most striking features of the Fayum portraits is their style, which curator Ben van den Bercken describes as a melting pot of cultural influences. “They were made to be placed on top of mummified bodies,” he said. “That’s the Egyptian component: a means of keeping the diseased recognizable for the gods as well as their loved ones.”
Installation view of “Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits” at the Allard Pierson Museum. Photo courtesy of Allard Pierson Museum.
Hellenistic culture—introduced to Egypt through the reign of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, whose lineage traces back to the Greco-Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great—is present in the clothing of the subjects as well as the materials with which they were put on canvas. Tempera, an originally Egyptian tradition where pigment is mixed with water-soluble binders like egg yolk, is frequently combined with encaustic or hot wax painting—a Greek approach Van den Bercken speculates may have been taught in Egypt’s Hellenistic schooling systems.
“The interesting thing about encaustic painting is the skill involved,” he said. “Since you cannot make adjustments once the wax has cooled, portraits were constructed layer by layer, giving them an almost Impressionistic quality. It’s reminiscent of what we find in the 17th century with artists like Rembrandt.”
A Fayum portrait. Photo courtesy of Allard Pierson Museum.
The realism of the Fayum portraits was also imported, primarily from Rome, which officially annexed Egypt in 30 C.E., and indirectly from Greece. Their lifelike detail, demonstrating a clear understanding of human anatomy, stands in stark contrast to the more abstract and symbolic visual language associated with ancient Egypt today.
But while the portraits are lifelike, the question of whether they were true to life remains up for debate. “It’s difficult to judge the extent to which the paintings reflect what these people actually looked like,” Van den Bercken noted. “If, for instance, they really owned the jewelry we see in the images. It’s possible people were presented a bit wealthier than they actually were.”
A Fayum portrait. Photo courtesy of Musée du Louvre, Department des Antiquités égyptiennes.
At the same time, funeral portraits would not have been cheap: “Look at the wood panels on which they were painted. Many of these are made of basswood, which came from outside Egypt. The same goes for some of the pigments.” This, he said, suggests the subjects were members of society’s upper class: men and women of considerable means.
Sticking with the subject of realism, keen observers will note that paintings produced in the 3rd and 4th centuries look different from those dated closer to the time of Julius Caesar. Where the latter rival Roman busts in their accuracy and precision, the former are more evocative of Byzantine icons, their personality obscured by a certain level of abstraction.
Installation view of “Face to Face: The People Behind Mummy Portraits” at the Allard Pierson Museum. Photo courtesy of Allard Pierson Museum.
Coincidence? This, too, is difficult to say. While Van Bercken does not rule out that evolving artistic currents on the Italian peninsula and Asia Minor influenced Egyptian brushwork, there simply isn’t enough evidence to draw a definite conclusion here. Differences in style, he explained, could just as easily be attributed to differences in geographic location or preferences of individual painters. On top of this, many of the portraits cannot be dated with 100 percent accuracy.
What is certain is that the tradition of funeral painting, which emerged during the 1st century B.C.E., gradually fizzled during the 4th century C.E. One possible explanation for development this is the rise of Christianity, declared the official religion of the Roman Empire by Theodosius in 380. When the religion spread from Rome to Egypt, mummification rituals made way for Christian burial ceremonies. As mummification disappeared, mummy portraiture followed suit.
“Face to Face: The People Behind the Mummy Portraits” is on view at the Allard Pierson Museum, Oude Turfmarkt 127-129, Amsterdam, Netherlands, through May 20.
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The ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is considerably more exciting than its name suggests.
Each April, dealers, collectors, and the casually curious descend on New York’s Park Armory for a weekend of bookish fun. In truth, “book” is a misleading, limiting word compared to the scope and diversity of items laid out in the cavernous hall. Offerings span early maps, groundbreaking patents, historic letters, fledgling advertisements, political banners, concert posters—each with its own specialist dealer.
Here are five intriguing art-related offerings from the 64th Edition.

The Cottingley Fairies PrintsRare Burnside Books
The first of the five photographs, taken by Elsie Wright in 1917. Photo: Burnside Rare Books.
In an era of deep fakes and photoshop trickery, the Cottingley fairy images are a reminder that photographic manipulation is as old as the medium itself. In 1917, two girls set out to photograph fairies dancing in the Yorkshire countryside. They hoped to prank their parents. Instead, the series of five photographs captured the imagination of the British public. Most compelled were the theosophists, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who understood the prancing white-winged things as protoplasmic thought forms produced by the girls’ psychic auras. In reality, the fairies were cardboard cut outs held in place with hatpins. The pair admitted as much in a 1983 interview—sort of, the fifth photograph, they insisted, was authentic.

