Disney-Britton

CHRISTIES Zhang Xiaogang (China, b. 1958), Vast Ocean, 1989 . Oil on paper, 54.6 x 78.5 cm. (21½ x 30⅞ in). Sold for $315,69). This work was offered in the Asian Contemporary Art (Day Sale) on 29 May 2016 at Christie’s in Hong Kong In this exclusive interview, China’s leading contemporary artist [ Zhang Xiaogang ] talks to specialist Tianyue Jiang about his career, [and] his creative process:..."I once said to the media that I demand too much of myself. If I were a conceptual or installation artist, I would think about exactly how my next piece of work would turn out. But as a painter, if I worked tirelessly for a year and advanced just one centimetre, I would feel this was an enormous triumph." [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Hassan Hajjaj, Mr Toliver, 2010, Metallic lambda print on 3mm white dibond, 53 1/2h x 39 5/8w in, 136h x 100.5w cm. Courtesy of the Newark Museum TENNESSEE---The Brooks Museum of Art showcases Moroccan-born, UK-based art Hassan Hajjaj and the eclectic group of nine musicians from around the world whom the artist sees as his own personal “rock stars.” The exhibition, "Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars" features the artist’s video of these musicians, composed of nine separately-filmed performances each in the same compositional format as accompanying photographs. The video and related photographs are being presented in a salon environment designed by Hajjaj to evoke the color, style, and energy of a contemporary Moroccan marketplace.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Martin Wittfooth. Incantation. Oil on canvas, 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Featured in Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose. VIRGINIA---The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is featuring some of the foremost contemporary artists through a ten year retrospective of the art magazine, Hi-Fructose . "Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose" is a collaborative initiative by two like-minded organizations – MOCA in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Hi-Fructose The New Contemporary Art Magazine in San Francisco, California. This exhibition is a unique opportunity to bring a broad spectrum of religious and non-religious themed artwork by over 50 artists from the pages of magazines and computer screens to the walls of a contemporary art museum dedicated to educating on the significant art of today.

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Glenn Kenny Oscar Isaac as En Sabah Nur in “X-Men: Apocalypse,” directed by Bryan Singer. Credit 20th Century Fox Film Corporation “Mutants are born with extraordinary abilities,” James McAvoy says as this movie begins in darkness. He pronounces “extraordinary” in the same plummy way that British actors have been doing since, oh, “Lawrence of Arabia,” at least. The darkness gives way to the largely C.G.I.-generated landscape of “Egypt, 3,600 B.C.” Inside a pyramid, a peculiar ritual is taking place. Stone-faced royals and functionaries partaking in it sport jewelry, makeup and scars that once again inspire a viewer to ponder why contemporary Hollywood insistently looks to Burning Man to inform its vision of the ancient world. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS [ AOPrize Finalist: Click to Vote ] By Ernest &  Gregory Disney-Britton "LOVE" (1966) by Robert Indiana. Collection of Indianapolis Museum of Art Everyone knows  Robert Indiana (American, 1928-) for his LOVE painting and sculpture. As a celebrated Pop artist, he uses flat, graphic manipulation of words, symbols, colors and spaces to bounce off one another in dynamic relationships. But did you also know the creator is an openly gay artist from Indiana, and that the inspiration for his art is Christian rather than sexual? Robert Indiana grew up in the purest tradition of the Church of Christ, Scientist . Their churches have no religious decoration, except perhaps a simple inscription such as "God Is Love." This summer, the Indianapolis Museum of Art presents Robert Indiana's Christian inspired work in a group exhibition, " The 19 Stars of Indiana Art: A Bicentennial Celebration ."

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Sleep" 2008 is an oil on canvas by Kehinde Wiley at the Cincinnati Art Museum OHIO---The Cincinnati Art Museum presents "30 Americans," a showcase of art by many of the most important African-American artists of the last three decades including Kehinde Wiley . This provocative exhibition focuses on issues of racial, gender, and historical identity in contemporary culture while exploring the powerful influence of artistic legacy and community across generations. The works are drawn primarily from the Rubell Family Collection.

