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    Ireland’s Oldest and Largest Medieval Book Shrine Goes on Public View for the First Time

    Book shrine discovered at Lough Kinale, Tonymore North, County Longford, Ireland. All images courtesy of the National Museum of Ireland, shared with permission

    Ireland’s Oldest and Largest Medieval Book Shrine Goes on Public View for the First Time

    June 24, 2025

    ArtBooksCraftHistory

    Kate Mothes

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    In an unassuming lake in Ireland’s northern County Longford, an unprecedented find emerged in 1986. Thanks to the sediments in the body of water, pieces of a unique, highly decorated metal object dating to the 9th century were remarkably preserved. And now, after a 39-year conservation project, the nation’s oldest and largest medieval book shrine is now on view.

    Known as the Lough Kinale Book Shrine after its namesake lake, the object features a series of medallions with precious stone inserts, along with embellished metalwork in the form of a cross. Part of the exhibition Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe at the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, the stunning artifact is complemented by a number of pieces contemporary to its day.

    Detail of the Lough Kinale book shrine

    The shrine’s metal is bronze and encompasses an oak container, which would have held a treasured manuscript associated with a Christian saint. Used to convey the volume to various ceremonial activities, it also would have originally featured a leather strap to make it easier to transport.

    Words on the Wave also includes a Viking sword uncovered in the River Shannon in Limerick and a beautiful example of a medieval brooch-pin, the Ardshanbally Brooch, which dates to the 8th or 9th century.

    Thanks to scientific analysis, manuscripts on loan from the Abbey Library in St. Gall, Switzerland, have also been confirmed to have originated in Ireland. Researchers determined that the vellum pages were made from the hides of Irish cattle, and monks traveled with the books to Switzerland more than a thousand years ago. This exhibition marks the first time in more than a millennium that the illuminated tomes have resided in Ireland.

    Words on the Wave continues in Dublin through October 24. Learn more and plan your visit on the museum’s website.

    Irish Evangelary from St. Gall (Quatuor evangelia), Cod. Sang. 51, p. 78. © Stiftsbibliothek, St. Gallen

    Detail of the Lough Kinale book shrine

    Detail of the Lough Kinale book shrine

    Detail showing St Matthew applying a scribal knife or scraper to a page and dipping his pen in an inkwell (Cod. Sang. 1395, p. 418). © Stiftsbibliothek, St. Gallen

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    Roméo Mivekannin’s Cage-Like Sculptures of Museums Reframe the Colonial Past

    Photos by Gerret Schultz. All images courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Thumm, shared with permission

    Roméo Mivekannin’s Cage-Like Sculptures of Museums Reframe the Colonial Past

    June 24, 2025

    ArtHistorySocial Issues

    Kate Mothes

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    Known for bold, chiaroscuro paintings that reimagine European art historical masterworks in his own likeness, Roméo Mivekannin is interested in the Western, colonial gaze on Africa and the power of archives to reveal underrepresented or untold stories. Born on the Ivory Coast, Mivekannin splits his time between Toulouse, France, and Cotonou, Benin. His practice interrogates visibility, appropriation, and power dynamics through direct and unflinching pieces spanning acrylic painting, installation, and sculpture.

    At Art Basel last weekend, in collaboration with Galerie Barbara Thumm and Cécile Fakhoury, Mivekannin presented a large-scale installation titled Atlas, comprising a series of metal buildings suspended from the ceiling. Modeled after institutional buildings—in this case, museums that house enthographic collections—the artist draws attention to the colonialist practices and ethical gray areas that permeate these spaces and their histories.

    Often founded upon controversial or dubiously-acquired personal collections of European urban elites, larger museums historically emphasized what was seen as “primitive” or “exotic,” exhibiting a skewed view of world cultures framed by a colonialist mindset. The British Museum, for example, was established in 1753 upon the death of Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection of more than 80,000 “natural and artificial rarities” provided the institution’s foundation. His wealth—and his collection—was amassed in part through enslaved labor on his sugar plantations in Jamaica.