The Original Artwork for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club BandVoewood Rare Books
The original artwork created by Dutch design company The Fool for The Beatles. Photo: Voewood Rare Books.
Exhausted by touring and keen for a refresh, the Beatles took a mini-hiatus in late 1966. Ringo relaxed, John traipsed through art galleries, George learned the sitar in India, Paul dropped LSD. Art, psychedelics, and musical experimentation underpinned the subsequent record: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album that saw the Beatles adopt Edwardian alter-egos. For artwork, they commissioned The Fool, the playful Dutch design collective that had worked with Cream and Procol Harum. Its offering was a psychedelic garden of Eden, a scene of mermaids, lush flora, and symbolic birds. Ultimately, the design was considered too overtly trippy and wasn’t chosen. Not that The Fool minded; they took the decision almost as a point of pride. Voewood Rare Books has priced it at $110,000.

David Hockney’s poster for a university lectureSims Reed Gallery
A poster David Hockey created for a 1965 lecture at Newcastle University. Photo: Sims Reed Gallery.
In 1965, with David Hockney’s reputation steadily growing, his friend Mark Lancaster convinced him to give an informal talk about his practice to students at Newcastle University. Hockney created a poster for the occasion, a palm tree (inspired by recent visits to California) together with a simple red sun and the playful all-cap words “David Hockney Will Come.” Lancaster would develop his screen-printing skills further as an assistant to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. The Newcastle rendezvous was an important beat in a lifelong friendship that saw the pair travel to Hawaii, Japan, and Hong Kong.

Marc Chagall Bible with burning bush designPhilip J. Pirgaes
Marc Chagall Bible with bindings by Renee Haas. Photo: Philip J. Pirgaes.
In 1931, the renowned art dealer Ambroise Vollard inquired after Marc Chagall’s interest in illustrating the Bible. Chagall was keen. First, however, he wanted to feel and experience the Holy Land for himself. Upon his return, he studied the masters of engraving, in particular the work of Rembrandt, and methodically produced 105 engravings over a 25-year period. The final work is considered a peerless illustrated Old Testament of modernity with age-old stories made fresh through Chagall’s ability to capture human emotion. Released unbound in 1957, Philip J. Pirgaes offers René Haas’ design ($95,000), one that evokes a burning bush ablaze on a stain-glass window.

Sylvia Plath’s high school paintingType Punch Matrix
Sylvia Plath, Portrait of an Unidentified Young Woman (1948/49). Photo: Type Punch Matrix.
As a child, Sylvia Plath drew, painted, and sketched with abandon. She arrived at Smith College in 1950 determined to major in fine art. Plath painted this portrait of an unidentified young woman as a high schooler in the late 1940s. It shows a characteristic sensitivity to mood and gesture. As explored in a 2017 Smithsonian exhibition on Plath, art fueled and inspired her writings, and vice versa. Upon hitting a publishing drought in the late ‘50s, Plath turned to contemporary art, finding in the works of Rousseau, Paul Klee, and De Chirico a kinship that led her to write a series of art poems. Type Punch Matrix has priced the work at $135,000.
The New York Antiquarian Book Fair is on view at Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, New York, April 4–7.
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In 1454, the Augustinians in San Sepolcro wanted a grand polyptych for the high altar of their church. They commissioned hometown master Piero della Francesca for the task. It took Piero 12 years—Pope Nicholas V kept demanding and hogging his services at the Vatican—and stood as a magnificent demonstration of the painter’s talents.
Across 30 panels, Piero placed two saints on either of the Virgin and the surrounding predella was filled with New Testament scenes and Augustinian figures. The polyptych evidenced Piero’s mastery of space and light, as well as his familiarity with trendy Spanish painting.
Piero della Francesca, San Nicola da Tolentino (1454–69). Photo: Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
The popularity of such polyptychs didn’t last. By the end of the 16th century, it had been disassembled and sold off panel-by-panel.
Eight panels have survived and are scattered across five museums in Europe and the United States. For the past two decades, museums have tried, but failed, to reassemble Piero’s polyptych.