ARTDAILY Mohannad Orabi, Untitled, Mu'allaqat series, 2016, Mixed media on curtain, 274 x 235 cm. LEBANON--- Ayyam Gallery Beirut presents Mohannad Orabi’s most recent body of work in a solo exhibition titled Mu'allaqat. Alluding to the seven ancient pre-Islamic Arabic poems that were written in gold and suspended from the Ka’ba’s black cloths, Mu'allaqat consists of hanging curtains on which Orabi’s signature, larger-than-life characters demonstrate how a transformation in the artist’s attitude towards life trickles down into his practice. Born in Damascus in 1977, Mohannad Orabi currently lives and works in Dubai. Orabi graduated from the Faculty of Fine Art in Damascus in 2000 and won the first prize in The Syrian National Young Artists Exhibition in 2006.[ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ken Johnson “Untitled, 7 July 1962,” by Lucas Samaras. Credit Lucas Samaras, The Morgan Library & Museum NEW YORK---Back in the late 1950s, when ambitious painters were obliged to produce big, bold abstractions, Lucas Samaras took up pastel, a fragile, intimate medium that had not given rise to history-making oeuvres since the days of Edgar Degas and Odilon Redon. It’s noteworthy that Mr. Samaras, who was born in Greece and came to the United States at 11, was raised Greek Orthodox, and a religious feeling persists in his work. Of the hundreds of pastels Mr. Samaras has made, 48 are on view in “Dreams in Dust: The Pastels of Lucas Samaras,” an intensely absorbing exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum . [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEW YORK---This September's exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will illuminate the key role that the Holy City played in shaping the art of the period from 1000 to 1400. This will be the first exhibition to unravel the various cultural traditions and aesthetic strands that enriched and enlivened the medieval city. Over 200 works of art will be gathered from some 60 lenders worldwide. Nearly a quarter of the objects will come from Jerusalem, including key loans from its religious communities, some of which have never before shared their treasures outside their walls.

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Elisabetta Povoledo Hannah Rawcliffe, a doctoral student at Indiana University, photographing the Uffizi Gallery’s collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary, to eventually create high-resolution 3-D models. Credit Politecnico di Milano ITALY---The Uffizi Gallery has started a project in collaboration with Indiana University to digitize its collection of ancient sculpture, with the goal of making it accessible on the web by 2020. Students in Indiana University’s new Ph.D program in virtual heritage, along with Italian colleagues here in Florence, will photograph the museum’s collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary, a total of about 1,250 pieces, between the Uffizi itself and the Pitti Palace and Boboli gardens on the other side of the Arno River. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Randy Kennedy Rembrandt’s “Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver.” Credit Rembrandt van Rijn, via The National Gallery, London NEW YORK---The Dutch diplomat and poet Constantijn Huygens, referring to a small painting by a 23-year-old upstart named Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn , wrote, “Compare this with all Italy, indeed, with everything beautiful and admirable that has been preserved from the earliest antiquity.” But on Friday, June 3, “Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver” goes on view at the Morgan Library & Museum , the first time it has been shown in the United States, along with works from the Morgan’s own collection that help chart the development of the style that came to define the Baroque. [ link ]

