On View

“Art has come out of its ivory tower and into the office building lobby,” New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in 1959. That is only more true today, as corporations have seen the advantage of wowing their visitors and potential clients with works by brand-name artists, especially as the art market has continued to grow and make global headlines.  
These works extend the great tradition of public art in New York into the indoors, and allow office workers to have a moment of beauty, aesthetic challenge, or intellectual interest on their way to work each day. 
The future of art in corporate lobbies can be subject to the vagaries of time and, especially, changes in ownership. For example, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi created a site-specific installation in the lobby at 666 Fifth Avenue in 1957; when Brookfield Properties took over the lease in 2020, they wanted to remodel, and argued that intervening renovations to the building that changed the context meant the installation no longer reflected Noguchi’s vision. They dismantled it and donated it to the foundation that cares for the artist’s work. 
Lobby art doesn’t necessarily have the reputation of being the most interesting or cutting-edge. Never one to shy away from pronouncing a bold opinion, the New York Post once boldly prounounced that “Lobby art sucks.” But that’s not necessarily the case. Some does, some doesn’t, and Artnet News is here to guide you. 
What are some of the best and worst choices for art installed in office lobbies across New York City? Here’s a quick roundup of five superlatives—from the worst to the best—to guide you as you look for art in different places in your travels throughout the city, if you are seeking something different from the museum and gallery circuit. 

Most Lame Visual Joke: Anish Kapoor at 56 Leonard 
A new permanent public artwork by artist Anish Kapoor at 56 Leonard Street in Manhattan. Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images.
The British-Indian artist’s first public artwork in New York is, in a way, a miniature cousin of his massive Cloud Gate, which has graced Chicago’s Millennium Park since 2006. 
Estimated to have cost as much as $10 million, the as-yet-untitled shiny sculpture is 48 feet long, weighs 40 tons, and is installed under the corner of a new Herzog & de Meuron–designed luxury tower at 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca. The new Lower Manhattan skyscraper is commonly referred to as the Jenga Tower for its distinctive shape.
While it might be a stretch to call the piece lobby art, since it’s outdoors, we think it’s close enough. And while the Chicago work is rightly beloved as a unique piece of public art, this one makes a lame joke, seeming to be bulging under the weight of the building that hosts it.
ArtNews’s Alex Greenberger wrote when it was unveiled that “this sculpture is no Cloud Gate, and personally, I wouldn’t mind if the building above it made good on its promise and crushed the thing altogether.”

Most Predictable: Jeff Koons, Balloon Rabbit (Red), at 51 Astor Place
Jeff Koons, Balloon Rabbit (Red) (2005–10). Photo: Tom Powel Imaging. Courtesy the artist. © Jeff Koons.
Balloon Rabbit (Red), 2005–10, which stands 14 feet tall and tips the scales at 6,600 pounds, has squatted (or whatever it is rabbits do) in the lobby of 51 Astor Place since 2014. 
It comes from the collection of Edward J. Minskoff, whose equity company erected the 13-story, 430,000-square-foot building, where IBM is the anchor tenant in a neighborhood that has drastically gentrified over recent years. Just a few feet away, at Cooper Square, legendary conceptual artist David Hammons once performed his Bliz-aard Ball Sale (1983), in which the artist commented on the salability of whiteness and the absurdity of the art market by offering snowballs in various sizes to passersby on the sidewalk. 
And speaking of the selling of whiteness and market madness, in 2019, Koons’s 3-foot-tall stainless-steel Rabbit (1986) fetched $91.1 million at Christie’s New York, setting a record for the priciest work ever sold at auction by a living artist.
Having an artwork by a former Wall Street commodities broker from the collection of an equity guy dominating a lobby where giants like IBM are tenants is just so on the nose that to call it on the nose would be too on the nose. 
Most Journalist-Friendly: Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen, Moveable Type, at the New York Times Building
Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen, Moveable Type (2007). Courtesy: New York Times.
When the New York Times moved into its $1 billion, Renzo Piano–designed Midtown Manhattan headquarters in 2007, the paper’s architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote (where else?) in the Times that he was “enchanted” with the building. 
Though Ouroussoff didn’t mention it in his review, one element that enchants most people’s  visiting the building is Moveable Type, a digital artwork by New York artist Ben Rubin and Columbia University journalism professor Mark Hansen. 
The piece uses algorithms to parse selections of text from the paper’s daily output, as well as its archive and reader comments, which appear on some 560 small digital displays arrayed in two nearly 54-foot-wide grids. One algorithm, for example, pulls out noun phrases, another maps, another phrases containing numbers, yet another questions, as Rubin explains in a video (which, impressively, explains how many bad ideas they went through to arrive at this one).
Most Literary: Jenny Holzer, 7 World Trade Center 
Jenny Holzer, For 7 World Trade (2006). Photo: Joe Woolhead, courtesy Silverstein Properties.
Rebuilt at a cost of some $700 million, 7 World Trade Center was the first office building to reopen at Ground Zero, five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. So a public art commission for this emotionally fraught site must have been daunting. But Jenny Holzer (who indeed told the New York Times that she was “taken aback at the gravity of the project”) rose to the challenge with a work that captures decades of expressions about the city’s pleasures. 
