On View

As its title tells you, “The Clamor of Ornament” is a raucous explosion of color and pattern. The Drawing Center’s summer show throws pretty much everything that might plausibly be fit in the category of “ornament” into its mix. As a result, there is truly something for everyone here.
The title of the show is an art history joke: It riffs on Owen Jones’s famous Victorian style manual, The Grammar of Ornament. But while Jones tried to create a system that connoted taste and decorum, this show—curated by Emily King with Margaret-Anne Logan and Duncan Tomlin—is anti-systematic and wildly eclectic. From William Morris wallpaper to Japanese woodblock prints, and from graffiti tags to scrimshaw, the show is like a stream of consciousness riff on its subject, breathlessly channel-changing between centuries and media.
It’s not without its critics either. In the New York Review of Books, critic Jed Perl unleashed a 3,000-plus word attack on the show, declaring it emblematic of the degeneracy of contemporary taste. But even Perl admitted, “There’s real fun to be had here.”
See some of the highlights of “The Clamor of Ornament,” below, and judge for yourself.
Installation view, “The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power, and Joy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present” at the The Drawing Center, New York. Photo: Daniel Terna
Installation view, “The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power, and Joy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present” at the The Drawing Center, New York. Photo: Daniel Terna More

At age eight, artist Guadalupe Maravilla was among the first group of children to flee from El Salvador when it was divided by a violent civil war. He arrived, undocumented, in the United States, both alone and not—separated from his family but surrounded by strangers bonded by a shared journey. 
As a “way to distract myself from the real harsh reality and make a connection with the people I’d just met,” Maravilla turned to Tripa Chuca, a Salvadoran children’s game, the artist told Artnet News. 
“I played with the coyotes who were hired to bring me over; I played with the grandmothers that would watch me and take care of me in their houses in New Mexico,” he said. “It’s always been a way to bond with people.”
In the game, participants scribble pairs of numbers on a piece of paper while their opponents connect the pairs with a single stroke, making sure that no lines touch in the process. Emerging eventually is what Maravilla calls a “labyrinth, a topographical map of sorts.” 
“To me,” he said, “it starts to feel like a fingerprint between two people that had similar journeys.”
Installation view of “Guadalupe Maravilla: Tierra Blanca Joven,” 2022. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
As most of his shows do, Maravilla’s new exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum began with a game of Tripa Chuca. The results of the game, played between he and a frequent collaborator who similarly emigrated from El Salvador, greets visitors on a wall at the show’s entrance, teasing the artist’s own transnational perspective. 
The show’s title posits an altogether different metaphor. “Tierra Blanca Joven,” as it is called, refers to a volcanic eruption from the fifth century C.E.—among the largest in recorded history—that blanketed a several-thousand-mile stretch of present-day El Salvador with ash and debris, uprooting entire communities of Maya people in the process. 
The goal, Maravilla explained, is to draw a connection between the “many different types of displacement” that have occurred in his home country: those induced by an ancient environmental calamity, by a civil war four decades ago, and by ongoing violence in the region today.
Installation view of “Guadalupe Maravilla: Tierra Blanca Joven,” 2022. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
The idea is echoed, too, in Maravilla’s choice to integrate nearly two dozen ancient Maya figurines, vessels, and other sculptures from the museum’s collection into the show. 
“What are these objects doing in Brooklyn?” he recalled thinking upon seeing the Maya artifacts in the institution’s storage rooms. “They were somehow taken from El Salvador in Central America and brought, through multiple hands, to the Brooklyn Museum.”
Maravilla was also drawn to the objects for their one-time connection to customs of healing and ceremony, which is an important aspect of the artist’s own artistic creations.
“My sculptures are an evolution of these ceramics and these objects,” he said. “That’s what has influenced me the most over the years, looking at these ancient rituals from my ancestors.”
A decade ago this December, Maravilla was diagnosed with colon cancer. He ultimately beat the sickness, but the experience—and the rituals he turned to in the process—had a profound impact on his work.
Guadalupe Maravilla, Disease Thrower #0 (2022). Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Included in the show are three examples of Maravilla’s Disease Thrower series of large, elaborate sculptures inspired by various indigenous healing practices he researched at the time. The most recent of the bunch, Disease Thrower #12122012, was named after the date he was diagnosed.
Made of myriad found materials both organic and man-made (rocks and ropes, animal bones and medical objects, metal gongs) the artworks look imposing, occasionally even monstrous. But they act as sites of rehabilitation: Maravilla frequently employs the sculptures for his own healing rituals with others.
Over the last two years, in particular, the artist held hundreds of healing ceremonies with his work, many for undocumented immigrants in his own New York neighborhood. The pandemic “opened up these doors [making] everyone… aware of how much healing we need to do.”