ARTNEWS By Nate Freeman The Paddle8 offices. COURTESY PADDLE8 NEW YORK---Online auction house Paddle8 has suffered a number of defections from its top ranks, while also laying off several employees, as the company adjusts to its merger with rival startup Auctionata , ARTnews has learned. In recent weeks over a dozen staffers have left either on their own volition or at the behest of the company, marking a realignment of its priorities as it forges ahead alongside its new partner. Of the 16 Paddle8 cofounders, directors, and business executives featured in a photo spread accompanying a W magazine print feature just a year ago, nearly half are now gone. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES  By Robin Pogrebin Works from the Josef Albers series “Homage to the Square” will be at one of David Zwirner’s Chelsea galleries in November. Credit 2016 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York NEW YORK---When the dealer Leslie Waddington died in 2015, the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation decided to seek new gallery representation with a request for proposals akin to an architectural competition. In November an exhibition at Zwirner’s gallery at West 20th Street in Chelsea, will focus on Albers, including pieces from his “Homage to the Square” series, which Mr. Leiber called “one of the great achievements of the 20th century.” Mr. Weber once wrote that the works were “hymns to the infinite possibilities, both physical and spiritual, of hue and light.” [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Robert Indiana (American, b. 1928), LOVE, 1966, oil on canvas, 71-7/8 × 71-7/8 × 2-1/2 in. Indianapolis Museum of Art, James E. Roberts Fund, 67.8 © 2016 Morgan Art Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. INDIANA---Everyone knows him for his LOVE painting and sculpture, but there is much more to Robert Indiana than just LOVE. Born in New Castle, Indiana, Robert Clark changed his last name to Indiana in 1958 in honor of his home state. This exhibition, " The 19 Stars of Indiana Art: A Bicentennial Celebration " celebrates the artistic achievements of men and women who were born, raised, or worked in Indiana (Ends January 2017). The quality and variety of the contributions of Indiana's artists have created legacies of regional, national, and international distinction.

HYPERALLERGIC By Stan Mir Quentin Morris in his studio, Philadelphia, PA - March 28, 2007 PENNSYLVANIA---When Quentin Morris begins a painting the only thing he knows is that it will be black. This has been true for him since 1963. Like much monochromatic work, Morris’s only appears to be so. In his current exhibition at Larry Becker Contemporary Art , a powdered pigment and Rhoplex painting from December 1980, and another from December 2015, made with silkscreen printing ink and polymer acrylic, reveal traces of blue and green underneath the black. Morris, who is African American and practices Nichiren Buddhism, lives and paints in the Point Breeze section of South Philadelphia where he was raised. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS INDIANA---Often described as the Evansville-area’s “Queen of Assemblage Art”, Ann Lannert was a prolific artist who graced the community with her eclectic found-object, mixed-media oeuvre of work. Hundreds of pieces of art were left in Ann’s place, and her family has worked diligently to make sure that they find homes. After bestowing many to local universities and institutions, over 90 remain. The Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana is displaying and selling these pieces for one week only. This is the public’s chance to have a piece of this woman’s magic in their lives. Ann’s children have purposefully priced the work to sell; they want everyone to have the opportunity to add a Lannert to their collection.

THE CREATORS PROJECT By Ysabelle Cheung Orca, Blue, 1969. Single wall projection, dimensions variable. Photograph by Florian Holzherr © James Turrell, courtesy Pace Gallery NEW YORK---As much as James Turrell is fascinated with the earthbound qualities of light and shadows, he is also always looking upwards—to the invisible and unstructured quarries of space. His meeting rooms, enclosed areas with apertures that allow only a cluster of people in at a time, reveal a direct connection between earth and the galaxies above. Meanwhile, his light sculptures are attempts to create dimensionalities that merge the formless, unexplained miasmas usually associated with space, and humbler shapes familiar to our everyday lives: a cube or a pyramid.  To learn more, visit P ace Gallery  through June 18th in New York and Palo Alto, California.  [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 3, 8-9)" by Ruth Schreiber Israeli-based artist  Ruth Schreiber spent 25 years raising her family and working in research, art and design. Since 1997, she has been a docent at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. At the same time, she has been developing her own work with a variety of media including ceramic, video, and photography. "I have been working on a series of photographs illustrating critical moments in the Jewish Bible and related sources," said  Schreiber, "which depict powerful, independent women." I attach most of them here, for your reaction." Ruth has exhibited and sold her art in Israel, Europe, and North America. [ artist-page ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES  By James Poniewozik The AMC graphic is fairly reminiscent of the cover to the comic’s first issue, which hit stands back in 1995. That cover, by the way, was done by Glenn Fabry. Jesse Custer ( Dominic Cooper ) is going through hell. Or rather, hell — or heaven, or some combination of the two — is going through him. Whatever it is, a supernatural force has rudely taken up residence in his body, giving him great power and a tremendous headache. “ Preacher ,” which [began] Sunday on AMC, is a story about good and evil and what lies beyond mortal existence, but it doesn’t spend much time in quiet contemplation of the eternal mysteries. It’s a blasphemous blood bath, a metaphysical action caper, stylized and splattery, that doesn’t have great depth but makes up for it with volume. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS [ AOPrize Finalist: Vote Here ] By Ernest &  Gregory Disney-Britton "Jesus the Hunter" (detail) When we hear of people making associations with violence, politics, and religion, we turn to contemporary artists to explain the debate. This week when Donald Trump told the National Rifle Association that Hillary Clinton, his likely Democratic opponent in the presidential election, “wants to take away your guns,” we turned to Michele Castagnetti's   "Jesus the Hunter." The two-foot statuette shows Jesus wearing a rifle , and whether pro-gun or anti-gun—the image is a reminder of the hypocrisy of linking Christ and guns. Art of the religious imagination speaks louder than any politician.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Anthea Butler WASHINGTON, DC---Following the well-worn trail of African American Religion defined as protestant church experience, partriarchal norms, fight for civil rights, obscure the religious stories that waiting for discovery, and dissemination. The idea and ideal of the Black church, and the narrative of slavery, freedom, civil rights and the “promised land” of freedom, economic empowerment, and the blessings of God have permeated the publics’ imagination of what constitutes Black religion, history, and the role of religion in public life. [ link ]

