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    How Do You Honor an Artist? A Daughter Grapples with Continuing Her Mother’s Legacy

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    All images courtesy of “The Promise of Spring”

    How Do You Honor an Artist? A Daughter Grapples with Continuing Her Mother’s Legacy

    April 10, 2025

    ArtFilm

    Grace Ebert

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    Anyone who’s stood to inherit a family business knows the difficulty of charting one’s own course. “Legacy is complicated,” says Violet Oliphant-O’Neill, the daughter of the wildly prolific artist Sarah Oliphant. “(When you have) parents who are successful, being their child is complicated.”

    Directed by Anna Louise Andersen, “The Promise of Spring” is an intimate portrait of a mother and daughter and the struggle of inheriting a parent’s passion. The film visits Oliphant Studios, which has painted backdrops gracing the covers of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and The New York Times and stood behind icons like Michelle Obama and Simone Biles, to name a few. It’s been in operation since 1978.

    Oliphant’s output is revered globally, but for her daughter, stepping into an essential role in the studio isn’t simple. The film follows the pair as they work together and unravels each of their journeys to art-making—Oliphant through a natural proclivity that began in childhood and Oliphant-O’Neill by way of her mother.

    As Andersen writes, the film grapples with “the tension between honoring family traditions and creating one’s own destiny.”

    Watch “The Promise of Spring of Above,” and find more from the filmmaker on Vimeo.

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      Traverse Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ with Smarthistory

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      Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (1490-1510), oil on oak panels, 81 x 152 inches. Image courtesy of the Museo del Prado, Madrid

      Traverse Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ with Smarthistory

      March 24, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Have you ever wondered why two large owls sit on either side of the central panel in “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch? Or perhaps you’ve noticed the strangely fleshy, sculptural fountains rising from the bodies of water—or are they stone? Why is the right side so dark, and who are all these people anyway?

      Narrated by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, Smarthistory’s latest video tours the uncanny landscapes of Bosch’s famous triptych, which continues to “confound our expectations of Christian art of the Renaissance.”

      Smarthistory is a small nonprofit that collaborates with hundreds of art historians, curators, archaeologists, and more, who are committed to making art history as accessible as possible. Through essays, conversations, and videos, the organization presents scholarly information in engaging, digestible, yet analytically rigorous lessons.

      For Smarthistory’s video examining some of the motifs in “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” Harris and Zucker dive into some of the most alluring details of Bosch’s historic painting, parsing mysteries that have persisted since its creation at the turn of the 16th century.

      The overarching narrative of Bosch’s masterpiece remains largely an enigma. “Although it is wonderfully playful and wonderfully inventive and just an incredible thing to look at, it would have been deeply troubling to Bosch’s generation,” Zucker says. “His society would have looked at this as sinful, even though the people that are being represented here didn’t understand sin.” (More on that in a minute.)

      An anomaly of its genre, the painting was commissioned by Engelbert II, a wealthy member of the court of the Duke of Burgundy, probably intending it for his palace. The work consists of three panels in the style of an altarpiece, with two half-size panels on either side of a central composition, which fold inward like two doors to reveal another painting on the exterior.

      Detail of the left panel portraying God introducing Eve to Adam

      In Bosch’s case, he depicted a crystalline sphere in grisaille, or all-gray, which portrays an overview of the earth with God perched in the upper left-hand corner, readying to make something of the lackluster orb. Two biblical phrases, “for he spake and it was done,” from Psalm 33, and “for he commanded and they were created,” from Psalm 148, reference Creation.

      Turning over the panels, as if opening the cover of a book, we enter an otherworldly realm where humans and beasts mingle with oversized animals, fruit, and surreal structures. On the left, Adam and Eve are introduced by a young God, before Eve was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit hanging in the Garden of Eden. In the center, dozens of nude figures frolic, eat, engage in sexual activities, forage, swim, and fly. On the right is hell.

      “One of the most compelling theories is that the central panel is an alternate story,” Zucker says. “What if the Temptation had not taken place? What if Adam and Eve had remained innocent and had populated the world? And so is it possible that what we’re seeing is that reality played out in Bosch’s imagination?”

      Exterior of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” shown with panels closed

      Two oversized owls, symbolic of the presence of evil, flank the central panel. While people appear unashamed of their selves or actions, a sense of uneasiness pervades the scene, balancing the dichotomies of paradise and hell; holiness and sin.

