Brooklyn polymath, Erik Zajaceskowski, has been making his imprint on the borough’s art and nightlife scenes for nearly two decades. Zajaceskowski and friends launched Mighty Robot, an illegal art and party loft, during Williamsburg’s cultural heydey in the late 1990s. During that time, he forged many connections that remain essential to his art making and curating. Mighty Robot eventually became Secret Project Robot, Zajaceskowski and Rachel Nelson’s acclaimed Bushwick performance space, music venue, and gallery.
Art News
This summer in Chicago, public art is being used as a call to action. Fifty-one 6 foot lighthouse sculptures that have been decorated by national and local Chicago artists, many with disabilities, are now on display on North Michigan Avenue, Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.
The Queens Museum presents the eighth Queens International. Since its inauguration in 2002, this biennial exhibition has highlighted the contemporary cultural production of Queens communities in formats driven by the artists represented, the perspectives of its curators, and current social and cultural issues. QI 2018, titled Volumes, follows in this tradition, and for the first time includes a partnership with the Queens Library.
Bonhams offered a number of high-quality furnishings, accessories, and art for their Home and Interiors Auction this morning. The total sale was £747,950, or $983,239 USD. Sets of silver candelabra from the Painted Hall in Greenwich were a highlight of the Auction. Commissioned in 1939, bearing the monogram of reigning monarch George VI, the meticulously cleaned and restored candelabra add elegance and grandeur to their surroundings.
Skinner’s tradition of notable Americana sales continues with auctions on August 12 & 13 and an online auction August 6-14. The two-day and online sales comprise nearly 1500 lots of fine American folk art, furniture, ceramics, and maritime antiques.
This month the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) presents the first west coast retrospective of award-winning documentary photographer Susan Meiselas. Mediations, which was first exhibited in Barcelona and Paris, is accompanied by a book of the same title. Known for her work in conflict zones and in documenting human rights abuses, Meiselas has been a member of Magnum Photos, an international cooperative of photographers, since the 1970s.
LOS ANGELES–During the seventeenth century, Dutch political and religious freedom as well as maritime trade and military strength ushered in an era of economic prosperity. In this golden age, artists inspired by the everyday made vast numbers of highly finished drawings. Masterful Likeness: Dutch Drawings of the Golden Age, on view July 24–October 28, 2018, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, brings together landscapes, topographical views, portraits, and scenes of daily life, underscoring Dutch artists’ masterful description of the world around them.
In a new exhibition, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) showcases their collected works of Constantin Brancusi, one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th Century. The exhibition includes eleven sculptures, shown together for the first time, as well as drawings, photographs, and films, some of which Brancusi made in his studio with his friend Man Ray. Rare archival material illuminates the artist’s process and many of Brancusi’s relationships with friends, patrons, models, and museums.
On June 29, the collaborative project Condo, which invites galleries to stage exhibitions outside their home city, opened its second New York iteration. Founded in London in 2016, Condo has since expanded to host cities across the world, including Mexico City, Shanghai, and São Paulo. This year’s New York roster of 47 galleries across 21 spaces is similarly international, engaging participants from Cairo to Dubai to Auckland with particularly robust domestic and Western European representation.
A fine late-17th century quarter repeating table clock by Thomas Tompion sold for £248,750 at Bonhams Fine Clocks Sale in London on Wednesday 11 July.