    Another well-known example of problematic collections include thousands of Benin Bronzes, housed in European institutions like the British Museum and others. British forces acquired many of these elaborately decorated plaques through pillage and looting in the late 19th century. Today, some museums have agreed to repatriate the bronzes to redress this historical indignity (the British Museum is still in discussions).

    As a student of both art and architecture, Mivekannin taps into the way certain structures and built environments are designed to convey prestige and dominance. He is also currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the National Superior School of Architecture of Montpellier (ENSAM).

    In Atlas, the structures take on the form of bird cages suspended from chains. Both elements symbolize captivity, likening ethnographic collections that often include human remains to what the Atlas exhibition statement describes as “human zoos.” In this context, the cages “serve as a reminder of the historical practices that sought to control and exploit ‘the Other.’”

    Mivekannin bridges past and present in this installation, inviting viewers to walk around the museums within a space that shifts the power dynamic. The work encourages viewers “to confront uncomfortable truths about colonial legacies and their ongoing impact on our contemporary society.”

    The artist scales down the museums’ palatial details to a diminutive size, displayed low, taking into consideration a kind of meta experience of the exhibition itself. In Mivekannin’s portrayal, the structures are both the cages and the caged.

    A show of the artist’s paintings, Black Mirror, is currently on view at Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy, through July 27. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

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    Order an Object at the New V&A East Storehouse to Get Up-Close to 5,000 Years of Cultural Heritage

    The Weston Collections Hall at V&A East
    Storehouse, including over 100 mini
    curated displays in the ends and sides of the storage racking. The
    space is anchored by six large-scale objects, including a building section from the now-demolished Robin Hood
    Gardens, a former residential estate in
    Poplar, east London. Photo by Hufton +
    Crow for V&A. All images courtesy of V&A, shared with permission

    Order an Object at the New V&A East Storehouse to Get Up-Close to 5,000 Years of Cultural Heritage

    June 3, 2025

    ArtDesignHistory

    Kate Mothes

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    What do the largest Picasso painting in the world, punky Vivienne Westwood apparel, pins for securing a 17th-century ruff, and a complete Frank Lloyd Wright interior have in common? That’ll be the U.K.’s Victoria and Albert Museum, or the V&A, the world’s largest collection of design and applied and decorative arts.

    In South Kensington, the palatial museum has awed visitors since 1852, and in recent decades, the institution has greatly expanded, with locations like the Young V&A in Bethnal Green, the Wedgwood Collection in Stoke-on-Trent, the ship-like V&A Dundee in Scotland, and the brand new V&A East Storehouse in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

    The largest Picasso work in the world, the 1924 front stage cloth for the Ballets Russes’ production, ‘Le Train Bleu,’ at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by David Parry/PA Media Assignments. Pablo Picasso, “Le Train Bleu front stage cloth” (1924) © The estate of Pablo Picasso

    Spanning 5,000 years of human creativity through hundreds of thousands of objects requires a lot of space. Rather than hiding it all away in a dark warehouse, the new Storehouse takes over a portion of the former 2012 London Olympics Media Centre, providing a purpose-built home for more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books, and 1,000 archives from across the V&A’s diverse collections.

    The best part? You can visit! Storehouse hosts workshops, screenings, performances, and pop-up displays of special collections, along with the opportunity to observe conservators at work preserving a wide range of cultural heritage objects.

    Peruse more than 100 curated mini-displays throughout the building, and book in advance to get up-close and personal through the Order an Object experience. Pick any object in storage, and a member of the Collections Access team will assist you in interacting safely with everything from artworks to textiles to musical instruments.

    Plan your visit on the V&A website.