      “The largest figure is a figure which art historians call the ‘tree man,’” Dr. Harris says. “His legs look like the branches of trees with more branches growing from them. But where we might see his feet, we see two unsteady boats in the water with figures in them, suggesting that there’s an inherent instability to this figure who can barely balance in this way.”

      Smarthistory’s video illustrates compositional tools that provide clues to underlying narrative and metaphor, like the way the “tree man” appears to look back across space at Adam and Eve—specifically Adam’s lustful gaze as the representation of humankind’s origin. “In this representation, we don’t need the apple. We don’t need the serpent. All we need is Adam’s lustful gaze as he is introduced to Eve,” Dr. Zucker says. And the rest, so to speak, is history.

      Explore more from the world of art on Smarthistory’s website. You might also enjoy this fantastical parade in The Netherlands devoted entirely to Bosch and Roberto Benavidez’s Bosch-inspired piñatas.

      Detail of the central panel

      Detail from the right-hand panel depicting Hell

      Detail of the central panel

      Detail of the central panel

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      In ‘Electric Garden,’ Ricky Boscarino Leads a Tour of His Whimsical Handbuilt Home

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      © 2024 Stockton University

      In ‘Electric Garden,’ Ricky Boscarino Leads a Tour of His Whimsical Handbuilt Home

      March 24, 2025

      ArtFilm

      Kate Mothes

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      In December 1988, artist Ricky Boscarino was on the hunt for real estate. Not just any property would do, though. “It was really my boyhood ambition to built my dream house, where literally all my dreams could come true,” he says in the short documentary “Electric Garden.” Little did he know that over the course of the next four decades, a dilapidated hunting cabin would transform into a veritable way of life.

      Luna Parc emerged on a wooded six-acre parcel in northwestern New Jersey and has been in progress continually since 1989. “Family lore is that we were carpenters for many, many generations,” Boscarino says. “My whole life became about making things with metal, wood, glass, fabric, concrete.”

      With numerous additions and labyrinthine levels, Luna Parc includes a kind of living museum, where Boscarino adds new work all the time, plus studios devoted to various mediums, living spaces, and an expansive sculpture garden. At 5,000 square feet, the self-described “madcap” artist’s vibrant, elaborately ornamented home evokes a fairytale dwelling or a whimsical, Tim Burton-esque construction.

      Boscarino continues to add new details to Luna Parc, whether electrifying a concrete sculpture garden with colored lights or adding new works to the museum. The house occasionally opens to the public during the summer months, and you can learn more and plan your visit on Boscarino’s website. Watch the documentary in full on Vimeo.

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      A Visit to Amy Sherald’s Studio Revels in Her Commitment to Beauty

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      All images courtesy of Art21

      A Visit to Amy Sherald’s Studio Revels in Her Commitment to Beauty

      March 19, 2025

      ArtFilm

      Grace Ebert

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      From the studio to her childhood bedroom in Columbus, Georgia, to the museum, a new film from Art21 presents a broad portrait of Amy Sherald. The artist is perhaps best known for her depiction of former First Lady Michelle Obama and her signature images of Black Americans rendered in grayscale.

      In “Singular Moments,” the Art21 team peers into Sherald’s process and captures the intricacies of creating a work. Reference photos taped to a wall and paint squirted onto white paper plates accompany the artist as she works on her increasingly large-scale canvases.

      Sherald frequently paints people she knows, beginning with their faces and eyes before moving on to the rest of their figures. As the title of the film suggests, her focus is on a single moment of beauty. “I think beautiful paintings are important,” she says in the film. “I say figuration is like the soul food of art making. It’s what takes you back home and what you eat when you need comfort, and we all need that at some point.”

      The film comes ahead of Sherald’s first solo exhibition at a New York museum, American Sublime, which will present about 50 works from 2007 to today next month at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition to a visit to the artist’s parents’ home, filled with grade-school pictures and teenage art projects, viewers also witness the creation of some of her more recent works, particularly those exploring what it means to be an American.

      Watch “Singular Moments” above, and be sure to read our conversation with the artist in which she discusses anxiety and finding respite in her work.