ARTNET NEWS By Ben Davis Mark Ryden, "Rosie's Tea Party" (2003). Photo courtesy Mark Ryden. VIRGINIA---It's a tempest in a tea party. Specifically, it's a crusade over a painting of a tea party, and one that involves threats to revoke a museum's public funding, in the latest battle in the decades-long American culture wars. The outrage this time around is inspired by Rosie's Tea Party, a 2003 painting by the self-professed "pop surrealist" artist Mark Ryden , included in a show opening Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach . Local media has gotten in on the story, and the kerfuffle has now attracted the attention of hard-right Catholic League head Bill Donohue, who issued a letter targeting museum director Debi Gray. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Roberta Smith Mysteries of the Holy Rosary Joyful - The Nativity. Artists Le Nain, Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu. TEXAS---One of the least-known sources of modern realism will be honored Sunday, May 22, in Fort Worth, where the Kimbell Art Museum is opening “The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-Century France.” Contemporaries of Velazquez and Georges de La Tour, the brothers — Antoine, Louis and Mathieu — were prominent in Paris in the 1630s and 1640s. Collective anonymity has always seemed appropriate to the way the Le Nain brought painting down to earth, but this rare overview of 44 paintings — including less radical religious works — also presents new scholarship regarding which brother did what. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Melenda Ryzik Regé-Jean Page and Anika Noni Rose in the remake of “Roots,” which will air over four nights starting on Memorial Day. In a wooded grove in this town near Baton Rouge, La., a television crew was meticulously recreating the brutal Civil War battle of Fort Pillow, for a remake of “Roots,” the seminal mini-series about slavery. The carnage in the fight was significant: After Union soldiers surrendered, the Confederates disproportionately took white soldiers hostage as prisoners of war and slaughtered hundreds of black soldiers, sending survivors into the slave trade. This massacre was not in the original “Roots,” broadcast in 1977, which is exactly why the producers of the new one chose to include it. It is one of many unexpected historical details put onscreen in “Roots,” which will air over four nights starting on Memorial Day. [ link ]