Shortly after “Tierra Blanca Joven” opened, Maravilla offered something similar for the objects in the show. He invited a Mexican shaman to perform a private ritual in the gallery cleansing both the Maya artifacts and his own creations from “all the weight they must carry.”
“Guadalupe Maravilla: Tierra Blanca Joven” is on view now through September 18, 2022 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
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Art lovers have a prime chance to get to know the work of Catalan artist Jaume Plensa this summer, in two exhibitions in two distinctive European holiday destinations.
First, head up to Yorkshire Sculpture Park in northern England, where the exhibition “In small places, close to home,” is taking place. Plensa is no stranger to the stunning 500-acre site founded in 1977: he held an exhibition here in 2011, and hosts two of his works permanently—including the serene, 23-foot tall sculpture Wilsis (2016), situated by the shore of the lake in the park. But rather than the monumental outdoor sculptures for which he is famous, this new solo exhibition, which runs through October 30, focuses on the artist’s drawing practice.
“Drawing is an incredible laboratory where you can develop intuitions—I feel much more free than when I am working with sculpture. Drawing is a place for freedom,” said the artist, born in Barcelona in 1955, on the importance of drawing in his artistic practice.
Spanning two locations within the park, the show features new works in addition to drawings from the archive. In the park’s Weston Gallery, Face (2008), a series of portraits drawing from the artist’s collection of old anthropology and geography books, is accompanied by excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—”the most beautiful poem in the world,” according to the artist. Also on view for the first time is a group of 28 drawings titled April is the Cruellest Month (2020–21), created during the Covid lockdown and charting humans’ collective psychological reactions around the pandemic’s uncertainties.
The exhibition continues in the 18th-century chapel nearby, where two calm marble sculptures of girls’ heads with closed eyes are installed in the middle of the hall, in dialogue with 16 large-scale drawings of unknown faces from the series Anònims (2003), as if they were a community of souls gathering together in the meditative space, which is guarded by the 13-foot tall White Nomade (2021) erected outside the chapel.
Meanwhile, the Musée Picasso in Antibes—on the magnificent coast of southeastern France—is hosting exhibition “La lumière veille” (“The Veil Light”) through September 25.
Timed to the 10th anniversary of the installation of the artist’s monumental sculpture Nomade (2010) (a much larger version than the newly installed piece at Yorkshire Sculpture Park) on the terrace of the bastion Saint-Jaume, which has become a local landmark, the new museum show takes a deep dive into Plensa’s artistic practice. It brings together some 90 works created between 1982 and 2022. These rare drawings reveal Plensa’s artistic evolution, as well as his attachment to the use of alphabets and characters from different cultures and the depth of human psyche, which set the stage for the development of the sculptures that he is best known for today.
View the highlights of the two Plensa shows below:
“In small places, close to home,” Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Jaume Plensa, 2022. Photo © Jonty Wilde, courtesy Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Installation view of Jaume Plensa, “In small places, close to home,” at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2022. Photo © Jonty Wilde courtesy Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Jaume Plensa, Face II (2008). Courtesy the artist. Photo Gasull Fotografia © Plensa Studio Barcelona.
Installation view of Jaume Plensa, “In small places, close to home,” at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2022. Photo © Jonty Wilde courtesy Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
“La lumiére veille,” Musée Picasso, Antibes
Installation view of Jaume Plensa, “La lumière veille,” at Musée Picasso Antibes, 2022. Photo: François Fernandez.
Jaume Plensa, Aire (1988). Photo: Leopold Samsó @ Plensa Studio Barcelona © Adagp, Paris, 2022. Courtesy the artist and Musée Picasso, Antibes.
Jaume Plensa, Full Moon (2018). Photo: Gasull Fotografia @ Plensa Studio Barcelona© Adagp, Paris, 2022. Courtesy the artist and Musée Picasso, Antibes.
Jaume Plensa, Shadow study LXVI (2011). Photo: Gasull Fotografia @ Plensa Studio Barcelona © Adagp, Paris, 2022. Courtesy the artist and Musée Picasso, Antibes.
Jaume Plensa, Orphans (2005). Photo: Gasull Fotografia @ Plensa Studio Barcelona© Adagp, Paris, 2022. Courtesy the artist and Musée Picasso, Antibes.
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British artist Christopher Le Brun recently celebrated his 70th birthday, but despite having been painting for decades, the artist remains as deeply curious about why he paints and where his inspirations come from as when he started. In fact, in his London home and studio, the artist keeps a framed drawing he made in his younger years, the dash-like passages in the sketch echoing the mark-making in his most recent gestural canvases.  More

Piet Mondrian—the Dutch painter synonymous with rigidly gridded abstractions—never used a ruler, it turns out. 
That was one of numerous revelations highlighted by conservators at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland, who have concluded a multi-year research project that preceded a retrospective of the famed artist, which is on view now through October. 
