The White House’s recent push to reshape President Donald Trump’s image at the National Portrait Gallery raises questions about who gets to write history and who gets to erase it. A series of interactions between the current administration and this particular Smithsonian institution during the past year has made clear the extent to which Trump is invested in curating his own national story.
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In October 1900, a 19-year-old Picasso first arrived in Paris to visit the World’s Fair while simultaneously navigating the road to recognition in the city’s art scene. His first sale—three small canvases depicting bull-fights—sold for just 100 francs to Berthe Weill, an up-and-coming gallerist. Before long, Weill had sold the trio, with a profit of 50 francs, to publisher Adolphe Brisson.
Ironically, the most iconic portrait of the president was never completed.
The Persian Gulf is witnessing unprecedented art fair expansions as major players like Art Basel and Frieze compete for dominance outside slower American and European markets. Despite the Middle East’s reputation for a thin collector base, vast individual wealth and recent government investments in art are drawing auction houses and dealers to the region.
This past February, the Art Institute of Chicago became the recipient of a transformational gift, approximately 2,250 works of French art spanning the 16th through 19th centuries, said to be the largest holding of its kind in the United States. The donors were collectors Jeffrey Horvitz, a private investor, and his wife, Carol, a trustee of the Art Institute.
Dadaism or Dada is an art movement of the early twentieth century characterized by irreverence, subversion, and nonsense. Dada art, performance, and poetry emerged in Zurich as a reaction to the horror and misfortune of World War I.
One of the most lively and engaging events on the international art scene, Mexico City Art Week made its return with Zona Maco leading the way, followed by Feria Material, Salón ACME, CLAVO, and Unique Design X—making the cosmopolitan capital the place to be at the start of February.
I was working in music and playing poker, and the combination of those things led me to the art world. I’m from a highly educated yet not affluent background, and I had never thought much about the art world, never met a working artist or a gallery owner. Then I met Slater Bradley, who was at the time the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum. He invited me to an all-artists poker game at Dirk Skreber’s studio in Brooklyn.
When the flurry of Los Angeles art fairs commences in late February, it will do so in a markedly different environment than last year. Five fairs, along with numerous satellite events, will unfold during LA’s art week.
The word salon has a rich history of its own and was even used to indicate several different things within France in this period including an elite social gathering often led by a woman, a large reception hall, or an academic art exhibition.