Stretching 65 feet wide and 14 feet high, Holzer’s For 7 World Trade was inaugurated in May 2006. The five-foot-high scrolling letters come from poems and prose texts about “the joy of being in New York City,” she told Art21, including works by writers like Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, and William Carlos Williams, each writing about their first impressions of Gotham. In 2019, she added writing from 18 New York schoolchildren, and the text runs for a full 36 hours before repeating itself. 
Besides the literary content, Holzer focused on a satisfying chromatic experience, saying, “I want color to suffuse the space and pulse and do all kinds of tricks.”
Most Straight-Up Coolest: James Turrell, Plain Dress 2006, at 505 Fifth Avenue 
James Turrell, Plain Dress (2006), at 505 Fifth Avenue. Photo: H.G. Esch, courtesy KPF.
California Light and Space artist James Turrell is globally known for his Skyspaces and other installations that employ natural light and illumination to cast a spell. Construction is ongoing on his magnum opus, Roden Crater, in Northern Arizona.
While we wait for that, we can see a small and subtle work, a collaboration with architects Kohn Pederson Fox, in the lobby of Midtown’s 505 Fifth Avenue. As recounted in Architect magazine, the client wanted to invite an artist to create a work in the lobby in collaboration with the architects. During the building’s development, KPF design principal Douglas Hocking made an offhand remark about the light in a rendering of the lobby reminding him of Turrell, and it was off to the races.
Turrell transformed the lobby into a forced-perspective lightbox. Cabinets of light, vertical rectangles reminiscent of Mark Rothko paintings, anchor the installation. Behind their resin surfaces, a bank of LED lights is programmed to change color over a 24-hour cycle. The meditative interior provides a sublime contrast to the traffic and bustle of Fifth Avenue, just outside the glass entrance doors. 
More Trending Stories:  
Artists to Watch This Month: 10 Solo Gallery Exhibitions to See In New York Before the End of the Year 
Art Dealers Christina and Emmanuel Di Donna on Their Special Holiday Rituals 
Stefanie Heinze Paints Richly Ambiguous Worlds. Collectors Are Obsessed 
Inspector Schachter Uncovers Allegations Regarding the Latest Art World Scandal—And It’s a Doozy 
Archaeologists Call Foul on the Purported Discovery of a 27,000-Year-Old Pyramid 
The Sprawling Legal Dispute Between Yves Bouvier and Dmitry Rybolovlev Is Finally Over 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

I don’t normally think of my nonna when I go to fashion exhibitions. Museums tend to vaunt the “genius” designers, the couturiers, or maybe the socialites or celebrities who wear their creations. My grandmother, by contrast, worked in a factory as a seamstress in Rockaway, Queens. She spent all day cutting jackets, stitching trousers, and sewing dress patterns for someone else’s label. Then she went home and fashioned garments for her three children.
Actually, many women in my family made clothes: they crocheted pink sweaters and baby bonnets, whipped up strawberry-print jumpers on sewing machines, embroidered fancy collars. Sewing gave them agency—a way to express their creativity, clothe their loved ones, or make money in a country where they didn’t speak the language.
Gallery view, “Agency: Liminal Spaces of Fashion.” “Theodosia” tea gown by Maria Monaci Gallenga, ca. 1925. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I felt the spirit of all these women in my life as I walked through “Women Dressing Women,” a terrific new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. The show, on view through March 3, 2024, features 80 objects by 70 artists from the Costume Institute’s collection, from the famous—a Modernist black-and-cream Chanel suit from the 1920s—to the forgotten—a wonderfully weird plum velvet tea gown with sheer sleeves that hang like curtains from the Italian artist Maria Monaci Gallenga, who began making clothes for herself in 1910.
It also honors the often unsung, often unacknowledged ways that women have interacted, and in some ways shaped, the fashion industry. “There were some discoveries,” said Karen Van Godtsenhoven, who curated the show with Mellissa Huber. “As we still look at our collection critically and want to interrogate why some designers have been less visible in the past.”
The curators wanted to illustrate not only “the significance of women to fashion,” as Huber put it, “but in turn the significance of fashion to women.” “Women Dressing Women” opens with the Holy Trinity of female couturiers. A razzle-dazzle explosion of sparkling dresses that proves women can do showstopping design just as well as men.
Gallery view: Left, Evening dress by Madeleine Vionnet, 1924-25; center: Evening jacket, Elza Schiaparelli, 1937; right: Evening dress, Gabrielle Chanel, 1928-39. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
There’s a slinky chocolate silk gown embroidered with shimmering gold thread from Madeleine Vionnet, the virtuosic technician credited with pioneering the bias cut dress in 1926; a star-studded blue velvet jacket from Elsa Schiaparelli, the flamboyant Surrealist; and a black tulle confection shot through with sequin fireworks by the one-and-only Coco Chanel.
That out of the way, the show then resumes chronologically. It starts with the countless anonymous dressmakers stitching custom wardrobes for clients: clothes filled with artistry but without a label.
That changed in the turn of the 20th century, when the skilled seamstresses, model-makers, and salespeople at these workrooms began opening their own prestigious fashion houses.