Piero della Francesca, Saint Michael the Archangel (1454–69). Photo: Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Now, the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan has succeeded. Through June 20, visitors will be able to enjoy what remains of the Augustinian Polyptych 555 years after it was painted.
The break came when Alessandra Quarto, the director of Poldi Pezzoli Museum, learned that New York’s Frick Collection, which owns four panels, would be closed for six months ahead of its 2024 grand reopening. The Frick proved willing leading to an exhibition that Quarto has called “the reunion of the century.”
Piero della Francesca, Saint Augustine (1454–69). Photo: Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Milan holds Piero’s Saint Nicholas of Tolentino and with the Frick onboard, it proved possible to convince London’s National Gallery, Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon to make the requisite loans.
The exhibition presents the four saints (St. Michael the Archangel, St. John the Evangelist, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Augustine) in a staggered formation with a blank space for the central panel.
Piero della Francesca, San Giovanni Evangelista (1454–69). Photo: Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
Curated by Machtelt Brüggen Israëls of the Rijksmuseum and Nathaniel Silver of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the exhibition also offered an opportunity to conduct diagnostic investigations on the panels. Studies revealed the central panel depicted the coronation of the Virgin, as opposed to a scene of Virgin and Child, as had long been assumed.
Piero della Francesca, The Crucifixion (1454–69). Photo: Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
This conclusion was reached through discovering traces of two wings on the panels flanking the centerpiece. The wings, one pink and one blue, were removed when the altarpiece was disassembled because it would have seemed incongruous. Furthermore, experts found a foot beneath a brocade dress on the panel depicting Michael the Archangel, which suggests a kneeling Virgin. Both details are consistent with period depictions of the Virgin’s coronation.
The four panels depicting the saints reappeared miraculously in Milan in the 1800s and organizers are hopeful the exhibition might prompt more to resurface.
“Piero della Francesca: The Augustinian Polyptych Reunited” is on view at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Via Alessandro Manzoni, 12, Milan, Italy, through June 24.
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“Ecce Homo: Behold the Man,” an expansive new exhibition at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., explores how artists have interpreted the Passion of Christ over the past five centuries.
The Passion, derived from the Latin word patior meaning “to suffer, bear, endure,” refers to Christ’s final days as described in the New Testament. Celebrated during Easter, it includes his entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper with his disciples, his betrayal by Judas, his trial before the Roman adjudicator Pontius Pilate, and his crucifixion. A popular theme in Christian religious art, the Passion symbolizes the belief that the Son of God sacrificed himself to absolve the sins of all mankind.
Installation view of “Ecce Homo: Behold the Man” at Museum of the Bible. Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
The title of the exhibition borrows from the phrase that Pontius Pilate is said to have uttered upon presenting Jesus, bound and lashed, to a Roman crowd. “Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe,” reads the Bible passage John 19:5. “And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!”
To trace how representations of the Passion have changed significantly throughout art history, the show encompasses the figurative woodcuts of the Medieval era through the lifelike works by artists of the 18th and 19th centuries. A bulk of the exhibition is given over to art of the 20th century, when the Passion was abstracted and appropriated to comment on themes beyond the religious.
Salvador Dalí with his painting, Christ of Saint John of the Cross. Photo: PA Images via Getty Images.
Here, Dalí’s Ecce Homo (1969) takes the spotlight. The watercolor drawing was created with the technique “bulletism,” involving firing an antique gun loaded with ink capsules at a blank sheet of paper. The splatters, in this case, formed the face of Christ’s thorn-crowned face.
Drawn to the Catholic traditions of his native Spain, particularly in the postwar period, Dalí’s interest in the Passion, a topic he tackled more than once, was a response to his anxieties about the “atomic age.” As he wrote in his 1942 autobiography: “I believe, above all, in the real and unfathomable force of the philosophic Catholicism of France and in that of the militant Catholicism of Spain.”
Tyrus Clutter, Jesus Reviled (2006). Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
Other contemporary interpretations of the Passion include Hubertus Giebe’s sad-faced Christ, rendered in the style of German Expressionism; Romanian artist Ioana Datcu’s collaged portrait of Jesus; and Ralph Hall’s vivid painting that captures the lashes that Jesus suffered before his crucifixion.
See more images from the exhibition below.