    The 17th-century Agra Colonnade, an extraordinary example of Mughal architecture from the bathhouse at the fort of Agra, visible through the Weston Collections Hall glass floor, and accessible via Object Encounters at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by Hufton + Crow for V&A

    View of Weston Collections Hall, which features more than 100 mini curated displays, at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by Kemka Ajoku for V&A

    Welcome area at V&A East Storehouse with pull-out framed textiles to explore. Photo by Kemka Ajoku for V&A

    Mesh roll-out storage racking at V&A East Storehouse. Available via Object Encounters visits. Photo by Hufton + Crow for V&A

    Multi-purpose conservation studio, visible from the Conservation Overlook at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by David Parry/PA Media Assignments

    View of the Weston Collections Hall at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by David Parry/PA Media Assignments

    Order an Object appointment at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by Bet Bettencourt forV&A Object pictured is Althea McNish, “Rubra” (1961), furnishing fabric

    View of a section of Robin Hood Gardens, a former residential estate in Poplar, east London, at V&A East Storehouse. Photo by David Parry/PA Media Assignments

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    In Miami, Wynwood Walls Museum Evolves Along With Street Art

    Jessica Goldman Srebnick, the museum’s curator and the daughter of its creator, Tony Goldman, discussed her role and her vision for the neighborhood’s artistic future.This article is part of our Museums special section about how artists and institutions are adapting to changing times.The real estate developer Tony Goldman was no stranger to transforming neighborhoods when he established the outdoor street art museum Wynwood Walls in Miami in 2009. Located in Wynwood, formerly an industrial district of warehouses and garment manufacturing factories, the museum was his way of revitalizing a city pocket that had declined in the 1980s and had since sat virtually abandoned and forgotten.Goldman, who died in 2012, was known for breathing new life into Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood by investing in real estate and turning it into a destination for artists and the fashionable set. He saw the same potential with Wynwood, according to his daughter, Jessica Goldman Srebnick, a co-chair of the real estate development company Goldman Properties and the museum’s curator.“My dad, Joey, and I were together when we first visited Wynwood in 2005,” she said, referring to her brother. “Block after block of single-story industrial buildings — mostly vacant or abandoned — served as canvases for a sea of chaotic graffiti, but my dad recognized the opportunity to build upon the DNA of the neighborhood and enhance it for others to enjoy.”Jessica Goldman Srebnick, the museum’s curator, earlier this month. She scouts for new muralists every year.Alfonso Duran for The New York TimesGoldman Srebnick said that her father saw the advantages of Wynwood’s central location, the walkability of its streets, the mass of underutilized buildings and its grittiness — all factors he used to breathe new life into SoHo, South Beach in Miami and Midtown Village in Philadelphia.“To him, it was clear that Wynwood would become the center for the creative class, with the Wynwood Walls Museum as its vibrant, beating heart,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Martin Wong, Medici of the Aerosol Art Set

    A patron saw the beauty in graffiti when most of the world thought it was mere nuisance. Now the writing (of Lee Quiñones, Rammellzee, Futura and others) is on the museum wall.Martin Wong got in with the graffiti writers in the early 1980s at Pearl Paint, the long-gone Canal Street art supply store, where he had a job in the canvas department. Wong would slip them markers or cans of spray paint or sell them supplies on deep, unsanctioned discounts, which endeared him to artists at crucial moments of their careers. The painter Lee Quiñones recalls Wong writing out $20 invoices for portrait-quality linens priced at $400.Wong soon began buying Quiñones’s work and that of like-minded painters like Daze, Sharp and A-One — artists who were moving away from bombing trains with graffiti and developing studio practices. In so doing, he nurtured their development and became a constructive patron: a Cosimo de’ Medici of the aerosol set. His collection is highlighted in “Above Ground,” a small but essential exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.By 1994 Wong had amassed upward of 300 artworks and other media, all of which he donated to the museum that year. As interest in both the modern graffiti movement and its diasporic reverberations has grown, Wong’s conviction has proved consequential, his collection functioning as a repository. Pieces from it have been lent to major institutional surveys, like “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” at the MFA Boston and “Art in the Streets” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, shows that have deepened scholarship of this previously maligned and misunderstood period.Outsiders had been hot on graffiti at the same time as Wong was, but none had a more ardent or abiding interest. He recognized what was an irreducible form of American expressionism and its importance in the history of New York, even as much of the city was hostile toward it.Wong was 32 when he arrived in New York from San Francisco in 1978 and was drawn immediately to the baroque layers of tags spreading across the city’s surfaces. Wong’s own art, an urban realism that synthesized documentarian detail and romantic devotion (no artist lavished more attention on bricks), had little technical overlap but shared a sympathetic kinship. His paintings referred to the street, and so invariably referred to graffiti too. He reproduced the Lower East Side’s tagged handball courts and crumbling redbrick tenement buildings as oppressive but softened, bathed in a dingy cast that can feel like ecstatic reverie.From left, Wicked Gary, a graffiti writer; Peter Broda, the director of the Museum of American Graffiti; Martin Wong, the collector; and Lazar, a graffiti writer, at the opening of the Museum of American Graffiti in 1989. Behind them is a collection of 1970s writers’ tags.via Museum of the City of New YorkWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Little Beasts’ Is a First-of-Its-Kind Museum Collaboration Reveling in Art and the Natural World

