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ARTDAILY With the red light Calò brings the Roman Catholic visual idiom back into the building and reflects on the Iconoclastic Fury of 1566 and the revolution in religious thinking. AMSTERDAM.- The Oude Kerk is presenting the most recent monumental work by Giorgio Andreotta Calò (b. Venice, 1979). Calò has devised a site-specific work that effects a drastic alteration to the church’s interior. By placing red film and plexiglass in front of the towering windows, he radically alters the lighting and thus the atmosphere in the church. During the summer months, visitors to the church will be bathed in an ocean of red light, an inimitable experience. Late in the evening the red light is emitted from the church, coalescing with the red lamplight of the plentiful brothels and prostitution windows surrounding the church. Throughout the summer the church shares in this light and shade: interior and exterior circulate around each other, to the rhythm of sunlight and its inversion. [ More ...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Painted Agbe, Italian Leather, Coral Beads and Horn, from the series Money Must be Made LONDON---Flowers Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by London-based Italian artist Lorenzo Vitturi . The works in his new series Money Must be Made are based at the Balogun Market in Lagos, Nigeria, the second biggest market of its kind in West Africa. In his newest series, Vitturi explores Balogun Market, where its thriving business is causing global corporations to relocate. Populated by tens of thousands of people each day, Vitturi describes the throng of Balogun market as a “sensory overload” of colour and noise. A large mural print on the central wall of the gallery shows an overhead image of the street market in full swing, commanding the rhythm of the surrounding exhibition. [ More ]

THE STATE By Noah Feit In this 2007 file photo, Bert Baker, an amateur artist, had recently finished a 7-foot-tall sculpture of Christ at Red Bank Baptist Church. The piece, which also depicts multiple scenes from Christ's life, was installed on Easter Sunday. Gerry Melendez online@thestate.com RED BANK, SC---Jesus Christ is being removed from a South Carolina church. A statue of Jesus Christ and accompanying artwork that has been displayed at Red Bank Baptist Church for more than a decade will be taken down by Thursday, according to church officials. The art will be removed because a majority of the congregation voted that the 7-foot-tall statue and sculpted reliefs were "causing some confusion." According to the church, many people think the sculptures are Catholic and not representative of a Baptist church. In the church's letter, it offered Baker the opportunity to remove the sculptures if he desired to keep them, adding: "The art needs to be removed by...

BLOUIN | ARTINFO Master artist of miniatures, Mohammad Tamim Sahibzada shows the Quran handmade at the initiative of the Turquoise Mountain Institute, in the old district of Murad Khani in Kabul (April 19, 2018) (Image by Wakil Kohsar / AFP) In an attempt to overhaul the architecture and uphold the traditional Afghan arts, which were damaged by consecutive wars, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation launched a magnificent project along with a team of 38 calligraphers and miniaturist painters; the result of which is a hand-painted silk Quran representing Afghan excellence. Each copy consists of 610 hand-painted pages, with the masterpiece bracing the centuries-old art bound in leather and weighing 8.6 kilos, stated Le Figaro . The artists hired for the purpose were accommodated in an old Kabul caravanserai, and the Turquoise Mountain Foundation of Britain trained most of them. While creating this magnum opus, the artists made use of naskh, the fundamental cursive script developed in ...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Murray Carpenter Robert Indiana in 2009 in his home in Vinalhaven, Me., which is to become a museum dedicated to his artwork. Credit Pat Wellenbach/Associated Press ROCKLAND, Me. — The artist Robert Indiana , who in his final years was the subject of a struggle over who represented him and controlled his work, left behind an estate worth an estimated $28 million, according to a court filing on Friday. Mr. Indiana, best known for his “LOVE” sculpture and its many variants, died on May 19 at the age of 89 at his home on the island of Vinalhaven, Me. His will, filed on Friday in Knox County Probate Court, leaves most of his art and property to a nonprofit whose mission is to develop Mr. Indiana’s home into a museum featuring his works. The will said the organization was to be run by Jamie Thomas, Mr. Indiana’s caretaker in his final years. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Hilarie M. Sheets Ron and Ann Pizzuti with Marina Abramovic’s “Artist Portrait With a Candle (C),” left, and “Artist Portrait with a Candle (B).” At bottom left is Sofie Lachaert’s “Shunga Candleholder” atop Ron Arad’s “Paved With Good Intentions Table 44.”CreditMarina Abramovic and Sean Kelly Gallery/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Sofie Lachaert, via Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times “Without Frank Stella, we wouldn’t be collecting art,” said Ron Pizzuti, who fell in love with a small Stella painting in Paris in the early 1970s but couldn’t imagine spending $10,000 on an artwork. The Ohio native, then working in retail, got his initiation buying a Karel Appel print for $900 on installment in 1974 from a gallery closer to home, in Columbus. After he founded the Pizzuti Companies, a real estate and development concern, in 1976, he soon found he could buy Stella as well as Willem de Kooning...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Elisabetta Povoledo The first chapel that visitors happen on at the Vatican pavilion is the Nordic-style hut designed by Mr. Magnani and Ms. Pelzel. Credit: Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times There are six countries participating for the first time in the Venice Architecture Biennale, here through November, but the most surprising new entry, surely, is the Vatican. For centuries one of the world’s great patrons when it comes to public architecture, the Holy See had never, until now, strutted its stuff as part of this global architecture exhibition. However, it should not be surprising, given church tradition, that the Vatican’s pavilion consists of a pilgrimage of sorts: An installation of 10 chapels by a dozen architects in a densely wooded garden, nestled in a storied island in the Venetian lagoon. Normally, national pavilions at the Biennale tend to showcase renderings, models, and sketches documenting the creation of buildings. “Vatican Chapels,” a...

