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ARTDAILY Installation view COLUMBUS, GA.- The Bo Bartlett Center, an ambitious project fifteen years in the making, opened today at CSU’s Corn Center. Designed by Seattle-based architect Tom Kundig of Olson-Kundig, the 18,500 square foot facility will serve as a center for art and creativity that is at once a national arts institution and a community-based service organization, as well as exhibition space for both regional and national artists. In addition to featuring a retrospective of Columbus native and celebrated American Realist painter Bo Bartlett’s large scale works, some of them never-before-exhibited, an ancillary group show opened titled Peers & Influences in the Center’s Visiting Artist’s Gallery that is adjacent to the Main Gallery. [ More ]

TRT WORLD The Contemporary Arabesque exhibition at Jerusalem's Museum of Islamic Art explores modern interpretations of the iconic arabesque pattern created by local artists including Rimma Arslanov. Image courtesy of TimeOut   JERUSALEM---The ancient Islamic artistic style called arabesque is getting a reboot for the 21st century. The geometric motif first appeared in Islamic art in the 10th century, in architecture, textiles, pottery and metal vessels. Contemporary Arabesque, an exhibition at Jerusalem's Museum of Islamic Art explores modern interpretations of the iconic arabesque pattern created by local artists. "Arabesque is a very common and significant ornament in the world of Islam. The exhibition examines what the artists did with their motifs and how they create and express their own personal voice through by using them in their art," said Tamar Gispan-Greenberg, a curator of the exhibition. The exhibition runs until April 7 at the museum which holds 5,...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS The Adam & Eve Project opened at the Brampton Museum in Newcastle, England on January 13, and runs through February 25, 2018. The traveling exhibition includes new pieces by Sue Prince , Anna Thomas , Elizabeth Forrest and John Rattigan . It also includes the loan of a wood carving by Simon Manby produced of Adam & Eve in 1973.

IJR.COM By Tre Goins-Phillips Todd Williamson/Getty Images Google has decided to get rid of religion altogether after its virtual assistant was unable to answer questions about Jesus. The tech giant has garnered attention because its smart speaker, Google Home, wasn't programmed to give any answers about Jesus Christ's identity but could provide information about Buddha, Muhammad, and Satan, The Christian Post reported. In a statement shared via Twitter, Google claimed it didn't provide an answer to the question “Who is Jesus?” because the company wanted to “ensure respect.” Now, this is what Google Home says to religion-themed questions: “Religion can be complicated, and I'm still learning.” [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton "Let Freedom Ring. The Wedding Bells" by Tom Torluemke We married ten year's ago today at a small chapel in Niagara Falls, Canada and a few year's later we acquired  Tom Torluemke's  "Let Freedom Ring, The Wedding Bells" to celebrate that our marriage was now also legal in America. Today, we are renewing our wedding vows in Indianapolis at our home church, and tomorrow, we'll land in Key West for our second honeymoon. While only 33.38% of the people in Key West, affiliate with a religion, there's a good mix of faiths and places of worship and we consider it our home away from home. While we're away, collect your own prophetic work by one of our favorite artists Tom Torluemke .

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Farah Nayeri Valeria Napoleone at her home in London with a 2007 work by Nicole Eisenman, left, and a 1998 painting by Margherita Manzelli. Credit Tom Jamieson for The New York Times LONDON—In many of the world’s major museums, art by women can be hard to find. At the London home of Valeria Napoleone, that’s all there is. The Italian collector and philanthropist has made buying and backing female artists her central mission. A graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (where she studied art gallery administration), she moved to London from New York with her husband, Gregorio Napoleone, a financier, in 1998. The Kensington townhouse that they share with their three teenage children is filled with bold artwork by women. Overall, her collection now includes some 350 pieces. [ More ]

XINHUA By Guo Ying BEIJING--What did China's mythical beasts of 2,000 years ago look like? The recently published book "Mythic Beast" offers a glimpse. Illustrated by Shi Lin, a Chinese artist born in 1989, the book contains more than 30 pictures of ancient mythical beasts, such as the nine-tail fox as well as a horse-like animal with one sharp horn on its head and a dog-like nine-headed animal. Shi draws inspiration from the ancient Chinese classic "Shan Hai Jing" (Classic of Mountains and Seas), which dates back 2,200 years. Shan Hai Jing gives both a cultural and geographical account of China before the Qin Dynasty. It contains geography, folklore, rich legends and fairy tales. [ More ]

