April 2023 Art News

At Large
Alexander Calder's Balancing Act in Art and Life
Alexander Calder, Eagle, 1971, painted steel, Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA

Iconic American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898―1976) invented “mobiles”―carefully balanced, often whimsical kinetic hanging sculptures, powered by wind or motors.

At Large
The Whitney’s Plan to Deaccession an Edward Hopper Sparks Conversations on Museum Ethics
Edward Hopper, Cobb's Barns, South Truro (1930–1933). Josephine N. Hopper Bequest.COURTESY THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

The first director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred H. Barr Jr, said that a museum was a vehicle in motion: forward-moving, adaptive, and contemporary.

At Large
Digging up Gender Identity in Viking Burials
Katheryn Winnick as Lagertha from the popular History Channel show Vikings. Characters such as Lagertha exemplify the modern fascination with Viking warrior women, also known as Shield Maidens. Though dramatized for TV by Winnick, Lagertha is thought to be a historical individual known mainly through Norwegian folktales and the Danish history written in the 12th century CE by Saxo Grammaticus.

The concept of gender has proven to be a tempestuous topic for decades now.

Museum
In George Condo’s Mind at the Morgan Library
Untitled, 2009. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Blake and Courtney Johnson, Los Angeles, CA, 2021.111. Photography by Janny Chiu. © George Condo, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
With, “Entrance to the Mind: Drawings by George Condo,” The Morgan Library offers a modest, but impactful, survey of the artist’s works on paper dating as far back as the mid-1970s.
Studio
Anna Weyant Embraces Dark Humor Through Realist Painting
A woman sits at a bar, seemingly alone, laughing with a bandaged hand and a glass of wine
Art & Object looks back at a 2021 conversation with the in-demand artist to discuss her initial interest in art, opportunities that have come her way and how they have impacted her work, and her paintings in "Loose Screw," her LA solo show premiere at Blum & Poe.
At Large
The Crazy Story of Fake Basquiats in Orlando
From Thad Mumford’s storage unit, said to be by Basquiat, “Untitled (Self-portrait with his cowboy hat and wearing Leonardo da Vinci’s flying suit),” from 1982 on corrugated cardboard.

If you haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on at the Orlando Museum of Art, buckle in, this one is weird and getting more interesting by the day. Last week, Los Angeles based auctioneer Michael Barzman confessed to playing a major role in producing dozens of fake Jean-Michel Basquiat works, many of which were displayed in a 2022 exhibition at the OMA, “Heroes & Monsters.”  In the plea agreement that was also filed last week, Barzman agreed to plead guilty to the felony offense and made a series of admissions about the fake paintings.

At Large
Female Photographers Who Shaped the Way We Look at the World
Margaret Bourke-White, photograph from “Franklin Roosevelt’s Wild West,” LIFE, November 23, 1936
All employed by LIFE magazine, these women—six of the most important photographers of the past century—contributed to the development of modern photojournalism between the 1930s and the early 1970s.
At Large
How to be an Ethical Tourist in Archeological Sites and Museums
A Monet painting, Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, was purposefully punched by a visitor at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The man’s actions left three large rips in the paintings canvas. Credit: SWNS via Metro
For many first-time visitors, there is a special kind of excitement that accompanies seeing a famous archaeological monument or work of art in person.
At Large
Giorgio Morandi: Art for Art’s Sake
Fondazione Magnani-Rocca ©DACS 2022
Attention to detail, subtle shifts of perspective, angles of surface, and objects overlapping or jutted up against one another; Giorgio Morandi’s sheer inventiveness with ordinary objects is distinctive.
At Large
How Soviet Non-Conformist Art Challenged Creative Repression in the USSR
Erik Bulatov, Danger, 1972-1973, Oil on canvas, Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris, 2000.0868, Photo Peter Jacobs
Non-Conformist Art was counter-culture art that went against the state-approved Socialist Realism in the former Soviet Union in the latter half of the 20th century.
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