In the years between World War I and World War II, women ruled Parisian haute couture, churning out corsetless, loose-fitting dresses for liberated ladies like themselves. “Fashion was one of the first industries open to women,” Van Godtsenhoven said. “There’s this clichéd idea that fashion is just dresses or it’s frivolous, but in a very structural way, it’s given salary and a stable work life to women,” she added. “And I think there is also a connection between fashion and the larger feminist movement, because it’s really about women’s lives. There is a very big synergy between the progress women make in society and in fashion.”
Gallery View, “Agency: Appropriating Menswear.” Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Met has a trove of treasures from these women-led couture houses, many long-shuttered. Lucille—the label that self-taught dressmaker Lucy Duff-Gordon founded after her husband abandoned her and their young daughter—fabricated airy confections of silk chiffon. Callot Soeurs, helmed by a quartet of sisters who turned their lingerie and antique lace shop into a couture house, took inspiration from Eastern dress for their sumptuous, luxurious designs. The forgotten label Premet launched its sweet, tomboyish little black dress—dubbed “la garçonne”—in 1923, three years before Chanel took credit for the style.
Gallery view, “Agency.” Left: Evening dress by Pualine de Rothschild for Hattie Carnegie Inc.; center “Future dress” Claire McCardell, 1945; right: tea gown, Jessie Franklin Turner ca. 1928. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The exhibit then moves on to the American ready-to-wear designers of the 1950s, such as Bonnie Cashin and Claire McCardell, who created easy, practical, yet idiosyncratic garments for the modern woman as an alternative to the stuffy couture coming out of Paris.
The “boutique generation” of the 1960s and ‘70s—including Biba and Betsey Johnson—demanded even more autonomy. They opened their own shops and imbued their designs with political, social, and artistic ideas, such as Vivienne Westwood’s T-shirts denouncing overconsumption or her subversive use of traditional tartan plaid.
The curators also aim to correct the historical record, giving credit to women workers who never got their due, including Ann Lowe, the Black society designer who made Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding gown. Lowe has one of her signature rosette-strewn dresses in the show, from 1968, created for A.F. Chantilly, Inc., one of the various companies for which she freelanced in order to make ends meet.
Gallery view, “Absence | Omission.” Left: Dress by Ester Manas and Balthazaar Delpierre for Ester Manas 2022. Right: “Delphos” gown, Adèle Henriette Elisabeth Nigrin Fortuny and Mariano Fortuny for Fortuny ca. 1932. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
But the show’s most jaw-dropping revelation is the true creator of the iconic silk pleated “Delphos” gown by the Venetian house Fortuny. Historians had long attributed the design to Mariano Fortuny, instead of to Henriette Nigrin, his partner and muse—and a skilled seamstress herself—who actually created it.
“The people at the Fortuny museum found the patent for the dress, which had a written note with something like, ‘My wife made this, but I don’t have time to put her name down for the pattern,’” Van Godtsenhoven said.
When Fortuny died in 1949, Nigrin sold the brand to an interior designer named Elsie McNeill. She said Elsie could do whatever she wanted with their designs, she just asked that they stop production of her beloved Delphos. “These garments are of my own creation, even more than many others,” she wrote. “I desire that no-one else take them over.”
Rei Kawakubo with models wearing Comme des Garçons, published in People, December 26, 1983.Photo by Takeyoshi Tanuma. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Women Dressing Women” concludes with a selection of makers working today, such as Comme des Garcons’ Rei Kawakubo, the Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri, and Jamie Okuma, the first Native American designer invited to join the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Yet it’s the older, rediscovered, and reconsidered gems that feel the freshest.
How lovely that the women who poured their blood, sweat, tears, and artistry into these astonishing pieces—that were in turn cherished so much by the women who donned them that they donated them to a museum to be preserved forever—finally get their chance to strut.

More Trending Stories:
Art Critic Jerry Saltz Gets Into an Online Skirmish With A.I. Superstar Refik Anadol
Your Go-To Guide to All the Fairs You Can’t Miss During Miami Art Week 2023
The Old Masters of Comedy: See the Hidden Jokes in 5 Dutch Artworks
David Hockney Lights Up London’s Battersea Power Station With Animated Christmas Trees
On Edge Before Miami Basel, the Art World Is Bracing for ‘the Question’
Thieves Stole More Than $1 Million Worth of Parts From an Anselm Kiefer Sculpture

Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The humble public bench has undergone a radical revamp at Design Miami this year, thanks to artist and designer Samuel Ross. The British wunderkind has crafted a series of 12 innovative benches—in three styles—for use by the Miami Design District, currently and permanently installed along its posh promenades.
The site-specific installation—previewed at Design Miami Paris in October—comes just in time for Miami Art Week, with its throngs of well-heeled visitors parading about the slick galleries, luxury boutiques, and tony restaurants of the 16-acre district. Ultramodern and utilitarian, the sculptures will no doubt offer welcome respite for the crush.
A Samuel Ross bench located in the Miami Design District.