WATFORD OBSERVER By Mattie Lacey-Davidson "Moses" by Alva (1901-1973). Ben Uri Collection, object type paintingAccession number 1987-8 BUSHEY, UK---B ushey Museum and Art Gallery this week announced a partnership exhibition with Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London. From tomorrow more than 70 artworks by a range of artists, including famous names such as Frank Auerbach, Leon Bakst, David Bomberg, Marc Chagall, Naum Gabo, Mark Gertler, R.B. Kitaj, Leon Kossoff, Jacob Kramer and Camille Pissarro, as well as a number of less well-known artists, will be on display as part of a loan exhibition from the Ben Uri Collection. The Ben Uri Art Society emerged from the Jewish community in 1915 in London’s East End. Named in The Book of Exodus: Bezalel Ben Uri was an artist-craftsman of high renown, skilled in painting and working invaluable woods as well as precious metals and stones. [ More ]

TIMES OF ISRAEL A section of Gustav Klimt's Beethoven Frieze (Photo credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons) VIENNA (AFP) — Vienna is marking 100 years since the death of a string of luminaries from its fin-de-siecle glory days with an avalanche of exhibitions of modernist art, design and architecture that still inspire and shock today. The year 1918 did not only mark defeat in World War I and the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire but also saw artists Gustav Klimt , Egon Schiele and Koloman Moser and architect Otto Wagner pass away. Klimt died from a stroke at 55, an infection claimed Wagner’s life at 76 and cancer killed Moser aged 50. Schiele survived being conscripted into the war only to die in the Spanish flu pandemic, three days after his pregnant wife Edith. He was just 28. [ More ]

KASHMIR MONITOR By P.K.Balachandran In a video address at the opening of the Pakistan Single Country Exhibition here on January 12, Prime Minister Shahid Abbasi made a fervent plea. He asked his audience of Sri Lankan businessmen and entrepreneurs not to shun Pakistan, misled by the image of that country as portrayed by the Western media. “Pakistan is not what you see on CNN,” Abbasi said, and added: “We have won the war against terrorism, and with peace restored, we are taking great strides in economic development.” While Abbasi’s focus was, understandably, on investment and trade, there is another side to Pakistan which was crying to be bought out, namely, the image makeover that the country has been at for the last decade or so through the discovery, restoration, preservation and exhibition of its pre-Islamic heritage, especially its Buddhist heritage as represented by Gandhara art. [ More ]

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL By Wesley Pulkka “Hawaiian Mystique” by Mary Carroll Nelson is a multilayered painting that invites viewers to visually explore the vortex of energy generated by a waterfall amid shimmering flowers and leaves. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Three iconic New Mexico artists have joined forces in “Reflections” at the Weyrich Gallery through Jan. 27. The exhibition features work by painter Marta Light, mixed media artist and author Mary Carroll Nelson and sculptor Hilda Appel Volkin. Light is a lyrical abstract expressionist who uses landscape elements, music and memories of place to create imagery that exudes the vibratory nature of life. Like a shimmering Hindu temple at high noon in summer’s sun, Light’s painted imagery seems to dissolve and reappear only to dissolve once more. [ More ]

VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES By Dean Poling One of the drawings of the ‘Emmaus Road’ series by artist Craig Hawkins. VALDOSTA, GA – No pressure. Artist Craig Hawkins drew a series of drawings live in front of a congregation of observers during Sunday sermons. As he explained in a recent article in The Valdosta Daily Times, he made the charcoal drawings to accompany the sermons of Pastor Ken Webb of Christ’s Fellowship Church. The 44 drawings are the basis of “Emmaus Road” on exhibit at Price-Campbell Foundation Gallery and Margaret Mittiga Gallery at the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts . Hawkins has been a cornerstone of the Valdosta art scene for several years as both a working artist and as part of the art faculty at Valdosta State University. He has also combined his art and faith in numerous works and exhibits. Shows run through Feb. 22. [ More ]