    Jacopo Ligozzi, “A Groundhog or Marmot with a Branch of Plums”. (1605), brush with brown and black wash, point of the brush with black and brown ink and white gouache, and watercolor, over traces of graphite on burnished paper, sheet: 13 x 16 5/8 inches. All images courtesy of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., shared with permission

    ‘Little Beasts’ Is a First-of-Its-Kind Museum Collaboration Reveling in Art and the Natural World

    March 21, 2025

    ArtHistoryNatureScience

    Kate Mothes

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    During the 16th and 17th centuries, major developments in colonial expansion, trade, and scientific technology spurred a fervor for studying the natural world. Previously unknown or overlooked species were documented with unprecedented precision, and artists captured countless varieties of flora and fauna in paintings, prints, and encyclopedic volumes.

    Marking a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World pairs nearly 75 prints, drawings, and paintings with around 60 objects from the NMNH collection.

    Jan van Kessel the Elder, “Insects and a Sprig of Rosemary” (1653), oil on panel, 4 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches

    “In major cities like Antwerp, artists such as Joris and Jacob Hoefnagel and Jan van Kessel created highly detailed drawings, prints, and paintings of these insects, animals, and other beestjes, or ‘little beasts’ in Dutch,” says the National Gallery of Art. “Their works inspired generations of artists and naturalists, fueling the burgeoning science of natural history.”

    Natural history has been a focus for scholars since ancient times, albeit early commentary was a bit more wide-ranging than its definition today. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire is Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, which consists of 37 books divided into 10 volumes and covers everything from astronomy to zoology and mineralogy to art.

    Studying the natural world in ancient and early modern times was predominantly a philosophical pursuit until a discernible change during the Renaissance. By the 16th century, attitudes had shifted. The humanist learning tradition, centered on literature and the arts, began to give way to more advanced explanations for natural objects, describing their types and transformations and grouping them into classes.

    Private collections played a fundamental role in founding many natural history archives. The popularity of Wunderkammers, or “rooms of wonder,” transformed a pastime of the wealthy into exercises in scholarly prestige. By the late 17th century, more rigorous and formalized classification systems emerged as the philosophical component waned.

    Wenceslaus Hollar, “Shell (Murex brandaris)” (c. 1645), etching on laid paper, plate: 3 3/4 x 5 3/8 inches

    Throughout this time, artists like Albrecht Dürer, Clara Peeters, and Wenceslaus Hollar created works that responded to new discoveries. From biologically accurate renderings of shells and insects to playful compositions that employ animals and plants as decorative motifs, paintings and prints were often the only means by which the public could see newly discovered species.

    “Art and science have been closely aligned throughout the 175-year history of the Smithsonian,” says Kirk Johnson, director of the NMNH. “Even today, researchers at the National Museum of Natural History depend on scientific illustrators to bring clarity and understanding to the specimens they study.”

    Little Beasts opens on May 18 and continues through November 2 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Find more on the museum’s website.