Yet despite their futuristic appearance, the benches sit in the canon of British sculpture, according to Ross. “When you view the work,” he explained via video from his London studio, “you can see the relationship to [Anthony] Caro, [Barbara] Hepworth, and [Henry] Moore, which is purposeful. I’m extending the lineage of British sculpture and abstraction.”
In particular, he said, the benches are a nod to Moore’s The Arch (1979–1980), a travertine marble monolith in Kensington Gardens that deftly combines architectural and anatomical forms. As a child, his father would often take him to see the sculpture. “Being raised by two artists, one who went to Central Saint Martins and the other who paints religiously, will have that effect.”
A Samuel Ross bench located in the Miami Design District.
Ross started the bench designs as charcoal sketches before translating them into 3D format and shaping the CNC steel in his workshop. In all, the process took 12 weeks to cycle through numerous iterations and prototypes. In addition to form, Ross also gave a lot of thought to human haptics, allowing for a smooth interaction between the benches and their use by people.
“Housing the body is so interesting,” he said, “and the way temperature, elevation, texture, and materials come into play.” He considered “local variations that I don’t have to think about in England.” In other words, color absorption and heat on a steel sheet surface. He ultimately went with a chalk-white surface and a gloss veneer to reflect the sun’s rays.
Sketches of benches by Samuel Ross.
“The tension between the sculptural and the functional is an obsession of mine. The line between the two is very exciting to push and pull.” Ross, however, is no stranger to pushing boundaries. It’s at the core of his product and industrial design company, SR_A, which is taking on increasingly complex commissions, most recently a tourbillon wristwatch for Hublot and headphones for Beats, leading Apple to offer him a newly created plum position, that of Principal Design Consultant for Beats.
SR_A is only part of his design ambitions. During Paris Fashion Week, his fashion line A Cold Wall has become a must-see runway event, particularly for its collaborations with brands including Nike, Dr. Martens, and Timberland. In fact, launched in 2015, the label was first on his to-do list of career objectives—at the urging of his mentor and friend, the late Virgil Abloh.
Samuel Ross with his new faucet for Kohler.
Fortuitously, one of the first actions Ross took upon finishing graduate school was contacting the celebrated architect-turned-artistic director of Louis Vuitton men’s. What began as an internship at Abloh’s own label, Off-White, led to the creation of A Cold Wall—which, in 2022, was the subject of a fashion exhibition at London’s V&A museum.
Ross’s forays into abstract painting are finding success, too. His exhibition at London’s White Cube in April was well-received. So, too, was a show of granite sculptures at Friedman Benda in May in New York, his second solo show with the gallery.
Bench by Samuel Ross at ‘Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design’ at Chatsworth House, U.K.
There is another reason Ross has come to Miami, and that’s to present his inaugural collaboration with Kohler, the American bathroom company. Debuting at Design Miami, Ross has designed a distinctively angular double faucet, the Formation 01, that dispenses a smooth sheet of water. It’s cast entirely in a recycled epoxy, a new material developed by SR_A that “enables better angulation.” Created in solid orange, Ross’s signature hue, the striking tap will be sold in a limited edition of 299. In April 2024, Kohler will also host an installation by Ross at Salone del Mobile in Milan, taking over the Kohler palazzo.
This isn’t the first time Ross has participated in Miami Art Week. He started visiting Art Basel and Design Miami in 2020, he said, when “there was this shift happening, a convergence of commerce and artistry that was coming to a head, the coalition of all of these corporate entities and creative communities coming together that really defines Art Basel for me. It seems to have quite a serrated edge to it.”

More Trending Stories:  
Art Critic Jerry Saltz Gets Into an Online Skirmish With A.I. Superstar Refik Anadol 
The Old Masters of Comedy: See the Hidden Jokes in 5 Dutch Artworks 
A Royal Portrait by Diego Velázquez Heads to Auction for the First Time in Half a Century 
How Do You Make $191,000 From a $4 Painting? You Don’t 
In Her L.A. Debut, South Korean Artist Guimi You Taps Into the Sublimity of Everyday Life 
Two Rare Paintings by Sienese Master Pietro Lorenzetti Come to Light After a Century in Obscurity 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The mysterious conceptualist Lutz Bacher is having her first posthumous institutional show at Raven Row in London. The artist herself initiated the concept for the exhibition with curator Anthony Huberman as a mixed presentation of audiovisual pieces which featuring old VHS footage from Princess Diana’s funeral and the voices and imagery of legendary figures from pop culture, including Leonard Cohen—but also Darth Vader. Eerie installations, including a pit of sand, fill the gallery rooms. After Bacher’s passing in 2019, the non-profit exhibition center Raven Row worked with the artist’s estate and Galerie Buchholz to deliver the exhibition.
A California native, Bacher lived in the Bay Area and later New York. She was known to be highly secretive and never publicly revealed basic biographical information, like her birth name or age (although it is known that she was born in 1943). Nonetheless, she received widespread institutional recognition with solo shows at MoMA PS1 in 2009, the ICA in London in 2013, and the Secession in Vienna in 2016.