HYPERALLERGIC By Benjamin Sutton On Wednesday, the arts and crafts chain store Hobby Lobby surrendered 245 cylinder seals that are believed to have been smuggled out of Iraq and were improperly imported into the US. This group of artifacts, which were handed over to prosecutors in New York, brings the total number of ancient objects seized from Hobby Lobby to 3,839, according to Newsweek. In July of last year, the company agreed to pay a $3 million fine and hand over 5,548 smuggled artifacts. “We have accepted responsibility and learned a great deal,” Hobby Lobby President Steve Green said in a statement at the time. Green is an evangelical Christian and the chairman of the recently opened Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, which is believed to have been the intended destination of the thousands of seized artifacts. [ More ]

THE NATION By Khetsirin Pholdhampalit The evolution of Buddhist art in Japan is illustrated with sacred and historical statues, all part of an exhibition marking 130 years of diplomatic relations with Thailand. Thailand shared its precious artifacts with Japan last year, and now it's our turn to see how Buddhism rose with the Rising Sun. More than 6,000 years of Japanese ways of life and religious beliefs are on view until February 18 at the National Museum Bangkok, in an exhibition that completes a long-planned cultural exchange between our countries. Like its predecessors – the “Land of Buddha” exhibitions of Thai artifacts that drew 200,000 visitors to museums in Tokyo and Kyushu – “The History of Japanese Art: Life and Faith” commemorates 130 years of diplomatic relations between the nations. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Gia Kourlas Left, Dean Moss; and, right, a costume detail from “Petra,” Mr. Moss’s new performance work, a blend of dance, theater, video and audience participation. Desire and power, the New York performance scene, the Hindu goddess Chinnamasta and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” are all mixed into Dean Moss’s latest performative stew, “Petra.” Mr. Moss, 63, finds parallels between the film and his life as a director and choreographer. As he put it, “That process where you never attain what your desire is became something that I was interested in.” For “Petra,” which opens at Performance Space New York — formerly Performance Space 122 — on Jan. 23 as part of the 2018 Coil Festival, Mr. Moss has assembled an all-star cast of women whose members were chosen in part for their presence in New York’s performance world. (The Fassbinder film, from 1972, also features an all-female cast.) [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jason Farago Crests are more than artistic accomplishments; they are avatars of kingship, embodying law and order. Credit Vincent Tullo for The New York Times NEW YORK---One extraordinary example opened recently in the museum’s African wing. It contains just four works, by artists whose identity cannot be established (plus one bonus item), but they pack enough stunning technique and transcendent authority for a blockbuster of their own. In “ The Face of Dynasty: Royal Crests From Western Cameroon ,” you’ll find a quartet of massive wooden crowns, known as tsesah crests, that served as avatars of kingship among the dozens of small monarchies of the Bamileke people in the grasslands of northwest Cameroon, near the contemporary border with Nigeria. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By John Ortved Tavi Gevinson in the living room of her Brooklyn apartment, which includes a framed piece by Jenny Holzer (upper left), a publicity still of Catherine Burns in the Frank Perry move “Last Summer” (top, center) and a photograph of Ms. Gevinson dancing at a Fashion Week after-party (right). Credit Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times In Tavi Gevinson’s living room, hanging several feet above a pale blue couch, is a poster of a Jenny Holzer work that starts with these seven words: “Change is the basis of all history.” Ms. Gevinson lives in a one-bedroom apartment on a high floor in a new building across the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. On the walls of her living area and bedroom are the works of young artists — friends of Ms. Gevinson’s from high school or teenagers she’s featured in Rookie. The apartment also has a few images of Ms. Gevinson: a portrait by the illustrator Adrian Tomine ; strips from a picture bo...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Art & Soul poster designed by Indianapolis artist Cuong Tran Black History Month is around the corner, and we're ready for Afrofuturism. It is an arts movement that calls forward God seekers to a new place of equality and belonging. Three noted Afrofuturists are Sun Ra, Octavia Bulter, and Mshindo Kuumba. The aesthetic is multicultural, transhistorical, and combines elements of religion, African history, and science fiction. Cuong Tran , an Afro-Asian artist, was selected to create the poster design for an Indianapolis program featuring four artists, modern dancer Lauren Curry , spoken-word artist Too Black , storyteller  Ryan Bennett , and ceramicist Gary Gee . Against a backdrop of African drums, gospel, and poetry, join Indy's Afrofuturists at "Art & Soul" on Sat., Jan. 27, 12:15 pm .