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    • 175 Shares189 Views

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      ‘The Praise House’ Shares the Story of a Contemplative Installation on an Alabama Plantation

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      All images courtesy of 1504, shared with permisison

      ‘The Praise House’ Shares the Story of a Contemplative Installation on an Alabama Plantation

      March 6, 2025

      ArtFilmHistorySocial Issues

      Grace Ebert

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      On the site of the former Scott’s Grove Baptist Church, artist Tony M. Bingham has constructed a monumental work of contemplation and reflection. Two wood-paneled walls stand parallel in the serene clearing with stained glass windows, a Sylacauga marble floor, and a steel cutout depicting members who once worshiped on its grounds.

      A tribute to local history, Bingham’s work is titled “The Praise House,” which takes its name from the vernacular structures people who were enslaved often built on plantations throughout the Southern U.S. as a space for prayer. “My way of addressing the power and the legacy is to just begin to look at some of the possible sources of opposition that the enslaved community could have participated in,” the artist says.

      A new short documentary follows Bingham as he visits The Wallace Center for Arts and Reconciliation and installs the work. Located just outside of Birmingham in Harpersville, Alabama, the former plantation house is now a space for healing and reconciliation run by descendants of both the enslaved and enslavers.

      Today, the center hosts a variety of art and culture programming to reflect on its history, and “The Praise House” is one such commission. After learning more about the enslaved communities, Bingham wanted to create a work that honored their legacy. “Using organic, repurposed, and cast-off materials, I make art that tells the story of my cast-off people,” he says, adding:

      The house was being historically renovated, and planks of lumber were being replaced. I imagined that these old boards were the very surfaces enslaved people walked on or touched, and I sought to bring those materials back together in a way that could inspire reflection on the history of the enslaved people who once lived there.

      Directed by Tyler Jones of 1504, the film is a poignant, enlightening glimpse into the lengthy process behind “The Praise House.” Bingham, who is a professor at Miles College in Birmingham, frequently invokes the historical realities of the location and returns to fundamental questions about the purpose of his work and art more broadly. “Who will speak for my people if not the artist?” he asks. “Who will help those outside of the art dialog to understand the creative potential they possess?”

      Watch “The Praise House” above, and find more from the artist on Instagram.

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      Watch the Brilliant Ballet that Brought Dance to the Bauhaus Movement

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      From a performance by the Bavarian Junior Ballet

      Watch the Brilliant Ballet that Brought Dance to the Bauhaus Movement

      March 3, 2025

      ArtDesignFilmHistory

      Grace Ebert

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      Given the emphasis on functionality and design for industrial production, the Bauhaus movement is rarely associated with disciplines like dance. But for Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), translating its principles into movement and performance was as compelling as a well-conceived chair or building.

      In the last century, the Bauhaus has indelibly shaped our modern built environments and the ways we think of the relationship between form and function (it even inspired conceptual cookbooks). German architect Walter Gropius founded the school in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, with the intention of uniting architecture, fine arts, and crafts. The school focused on minimalism and creating for the social good and involved artists and designers like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Anni and Josef Albers.

      Costume designs for the ‘Triadic Ballet.’ Courtesy of Harvard Art Museums

      The Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, Schlemmer was a painter, sculptor, and choreographer responsible for the under-known Triadic Ballet, a striking, playful dance structured around groups of three. Debuted in 1922, the avant-garde production comprises three colors—yellow, pink or white, and black—and three costume shapes—the square, circle, and triangle.

      “Building on multiples of three,” says an explanation from MoMA, “transcended the egotism of the individual and dualism of the couple, emphasizing the collective.”

      In true Bauhaus form, the idea was to eliminate the decorative frills associated with ballet, including tutus that allow bodies to bend, twist, and explore a full range of mobility. Instead, Schlemmer’s costumes restrict movement and add a modern quality as dancers appear stifled and almost mechanical, a nod to the movement’s focus on accessibility through mass production and turning “art into industry.”

      Several of Schlemmer’s illustrations for the ballet are available online, including his bizarre sculptural costume designs with wide, bubbly skirts and vibrantly striped sleeves. MoMA’s collections contain a print titled “Figures in Space,” which reveals one of the performance’s foremost preoccupations: how bodies move and interact in space.

      As seen in a fully colorized film of the dance from the 1970s, the dancers are incredibly deliberate as they navigate sparse sets with clean lines. Open Culture notes that they appear almost like pantomimes or puppets “with figures in awkward costumes tracing various shapes around the stage and each other.”