At Raven Row, Bacher’s blend of found material, digital ephemera, and appropriated sounds and images is quintessential Bacher. In one gallery, panes of glass shimmer with projected images of the Empire State Building lit up with bright colors at night. In the lobby, the visitor is affronted by loud traffic noises, whereas upstairs, bible passages are blared out of a huge speaker while tinny radios play run-of-the-mill pop hits over each other. These strange works, that are tricky to categorize or contextualize, manage to disorientate the viewer in much the same way as our information-oversaturated world often succeeds in doing.
“Lutz Bacher: AYE!” runs through December 17. Check out more installation views of the exhibition below.
Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Marcus J Leith.
Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Anne Tetzlaff.
Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Anne Tetzlaff.
Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Marcus J Leith.
Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Marcus J Leith.
Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Marcus J Leith.

Installation of “Lutz Bacher: AYE!” at Raven Row gallery in London. Photo: © Anne Tetzlaff.

More Trending Stories:  
Art Critic Jerry Saltz Gets Into an Online Skirmish With A.I. Superstar Refik Anadol 
The Old Masters of Comedy: See the Hidden Jokes in 5 Dutch Artworks 
A Royal Portrait by Diego Velázquez Heads to Auction for the First Time in Half a Century 
How Do You Make $191,000 From a $4 Painting? You Don’t 
In Her L.A. Debut, South Korean Artist Guimi You Taps Into the Sublimity of Everyday Life 
Two Rare Paintings by Sienese Master Pietro Lorenzetti Come to Light After a Century in Obscurity 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

A pair of Japanese national treasures that are considered among the world’s most important Zen Buddhist masterpieces are heading to San Francisco this week, where they will be part of a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the Asian Art Museum.
The two ink paintings, Persimmons (popularly known as Six Persimmons) and Chestnuts, are attributed to the famous Chinese artist Muqi, a Song Dynasty monk who lived from about 1210 to 1269. The paintings also gained prestige when Japanese government designated them as important cultural property in 1919.
“When I was taking art history courses in school, these paintings were always discussed and in the textbooks,” the museum’s associate curator of Japanese art, Yuki Morishima, said, admitting she “was kind of starstruck” to learn they would be coming to the Bay Area.
”The use of dark and light tones within the brushwork is really something to marvel at. It seems very simple, but actually they’re quite complex and would be difficult to achieve by someone who wasn’t quite skillful in their handling of the brush,” Laura Allen, the museum’s senior curator of Japanese art, added. “It’s interesting to look at the composition and the use of negative space, and to see how carefully placed each of the persimmons is and how the chestnuts are arranged.”
Attributed to Muqi, Chestnuts (13th century), detail. China, Southern Song Dynasty. Lent by Daitokuji Ryokoin Temple, Kyoto. Photo © Kyoto National Museum
They are on loan from the Daitokuji Ryokoin temple in Kyoto, which has owned them since the early 1600s. The two works haven’t left the country since their arrival at some point in the 1400 or 1500s, and the Zen Buddhist temple is not open to the public, making this a unique opportunity to experience a pair of paintings that have been famous for generations. (Both pieces were seen briefly at the Miho Museum, about an hour outside of Kyoto, in a 2019 exhibition.)
The San Francisco show has been in the works since 2017, when the temple’s abbot, Kobori Geppo, came to the Asian Art Museum while in town for a symposium. By the end of the visit, he had shocked everyone by proposing a historic loan of Muqi’s work. “We were quite surprised by the proposal and very honored,” Morishima said.
The works will be on view for just three weeks each, overlapping for only three days in the center of the run, betwen December 8 and 10. Loaning the works required approval from the Japanese government’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs, with all sorts of restrictions designed to ensure the paintings’ safety, including carefully monitoring the lighting and humidity at the galleries.

Attributed to Muqi, Persimmons (13th century), detail. China, Southern Song Dynasty. Lent by Daitokuji Ryokoin Temple, Kyoto. Photo © Kyoto National Museum
Though the paintings have become famous in the West as the best-known example of Zen Buddhist art, the two hand scrolls originally would not have been seen as particularly spiritual. Instead, they would have served a decorative function, displayed during tea ceremonies in an alcove called the tokonoma, intended for artworks.
What has been special about the works from the beginning was the artist, who remains incredibly renowned in Japan—even more so than in his native China.
“Muqi is a big name in Japan and has been for centuries. He was popular in China, but it was a short-lived popularity,” Morishima said. “The Japanese tend to like more atmospheric brushstrokes while the Chinese historically prefer more precise brushstrokes and naturalism.”
The artist’s outsized influence in Japan made him a likely starting point when Western scholars began studying the field, and helped solidify the now-outsize reputation of Persimmons and Chestnuts.
“Early in the early 20th century, and certainly by the 1920s, there was a kind of  fascination with the idea of Zen Buddhism in the West,” Allen said. “These paintings became part of the literature of quote-unquote ‘Zen art’, and at a certain point attained the status of being iconic works. The idea was that their simplicity and the perceived spontaneity of the paintings was characteristic of Zen and its expression in art.”
“The Heart of Zen” will be on view at the Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, California, November 17–December 31, 2023. Six Persimmons will be displayed November 17–December 10, 2023, and Chestnuts will be displayed December 8–31, 2023.
“Japanese Tastes in Chinese Ceramics: Tea Utensils, Kaiseki Dishes, and More” will be on view at the Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, California, December 21, 2023–May 6, 2024.