PUNJAB NEWS EXPRESS Upset Hindus are urging Skurup (Sweden) based fashion-clothing firm Creative Minds Petrahs Art for immediate withdrawal of bikinis, leggings, shorts, skirts, socks, swimsuits and towels; carrying the images of Hindu deities Ganesh, Kali and Shiva; calling these highly inappropriate. Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.1 billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Rajan Zed noted. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS For the first time in more than 20 years, experience The Room Chapel by pioneering sculptor of light Stephen Antonakos at the Allentown Art Museum . Originally created in 1996, this architectural installation featuring the artist’s Neon Panels will be specially recreated for the Allentown Art Museum. This work represents not only the realization of formal, geometric and spatial concerns explored throughout the artist’s career, but also recalls his early years in a small mountain village in Greece, where tiny chapels served the spiritual needs of people throughout the country. Antonakos said of this piece: “I am hoping to provide a space that visually and spatially may help us remember or rediscover our inner selves, our own individual thoughts, feelings and spirits.”

THE MEDIA LINE By Maya Margit New exhibit at Jerusalem's Museum for Islamic Art showcases the evolution of the palm-shaped "Hamsa," which is believed to ward off the "evil eye" while bringing good fortune. JERSUALEM---A new exhibition in Israel takes a modern look at one of the world’s most ancient symbols: the hamsa. Five hundred and fifty-five palm-shaped amulets from a wide variety of artists are on display at the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, part of the Hamsa, Hamsa, Hamsa show devoted to exploring the rich history and cultural evolution of the Middle East and North African motif. Commonly used in jewelry or other decorative items, Jews, Christians and Muslims to this day wear or carry Hamsas to ward off the “evil eye.” In Israel, the hamsa previously was associated with Mizrahi Jews, who immigrated in large numbers to the state from neighboring countries in the 1950s. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Scott Reyburn Auctioneer Oliver Barker, taking bids at Sotheby’s for Kerry James Marshall’s painting “Past Times.” It was eventually sold for $21.1 million with fees. Credit Sotheby's LONDON — “I don’t need to tell you, sir, how great this is,” said Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker last Wednesday evening, leaning over his rostrum and trying to coax another eight-figure bid out of the New York dealer David Zwirner for Kerry James Marshall’s 1997 masterwork, “Past Times.” Moments later, Mr. Barker knocked the lot down to one of three telephone bidders for $21.1 million with fees. A wryly updated “fête champêtre,” showing black suburbanites relaxing in a Chicago park, had just set an auction high for any work by a living African-American artist. The painting was bought by the Grammy Award-winning rapper and music producer, Sean Combs, better known by his former stage names Puff Daddy and P. Diddy. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS ALLENTOWN, PA---Similar to Christianity, some Hindus explain this singular entity as a trinity of male forms: Brahma (The Creator), Shiva (The Destroyer), and Vishnu (The Preserver). Other Hindus, however, explain the supreme deity in female form, or Shakti. As Hinduism developed in India, it enveloped a vast range of local deities into its pantheon; many new deities also emerged over time. Many Hindus regarded these deities, totaling some 330 million by some believers’ count, as manifestations of one supreme, universal spirit, known as Brahman. Explore the world of this Indian sculpture at the Allentown Art Museum through an exhibition of avatars.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Robert Indiana, LOVE, 1970. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields Robert Indiana is dead. We didn't know Robert Indiana , but we knew he was born here in Indiana. We knew he was raised in a church in New Castle, Indiana, and we knew he was gay. A paper-weight sized miniature of his LOVE sculpture in gold is at the center of our art collection . It was purchased from the Indianapolis Museum of Art. In a statement , the Indianapolis Museum of Art said that Indiana's "legacy of love will continue to live on for generations to come, as the original LOVE sculpture, made of Cor-ten steel, greets guests into the IMA Galleries. Mr. Indiana and his works of art are an iconic symbol of love in the Indianapolis community and we are honored to continue his legacy." [ More ]

