Author: Iris

On a recent afternoon, a couple was viewing Joel Meisler’s latest exhibition at the Beaux-Arts townhouse at Lévy Gorvy Dayan Gallery on New York’s Upper East Side when Meisler himself stopped them and asked a startling question. “Have you seen the secret clown room?” the art dealer-turned-artist said. “You really have to see the secret clown room.” Hidden behind sliding doors on the gallery’s first floor, the “Secret Clown Room” contains eight portraits of clowns in, you guessed it, various states of happiness (or pain). The works are exceptions to Meisler’s exhibition, titled “The Kitchen Is a Good Place to…

British artist Anya Gallaccio has been selected to create a new AIDS memorial in London, located on South Crescent, Store Street, Fitzrovia. Scheduled to be unveiled in late 2027, the installation will resemble a felled tree, with growth rings removed and arranged next to the tree, representing the void left by those who have lost their lives to the disease. The work is Gallaccio’s first permanent public artwork in London and will showcase her unique use of organic materials that change over time. “The current proposal preserves the space, intended to provide a gathering place, a center for community events…

Caravaggio, The Young Sick Bacchus (1593), oil on canvas, 26 x 21 inches (Image via Wikimedia Commons) Statistics on the scope of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and many other 12-step programs that specialize in different forms of recovery are somewhat elusive due to the inherent anonymity of the group; AA reports having members in approximately 180 countries around the world and over 123,000 individual AA groups. While AA itself is a relatively young institution, only nearly 90 years since its founding in Ohio, the concepts of healing and recovery from addiction have their roots in the oldest human societies. The 12…

Documenta has officially unveiled its replacement selection committee for the search for the next artistic director of the prestigious German five-year exhibition, a search that is still ongoing following the collective resignation of the original committee last year. The new six-member selection committee is made up of Yilmaz Dziewior, Sergio Edelsztein, N’Goné Fall, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Mami Kataoka and Yasmil Raymond, all but one of whom have curated at least one major biennial. Notably, the group includes three people based in Germany (Dziewior, Edelsztein and Raymond), while none of them were on the previous committee. related articles One of the Israeli…

Featured work by artist Mark Stebbins. Based in London, Ontario, Mark Stebbins creates acrylic paintings that explore the connections between digital imaging, craft histories, artistic labor, and memory. Using a combination of brushstroke and pen drawing techniques, Stebbins applies tiny smears of acrylic paint to layers of surface to create illusions of textiles, brushstrokes, and pixelation. He is inspired by various visual histories of painting and textile traditions (particularly those specific to the American Southwest, where he hails from), as well as contemporary digital imaging and AI-rendered images. “I think of my painting process as a form of conceptual layering,…

Hundreds of visual and performing arts venues in Florida were shocked to learn that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had vetoed $32 million in state budget funding for arts and culture. DeSantis signed the decision on Wednesday, June 12, just weeks before the start of the fiscal year on July 1—the first time in the state’s history that the cultural sector has been left in complete limbo. In the state’s $117 billion proposed budget, the state arts and culture department initially proposed allocating $77 million to meet the needs of 630 eligible nonprofit organizations, which can each The grants were for…

ArtMirren Brown-EvansEdward Wordsworth, Bright interval1928. Image courtesy of Pallant House Gallery.Throughout art history, still life has often been relegated to a “low” art form. For example, the 17th-century Italian painter Andrea Sacchi ranked it below landscape, and in the 18th century, Royal Academy founder Joshua Reynolds ranked it below landscape, portraiture and history painting. For centuries, the lifeless and sometimes predictable nature of still life subjects — skulls, globes, heavy books and sumptuous meals — has left some art critics cold. Yet, despite attempts to relegate still life to the lowest rung of the artistic hierarchy, the genre is now…

New exhibition at Pratt’s Manhattan gallery, Live in imagination, Centered on the work of seven Pratt Institute MFA photography alumni, the exhibition explores what it means to imagine, dream, and create in the 21st century, a time of accelerating social and technological change. The exhibition opens Friday, June 28, with a reception on Thursday, June 27, from 6 to 8 p.m. Organized by artist, curator, and Pratt Visiting Associate Professor Sara VanDerBeek, the exhibition brings together in dialogue the work of seven Pratt alumni from the classes of 2021-2023, and features solo works by six graduates from the class of…

On Tuesday, Christie’s London Classics Week evening sales – the Old Masters Part I and the Masters sale – brought in a combined total of nearly $65 million. The former was headlined by Titian’s Rest during the Flight to Egypt (c. 1510), sold for $22,178,280, setting a new auction record for the artist.The wood panel, measuring 46 x 62.9 cm, depicts Mary holding Jesus as Joseph looks on and is estimated at $20-30 million. It last sold at Christie’s in 1878 when it was bought by the 4th Marquess of Bath. Christie’s said before the sale: “This is one of…

A long-lost painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that was labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis and languished in a German private collection for more than 80 years has sold for 7 million euros ($7.5 million) at Berlin’s Ketterer Art Gallery. Diverse Tan (1911), previously thought lost and known only from black-and-white photographs, reappeared at auction on June 7, exceeding its high estimate of €2 million ($2.1 million). The 4-by-5-foot painting was created during Kirchner’s tenure as leader of the Bridge Group, an artist group closely associated with German Expressionism. It depicts a black man dancing with a white woman at a…