More Trending Stories:  
Conservators Find a ‘Monstrous Figure’ Hidden in an 18th-Century Joshua Reynolds Painting 
A First-Class Dinner Menu Salvaged From the Titanic Makes Waves at Auction 
The Louvre Seeks Donations to Stop an American Museum From Acquiring a French Masterpiece 
Meet the Woman Behind ‘Weird Medieval Guys,’ the Internet Hit Mining Odd Art From the Middle Ages 
A Golden Rothko Shines at Christie’s as Passion for Abstract Expressionism Endures 
Agnes Martin Is the Quiet Star of the New York Sales. Here’s Why $18.7 Million Is Still a Bargain 
Mega Collector Joseph Lau Shoots Down Rumors That His Wife Lost Him Billions in Bad Investments 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

To celebrate the launch of its Madison Avenue flagship, its largest in the world, Valentino is exhibiting the work of renowned Italian painter Mario Schifano in the hyper-modern, concrete-clad mezzanine that presides over the new space.
The gleaming showcase is part of a collaboration with Magazzino Italian Art, a unique nonprofit museum and research center located upstate in the Hudson Valley—Cold Spring, to be exact—dedicated to Italian art, particularly Arte Povera. The only American museum specializing in Italian art, Magazzino was the natural choice as Valentino’s art partner in the Empire State.
Installation view of the Mario Schifano exhibition at Valentino’s new Madison Avenue flagship. Courtesy of Magazzino.
“The ethos of this collaboration is education,” said Magazzino’s executive director Vittorio Calabrese on a preview tour before the store’s November 10 launch. We’re “inviting a new community into the vibrant world of Italian art while supporting our programs.”
“Recognizing Valentino’s embodiment of quintessential Italian and Roman heritage,” he added, “we saw the maison as the ideal partner to explore a collaboration in support of our exhibition. Their creative team embraced the idea, and together with our conservators, exhibition designers, curators and art preparers, we crafted this project to introduce Mario Schifano [and] Rome during the decades of the ’60s and ’70s to a broader audience.”
Interior view of Valentino’s new Madison Avenue flagship. Courtesy of Magazzino.
Schifano, who died in 1998 at the age of 63, is one of the most significant artists of Italian postmodernism, known for his vibrant paintings that combine elements of Pop Art, Arte Povera, and Surrealism, and explored themes of consumerism and mass media. While few in number, his five paintings at the Valentino store bridge the worlds of art and fashion, Magazzino and Valentino, New York and Rome—and not just because the central work is rendered in the house’s signature shade of pink. 
The collaboration comes with a major expansion of Magazzino, too, which was founded in 2017 by the collecting couple of Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu. In September, the institution opened its Robert Olnick Pavilion (named after Nancy’s father) to further its curatorial and scholarly pursuits and increase its indoor space by two-thirds. The new building—designed by Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo—brings new auditorium capabilities, a store, and a cafe serving Italian cuisine by chef Luca Galli, straight from Livigno in the north of Italy.
Valentino creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli and Florence Pugh attend the 2023 Met Gala. (Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Valentino is well-versed in high-level art patronage. In 2022, the brand sponsored the Italian Pavilion at the 59th Biennale di Venezia. Pierpaolo Piccioli—the brand’s celebrated creative director since 2016—worked closely with the pavilion’s curator, Eugenio Viola, to develop a compelling narrative for the pavilion. The resulting exhibition, “History of Night and Fate of Comets,” featured the work of multidisciplinary artist Gian Maria Tosatti, whose immersive, evocative installations explored themes of time, memory, and the human condition.
Valentino has conversed with the art world in other ways, too. Over the years, its On Canvas initiative has shed light on contemporary and emerging painters and sculptors. For example, in Shanghai in 2020 and Beijing in 2021, the brand staged physical experiences in which its codes were interpreted by contemporary local artists, offering fresh perspective on the house’s history and DNA.
Installation view of the Mario Schifano exhibition at Valentino’s new Madison Avenue flagship. Courtesy of Magazzino.
In addition, Valentino participated in Frieze in Singapore and Seoul, again asking artists to reinterpret its iconic codes through their own prisms, producing novel works. Meanwhile, Valentino and Triennale Milano have partnered to present the exhibition “Pittura Italiana Oggi” (Italian Painting Today) that is currently on view (through February 11, 2024). The exhibition, curated by Damiano Gullì, features works by 120 Italian artists from the 1960s to the 2000s.
Further, convinced that painting is to contemporary art what couture is to fashion, Pierpaolo Piccioli recently brought a group of painters of all ages and backgrounds into the atelier to help design the Fall/Winter 2021-22 couture collection. The experimental process saw grandiose ball gowns and enormous hats loaded with vibrant colors and sinuous draping, trademarks of Valentino. As Calabrese said, “Valentino, like Magazzino, consistently champions new contemporary expressions while staying rooted in Italian heritage, captivating a global audience.”
Installation view of the Mario Schifano exhibition at Valentino’s new Madison Avenue flagship. Courtesy of Magazzino.
