Author: Iris
Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, art news Newsletter about the art market and beyond. Register here Receive it every Wednesday. At Sotheby’s Old Masters and 19th-Century Paintings evening sale last Thursday, British chairman Harry Dalmeny attracted bids from potential buyers with a slender silver crown and custom pinstripe tailoring. It’s no secret that the typical Old Master collector is both wealthy and approaching twilight years. Much has been written about how this corner of the market desperately needs to attract new, younger collectors. But that anxiety seemed to be further dispelled as the sale generated an…
This year, the art world went on a high fiber diet. Abstract weavings, knotted sculptures, expressive basketry, shaggy wall hangings: all are coming out of artist’s studios and museum storerooms, lending much-needed warmth and complexity to exhibition spaces. The moment has been a long time coming. Textile, of course, is among the most ancient of human endeavors; tapestry once outranked painting in the hierarchy of the arts. But modern fiber art has rarely gotten much respect. It’s one period of ascendancy came in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Lausanne Tapestry Biennale was at its height, and the…
ArtSarah Quattrocchi FablesChen Fei, friendship2023. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.Xie Nanxing, Postcard No. 52015. Courtesy of the artist.In Chen Fei’s life-size portrait, two millennial Chinese men look directly into the viewer’s eyes friendship (2023). According to the artist and his friends, the two had almost identical haircuts, wore the same clothes, and both wore red ties with the word “gay” engraved on each tie. Their modern hairstyles and formal attire seem to conflict: they are either two “brothers” or two members of the same political party. The painting alludes to China’s tense political past, combining Chen’s personal life with…
Zoé Whitley is to step down as director of Chisenhale Gallery, the London art space that has nurtured adventurous emerging artists into bona fide stars. Whitley’s last day there will be March 1, 2025. Chisenhal Gallery did not specify her next steps when announcing her departure. During her five-year tenure at Chisenhale Gallery, she organized space exhibitions for artists including Lotus L. Kang and Nikita Gale. Both artists appear in this year’s Whitney Biennial after first exhibiting there. Related articles Further signs of Chisenhal Gallery’s influence came at this year’s Venice Biennale, which featured works by Rindon Johnson that were…
As the year 2024 winds down, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the voices shaping the creative world. Among them is Helena Kotnik, whose art has become a beacon for those drawn to the intersection of color, emotion, and psychology. With degrees in Fine Arts from Barcelona University and Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna, and a Master’s degree to her name, Helena has built a thoughtful approach to exploring the human condition. Her pieces, which she calls “psychological human landscapes,” offer more than just visual appeal—they serve as a lens through which to view the complexities of modern…
Luigi Mangione is portrayed as the “patron saint of justice in healthcare” (all screenshots Isa Farfan/allergicvia @commiepsychologies1) on ThreadsLast week, I had eye spasms from staring at media coverage of the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Now, with 26-year-old Luigi Mangione identified as an assassination suspect, new developments have slowed, and meme makers on social media platforms have begun glorifying the Gen Z computer science nerd-turned-high-IQ guy. -An overview of killings in the United States. According to police, a call from a McDonald’s employee led to Mangione’s arrest. (Meme from @adoptapet_77 on X) This shooting has been intertwined with…
BERLIN — At the opening reception of her career retrospective This Will Not End Well at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie on November 22, Nan Goldin delivered a speech that reverberated across the world. “Why can’t I speak, Germany?” she asked, denouncing the country’s silencing of criticism against Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza. Goldin began her speech with several minutes of silence in honor of the tens of thousands of civilians killed in Gaza and Lebanon and the 815 Israeli civilians killed on October 7, 2023. Standing next to museum Director Klaus Biesenbach, she emphasized that her art is inseparable from her activism. Two…
Nikki Giovanni, the trailblazing poet, artist, educator and lifelong activist known as the “Princess of Black Poetry,” died Monday, December 9, at a hospital in Blacksburg, Virginia. She was 81 years old. Giovanni’s publicist told local reporters that she died of complications from lung cancer with her wife, Virginia “Ginny” Fowler, by her side.She was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. on June 7, 1943, in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up between her birthplace and Ohio, where she attended Fisk University, graduated in 1967. The year after her grandmother died and Martin Luther King was assassinated, she began writing poetry to…
On Saturday (December 7), Pope Francis and the Holy See unveiled a nativity scene showing a wooden sculpture of the baby Jesus lying in a hood in a manger, a scene that polarized the world. It was a symbol of solidarity with Palestine that sparked both praise and outrage. As of today (December 11), the statue, which caused an international sensation, has disappeared from the site along with the entire manger and the model of the Baby Jesus.Initially reported by Christian and Italian news media, the manger, baby Jesus and hood were removed during Pope Francis’ general audience in the…
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the book Rats (1986), Art Spiegelman’s wife Françoise Mouly told him, “Next Ratsyour greatest achievement may not be making it into a movie. “Today, more than a decade after those words, we have a movie. Directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Doering, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is my muse (2024) is a biodoc rather than a strict adaptation RatsSpiegelman’s memoir, created a comic based on his father’s experiences at Auschwitz. Not that there’s that big of a difference. “I felt like there was a 5,000-pound rat breathing down my neck,”…