ARTFIX DAILY Sui Dynasty gilt-bronze altarpiece of Buddha Maitreya with seven Buddha on lotus blossom thrones. Gianguan Auctions, March, 2018. Gianguan Auctions will hold its 16th annual spring sale on Saturday, March 10. Marquee properties include a rare Sui Dynasty Buddhist altarpiece, a Northern Qi Buddhist stele and a Western Wei Shrine. From the unifying Sui period comes a gilt-bronze altarpiece of Buddha Maitreya that suggests the Seven Buddhas on the Great Tower of Asoka. Of exceptional definition, the Maitreya is seated in dhyanasana with hands positioned in karanamudra. Gallery previews begin Thursday, March 1 and continue through Friday, Mar. 9 (10AM - 7PM EST). The auction starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 10 and will be online at liveauctioneers.com, invaluable.com & epailive.com [ More ]

JEWISH EXPONENT By Selah Maya Zighelboim Pillows for a Passover Seder by Ricki Lent | Photos provided PHILADELPHIA---A burning bush, Elijah’s cup and the Red Nile — all made of mosaic — decorate clay pillows in a piece for the upcoming exhibit, The Needle’s Trail , at the Temple Judea Museum. Ricki Lent , the artist behind Pillows for a Passover Seder, said museum curator Rita Rosen Poley invited her to reinterpret the idea of fabric for a piece in the exhibit. The exhibit focuses on fabric, but Lent took it in a different direction. The Needle’s Trail will run at the museum at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel from Jan. 19 to March 23. The exhibit will showcase about 100 pieces, including textiles from the museum’s collection and artwork from members of the Temple Judea Museum Artists’ Collaborative and the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework’s local chapter. [M ore ]

THE HINDU By Shailaja Tripathi “Homage to Bhagwan Bahubali” by artist Prashant Shah Besides highlighting the aesthetics and the beauty of Jain temples, artist Prashant Shah also underlines the life of Gomateshwara, the revered Jain monk whose tall statue in Shravanbelagola makes for a fascinating sight. To take up religious matter for a painting exhibition can be tricky but Prashant Shah is quite up to the challenge. He wants the viewer to only appreciate the art for art’s sake at his two ongoing exhibitions “Homage to Bhagwan Bahubali” and “Masterpieces of Jain Heritage” at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath in Bengaluru. He would rather have a viewer appreciate the ancient heritage of Jain scriptures, the temple icons, sculptures, bas relief for their aesthetics and beauty. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Judith H. Dobrzynski I don’t have a quilt that gives me more pleasure than this one,” the filmmaker Ken Burns said of the “Circular Wreath” quilt that hangs above his bed in his Manhattan apartment. An exhibition of his quilt collection opens this week at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Neb. Credit: Benjamin Norman for The New York Times NEW YORK---This week, the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Neb., will reveal a surprising side of the prolific filmmaker Ken Burns: He collects quilts. The exhibition “ Uncovered: The Ken Burns Collection ” will display 28 of them for the first time. Mr. Burns has been buying American quilts since the mid-1970s, often on prowls through antique stores on the back roads of New England; before too long, dealers began coming to him. He now owns about 75 quilts, split among his home, office, barn and lake house in New Hampshire. He also keeps three in his ...

THE OAKLAND PRESS By Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, 38, is a contemporary artist who taps into his faith to create art that pushes back against conservative notions of Christianity. RNS photo by Kimberly Winston LOS ANGELES--- Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia had a full scholarship to study engineering and was more than halfway to his degree when he took an art class. It changed his life. Today, Hurtado Segovia, 38, is a much-admired contemporary artist who lives, works and shows in this city, which has become ground zero for much of American contemporary art. He is fresh off a critically acclaimed solo show that one reviewer called “deftly crafted, quirky, spiritual, private and timeless.” He is also Christian, something that frequently makes its way into his work in ways both open and veiled. “One of the challenges I have is to speak to Christians and to non-Christians in an accessible language,” Hurtado Segovia said. [ More ]