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER By Phyllis Zagano Singer Rihanna arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York May 7 for the exhibit "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination." (CNS/Carlo Allegri, Reuters) While it's always important to consider the other person's point of view, get ready for strong emotions if you visit the "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's about as "other" as you can get. You may have seen the photos of various glitterati attending the "Met Gala" -- the dress code was "Sunday Best."To my mind, there are many circles of "otherness" here. To begin with, all the costume models, live at the gala and in plaster in the museum, are female. The Catholic vestments are the real deal; the Vatican lent some 40 pieces from the Sistine Chapel sacristy. So, everything sacred was male and everything profane was...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Roberta Smith Thornton Dial’s two-sided relief-painting-assemblage, “History Refused to Die” (2004), also gives this Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition its title. His work is in conversation with quilts by, from left, Lola Pettway (“Housetop,” circa 1975); Lucy T. Pettway (“Housetop” and “Bricklayer” blocks with bars, circa 1955); and Annie Mae Young (“Work-clothes quilt with center medallion of strips,” from 1976). American art from the 20th and 21st centuries is broader, and better than previously acknowledged, especially by museums. Essential help has come from people like William Arnett and his exemplary Souls Grown Deep Foundation . Their focus is the important achievement of black self-taught artists of the American South, born of extreme deprivation and social cruelty, raw talent and fragments of lost African cultures. The Met was the first of the foundation’s beneficiaries, receiving a gift of 57 artworks by 30 artists in 2014. Now, the museum ce...

THE HINDU By Neeraja Murthy Gond artist Sambhav Singh Shyam |Photo Credit: Nagara Gopal On a day when nature showed its destructive face with heavy rains, thunder and lightening in the twin cities a few days ago, Gond artist Sambhav Singh Shyam brought colourful images of nature and wild to the fore with his vibrant traditional art. He is in city for a workshop organised by Studio Amoli in collaboration with Daira Centre for Culture and Arts (that was on May 19) and at Phoenix Arena on May 26. Sambhav’s grandfather Jangarh Singh Shyam was a celebrated Gond artist. It was J Swaminathan, then director of Bharat Bhavan who was mesmerised with the artwork done on the walls and kothi (kitchen storehouse) of their house. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Picture: supplied A still from Tina Havelock Stevens' video work, Giant Rock, which has won the Blake Prize 2018 at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre. LIVERPOOL, AU---Sydney-based artist  Tina Havelock Stevens  has won the 65th Blake Prize for her performance video work, Giant Rock, 2017. Stevens was announced as the winner of the $35,000 prize on Saturday 19 May at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre. With a background in documentary film making and as a drummer in rock and post-punk bands, Stevens regularly takes her drum kit to unconventional sites around the world to respond to them rhythmically.   The Blake Prize , engages contemporary artists, both nationally and internationally, in conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion, hope, humanity, social justice, belief and non – belief. The Blake Prize is a non-acquisitive prize of $35,000.

