Front Page of the Art World: What’s Hot & What’s Not — 18 March 2022
Front Page of the Art World: What’s Hot & What’s Not — 18 March 2022
What’s on the front page news of the art world this week? Read on to discover what’s hot and what’s not this week — from the hyperlocal to the global.
What’s on
Wellington: Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings, 4 Dec 2021–27 March 2022.
Auckland: Auckland Arts Festival, 10–27 March
Waiheke: Sculpture on the Gulf, 4–27 March
Auckland: From The Collection Of Dame Jenny Gibbs | Geoff Thornley, 16 March — 2 April. From the collection of Dame Jenny Gibbs, this is the first time these paintings have been exhibited together outside of the Gibbs’ residence.
Christchurch: World Premiere of ‘The All-Seeing Sky’ in Christchurch, 14 May. Fabian Ziegler and Luca Staffelbach will be travelling to New Zealand from Switzerland to premiere this new double percussion concerto with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra as part of its Angel of Light concert and then with Orchestra Wellington as part of its Spring Symphony concert.
1. US film-maker Brent Renaud, Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova kkilled by Russian forces in Ukraine
Brent Renaud, an award-winning US film-maker whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other outlets, has been killed reportedly by Russian forces in the flashpoint town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. A US photographer, Juan Arredondo, was wounded.
Pierre Zakrzewski, a cameraman for Fox News, was killed Monday alongside a Ukrainian colleague, Oleksandra Kuvshynova, while reporting outside Kyiv, according to statements from Fox News and Ukrainian officials on Tuesday.
Read the story from The Guardian and The Washington Post.
2. Jane Campion Wins Directors Guild Award for ‘The Power of the Dog’
After making Oscar history last month as the first woman with Two Best Director Nominations, Dame Jane Campion received the Directors Guild of America’s top prize last Saturday.
The Directors Guild of America awarded the prize for feature-film directing on Saturday night to Jane Campion for “The Power of the Dog,” making her the third woman ever to receive the award. Her victory also represents the first time in DGA history that women have won that award in back-to-back years, after Chloé Zhao took the prize in 2021 for “Nomadland.”
Maggie Gyllenhaal also won the first-time filmmaker award. It’s the first year that both trophies went to women.
Read the story from the New York Times.
3. Ukrainian Artists Are Building Anti-Tank Obstacles
Volo Bevza and other artists are helping construct the anti-tank obstacles known as “hedgehogs” in an old metal workshop in Lviv.
Read the story from Hyperallergic.
Why We Need a Post-Colonial Lens to Look at Ukraine and Russia
4. Ukraine Pavilion Curators’ Commitment to Exhibiting at the Venice Biennale in the Midst of War
Art is routinely the first area neutralised in times of imperialism. If we think through other shared and intersecting histories of cultural imperialism, the erasure of one’s cultural history by the invader has been a strategy to justify war. This strategy suggests that the invaded nations have no culture to share or worth remembering beyond what the imperial nation provides. For Ukraine, dislodging their cultural history from Russia’s totalising narrative is an act of resistance.
5. Zelensky Answers Hamlet
This week, the Ukrainian president addressed the existential question for the world.
“The question for us now is to be or not to be,” Volodymyr Zelensky told the British Parliament in a video call on Tuesday, speaking in Ukrainian. “This is the Shakespearean question. For 13 days, this question could have been asked. But now I can give you a definitive answer. It’s definitely yes, to be.”
Read the story from the New York Times.
6. Immersive Documentary Photography Exhibition COAL + ICE Visualizes the Climate Crisis
Asia Society’s traveling exhibition brings art and climate to center stage this spring at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
Read the story from Hyperallergic.
7. Important Photographs: Spotlight on Vik Muniz
Brazilian artist Vik Muniz regularly reinterprets masterworks of art in a variety of unusual mediums before photographing his creations. Whether in dirt, chocolate, or in this case magazine clippings, Muniz adds his own take to these historically important works of art. In Three Flags, after Jasper Johns, he takes on one of the most recognisable pieces of Americana.
John’s masterpiece painting is now held in the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, which recently included the work in a major retrospective of the artist in September 2021 through February 2022 in conjunction with the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Check out Waste Land the documentary by Vik Muniz. MUST SEE.
8. Why Female Artists Have Used the Self-Portrait to Demand Their Place in Art History
The means, mechanisms, and traditions of female self-portraiture have changed dramatically over time, but the genre has retained its enduring ability to transgress and subvert expectations, all while demanding that the world recognize and appreciate its female artists.
9. How Māori Stepped In to Save a Towering Tree Crucial to Their Identity
Tāne Mahuta, an ancient tree named after the god of forests in Māori mythology, is threatened by the slow creep of an incurable disease.
Read the story from the New York Times.
10. Three tapestries smuggled out of Afghanistan are part of a new exhibition at New Plymouth Govett Brewster Art Gallery
They have been knifed, disguised and abandoned, and now three towering tapestries successfully smuggled out of Afghanistan as the Taliban took over are on display in New Plymouth.
The works, which are five, eight and nine metres tall, are part of an exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (GBAG)/Len Lye Centre.
11. Māori goddesses come to vivid life on concrete bunker in Christchurch
A brightly-coloured array of Māori goddesses have been emblazoned across a concrete bunker outside the Christchurch Art Gallery.
The mural features Hine-nui-te-pō, a goddess of night, Hinetīama, the goddess of death, the fire deity Mahuika and the trickster hero Māui in lizard form.
12. A Chat With Kat Lintott, Māori virtual reality filmmaker
Almost seven years ago, Kat Lintott (Ngāi Tahu) made two good decisions: the first was to enter the digital storytelling space and the second was to connect with her Māori whakapapa.
Along with husband Ben Forman, Lintott, 34, co-founded Wellington creative agency Wrestler, which specialises in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) videos and experiences. The couple have two children — daughter Willoughby, 3, and 10-month-old son Forest.
Lintott tells Sharon Stephenson about her latest indigenous short film, ATUA, which recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
13. The Four Social Classes of the Art World
Christopher Hitchens used to tell a joke that had an Oxford don asking an American student what he’s studying. “My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.” “Oh, really? That’s interesting — one didn’t think there was a class system in the United States.” “Nobody does. That’s how it survives.”
14. Collector Beth Rudin DeWoody on Curating Her 10,000+ Piece Art Collection
DeWoody has been collecting since 1969, when she took her first drawing class at the Art Students League of New York. There, she bought her first work: a drawing by one of her teachers, the artist for $100. She’s acquired over 10,000 works since then — and can tell you the story behind each one.
15. 5 Essential Tips for Collecting Drawings
While prints are a common entry point into the art market, there may come a day when a budding collector yearns for a unique artwork, rather than an edition. Works on paper, specifically drawings, can be a fruitful place to start: a way to access an artist’s intimate process without breaking the bank. While some artists, like Robert Longo or Kara Walker, make drawing a centrepiece of their practice, for many the medium is one tool among many.
16. An assistant principal in the US read a New Zealand children’s book to young students — he was fired
The assistant principal at a Mississippi school has been fired for reading a children’s book called “I Need a New Butt!” to second-graders. Now, Price is fighting to overturn the district’s decision. His efforts have garnered overwhelming support, he said, with parents, current and former students, and strangers speaking out and donating to a GoFundMe so he can pay for a lawyer and continue to support his family.