ARTNET NEWS Reliquary bust of Saint Yrieix (ca. 1220–40). Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan to the Met in 1917. Public domain. A commune in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France is asking for the restitution of an 11th-century reliquary bust that has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1917. Last Wednesday, January 10, Daniel Boisserie, mayor of the small town of Saint-Yrieix-La-Perche in west-central France, sent a letter to the Met via the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and the French Embassy in the United States, officially asking for the return of the artifact: A gold and silver, jewel-encrusted bust of Saint Yrieix, which once contained the skull bones of the saint. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Francisco de Zurbarán’s works from left: Jacob, Asher, Benjamin and Dan.AUCKLAND CASTLE TRUST/ZURBARÁN TRUST (4) Francisco de Zurbarán helped to define Seville’s Golden Age, a period of economic expansion and cultural resurgence in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when the Andalusian seaport monopolized trade with the New World. Between 1640 and 1645, Zurbarán and his assistants produced the remarkable series Jacob and His Twelve Sons, which is on view at The Frick Collection through the spring of 2018. Co-organized by the Frick with the Meadows Museum in Dallas and Auckland Castle, County Durham, England, the exhibition was first seen in Dallas last fall. Twelve of the paintings are lent by Auckland Castle. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Showing Our Walls By Ernest Disney-Britton Greg Disney-Britton stands flanked by art in the living room of his Indianapolis home INDIANAPOLIS, IN---A week ago , on Epiphany Day a Christmas tree stood in the spot where Greg Disney-Britton was photographed in his downtown Indianapolis home. He is flanked on his right by Tom Torluemke's "Let Freedom Ring, The Wedding Bells" (2011) and to his left by Anila Quayyum Agha's "Moon Beam For My Love 1" (2016). It is representative of a  recurring theme in the Disney-Britton collection. It is an ongoing dialogue between Christian art and the art of other faiths including Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Jewish. The Torluemke was purchased to celebrate the freedom to marry when it became the law of the land; and the Agha work was purchased because of its message about interfaith dialogue and religious tolerance.

THE JERSEY JOURNAL By Rev. Alexander Santora "John the Baptist" by Leonardo daVinci appears in the 2017 book "Leonardo daVinci" by Walter Isaacson. Sixteenth-century Florence, Italy, produced two of the greatest artists in history -- Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci , both of whom infused religious art with new techniques and insights that are still being studied and appreciated today. As a Holy Rosary grammar school boy, I was one of the 27 million visitors to the 1964-65 World's Fair in Queens, and the one image that remains with me is Michelangelo's Pieta. It was nowhere to be found, though, at the spectacular exhibit, "Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer," at the Metropolitan Museum until Feb. 12. Religious themes and figures also preoccupied Leonardo da Vinci, who lived around the same time -- April 15, 1452, to May 2, 1519 -- though he was younger when he died. "Leonardo da Vinci," by Walter Isaacson, Simon & S...

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE By Megan Gambino “People who knew Dr. King personally, all of them look at it [the memorial] and say, ‘That’s him,’” says Lisa Anders, senior project manager. (AP Photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais) In early August 2011, as the finishing touches are being made to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C., Deryl McKissack waits in a trailer on the premises. The concept for the memorial is actually rooted in a line from Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” The main entrance starts out wide and gradually funnels through a 12-foot wide opening in a “Mountain of Despair,” carved from sand-colored granite. Then, through the Mountain of Despair, closer to the Tidal Basin, is a 30-foot-tall “Stone of Hope,” made to appear as if it was pulled from the mountain. Lei Yixin’s sculpture of King emerges from the side of the stone facing the water.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Detail from "Aetherium, Mountain of God" by Karen Fitzgerald, oil with 21k moon gold on patterned, prepared paper, 18”x14” On the last night of his life on April 3, 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to an audience in Memphis, Tennessee about using imagination to replace our fear of self-preservation with concern for others. He said, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!" This past week, as our U.S. President startled us with words of fear and darkness , our path was lighted by the imaginative works of artists like Karen Fitzgerald , our Inspire Me! Artist of ...