HAARATZ By Eness Elias Samah Shihadi's human hamsa. Credit Shai Ben Ephraim The palm-shaped amulet known as the hamsa is a significant icon in Israeli culture. More than just warding off the evil eye, the hamsa symbolizes a culture among Mizrahi Jews (from the Middle East and North Africa) that was almost extinguished but is now celebrated anew. Until now, superstitious beliefs attributed to the Mizrahi communities, the hamsa among them, were used to belittle an entire society for being primitive. Even today, those who wear a hamsa seemed to be marking themselves. Now a new exhibit has opened at the Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem that tries to look at the hamsa differently, through artistic and aesthetic interpretations. What are its origins? What path has it taken in the State of Israel? And is the hamsa truly apolitical? [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Sleeping Angel by Michael Cook (acrylic on paper) Do you believe in Angels? The Angel Project, a group show of eight UK artists organized by artist Michael Cook , is now on view at St. Mary's Church in Nottingham, UK. The works reflect each artist's personal response to some aspect of the visual conventions or narratives associated with angels. This Angel project builds on the success of two previous group exhibitions - ‘A Derbyshire Passion – Stations of the Cross’ held at Derby Cathedral in 2015, and The Adam & Eve Project which toured the Midlands in 2017/18. The participating artists are Michael Cook, Elizabeth Forrest, Rebecca Mercer, Duncan Pass, Sue Prince, John Rattigan, Sarah Sharpe, and Anna Thomas. Location: St Marys Church, 40 High Pavement, Nottingham, NG1 1HN (Through June 10, 2018). 

ARTNET NEWS By Nilina Mason-Campbell Afsoon, Shah and His Three Queens, from the series “Fairytale Icons” (2009). Collection of Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller © Afsoon, photo courtesy Leila Heller Gallery. LOS ANGELES---The new exhibit “In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art” is the culmination of four years of work by LACMA’ s Islamic art curator, Linda Komaroff. Assembling some 125 works of art, from photography to painting,and from posters to political cartoons, the striking show explores an intriguing and scholarly theme: the creative use of anachronism within Iranian art, showing both how tradition animates the present and how reference to the past can be a vehicle for subversive commentary today. [ More ]

AL DIA NEWS By By Andrea Rodés The Elevation of the Cross, Antonio de Torres, 1718. © Museum Associates/LACMA While the interest for contemporary artists of Hispanic origin has been gaining ground in the American artistic scene, Latin American colonial art has always been the great forgotten. In an effort to make an exercise of historical review and raise the value of art that occurred in America after the colonization of the Spanish, the Metropolitan Museum of New York has just opened an exhibition on Mexican art of the century XVIII: "Painted in Mexico. 1700-1790" (link is external), an exhibition where portraits and works of great masters are mixed with pieces of religious art, and "casta paintings" , and making evidence of a growing interest in the Latin American artistic production beyond contemporary art, avant-garde and modernity. [ More ]

ARTFIX DAILY Buddha Amitabha, bronze, with four character Xuande mark. Lot 228. Gianguan Auctions, June 9, 2018. NYC---With a growing reputation for offering Chinese religious art at accessible estimates, Gianguan Auctions is poised to present an outstanding collection of bronze, jade and ceramic Buddhist statues in its Saturday, June 9 sale. Of exceptional quality is a rare Northern Zhou seated Buddha. From the Ming comes a rare gilt bronze figure of Buddha Amitabha. While the Buddha is depicted seated in dhyanasana, the left hand holds a floral lotus amphora, all beneath a spherical finial. The cinched pedestal is encircled by two tiers of elaborate lotus lappet. Of the period, the casting bears the four character Xuande mark. It is Lot 228. To view details of these Buddhist statues and more, please visit the Gianguan Auctions catalog at www.gianguanauctions.com . [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Divinity Queer Icons" on exhibition at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City Middle Church in NYC's East Village hosts the 20-piece installation Divinity: Queer Icons by Gabriel Garcia Roman , running through June 2018. The Mexican-Amaricón artist manipulates classical divine imagery, applying the style to under-represented and marginalized groups. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, raised in Chicago and living in NYC, Gabriel Garcia Roman is a printmaker, photographer, image maker, yogi, and craftsman. Affiliated with United Church of Christ and Reformed Church in America, Middle Collegiate Church is the oldest of the Collegiate Churches in New York, which was organized in 1628 and is the oldest continuously active congregation in America. Middle Collegiate Church is located at 50 East 7th st in the East Village, and for more information on the display, visit gabrielgarciaroman.com .