      A few years back, Great Big Story created a video visiting the Bavarian Junior Ballet as it prepared for a performance. The costumes are faithful to Schlemmer’s vision and retain the rigid geometries and bright palettes. As noted by director Ivan Liška, the strange attire combined with the jilted, robotic choreography often leaves the audience laughing. “It’s very successful because the audience can’t believe this is 100 years old,” he says. “There you see the visionary power of Oskar Schlemmer.”

      Triadic Ballet is rarely reproduced, but Bavarian Junior Ballet will bring the work back to the stage this June to celebrate its 15th anniversary. And if you’re in New York, you can see one of Schlemmer’s studies in Living in the Age of the Machine at MoMA. It’s also worth exploring The Oskar Schlemmer Theatre Estate and Archives, which boasts a trove of archival imagery and drawings on its website.

      From a performance by the Bavarian Junior Ballet

      Some of the original costumes

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    • 175 Shares129 Views

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      In a Retrofitted School Bus at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Guadalupe Maravilla Heals Through Vibrations

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      All images from the Art21 “New York Close Up” film, “Guadalupe Maravilla’s ‘Mariposa Relámpago,’” © Art21, shared with permission

      In a Retrofitted School Bus at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Guadalupe Maravilla Heals Through Vibrations

      February 26, 2025

      ArtFilm

      Grace Ebert

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      Guadalupe Maravilla’s multi-disciplinary practice is rooted in a simple premise: sound is medicine.

      The artist is known for works that merge sculpture, performance, instruments, and healing, one such project being the elaborately retrofitted school bus titled “Mariposa Relámpago.” Part of Maravilla’s Disease Throwers series, the large-scale coach is devoid of bench seats and ubiquitous yellow paint and instead features an open cab lined with chrome panels. More than 700 found objects adorn its body, from cutlery and a worn pair of sandals to large gongs. More

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

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      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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      A New Documentary Traces How a Faith Ringgold Mural at Rikers Island Helped Women Break Free

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      Detail of “For the Women’s House” (1972). All images from ‘Paint Me a Road Out of Here’

      A New Documentary Traces How a Faith Ringgold Mural at Rikers Island Helped Women Break Free

      February 13, 2025

      ArtFilmHistorySocial Issues

      Grace Ebert

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      In 1971, Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) received her first public art commission. New York City offered the late artist a $3,000 grant to paint a mural at the Women’s House of Detention on Rikers Island. After going inside and speaking with those incarcerated in the notorious prison, Ringgold decided to base the work around a request from one of the women about what she hoped the piece would depict: “I want to see a road leading out of here.”

      In Ringgold’s characteristically bold palette, the resulting mural features more than a dozen figures, many of whom are employed in professions unavailable to women at the time. Vibrant and sliced into eight sections, “For the Women’s House” portrays doctors, bus drivers, basketball players, and the yet-to-be-realized vision of a woman as president. The large-scale work was a tribute to the deferred dreams of those who were locked up and a directive to reimagine the stereotypes put on incarcerated people.

      According to ArtNet, the artist continued her relationship with the detained women and returned to the facility each month to provide “courses in subjects ranging from mask-making and theater to career counseling and drug addiction prevention.”

      When Rikers Island transitioned to housing men in 1998, though, the Department of Corrections painted over the work, concealing it under a thick layer of white paint.

      A new documentary directed by Catherine Gund chronicles Ringgold’s fight to regain control over the mural as it tells a broader story about the injustices of the U.S. justice system. Paint Me a Road Out of Here, released by Aubin Pictures, features conversations with Ringgold before her death last year, along with artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, who has been commissioned to create a new work to replace “For the Women’s House.”

      The film comes at a time when more artists who were formerly incarcerated are gaining attention as they point out the dehumanization and cruelty at the heart of the prison system. Jesse Krimes, for example, interrogates the material conditions of life inside as he incorporates soap bars, playing cards, newspapers, and bedsheets into his practice. And at a similarly infamous facility, artist Moath al-Alwi sculpts ships from cardboard, dental floss, and threads from his prayer cap while detained at Guantánamo Bay.

      “For the Women’s House” (1972)

      While the film shares the story of Ringgold’s nearly lost mural—which was relocated in 2022—it also speaks to the power of community and connection through art and making, particularly in places where despair and degradation are rampant. “Art gives us permission to imagine a world beyond what currently exists,” one interviewee in the film says.

      Paint Me a Road Out of Here is currently screening at the Film Forum in New York. Keep an eye on Aubin Pictures’ website and Instagram for additional locations.

      The artist with the mural

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