Front Page of the Art World: Whats Hot & What’s Not — 5 Dec 2021
Front Page of the Art World: What’s Hot & What’s Not — 5 Dec 2021
What’s on the front page news of the art world? Read on to discover what’s hot and what’s not this week — from the hyperlocal to the global.
Spirituality, the cosmos and wonder at Hilma af Klint exhibition
NOT TO BE MISSED: The highly anticipated Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings will be opening this Saturday, 4 December 2021 at City Gallery Wellington.
It’s hard to find the words to describe the artworks of Hilma af Klint. In Wellington’s City Gallery, her towering paintings allude to the collective consciousness, the cosmos, duality, reciprocity and unity through colourful, bursting, contemporary colours and imagery.
2. Stephen Sondheim, Titan of the American Musical, Is Dead at 91
He was the theater’s most revered and influential composer-lyricist of the last half of the 20th century and the driving force behind some of Broadway’s most beloved and celebrated shows.
Read the story from the New York Times.
3. Days Before Dying, Stephen Sondheim Reflected: ‘I’ve Been Lucky’
In an interview on Sunday, the revered composer and lyricist, 91, contentedly discussed his shows running on Broadway and off, as well as a new movie about to be released.
Read the story from the New York Times.
4. The Low-Down Art Basel Miami Beach 2021
Get your checkbooks and your crypto wallets ready — Miami Art Week is back. The Floridian bacchanal will bring hundreds of galleries and many more culture vultures to the Magic City next week to see art, expend pent-up energy from two years away, and capitalize on all that new tech money flowing into town.
Read the low-down from Artnet and Artsy.
5. Unfazed Collectors Drive Strong Sales on Art Basel Miami’s First Day
Rich collectors, most of whom stayed masked, charged through the fair despite the omicron variant.
Read the story from Bloomberg.
6. The Best Street Style at Art Basel Miami 2021
Art Basel Miami is always a buzzy, well-attended event, but the week has taken on new significance following the death of Virgil Abloh. The designer’s last show for Louis Vuitton was staged at the city’s Maritime Marina on Tuesday night.
7. Lawrence Weiner, conceptual artist known for large and poetic text interventions, has died, aged 79
Read the story from The Art Newspaper.
8. ‘Afghan Girl’ From 1985 National Geographic Cover Takes Refuge in Italy
Sharbat Gula, whose haunting portrait was featured by the magazine more than three decades ago, was evacuated to Rome after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Read the story from the New York Times.
9. Auckland Arts Festival announced
The wait is over! The full programme for Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki / Auckland Arts Festival (AAF) 2022 is finally here — and it’s bigger and better than ever with 80+ shows and events across 10–27 March.
Watch the trailer and see the schedule.
10. Kiwi opera singer Simon O’Neill nominated for two Grammy awards
Read the story from the New Zealand Herald.
11. The Frame: So you want to buy art?
OPINION: We all have different comfort levels when it comes to walking into a pristine, white gallery space. Some saunter in, and confidently grab the artist statement and price list from the front desk. Others may feel self-conscious and worried about asking any questions that may betray their lack of knowledge. Nadine Rubin Nathan reports.
Read the story from Stuff here.
12. Hamish McDouall: Whanganui an international city of design
It’s only small, but as a city Whanganui is rich in design. From the eccentric Durie Hill elevator and wooden colonial Opera House to its renown for glass and ceramic object making, the river city has both a diverse smorgasboard of historical buildings and a growing interest in contemporary urban ideas. This month the city was announced as New Zealand’s only UNESCO City of Design, one of 40 such cities worldwide.
Read or listen to the story from Saturday Morning with Radio New Zealand.
13. 2021 New Zealand Television Awards Finalists Announced
See the list of finalists. Congratulations to Rhian Sheehan! Nominated for ‘The Sounds’ — South Pacific Pictures / Shaftesbury (Neon).
14. New Zealand’s secondary art market is booming — now artists want a share
Without a resale royalty scheme, struggling artists are missing out on much needed money for their work.
Read the story from the Guardian.
15. Tamil-Canadian Artist Shan Vincent de Paul’s NFT Collection Has a Twist
These multimedia works debuting on Voice include a “Death Mechanism” and allow fans to collect the artist’s origin story, told specifically for the metaverse.
Read the story from Hyperallergic.
16. Filipino student invents solar windows that don’t even need the sun to work
And they’re beautiful.
Read the story from Mashable — Southeast Asia.
17. Exhibition: LAURIE ANDERSON: THE WEATHER
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., presents the largest-ever US exhibition of artwork by groundbreaking multimedia artist, performer, musician, and writer Laurie Anderson, from Sept. 24, 2021–July 31, 2022.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of live performances by Anderson from January 2022 to July 2022.
Get the details from the Hirshhorn website.
18. What Do We Do with the Work of Immoral Artists?
Where should we “draw the line” between sacrificing great art and supporting artists who are predators and bigots?
Read the story from Hyperallergic.
19. Qatar Museums Plans to Transform the Country Into a ‘Vast Outdoor Museum’ Ahead of the Soccer World Cup in 2022
The Gulf nation is adding 40 new works to its nationwide public art program.
20. Sylvia Weinstock, the ‘da Vinci of Wedding Cakes,’ Dies at 91
She produced floral-draped architectural works in the shape of rose-studded topiaries, baskets of speckled lilies and bouquets of anemones.
Read the story from The New York Times.
21. 8 Famous Artists Who Turned Heartbreak into Art
Countless artists throughout history have channeled feelings of heartbreak into their work. The resulting pieces run the gamut from impassioned and cathartic to deeply mournful. Artsy explores how artists from Edvard Munch to Frida Kahlo to Felix Gonzalez-Torres have responded to the agony and upheaval that follows losing a lover.
22. What Constable Sacrificed for His Artistic Success
Sentimentality would creep into the artist’s late evocations of remembered childhood scenes, as would idealization.
Read the story from Hyperallergic.
23. Was Banksy selling artwork for $60 each at an NYC subway station?
A New York City woman believes she may have scored two Banksy artworks for just $120 after coming across a mysterious art sale inside a subway station.
Read the story from the New York Post.
24. Budapest’s new $30m Holocaust museum sits in limbo as Hungary debates its contents
Though completed in 2015, the grandiose building with its towering Star of David remains empty amid an ongoing stalemate between two arms of the Jewish community and the government.
Read the story from the Times of Israel.
25. The Humble Brilliance of Italy’s Moka Coffee Pot
In the era of pods, the iconic item has become an endangered species.