THE WASHINGTON POST By Julie Zauzmer A camera operator waits for an event to start beneath a projected star-scape at the Museum of the Bible’s November grand opening. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) More than half a million people have visited the Museum of the Bible since Washington’s newest museum opened near the Mall six months ago, the museum said Friday. The museum, which opened in November with splashy attractions such as a walk-through Old Testament and a motion ride, was funded largely by the Green family, the evangelical Christian owners of the Hobby Lobby crafts chain. Christian tour groups especially have been drawn to the six-story museum, two blocks south of the Mall, that focuses on the history and influence of the Bible in America and worldwide. The tally of 565,000 guests in the first six months that the museum reported Friday places it in company with many of Washington’s other free museums. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jori Finkel A “Love” sculpture in John F. Kennedy Plaza, commonly known as Love Park, in Philadelphia. Credit Matt Rourke/Associated Press Robert Indiana , the Pop artist whose bold rendering of the word “love” became one of the most recognizable artworks of the 20th century, gracing hundreds of prints, paintings and sculptures, some 330 million postage stamps that he authorized and countless tchotchkes that he did not, died on Saturday at his home in Vinalhaven, Me. He was 89. His lawyer, James W. Brannan, said the cause was respiratory failure. Mr. Indiana’s famous image features the word L-O-V-E rendered in colorful capital letters, with the first two letters stacked on top of the other two, and the letter “O” tilted as if it were being swept off its feet. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Ted Loos Kim and Michael McCarty at home in New York with, from left, Laura Owens’s “Untitled” (2005), a drawing and collage on paper; Tim Hawkinson’s “Advance Receding,” in oil on structured canvas; and David Hockney’s “Study for Santa Monica Blvd.” (1979), in colored pencil on paper. Credit Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times Woody Allen may have called Los Angeles a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light (that’s from “Annie Hall”), but the bicoastal restaurateur Michael McCarty and his wife, Kim McCarty, an artist, have spent 40 years proving that wrong, bringing top examples of West Coast creativity to the Big Apple. This couple have a Midtown Manhattan apartment filled with California-flavored art and objects, many of them works on paper, by Los Angeles residents like Tim Hawkinson, Frank Gehry, David Hockney, Laura Owens and Ed Ruscha. [ More ]

ARTDAILY "Sexy Ange Belge" (Sexy Belgian Angel), 2017 by Jan Fabre, wood, pigment, polymer, metal. H 93,4 x W 88,4 x D 23,4 cm PARIS---For the opening of its new Parisian addition, Galerie Templon offers Carte Blanche to the artist Jan Fabre . True to its commitment to its artists, the gallery is inaugurating a new chapter in its history by giving this great multi-disciplinary creator complete curatorial freedom for the new space. Jan Fabre created a unique body of work exploring his views of the complex and singular Belgian identity. The exhibition brings together a variety of media - drawings, sculptures – conceived especially for Templon’s new location 250 m2 exhibition space. Over the last 30 years, Jan Fabre has become internationally recognized as one of the most innovative visual artists, playwrights and writers of his generation. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Detail of "Cruz Y Ficcion" (2018) by Patrick McGrath Muniz. Oil on canvas, 42 x 80 inches Painter  Patrick McGrath Muniz might be the Paul Gauguin of our time for how he challenges cultural, geographic and material boundaries. Born in Puerto Rico and now living in Houston, Texas, he's inspired by Renaissance, Baroque and Latin American colonial paintings, plus pop culture. He also studies tarot and astrology. His first painting of 2018, "Cruz Y Ficcion" addresses contemporary issues including colonialism, consumerism, cultural identity and climate change. We found him in a  Hi-Fructose magazine  story announcing, "Credo" at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles (Through May 27). So, to all our friend's in LA, check him out because Patrick McGrath is our collector's pick of the week. [ More ]