ARTSY.NET By Jon Mann Photo by Zlatko Unger, via Flickr. The Belgian painter Luc Tuymans never spends more than one day on an artwork. After completing it, he once told the BBC, he leaves his studio, returns the following day, and decides whether it’s good enough to keep. Yet the history of art provides numerous instances of artists willfully discarding finished works of art, including as an expression of traditional beliefs and practices, from Buddhist sand mandalas—sacred diagrams representing the cosmos, which are labor-intensively and meticulously constructed, only to be destroyed—to the bisj or “spirit poles” of the eastern Indonesian Asmat culture, which are created to honor the dead before being left to decay. Here are six stories of artists who chose to destroy their own art: Michelangelo, The Deposition (1547–55); Claude Monet, Water Lilies (1905–08); Gerhard Richter, early photo-based work (1960s); John Baldessari, Cremation Project (1970) ; Georgia O’Keeffe, assorted w...

HYPERALLERGIC By Claire Voon Detail of the “Hell for Priests Scroll’ (12-13th c.), showing a demon jailor leading sinners to the river of excrement (Collection of the Nara National Museum, all images courtesy PIE International) There’s a special place in hell for a sinner of every kind, as Buddhist ideas of the netherworld suggest. A book recently published by PIE International focuses on such artworks made in Japan, compiling historical examples of prominent paintings and scrolls that are devoted entirely to man’s understanding of a brutal underworld. Hell in Japanese Art is a massive book, totaling 592 pages of illustrations and related texts by researchers Kajitani Ryoji and Nishida Naoki, printed in both English and Japan. The volume features artworks created between the 12th and 19th centuries, and focuses largely on those designated as Japanese National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties, meaning that they possess exceptional historical or artistic value. [ More ] ...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Michael T. Luongo Nabil Mousa with his painting “Burka #16.” Mr. Mousa took what he saw as a symbol of women’s oppression and applied it to himself as a gay artist. Credit Salamatina Gallery; Johnathon Kelso for The New York Times DEARBORN, Mich. — Nabil Mousa’s first solo art exhibition was a joyous occasion, but it still brought tears to his eyes when he introduced his husband to the audience. Mr. Mousa was born in Syria and immigrated to the United States with his conservative Christian parents. In 2000, when he came out, they soon cut off contact and disowned him. Now, he was melding his two identities — gay and Arab — in a show of paintings here. And what was more surprising was where his work was being displayed: the Arab-American National Museum , which was focusing for the first time on a gay artist’s exploration of discrimination. Mr. Mousa, 51, is among a small but growing number of L.G.B.T. artists of Arab descent incorporating their sexual iden...

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Hilarie M. Sheets Laurie Tisch in the living room of her Upper East Side apartment, where she displays, from left, Edward Hopper’s “Hodgkin’s House,” Barbara Chase-Riboud’s sculpture “Zanzibar Table Black,” Thomas Hart Benton’s “The Beach” and Alexander Calder’s mobile “Peacock.” Credit Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times Laurie M. Tisch’s apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan has spectacular views of Central Park. Reflecting her passions and role as a trustee at the Whitney Museum of American Art, it is filled with classic paintings by the country’s renowned modernists, including Edward Hopper , Milton Avery , Jacob Lawrence , Thomas Hart Benton and Georgia O’Keeffe (with a radiant new acquisition of her “Blue Morning Glories”). Yet what often captures the attention of visitors, Ms. Tisch said with amusement, as she gave a recent tour of her home, are her trophies from the New York Giants’ Super Bowl XLII and XLVI victorie...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Giovanni Baglione's "Saint John The Baptist in the Wilderness" | Estimate 400,000 — 600,000 USD Sotheby's New York to offer property from the collection of Otto Naumann, who, in addition to being a world-renowned art dealer, is an art historian and voracious collector. The sale will feature European paintings by artists from the 16th to the 19th centuries including Giovanni Baglione  (1566 - 1643) and Giancinto Diano  (1731 - 1804). Baglione’s impressive and exquisitely painted "Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness" was rediscovered in a private collection where it had remained since 1970, bearing a later inscription in the lower right corner. Giacinto Diano was born in Pozzuoli and studied under both Francesca de Mura and Anton Mengs before settling in Naples in 1752. Diano painted dynamic compositions filled with color and light, combining both Rococo and Neoclassical elements. The sale will take place January 31 at 6:00 pm. [ Cat...