Valentino Garavani himself, the brand’s namesake (though no longer part of the company), is well-known in collecting circles. According to the Artnet Price Database, his colossal 1983 canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat brought over $67 million at Christie’s in May. The painting, El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile), depicts floating skulls and figures set against scrawled phrases alluding to pharaohs and ancient Egyptian sites. It lived in Garavani’s personal collection for 18 years, and appeared in a 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, in which Garavani also spoke of owning works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Léger, and Richard Prince. 
Following Schifano in its new Madison Avenue space, Valentino plans to host a series of exhibitions with Magazzino in the coming months, highlighting a range of Italian artists. Though he can’t say who exactly, Vittorio Calabrese did say that “Rome and New York will still be at the center of this dialogue. The collaboration serves as an avenue to delve deeper into Italy’s contemporary art landscape, amplifying its relevance on the global scene—the best of Italian culture.”
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Three miles north of the Manhattan court room where Sam Bankman-Fried went on trial, a very different investigation into the nature of money is taking place—the setting is the Morgan Library & Museum and the examination in question is an exhibition into the rise of the monetary economy in Medieval Europe. The centralized systems that FTX rebelled against were, in some ways, born in the 12th and 13th centuries as agricultural advancements—helped by an ecological “warm period” during the Middle Ages—and expanding trade routes that brought an economic revolution to the continent.
Banks were established in Spain, Northern Europe, and the Italian city-states to facilitate increasingly complex and widespread financial transactions. Coin production duly boomed, a fact apparent in the first display visitors encounter at “Medieval Money, Merchants, and Morality”: a dull pile of low-value coins, the likes of which were minted in high volume to lubricate the economy.

Coins from the Chalkis hoard in Greece, late 14th century. Photo: courtesy of American Numismatic Society, New York.
“Previously mints produced few coins and these were of high value. This situation couldn’t sustain growth at all levels of the economy,” said exhibition curator Diane Wolfthal. “After the year 1100, more coins, including lower-value coins, began to be produced, which were essential for market penetration into the everyday life of ordinary people.”
As money flowed into every facet of Medieval life, uplifting some and indebting others, it brought forth a litany of ethical complications. Chief among these was the quandary over how to pursue wealth and yet lead a good Christian life. Fitting then that the former personal library of J. Pierpont Morgan should play host to such questions.
The American banking giant was a devout Episcopalian and, if the 16th-century tapestry that still hangs over his East Room is anything to go by, he may have grappled with the inherent corruptions of wealth. Triumph of Avarice, designed by Netherlandish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst, shows the personification of the deadly sin riding out of Hell and past the corpses of the gluttonous.
Triumph of Avarice, Willem de Pannemaker ca. 1534-1536. Photo: courtesy The Morgan Library & Museum.
Elsewhere, Hieronymus Bosch chimes in through Death and the Miser, a work on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. It is, as ever, a work of anguish, trickery, and—to modern eyes at least—searing wit. Death slips a slender ankle across the threshold and tempts a dying man to ignore the angel lingering at his shoulder. Will he choose the gold in his strongbox or turn to God? Bosch leaves the decision to the viewer.
Characteristically, works from Morgan’s collection ground the exhibition, which runs through March 10. There’s a register frontispiece from a Bologna lending society that shows a goldsmith at work in a room swirling with the precious metal. A kindly Hans Memling portrait of an Italian merchant holding a pink flower serves as a clear, if obvious, reminder that the Northern Renaissance was largely funded by a class of newly minted merchants.
Hieronymus Bosch, Death and the Miser (ca. 1485–90). Image: courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Most notable, however, are the Medieval manuscripts, of which Morgan was a greedy collector. Together, they show how money slipped into seemingly every aspect of Medieval life. It made financial planning possible, as shown in a 16th-century calendar commissioned by royal chamberlain Philibert de Clermont, which recommends men to begin gathering their retirement resources at the age of 48.
It fueled urban vice and gambling, presented in the illustration of an epic German poem on sin showing three criminals huddled around a dice game. It deepened social inequalities which prompted the church to act as a financial benefactor to the poor and give alms, as depicted in the prayer book of Queen Claude of France.
Gerard of Villamagna Soliciting Alms for the Poor, from Vita Christi (Life of Christ). Illuminated by Pacino di Bonaguida and workshop Italy, Florence, ca. 1300–25. Image: courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
Although concerns of money’s corrupting power became more pressing in this period, they weren’t, of course, entirely new. There were lessons aplenty in the Bible with the virtues of frugality preached by Jesus, St. Francis, and St. Antony, all of whom are portrayed at the Morgan.
It’s a reminder not of a simpler time, but rather of a world gripped by the same questions and stereotypes as today. Take the stigmatization of Jews, Wolfhal says, or the categorization of poor people as undeserving, or religious narratives used to justify the extraordinary wealth of a few (think of today’s prosperity theology or indeed effective altruism).
“I hope visitors will see how complex Medieval discussions of money were, and think about the role money plays in their own lives,” Wolfhal said. “We have much to learn from the Medieval past.”
See more images from the exhibition below.