WZZM13 In 2014, "Intersections" by Anila Quayyum Agha won the ArtPrize Public Vote and Juried Grand Prize, the first and only time in ArtPrize history. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Grand Rapids Art Museum has announced its concurrent solo exhibitions opening May 19. Anila Quayyum Agha: Intersections and Mirror Variations: The Art of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian are on view through Aug. 26. According to a press release, both artists create work which draws inspiration from Islamic tradition and modern abstraction, creating objects of great beauty and depth. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is an Iranian artist with an international reputation for sculpture and drawing that fuses traditional Persian patterns based in mathematics with geometric abstract art. GRAM says the presentation of the two solo exhibitions is part of its commitment to highlighting works of art by diverse artists year-round. [ More ]

NATION MULTIMEDIA Culture Minister Vira Rojpojchanarat presented the Buddhist sacred book to Pope Francis at the Vatican on May 16. Photo courtesy of Culture Ministry Culture Minister Vira Rojpojchanarat presented the Buddhist sacred book to Pope Francis at the Vatican on May 16. The manuscript will be displayed at a world manuscripts exhibition at the Vatican Museum.Vira led a group of monks from Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm or Wat Pho, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Thailand and Wat Pho’s lay minister Thapana Sirivadhanabhakdi, Thai Beverage Ltd Co’s CEO to the Vatican to strengthen the relationship between Buddhists and Catholic Christians. “I offer you a warm welcome and I thank you for the precious gift of your Sacred Book translated into today’s language by the monks of Wat Pho Temple,” Pope Francis told the group. [ More ]

THE HINDU In her latest exhibition, author-artist Kota Neelima explores the acts of negotiation the widows of Vidarbha farmers undergo The concept of negotiating and documenting the absence in and around us has been a recurring motif in the author-painter’s oeuvre. In her last exhibition, the cold silence enveloping the disputed site of Ayodhya was captured in myriad hues, with symbols of nature, such as trees and flowers dotting her canvases. But that was the beginning of 2017. We are almost in the midst of the 2018 and the gaze of the multifaceted Neelima has shifted to a subject which has been central to her research for more than a decade. As is her wont, Neelima has always turned to the creative medium to draw attention to what she felt was left unsaid in the written word. [ More ]

ABOUT HER One of the most expensive Arab paintings in the world, “The Whirling Dervishes” is the work of an Egyptian artists who goes by the name of Mahmoud Said and was created in 1929. In 2010, the piece of art sold for an incredible $2.4million at Christie’s auction house. Often, when we think about invaluable pieces of art, artists like Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Rembrandt and Salvador Dali come to mind. These artists are no longer living, but their work is alive and recognized across the world and has been for as long as the art industry has been around. However, Arab and Islamic art has also existed for centuries and has been pushing its way into the art market and is quickly becoming rather sought-after. These are 5 of the most expensive pieces of Arabian and Islamic art ever to be sold. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter “The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin,” (1424-1434), the centerpiece of the exhibition “Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth,” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Credit Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum BOSTON — The most beautiful Italian Renaissance painting in the United States, “The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin” by Fra Angelico, is on full-time view but hard to find. Since 1903, the small picture has been in the same spot in the Early Italian Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum here, though invisible when you enter the room. It hangs around a corner of a big, jutting-out fireplace. Unless you happened to wander over to a nearby window and glance to your left, you’d miss it. Close looking is precisely what this exquisite show encourages. It’s details that keep you looking: faces of saints as particular as high school yearbook portraits; Christ’s Passion as a stop-motion video scoured by grief and rich with Tuscan...

HYPERALLERGIC By Kristi Upson-Saia Installation view of Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination in the Medieval Sculpture Hall (all photos © the Metropolitan Museum of Art unless indicated otherwise) The 70th annual Met Gala once again exceeded expectations for over-the-top fashion, spectacle, and pageantry. As a historian of early Christianity with a specialty in religious dress, I think that Christians of the past would praise the Met organizers, curators, and designers for highlighting the role dress has played in the history of Christianity, while — along with contemporary religious critics — snubbing the Met for particular choices that indeed would have offended their religious sensibilities.On the one hand, early Christians would agree with the Met exhibition and gala organizers about the importance of dress as a primary mode through which individuals have long expressed their religious identity, commitment, and piety. [ More ]