THE HUFFINGTON POST By Anna Marks Pietà (The Empire Never Ended by Paul Fryer. Image courtesy the artist For many artists, depicting Christ is not only an artistic challenge, but also a theological and political one, producing provocative results that question religion's validity and the politics ascribed to it. Although controversial, these artists remind us that religious beliefs and opinions are idiosyncratic concepts, and in our Western world it is freely up to the individual to decide both what they would like to depict, and what they'll debate. Similarly to traditional Christian art, contemporary art has enabled us to recognize societal transformations over time. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Thomas Erdbrink Iranian women in Tehran last month. Credit Vahid Salemi/Associated Press IRAN---Iran’s judiciary unleashed one of its periodic crackdowns on social media permissiveness on Sunday, announcing the arrest of eight people involved in online modeling without a mandatory head scarf and questioning another woman, a former model, live on state television on Sunday. “The enemy is investing in order to create a generation without any willpower,” the prosecutor said of social media. “We must refrain from any actions that run counter to the values of the establishment.” [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Robin Pogrebin The art collector Adam Lindemann. Credit Ungano + Agriodimas Twenty-four hours after Adam Lindemann sold a Jean-Michel Basquiat at Christie’s for $57.3 million — an auction record for the artist — he found himself in the role of bidder as selling began for a 1942 Calder standing mobile at Sotheby’s last Wednesday night. “He’s part of the trade,” said Brett Gorvy, Christie’s worldwide chairman of postwar and contemporary art. “He’s been a collector and a dealmaker for most of his career, he knows all the ins and outs of what actually happens in an auction room. He’s used to selling and trading up. [ link ]

THE KRAKOW POST The mural commemorating the work of Ephraim Moses Lilien was created by the Broken Fingaz graffiti crew, which was formed in Israel in 2005. The young and fresh emergence of Jewish culture can be seen through the city’s street art. We explore the significance and creation of two fascinating murals in this installment of Jewish Krakow. Ephraim Lilien was a Polish Art Nouveau illustrator and photographer known as the “First Zionist Artist” as he worked with Jewish themes, biblical subjects, and a Zionist context. He was born in 1874 in Galicia and spent much of his life in Israel working with Lithuanian sculptor and artist Boris Schatz to establish the renowned Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By James Glanz and Rami Nazzal isitors last week at the new Palestinian Museum in Birzeit in the West Bank. It will open its doors on Wednesday despite being empty. Credit Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times WEST BANK---When the $24 million Palestinian Museum celebrates its opening on Wednesday, it will have almost everything: a stunning, contemporary new building; soaring ambitions as a space to celebrate and redefine Palestinian art, history and culture; an outdoor amphitheater; a terraced garden. One thing the museum will not have is exhibitions. The long-planned — and much-promoted — inaugural show, “Never Part,” highlighting artifacts of Palestinian refugees, has been suspended after a disagreement between the museum’s board and its director, which led to the director’s ouster. [ link ]

CHRISTIANITY TODAY By Andre Mitchell A man protests in front of Parliament during the final vote on gay and unmarried civil unions at Italy's lower house of Parliament in Rome on May 11, 2016. ITALY---Although the unions will not be called "marriage," they will confer many of the rights and privileges of marriage, with the exception of the right to adopt, which may still be awarded by judges on a case-by-case basis. Roman Catholic Church leaders and conservative Italian politicians lamented the Chamber of Deputies' approval of the gay civil unions bill. With this, it is now up to Italian President Sergio Mattarella to either pass or veto the bill, with the latter scenario deemed as highly unlikely. [ link ]

CHRISTIE'S Fernando Botero (b. 1932), Arzobispo de un año de edad, 1968. Oil on canvas. 52 1/2 x 64 in. (133.4 x 162.6 cm.) Estimate: $300,000-500,000. This work is offered in the Latin American Art sale on 25-26 May at Christie’s New York “By being inflated,” Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa has written, “ [Fernando] Botero’s characters and objects become light and serene, achieving a primordial and innocuous state.” Such words aptly describe the artist’s Arzobispo de un año de edad, whose titular protagonist conforms to Botero’s characteristic style of corpulent figures with fleshy curves. With his round, ruddy cheeks and pudgy fingers extended in blessing, the weight of the archbishop creates soft puckers in the pink pillow and luminescent sheets upon which he rests. Indeed, although wearing the official insignia of his profession, the young clergyman is little more than an innocent toddler, whose flowing white vestments doubly evoke a sumptuous baptismal gown...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "The David" (1501-1504) by Michelangelo. Photo taken by Mick Ampy in May 2016 at the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence ITALY---During their 10-day honeymoon in Italy, A&O board member, Pastor Vivian Ampy and Mick Ampy will visit many important churches, and the first was St. John Lateran (San Giovanni in Laterano) . It was the first church that Christians were authorized to build after receiving permission from emperor Constantin. Later, the emperor also converted to Christianity and legalized the religion with the Edict of Milan in 313 AD. The Basilica is the official ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome, a title and honour appointed by definition to the Pope. The Ampy's were married in Indianapolis on Saturday, and today is the first day of their honeymoon.