Frontispiece from a register of creditors of a Bolognese lending society Illuminated by Nicolò di Giacomo di Nascimbene (ca. 1394–95). Image: courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
Hans Memling, Portrait of a Man with a Pink (ca. 1475). Image: courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
Hugo von Trimberg Der Renner (The Runner), Gamblers and Criminals (1476–99). Image: courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
Andrea di Bartolo, Joachim and Anna Giving Food to the Poor and Offerings to the Temple, Sienna (ca. 1400–05). Image: courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Hans Holbein the Younger, Der Rychman (The Rich Man) (1523–26, published 1538). Image: courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

More Trending Stories:  
Conservators Find a ‘Monstrous Figure’ Hidden in an 18th-Century Joshua Reynolds Painting 
A First-Class Dinner Menu Salvaged From the Titanic Makes Waves at Auction 
The Louvre Seeks Donations to Stop an American Museum From Acquiring a French Masterpiece 
Meet the Woman Behind ‘Weird Medieval Guys,’ the Internet Hit Mining Odd Art From the Middle Ages 
A Golden Rothko Shines at Christie’s as Passion for Abstract Expressionism Endures 
Agnes Martin Is the Quiet Star of the New York Sales. Here’s Why $18.7 Million Is Still a Bargain 
Mega Collector Joseph Lau Shoots Down Rumors That His Wife Lost Him Billions in Bad Investments 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The throne is an almost outmoded object in an age of fading monarchy. Still, the idea of a piece of furniture that confers a higher authority continues to hold sway in today’s political and cultural imagination. Consider the fancy seat Emmanuel Macron occupied during his inauguration, or the iconic sword-backed perch that anchored HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones. 
At the Paleis Het Loo in the Netherlands, a new exhibition is examining the symbolism—and surprising staying power—of the throne. Featuring about 70 objects, “The Power of the Throne” explores the history and contemporary relevance of this power seat, while questioning exactly what elevates a humble chair into a symbol of sovereignty.  
The show, said curator Niels Coppes in a statement, “will tell stories of different cultures through the lens of the throne: the defining symbol of divine and secular rule as a claim to power and authority. It will also invite visitors to reflect on the theme: ‘Is there a future for the throne?’” 
The Iron Throne from the TV series Game of Thrones, installed at “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
The thrones gathered here range from historic examples, including an artifact of the Ashanti Empire in Ghana, to contemporary specimens like the East River Chairs, which accommodated speakers at 2019’s G20 Women’s Summit. The royal throne of King Willem-Alexander, the current Dutch monarch, serves as one of the show’s centerpieces, on loan from the Hague for the first (and apparently only) time. 
According to Coppes, the participation of the Dutch king has spurred the loan of another—possibly more beloved—chair. A replica of the Iron Throne, the coveted seat of the Seven Kingdoms in Games of Thrones, joins the exhibition as a prime example of how popular culture has shaped our appreciation of royal furniture.  
The chairs in the show are also accompanied by throne-centric artworks from the museum’s collection. Nicolaas Pieneman’s c.1840 painting immortalizing the inauguration of King Willem II depicts the grandeur of royal authority, just as Claes Jacobsz van der Heck’s The Judgement of Solomon (1616) captures its rare sagacity. A historical cartoon cheekily portraying the elder Willem I on a throne of cheese, however, dismantles that aura.
Claes Jacobsz van der Heck, The Judgement of Solomon (1616), installed at “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
Alas, most of the thrones included in the show aren’t for sitting in. However, visitors are invited to plonk themselves on two seats: the Iron Throne and Alfred van Elk’s work Troon (Throne). The latter is a four-seat sculpture, crafted by the industrial designer with 288 wooden planks for the 2016 edition of Symposion Gorinchem. Its form, he said, was intended to reflect the “multiple truths and multiple beliefs” of his “ideal society.”  
According to Van Elk, he had the opportunity to speak with then Queen Beatrix about the work. “Of course, she is the one with experience when it comes to thrones,” he wrote of their interaction. “Even Queen Beatrix felt that the one sitting on a throne does not necessarily hold the truth.” 
See more views of the exhibition below. 
Alfred van Elk, Troon (Throne), installed at “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
Installation view of “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
Helen Verhoeven, The Family (2021), installed at “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
Installation view of “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
Installation view of “The Power of the Throne” at Paleis Het Loo. Photo courtesy of Paleis Het Loo.
“The Power of the Throne” is on view at Paleis Het Loo, Koninklijk Park 16, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, through March 10, 2024. 
More Trending Stories:  
Agnes Martin Is the Quiet Star of the New York Sales. Here’s Why $18.7 Million Is Still a Bargain 
Mega Collector Joseph Lau Shoots Down Rumors That His Wife Lost Him Billions in Bad Investments 
What I Buy and Why: Jeff Lawson Shows Us the Eclectic Works He’s Collected as the Founder of Untitled Art Fair in Miami 
Gerhard Richter’s Abstract Alpine Landscapes Will Converge at a Three-Venue Survey in St. Moritz 
A New Immersive Experience in Dublin Invites Visitors to Step Into the Pages of a Storied Medieval Book 
Here’s Your Guide to the Priciest and Most Sought-After Artworks for Sale During New York’s $2 Billion Fall Auction Season 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More