Mondrian “made marks at the edges, then very slowly painted these lines. They look precise but they are based on intuition,” said Ulf Kuster, who organized the exhibition. For the Dutch artist, painting was a “long process of looking, of composing, of erasing,” the curator explained. 
The Neo-plasticist’s greatest hits abound with myriad right angles and intersecting lines, so it’s hard to believe that he didn’t use an aid. But Mondrian’s hesitance to using a ruler says more about his dogmatic—and often arduous—approach to art, Kuster pointed out. 
Piet Mondrian, Composition With Yellow and Blue (1932). © Mondrian/Holtzman TrustPhoto: Robert Bayer, Basel.
“I really learned that [Mondrian] was a painter who was always in control of what he did,” the curator said of his experience working on the show. “I didn’t realize how painstaking this process of painting must’ve been for him and how thoughtful he looked at things and how much he reflected on painting.” 
“Mondrian Evolution” is the name of Kuster’s exhibition, which marks the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth. It also doubles as a description of what viewers can expect at the Beyeler: a tip-to-toe survey of Mondrian’s career, beginning with his younger efforts in portraiture and landscape.
Those early paintings, completed in the Netherlands just before and after the turn of the 19th century, don’t look like the ones for which he would later become known. But it’s also not hard to spot shared strands of DNA. See, for instance, his many studies of whirling windmills and multi-branched trees: it’s clear that, even then, the artist was trying to translate into oil paint the geometry that governs the world around us.
“He was looking for harmony, but harmony is never symmetry,” Kuster said. “Harmony has to have tension over time.” 
Piet Mondrian, Mill in Sunlight (1908). © 2022 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust. Photo: Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
With exposure to painters like Picasso and Braque, and a multi-year stint in Paris, abstraction began to suffuse Mondrian’s canvases around 1911. His once-representational scenes of Dutch waterways dissolved into Cubist abstractions that, while still based in the lived world, prioritized form over content. 
Within the next decade, he returned to the Netherlands, then went back to Paris. His loosely-painted cubes morphed into hard rectangles; his cool, fauvist-inspired palette was replaced by solid bands of color. The style that would come to be known as “De Stijl” was born.
From classic figuration to cutting-edge abstraction, the full trajectory of Mondrian’s work on view at the Beyeler mirrors the evolution of modernism itself. However, the Dutch artist also shows us the importance of looking beyond that familiar story, Kuster pointed out. 
“Mondrian is someone who teaches you a lot about painting,” said the curator, demonstrating his own affection for the artist. “The very art historical—and in many ways helpful—idea that modern art is a development from figuration to abstraction is okay, but it’s not really interesting to artists.”
“For an artist,” Kuster went on, “It’s not important if it’s representational or non-representational, because it’s always abstract. It’s always abstract, because painting is abstraction.”
See some of the highlights of “Mondrian Evolution” below:
Piet Mondrian, No. VI / Composition No.II (1920). © 2021 Mondrian/Holtzman TrustPhoto: Tate.
Piet Mondrian, The Red Cloud (1907). © 2022 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust. Photo: Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

Piet Mondrian, Church Tower at Domburg (1911). © 2022 Mondrian/Holtzman TrustPhoto: Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Piet Mondrian, Windmill in the Evening (1917). © 2022 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust. Photo: Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Piet Mondrian, Woods Near Oele (1908). © 2022 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust. Photo: Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Piet Mondrian, Flowering Apple Tree (1912).© 2022 Mondrian/Holtzman TrustPhoto: Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Piet Mondrian, Lozenge Composition with Eight Lines and Red/Picture No. III (1938). © Mondrian/Holtzman TrustPhoto: Robert Bayer, Basel.
“Mondrian Evolution” is on view now through October 9, 2022 at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland.
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The Prince’s Palace of Monaco has just reopened to the public after a period of restoration, boasting a newly discovered series of frescoes that had been hidden from sight for centuries. 
The wall paintings had been left untouched and it is not known why they were originally covered up. They are believed to have been painted by Genoese artists during the 16th century. This is due both to the style of the works as well as the lime-based plaster used, detected during a multispectral analysis. 
“This discovery places the Grimaldi family and Palace of Monaco within a new art historical context as a Renaissance palace,” Said chief conservator-restorer Julia Greiner to Artnet News. “The discovery has ignited numerous research projects including conservation and sustainability which have been inspired through his sovereign highness, Prince Albert II’s interest and dedication to environmental issues. Furthermore it has brought together a pluridisciplinary team of approximately 40 specialists that have worked on this project for the last 8 years.”
Hercules’ tenth labour: the Cattle of Geryon in the Galerie d’Hercule. © Photo Maël Voyer Gadin – Palais princier de Monaco.