CHRISTIES An illustration to the Sat Sai of Bihārī: Tossing a flower. Garhwal, north India, circa 1790-1800. 9 3/4 x 7 in. (24.8 x 18 cm.). Estimate: £10,000-20,000. This work is offered in Arts of India on 26 May at Christie’s in London This work is from a famous series illustrating the Sat Sai, or Seven Hundred Verses — a poem by the Hindi poet Bihārī (1595-1663) which is perhaps the most famed and lyrical Indian celebration of love. It tells the love story of Radha and Krishna — the revered ‘God of Love’ — as well as focusing on aspects of religion and devotion. Central to the work is a description of the lovers’ reunion after a long period apart. This work shows the joyful encounter between Radha and Krishna in the palace courtyard, with a small white flower, just visible against the landscape, tossed into the air as a symbol of their happiness. In the background not far from the flower is a herd of cows, which are traditionally associated with Krishna. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS [ AOPrize Finalist: Vote Here ] By Ernest &  Gregory Disney-Britton "Rising From the Fire" (2016) by Philip Campbell Color makes a statement during these weeks since Easter, most noticeably today on Pentecost Sunday. The Easter season is 50 days long, with the Feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-13), marking its fiery end. Indianapolis-based artist  Philip Campbell captures that Spirit in " Rising From the Fire ," a 2016 painted wood block carving. When Christians embrace the color red on Pentecost Sunday, we do more than just remember a past event. We celebrate a living reality in which God rises like fire inside his people. But then again, sometimes red is just red.

THE CREATORS PROJECT By Isobel Beech "Snake base" by Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran AUSTRALIA---Only three years out of his Fine Arts degree, Sydney-based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran has held eight solo shows, received numerous accolades, and has been part of countless group exhibitions. Nithiyendran’s work jumps out at you—warped and melty and often involving overt references to male anatomy. That is to say, covered in dicks. He finds phallus worship to be an engaging paradigm. “I’m also interested in the ways in which imagery and understandings of the phallus are presented in non-misogynistic forms,” Nithiyendran says, telling us that this is where his research into Hindu constructions of phallocentrism comes into play. While he has Hindu heritage, Nithiyendran is a confident atheist. [ link ]

LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS By Antonie Boessenkool One of the three replicated caves in The Getty Center’s new exhibit “Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China?s Silk Road”. The caves are exact replicas of existing ancient caves in the Gobi desert. The exhibit is a realization of a 25 year effort to bring the caves to Los Angele. — Matt Masin, staff photographer CALIFORNIA---A bit of China has arrived in Los Angeles, in the form of an extensive exhibit at the Getty Center that re-creates an ancient landmark along the legendary Silk Road. The Cave Temples of Dunhuang, also called the Mogao Caves, is a complex of almost 500 caves in northwest China that was active between the fourth and 14th centuries. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The caves were a thriving center for Buddhism. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ken Johnson Mr. Serra’s “Every Which Way” (2015). Credit Philip Greenberg for The New York Times NEW YORK---Richard Serra may have his ideological detractors, but he is certainly today’s greatest living sculptor of Minimalist abstraction. Exhibitions of new works occupying Gagosian Gallery’s two Chelsea display spaces find Mr. Serra at 76 still wrangling fundamentals of shape, space, gravity and time into objects and installations of thrilling severity. Like the Rothko Chapel, this is a space for meditating on terrestrial perception and cosmic ineffabilities. [ link ]

NUVO MAGAZINE By Dan Grossman "Rising From the Fire" (2016) by Philip Campbell INDIANA--- The Dubious Lives of Ordinary Men might be seen of the passing of the torch in a way, from the artist-run-spaces and art galleries that dominated the scene in the '90s and '00s to the arts nonprofits that dominate the scene today. In any case, [Philip] Campbell's positive experiences at iMOCA and Harrison (both nonprofits) are the fruits of a vibrant Indy arts culture that Campbell helped to create. "My recent experience with nonprofit spaces has been really incredible," says Campbell. "The Harrison is doing everything right ... It's a real community." [ link ]