HYPERALLERGIC 2018 Alpha Omega Prize Finalist:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XQ5S8WL "United Citizen Ship" (2016). Oil on canvas, 48" x 48" inches LOS ANGELES, CA--- Patrick McGrath Muniz tracks issues like climate change through the iconography and mythology of several cultures over time. In the show “Credo” at La Luz De Jesus Gallery , the artist’s recent work in this vein is collected. “By appropriating figures and icons present in Art History, Pop Culture, Christian Iconography and Mythology, I depict scenes that mirror my own experience living in a world of stronger storms, fires, and floods as well as alternative facts and climate change denial.” The show runs through May 27 at the gallery. See more works from the show below. [ More ]

BLOUIN | ARTINFO “Lîle Heureuse,” Mahmoud Said (Egypt, 1897-1964), Oil on wood, 80 x 70cm (31 1/2 x 27 9/16in). Sold for £ 1,202,500 inc. premium (Courtesy of Bonhams) In today’s crowded academic and commercial art world, there are few areas of expertise left where a budding young art historian or gallerist can still carve out a niche. But terra incognita does exist, though you’ll need to get your skates on. Potentially the most rewarding territory has been hiding in plain sight: the Middle East. Masa Al Kutoubi from Christie’s observes that: “The Middle-Eastern secondary market is still very new and in some ways uncharted territory. There are so many artists we don’t know about.” Discovering them, documenting them and fitting them into a coherent scholarly and auction narrative will determine whether the region’s art resumes its upwards trajectory. [ More ]

ISLAMIC ARTS MAGAZINE By Islamic Arts Magazine Dear friends, Islamic Arts Magazine wishes you Ramadan Kareem! May our fast, prayers and good deeds during this blessed month be accepted and bring us joy, health and peace. ~  IAM team

THE WASHINGTON POST ByAssociated Press DEARBORN, MI---A foundation has awarded $2.3 million to projects including documentaries on Muslim veterans, Arabic theater productions and a look at Michigan’s “Halal Metropolis.” The New York-based Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art on Thursday announced that 15 groups were selected from about 200 applicants across the United States for its Building Bridges Program . They received grants ranging from $50,000 to $300,000 for projects that aim to boost relationships among Muslims and their non-Muslim neighbors. [ More ]

BUNGALOWER By Brendan O'Connor "Arabesque" photo via Albin Polasek Museum Facebook WINTER PARK, FL---The Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens is hosting a new exhibit called Arabesque: Contemporary Conversations from May 8 to August 19, 2018, in their Winter Park gallery. Arabesque interprets traditional Islamic art through the eyes of contemporary artists in a variety of styles and mediums. The exhibit is a combination of works submitted through an open call to artists and a local private collection. The open call asked artists to give a modern interpretation of the ancient style of arabesque art, which traditionally involves interlacing natural elements and geometric lines that are then repeated. The featured works were submitted by artists from countries like Canada, Israel, Iran, Bulgaria, Russian, Puerto Rico, and the United States as well as from the Islamic Artists of Orlando group. [ More ]

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL Lynda Carter at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala, May 7, 2018, in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP) It’s a night known for extravagant gowns and outlandish headpieces, but original Wonder Woman Lynda Carter was perhaps queen of the ball in her crown adorned with Hebrew writing and Star of David jewelry at Monday’s Met Gala in New York, arguably the most sought-after invitation in the celebrity universe. Swapping the trademark superhero headband in favor of a crown emblazoned with the Hebrew phrase “l’olam al tishkachi” (never forget) Gal Gadot’s predecessor in the iconic role swept down the red carpet in a regal gown designed by Zac Posen . [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Linda Greenhouse The Supreme Court of the United States. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times Before the next two months are out, the Supreme Court will decide two high-visibility cases that at first glance appear to have little to do with each other. One is the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, about the baker who won’t design a cake for celebrating a same-sex marriage, and the other is Trump v. Hawaii, the challenge to the president’s latest travel ban. One is as domestic as it gets, while the other is infused with issues of foreign policy and presidential power. What they have in common is the claim of religious discrimination at the heart of each. Classically, the Supreme Court invoked the religion clauses of the First Amendment — the protection for free exercise and the prohibition against government “establishment” of religion — on behalf of minority religions. But in recent years, the court’s concern has flipped. [ More ]