    Clara Peeters, “Still Life with Flowers Surrounded by Insects and a Snail” (c. 1610), oil on copper,
    overall: 6 9/16 x 5 5/16 inches; framed: 10 x 9 x 1 1/2 inches

    Robert Hooke, “Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. / With observations and inquiries thereupon” (1665), bound volume with etched illustrations height (foldout illustrations significantly larger): 12 3/16 inches

    Jan van Kessel the Elder, “Artist’s Name in Insects and Reptiles [bottom center]” (1658), oil on copper, overall: 5 5/8 x 7 1/2 inches; framed: 9 7/8 x 12 1/8 inches

    Jan van Kessel the Elder, “Noah’s Family Assembling Animals Before the Ark” (c. 1660), oil on panel, overall: 25 3/4 x 37 3/16 inches; framed: 32 3/4 x 44 1/4 inches

    An Elephant Beetle (Megasoma e. elephas) from the Department of Entomology collections at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

    Wenceslaus Hollar, “Two Butterflies, a Wasp, and a Moth” (1646), etching on laid paper, plate: 3 3/16 x 4 3/4 inches; sheet: 3 1/4 x 4 13/16 inches

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    CDK Company Makes Moves Through a Contemporary Art Museum to Billie Eilish’s ‘Bittersuite’

    All images courtesy of CDK Company

    CDK Company Makes Moves Through a Contemporary Art Museum to Billie Eilish’s ‘Bittersuite’

    February 26, 2025

    ArtMusic

    Kate Mothes

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    Championing the next generation of dancers in The Netherlands, CDK Company (previously) has made a name for itself through large-scale interpretations of pop music involving numerous dancers in playful, themed outfits. For the group’s latest video, director and choreographer Sergio Reis and team took on Billie Eilish’s “Bittersuite” from her 2024 album Hit Me Hard and Soft.

    Set among paintings and installations in Museum Voorlinden, three dozen performers don pastel garments evocative of 1960s fashion, all wearing identical dark, bowl cut wigs.

    Whether moving through a gallery of paintings by Michaël Borremans, stationed inside a 4-meter-high Corten steel sculpture by Richard Serra, or synchronizing around the edge of Leandro Erlich’s “Swimming Pool,” CDK leads us on a vibrant, emotive journey through Eilish’s music and the museum’s art collection.

    Find more on CDK’s website and dance along to more videos on Reis’s YouTube channel.

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    Osgemeos Rocked Brazil. Can the Graffiti Twins Take the U.S., Too?

    Their street murals, monumental sculptures, intricate drawings and vivid paintings pop up at Lehmann Maupin gallery on the eve of their Hirshhorn debut.Just inside the door to the studio of the Brazilian artists Osgemeos is a self-portrait.Spray painted onto the concrete wall of the old metal workshop’s entryway, the image shows the identical twins Otávio and Gustavo Pandolfo, 50, standing next to each other, hands at their sides and looking forward. They’re wearing colorful printed clothing, bags slung over their shoulders and baseball caps propped on their heads.Their skin is the same shade of yellow as the other characters they’re known for throughout their art, a nod to the fact that they, too, might be from Tritrez, the fantastical world they explore in their graffiti-style murals, monumental sculptures, intricate drawings and vivid paintings that have for more than three decades rocked their native Brazil.The self-portrait is just a snippet of what’s to come after passing through a small doorway at the back of the room that leads to a work space that allows the twins to create on an enormous scale. Here, preparations are underway for “Endless Story,” their first museum survey of work in the United States. The full-floor presentation will run at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington, D.C., from Sept. 29 to Aug. 3, 2025, using the circular museum and its outside gardens to showcase some 1,000 artworks, photographs and archival materials.One of the brothers’ imposing sculptures, wrapped in black plastic so it can be shipped for the exhibition, hangs from chains on the sweeping ceiling and another is tucked away in a corner, a smidgen of what looks like a subway car visible.Under the studio’s mezzanine sits a model of the Hirshhorn, miniature versions of paintings and a photo of the pair as teenage B-boys placed on tiny gallery walls as the brothers decide where they should go. Working with Marina Isgro, the curator, has been a massive undertaking — not only do the artists have to select pieces they’ve done since art became their profession, but they also have to comb through the thousands of drawings their mother saved that they did as boys. Some depict sketches of cars and fire trucks, while others are an attempt to explain to their parents the importance of Tritrez to their journey.That magical world is also the focus of a solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York. “Cultivating Dreams,” their sixth solo show with the gallery, runs through Aug. 16 and features 13 new paintings and an immersive installation, taking visitors through Tritrez, a dreamworld they first started drawing when they were just five years old.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More