LIVE SCIENCE By Owen Jarus This sculpture, uncovered in the ancient city of Bazira, tells a Buddhist story involving Siddhartha, who later became the Gautama Buddha. Credit: Photo by Aurangzeib Khan, Courtesy ACT/Italian Archaeological Missio PAKISTAN---Sculptures and carvings dating back more than 1,700 years have been discovered in the remains of a shrine and its courtyard in the ancient city of Bazira. The sculptures illustrate the religious life of the city, telling tales from Buddhism and other ancient religions. Also called Vajirasthana, Bazira is located the in the Swat Valley in Pakistan. It was first constructed as a small town, during the second century B.C., and eventually developed into a city located within the Kushan Empire. At its peak, this empire ruled territory extending from modern-day India to central Asia. [ link ]

HYPERALLERGIC By Linda Theung Race and Ethnicity (Curators, Conservators, Educators and Leadership Only) There’s a saying: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” A new lawsuit by a woman named Samantha Niemann embodies this phenomenon. A closer look reveals that 84% of non-Hispanic whites dominate positions that contribute to the “intellectual and educational mission of museums,” such as directors, curators, conservators, etc. Exhibitions, education programs, public programs, and even the books being published by museums do not reflect the demographics of this country. While the missions of museums are undoubtedly good, the public is only being offered the perspective of the 84% supermajority. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Ernest Disney-Britton Alexander McQueen/Damien Hirst Red Psalm Skull Butterfly Silk Scarf A few verses from Romans 8 encourage a spirit-filled creativity and courage, and Pentecost is a day for spiritual seekers who will choose to wear red this Sunday. That's why we were excited to come across this "Red Psalm Skull Butterfly" scarf. Created through a collaboration between British bad-boy of contemporary art, British-based artist  Damien Hirst  and fashion designer  Alexander McQueen , the result is a magnificent work born of a love for the quirkiness of Nature. [ Purchase ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES  By Melena Ryzik Mr. Whiteley said that he hoped the gravestone, which appeared in Central Park in March, would make Donald J. Trump rethink his legacy. Credit Molly Krause Communications NEW YORK---It was the buzz at the door Brian Andrew Whiteley had been dreading for months. On Monday afternoon, a pair of police officers in plain clothes and a Secret Service agent appeared at his Brooklyn apartment. Mr. Whiteley, an artist, was nervous but not exactly surprised. On March 27, Easter Sunday, he had secretly dropped off his latest project in Central Park: a gravestone bearing the name of Donald J. Trump. The epitaph read “Made America Hate Again.” The stone was quickly removed by the parks department and confiscated by the police. [ link ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Gisela Williams Faig Ahmed Creates Glitched-Out Contemporary Rugs from Traditional Azerbaijani Textiles NEW YORK---The first time the artist Faig Ahmed worked with textiles was when he was a student at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Art in Baku: He stole rolls of printed fabric from the fashion department and used them to cover the school’s unattractive, five-story Soviet-era facade. He was promptly expelled, but now that same iconoclasm is creating a stir with his mind-bending carpets: traditional Azerbaijani designs that have been psychedelically reassembled. NYU Abu Dhabai: " Black Sheep " (Ends August 19, 2016). 19 Washington Square North, New York, NY; 212-992-7200; nyuad.nyu.edu. [ link ]