Restorers began routine repair work in 2013 but first realized there were new artistic treasures to uncover in 2015 when examining the lunettes and vaulted ceiling of a loggia in the courtyard. It had been repainted in the 19th century but images of Hercules’s twelve labors were found remaining underneath. 
The cleaning process revealed richly skilled renderings of these scenes, allegorical figures, and decorative elements totalling some 600 meters squared.
Frescoes have also come to light elsewhere in the palace. In the Chamber of Europe, previously named the Salon Matignon, an electrician accidentally began the process of uncovering a medallion painted on the ceiling that shows the mythological abduction of Europa by Jupiter. 
Ceiling of the Chambre Louis XIII mid-restoration. © Photo Maël Voyer Gadin – Palais princier de Monaco.
In 2020, a large scale fresco depicting Ulysses was also found in the Throne Room. 
The official residence of the Sovereign Prince of Monaco, the palace was built as a fortress in 1191. In the 700 years since 1297, it has been home to the Grimaldi family, currently Prince Albert II. 
An opening initially planned for April 2020 had to be delayed due to the pandemic. The palace and its trove of newly-discovered frescoes now remains open until October 15.
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This Saturday, 31 artists will disrupt 30 museums across the UK with surreal interventions intended to honour the 102nd anniversary of the First International Dada Exhibition, staged in Berlin in 1920.
All the artists taking part identify as d/Deaf, disabled or neurodivergent. The event has been organised by DASH, a disabled-led visual arts charity based in London, and funded £125,000 ($152,000) through the Ampersand Foundation Award.
“We Are Invisible We Are Visible” was first concocted in 2020 as a response to the question of what the Dada movement would have been like if it had emerged during lockdown. Reviving the spirit of Dada aims to challenge assumptions about disabled people and explore ideas around accessibility, communication, and representation.
The works planned are primarily performances, dance, and nonsensical happenings, and the venues taking part include Tate’s four locations in London, Liverpool, and St Ives, Turner Contemporary in Margate, the Hepworth Wakefield, the Arnolfini in Bristol, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, Manchester Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and Modern Art Oxford. 
“We Are Invisible We Are Visible” takes place on July 2, 2022. Below, see more preview images of works by the participating artists.
Tony Heaton, Great Britain From A Wheelchair (1995). Photo: Paul Kenny. Heaton will perform at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.
Andrea Mindel, Mea Culpa (2021). Photo: Vic Lentaigne. Mindel will perform at Towner Eastbourne.
Aaron Williamson, Invisible Man. Photo: courtesy of DASH. Williamson will perform at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
Aaron Williamson, Hiding in 3D. Photo: courtesy of DASH. Williamson will perform at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
Bel Pye, Cocoon. Photo: courtesy of DASH. Pye will perform at the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry.
Anahita Harding, Are You Comfortable Yet?. Photo: courtesy of DASH. Harding will perform at Tate Modern, London.
Nicola Woodham, Buffer performance detail at Cafe Oto, London, in 2021. Photo: courtesy of DASH. Woodham will perform at the Harris, Preston.
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Six colourful and richly detailed tapestries by British artist Grayson Perry have been installed in the nave of Salisbury Cathedral in the west of England. The group, titled “The Vanity of Small Differences,” has already toured the country, but this is the first time they have been staged in a church setting.
The works, each measuring four meters by two meters, were inspired by William Hogarth’s narrative painting series, specifically The Rake’s Progress (1734) which follows the rise and fall of the debaucherous Tom Rakewell. The 18th-century artist typically used these paintings to make biting social commentary about pretensions and class.
Here, Perry’s protagonist Tim Rakewell explores upward mobility in the present day, using a cast of characters based on people the artist encountered while traveling to various regions of the UK for a TV program.
“Rich in colour and content, it is Perry’s acutely observed attention to detail which draws you in,” said curator Beth Hughes. “I’m sure we all have moments of familiarity as we look through this tableau of English life and see that mug we have at home and ask ourselves, which social class do I belong to?”
References to classical and religious art can be found in the paintings, including to Giovanni Bellini’s The Agony in the Garden and Andrea Mantegna’s The Adoration of the Cage Fighters.
“The Vanity of Small Differences” runs until September 25 2022. See images of the installation below. 
Installation view of Grayson Perry’s tapestry series “The Vanity of Small Differences” in Salisbury Cathedral. Photo: Finnbarr Webster.
Installation view of Grayson Perry’s tapestry series “The Vanity of Small Differences” in Salisbury Cathedral. Photo: Finnbarr Webster. Courtesy of Salisbury Cathedral.
Installation view of Grayson Perry’s tapestry series “The Vanity of Small Differences” in Salisbury Cathedral. Photo: Finnbarr Webster.
Installation view of Grayson Perry’s tapestry series “The Vanity of Small Differences” in Salisbury Cathedral. Photo: Finnbarr Webster. Courtesy of Salisbury Cathedral.
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