Installation view of “Ecce Homo: Behold the Man” at Museum of the Bible. Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
W. French, Ecce Homo (after Guido Reni) (ca. 17th century). Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
Ralph Hall, Ecce Homo (1986). Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
Unknown artist, Man of Sorrows and Mater Dolorosa (1524). Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
Installation view of “Ecce Homo: Behold the Man” at Museum of the Bible. Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
Félix Bonfils, Ecce Homo (ca. 1880s). Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
Cornelis Cort, Ecce Homo (1602). Photo courtesy of the Museum of the Bible.
“Ecce Homo: Behold the Man” is on view at the Museum of the Bible, 400 4th St SW, Washington, D.C. through May 15.
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“The Crystal Ball of Pop” was the nickname bestowed upon Interview magazine after its founding in 1969 by Andy Warhol. The magazine celebrated the zeitgeist’s values of wealth, beauty, and fame, apparent at first glance with their iconic cover photographs of A-list celebrities. Many thought Warhol himself was behind the covers, but the work was all Richard Bernstein’s.
Richard Bernstein and Andy Warhol in 1978, photographed by Bobby Grossman. Photo courtesy of NeueHouse Madison Square.
“Richard Bernstein is my favorite artist. He makes everyone look so famous,’ said Warhol, who took interest in the artist after attending his solo show in 1965. Between 1972 and 1989, Bernstein made 189 mixed-media, polychromatic covers for the magazine, featuring the likes of Cher, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, and his dear friend Grace Jones, whose son he was godfather to. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Met, and the National Portrait Gallery. A new exhibition at NeueHouse in New York will showcase more than 20 of his star-studded portraits.
Grace Jones on the cover of Interview magazine in October, 1984. Photo courtesy of NeueHouse Madison Square.
Working out of a studio in Chelsea, Bernstein thrived in the beating heart of NYC’s social scene amid a celebrity-heavy culture of hedonism. He had a Studio 54 VIP card. If the club ever wanted a particular celebrity to attend, they would call Bernstein and invite him directly. His work is emblematic of the high-glamor of its time
Bernstein was also an innovator, creating deepfake nudes of celebrities decades before the advent of A.I. In 1968, he created one of his most controversial pieces, The Nude Beatles, a neon technicolor group portrait with the Fab Fours’ heads superimposed on lithe, naked male bodies. The prints were confiscated by order of a French judge, and the Beatles label, Apple Records, filed a losing lawsuit against him. When Bernstein later met John  Lennon, he impressed upon him the missed opportunity of using the scandalous image for an album cover.
Bernstein’s cover image of Isabella Rossellini from the January 1982 issue of Interview magazine. Photo courtesy of NeueHouse Madison Square.
For the magazine covers, Interview would commission other hot analog photographers who produced a silver gelatin print that was delivered to Bernstein for manipulation and bedazzlement before going to print. Rory Trifon, the president of the estate of Richard Bernstein, elaborated on the process: “the cover subject was decided by Bob Colacello, art directed by Marc Balet, and photographed by the world’s most renowned photographers such as Greg Gorman, Matthew Rolston, Albert Watson, and Peter Strongwater among others.” Each of those photographers would supply Bernstein with a group of silver gelatin prints, who “would then choose the best image and then crop, enlarge, and illustrate; airbrush, paint, and collage to achieve the final piece. The artwork would be approved by Andy and then it would go to print. Taken together, the overall collaborative covers are the final result from the greatest photographers, illustrated by Pop Art’s greatest illustrator, and approved by the Pope of Pop himself making them truly remarkable.”
The June 1984 cover of Interview magazine featured Kevin Costner, by Richard Bernstein. Photo courtesy of NeueHouse Madison Square.
Thirty years before Damien Hirst’s famous paintings of pills, Richard Bernstein was exhibiting paintings of pills while he lived and worked in Paris. Paloma Picasso, daughter of Pablo Picasso, was his art assistant. Praising her former boss, Picasso once said, “Bernstein puts wit into the beauties, fantasy into the rich, depth into the glamorous and adds instant patina to newcomers.”
The exhibition The Interview Magazine Covers, 1972-1989: Richard Bernstein’s Portraits of Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine runs from March 26–June 30, 2024 at NeueHouse, Madison Square, New York.
September 1981, Fran Lebowitz made the cover of Interview magazine. By Richard Bernstein. Photo courtesy of NeueHouse Madison Square.
“The Interview Magazine Covers, 1972–1989: Richard Bernstein’s Portraits for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine” is on view at NeueHouse Madison Square, 110 E 25th St, New York, through June 30.
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