CHRISTIES By Michael Watts and Roger Davies Eli and Edythe Broad at their home, with Robert Rauschenberg, "Untitled," (1954). Portrait by Roger Davies courtesy of Architectural Digest © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/DACS, London/VAGA, New York CALIFORNIA--- Eli Broad and his wife Edythe started buying art because ‘life is richer when you live it among the dreamers’. They have focused on artists from their own time, whom they try to get to know and understand. That is how you build a great collection, they contend. Eli and Edye have spent decades investigating auctions, galleries and studios, researching and interrogating artists, and visiting international art fairs where a hound dog may pick up a juicy bone. All the time, their collection grew, spilling out from the three homes they own, until there were 2,000 artworks filling five warehouses; and then they knew that they must have their own building and open up their art to the people of Los Angeles. [ link ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Ernest &  Gregory Disney-Britton "The Ascension of Christ" (1958) by Salvador Dali In 1958, when Christians thought we had seen every angle of religious art, and artists had abandoned it...  Salvador Dali  painted "The Ascension of Christ." The painting is part of a series of images that came to Dali in a dream in 1950. This week, as Christians celebrated Christs ascension to heaven , this painting stands out because of what it says about what Christians treasure. In 2016, our Christian homes are filled with our treasures, but how many of those treasures reflect a love of Christ?

THE GUARDIAN By Mark Brown A detail from Glory Be to God by Georgiana Houghton UNITED KINGDOM---She has been dismissed as an eccentric, amateur artist who claimed to talk to the dead and receive their help with her watercolours. But Georgiana Houghton’s abstract style is beginning to be recognised as being decades ahead of painters in a similar vein such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Most of the loans for the Courtauld show are coming from the Victorian Spiritualists’ Union in Melbourne, Australia, the proud owner since 1910 of around 35 works by Houghton. She was a trained artist and medium and pioneered the use of drawing as a method of channeling and expressing communications with the dead. [ link ]

BBC NEWS  Illuminated interior of NVA's Hinterland, formerly known as St Peter's Seminary. Photo by Alaisdair Smith. SCOTLAND---For 30 years, one of the world’s most architecturally important buildings has stood neglected on Scotland’s west coast, falling inexorably into disrepair. Yet, perversely, the ruination of the former St Peter’s Seminary at Cardross has only enhanced its legend and its sense of presence. However, it served in this intended capacity for only a few years as the church changed policy and student numbers dwindled. Over three decades of neglect, it became a temple to graffiti artists and a playground for urban explorers, giving free rein to the imaginations of both. Now, almost exactly 50 years since it was built, the building has been reborn as the venue for Hinterland, a public arts project as daring and innovative as the building itself. [ link ]

APPOLLO MAGAZINE By Fatema Ahmed Installation view of 'It is what it is, and it ain't nothing else'. Photo by Stuart Whipps, courtesy of Ikon. © 2016 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York And now, the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham is presenting an exhibition called ‘It is what it is and it ain’t nothing else’. Despite the blunt title, taken from a forthright statement by Flavin himself, the gallery notes carefully explain that this is ‘not a didactic museum show, but rather an exercise of matching a judicious selection of Flavin’s work with the variety of interiors that Ikon Gallery has to offer’. It’s an unnecessarily defensive note to strike for an exhibition where the bold installation more than lives up to the show’s title. Dan Flavin once said: ‘Everything is clearly, openly, plainly delivered. There is no overwhelming spirituality you are supposed to come into contact with.’ [ More ]

HYPERALLERGIC By Olivia McEwan Eugène Delacroix, “Christ on the Sea of Galilee” (1853), cil on canvas, 50.8 x 61 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art) UNITED KINGDOM---What a shame, then, that its follow-up, " Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art ," conversely suffers from too few of Delacroix’s works and far too much of the “modern art.” The exhibition is more successful when it focuses on stylistic influence; Delacroix was considered a pioneer because his painterly approach departed from the Romantic movement’s slavish adherence to realism, using pure color — rather than composition — to communicate emotional and spiritual content. For once, there is convincing evidence of this in a sequence examining Delacroix’s religious works. [ link ]

THE GUARDIAN By Sarah Moroz Central Christian church in Mesa, Arizona. Photograph: Lisa Anne Auerbach "I started photographing megachurches as an oppositional idea,” explains Lisa Anne Auerbach , a California photographer and artist. “I had been doing a series about small freestanding businesses [encapsulating] this idea of America: you’re an individual, you hang up your shingle, you pick yourself up by your bootstrap, and become your own fantasy. I was thinking about megachurches being another part of the American dream – faith and family and community.” The top 50 in the country have more than 10,000 worshippers a week. [ link ]