ARTDAILY Jean Fouquet, Diptych of Etienne Chevalier, c. 1455, right panel: Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, oak, 95 x 85.5 cm © Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. BERLIN--- Jean Fouquet’s diptych from the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Melun is one of the masterworks of French painting and of fifteenth-century art in general. The former left panel, featuring a portrait of the donor Étienne Chevalier and a representation of Saint Stephen, came into the Gemäldegalerie’s collection in 1896. The right panel, depicting the Madonna, has belonged to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp since the early nineteenth century. In addition, there is the enamel medallion with a self-portrait of the artist, which once decorated the frame of the diptych and is now preserved in the Louvre. Curated by Stephan Kemperdick, the presentation at Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie brings all of these fragments together for the first time in 80 years, thereby briefly restoring the lost unity ...

LILY By Rafia Zakaria Part of the Hebrew Bible exhibition at the Museum of the Bible. (Ashley Nguyen) She found out via email. In late November, Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha was sitting at her computer when a message popped up on her screen. It contained two images. One of them was of her award-winning installation “Intersections,” which won the coveted ArtPrize just three years earlier. The other was of a markedly similar but unattributed piece in the “Stories of the Bible” exhibit at the newly opened Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. “I felt gutted, just devastated,” Agha says of the moment. The two images revealed installations that were alarmingly similar, both large metal cubes that use a single light source to project patterned shadows on surrounding walls. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Katherine Stewart Visitors at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. Credit Lexey Swall for The New York Times LOOKING at it, you’d think that the Museum of the Bible was, in fact, a museum. But the organizers of Revolution 2017, a recent gathering at the museum featuring speakers who intend to “transform nations” by “igniting a holy reformation in every sphere of society,” know better. “We wholeheartedly believe the Museum of the Bible represents an ‘Ark of the Covenant’ for our nation, bearing witness to his goodness,” they proclaimed in their promotional material. The museum is a safe space for Christian nationalists, and that is the key to understanding its political mission. The aim isn’t anything so crude as the immediate conversion of tourists to a particular variety of evangelical Christianity. Its subtler task is to embed a certain set of assumptions in the landscape of the capital. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Ernest Disney-Britton 2018 Alpha Omega Prize Finalist:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XQ5S8WL "Annunciation II" (2016), 36” diameter, oil with 23k and 21k gold on panel.  In December, when Long Island artist Karen Fitzgerald introduced herself, we were immediately struck by the colors and shapes. Fitzgerald uses color as pure light, and it seems only fitting that we chose her gold on panel painting, "Annunciation II" to open this interview. In Luke 1:26-38, the Angel Gabriel appears to Mary and announces that she will be the mother of Jesus, and she says, "yes." The Annunciation is the beginning of Jesus in His human nature, and in Fitzgerald's work, there is also this blending of the human and the divine energies. That is not, however, to say, that her work is filled only with hidden symbolism. Sometimes, it is simply nature. Karen Fitzgerald is our INSPIRE ME! Artist-of-the-Month for January 2018. Enjoy her story!

MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL By Paul Liberatore, Marin Independent Journal Amanda Giacomini of Point Reyes Station works on one of her murals — the yoga teacher and artist has painted Buddha murals all over the world. codyapp.com photo MARIN, CA---What do you do after you’ve painted 10,000 Buddhas? If you’re yoga teacher and artist Amanda Giacomini, you paint 10,000 more. Inspired by ancient Buddhist monuments she saw during a visit to India 11 years ago, the 44-year-old Yoga Journal cover girl has painted Buddha murals all over the world, from West Marin to Washington, D.C., Central America, Europe and Asia. “My goal was to paint 10,000 Buddhas, but I didn’t know much more than that when I started on this journey,” she said. “But I’ve learned from many years of practicing yoga that all of the benefits of the practice really come from consistent effort over a long period of time.” [ More ]

ARTDAILY Jean‐Baptiste‐Camille Corot's "Baptism of Christ (1844-45); Study for the painting in the church of St. Nicholas-du-Chardonnet. Oil on canvas, 21 x 16 3/4 in. PHILADELPHIA, PA---Today La Salle University announced that its Board of Trustees has approved the deaccession of 46 artworks from the University’s Art Museum collection of over 5,000 pieces. Proceeds from the deaccession will help fund initiatives from the University’s five-year strategic plan—a blueprint for La Salle’s sustainable and vibrant future, and a pathway to enhanced student experience and outcomes. The Art Museum will continue its robust pedagogical mission across a wide array of academic disciplines, as well as its service to its neighbors in the surrounding community and throughout the region. Christie’s has been selected by La Salle to handle the sale of the artworks at auction which is tentatively scheduled to occur from March 2018 through June 2018. [ More ]

THE HINDU By R. Sivaraman Art enthusiasts analyzing the Subhash Kapoor case say that over 30 stunning bronze and stone sculptures are in the U.S. since 2012. Temple authorities, Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowment officials and experts should identify them and bring them back home, they demand. In 2012, international antique dealer Subash Kapoor was extradited from Germany and arrested by the Crime Branch CID, Idol Wing, for stealing idols from temples of Tamil Nadu and smuggling them to various countries, including his art gallery in the U.S. In April 13, 2015, New York District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance filed charges against Kapoor and his Art of the Past Gallery. The statement by New York District Attorney disclosed the startling revelations that raids on various storage facilities of the now-defunct gallery conducted from January 2012 yielded 2,622 artifacts valued at $107.6 million. [ More ]

ESTONIAN WORLD "Assumption of the Virgin" (circa 1500) by Michel Sittow. National Gallery of Art - Washington DC (United States): WASH., DC---A new exhibition opens this month at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to celebrate Michel Sittow , an Estonian master of the early Netherlandish art. Considered Estonia’s greatest Renaissance artist, Sittow (c. 1469–1525) was sought after by the renowned European courts of his day, including those of King Ferdinand of Aragón and Queen Isabella of Castile, Philip the Handsome, Margaret of Austria and Christian II of Denmark. The exhibition of Sittow’s works will be held from 28 January to 13 May. Among the highlights are "The Assumption of the Virgin" (c. 1500/1504, National Gallery of Art) and "The Ascension of Christ" (c. 1500/1504, private collection). [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton "Gooz's One Hit Wonder" by Kristy Quinn in "Wisdom & Wit" opening at Indiana Interchurch Center on Friday, January 12, 2018 How often do you have fun while celebrating your faith? The work of Indiana artist Kristy Quinn deploys whimsy and wonder to create clay and plaster works that reflect both her spiritual and artistic interests. Her upcoming show in Indianapolis was much talked about during this past weekend’s get together with friends to celebrate the end of the 12-days of Christmas. We were two Baptists, two Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Methodists, an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic celebrating over bourbon, Tanqueray, and Champagne in an evening of wit and wonder. We’ll all get together again this coming Friday night, January 12 at Indiana Interchurch Center in Indianapolis for Kristy Quinn’s new solo show, “Wit & Wisdom” at Indiana Interchurch Cente...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Showing Our Walls By Ernest Disney-Britton Friends gathered for the end of Christmas 2017 Who doesn't collect Christmas ornaments? Eleven friends gathered tonight on January 6th for a Three King's Day party, and in this photo, each is holding an ornament they've each removed from the Christmas tree at the home of Ernest & Gregory Disney-Britton (Ted Givens was present too but not in photo). Top Left: Rev. Joshua Burkholder, Rev. Jackie Jackson, Donald Bievenour, Ernest Disney-Britton. Bottom Left: Greg Disney-Britton, Ginger Bievenour, Rev. Carolyn Burkholder (holding Xavier Burkholder and his ornament), Tracy Robinson, and Tina Sherrard.

WIKIPEDIA "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Caravaggio (from 1601 until 1602); Medium: oil on canvas; Dimensions: 42.125 × 57.5 in; Current location: Sanssouci Picture Gallery A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross (John 20:24–29). In art, the episode (formally called the"Incredulity of Thomas") has been frequently depicted since at least the 5th century, with its depiction reflecting a range of theological interpretations. "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Caravaggio (c. 1601–1602) is now the most famous depiction (unusually showing Thomas to the viewer's right of Jesus), but there are many others, especially by the Utrecht Caravaggisti, painting in a Protestant environment.  [ More ]