ARTDAILY Cosimo Rosselli (1439–1507), Madonna and Child in Glory, ca. 1470, tempera and gold on poplar wood panel, 36 x 28 in. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. SAN MARINO, CA---The Art Collectors’ Council of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens has purchased two panel paintings by Italian Renaissance master Cosimo Rosselli (1439–1507). Saint Ansanus and Saint Anthony Abbot , made in about 1470, originally formed the lower third of an altarpiece, the centerpiece of which was The Huntington’s own Madonna and Child in Glory , one of the core works in its Renaissance paintings collection. Later this year, the panels will be reunited with the Madonna in the Huntington Art Gallery, among Rogier van der Weyden’s Virgin and Child and Domenico Ghirlandaio’s pair of portraits of a man and woman. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Anila Quayyum Agha's "Intersections," is one of 20 exhibits at North Carolina Museum of Art's "You Are Here: Light, Color, and Sound Experiences " media preview on April 4, 2018. After this week’s visit, we now have hundreds of reasons to visit North Carolina, but “You Are Here” featuring 15 artists including Anila Quayyum Agha , Bill Viola , and Janet Cardiff is at the top of that list. It’s a massive collection of immersive installations exploring light, color and sound at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Agha’s “Intersections,” Viola’s “The Crossing,” and Cardiff’s Forty Part Motep” are spiritual stand-outs in the show. It’s an often emotional journey, and that is why “You Are Here” in Raleigh, North Carolina is our art news of the week.

CIRCA: THE NCMA BLOG By Nathan Kotecki Tilman Riemenschneider, Female Saint, circa 1490–95, linden wood with traces of paint, H. 38 in., Purchased with funds from the state of North Carolina and the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest) RALEIGH, NC---On a recent stroll through the North Carolin Museum of Art, I circled back to the European galleries to spend more time with a solitary wooden sculpture on a riser. Neither full-size nor small, neither young nor old, this woman wears a crown of crosses and holds a book to her waist, over an elaborately draped gown. Her other hand is missing, sheared off at the forearm, perhaps the strongest indication of the centuries this sculpture has endured. Carved from linden wood, the statue is known simply as Female Saint and is the work of Tilman Riemenschneider , an exceptional German guild artist, whose life bridged the 15th and 16th centuries. The details of this figure make it feel more modern than would be expected ...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Kehinde Wiley, Judith and Holofernes, 2012, oil on linen, 120 x 90 in., Purchased with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes in honor of Dr. Emily Farnham, by exchange, and from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), by exchange RALEIGH, N.C.—Purchased in 2012 by the North Carolina Museum of Art, "Judith and Holofernes" is from Kehinde Wiley’s first series of paintings to feature female subjects. Wiley uses “street casting” to find his models—walking city streets and asking ordinary people if they would pose for a portrait. This painting references a specific art-historical work, a 17th-century painting by Giovanni Baglione, Judith and the Head of Holofernes (1608). The subject is taken from the apocryphal Old Testament Book of Judith, in which a Jewish town is under attack by the Assyrian army led by the general Holofernes. Judith, a widow from the town, goes to Holofernes under the pretense of helping him defeat the Jews. Aft...

TRIANGLE TODAY Greg Disney-Britton takes a selfie at Anila Quayyum Agha's "Intersections" at North Carolina Museum of Art  on May 13, 2018 RALEIGH, NC---“You Are Here: Light, Color, and Sound Experiences” opens at the North Carolina Museum of Art Saturday, April 7 and will be open all night with the opening party and silent disco from 8 p.m. to midnight. Night owl programming is planned from midnight to 10 a.m. Sunday, April 8. Tickets are $30, or $27 for members. Billed as “more than an exhibition, an experience,” the show stretches throughout the museum’s East Building and even the outdoor park. It consists of immersive and interactive installations by 14 contemporary artists, including [Anila Quayyum Agha and Jim Campbell]. Read more about the exhibition here . Experience the exhibition in 360-degree video here. [ More ]

DESIGN WEEK By Sarah Dawood Corita Kent, courtesy of Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft DITCHLING, UK--Very few graphic designers are also practising nuns. Even fewer are controversial nuns, who have broken away from religious obedience to protest about war, civil rights and racism. However, late American designer Corita Kent fits this profile, and a new exhibition – Corita Kent: Get With The Action – at the Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft paints a picture of the unique artist’s life, her internal religious and political conflicts and her acts of protest. The exhibition spans 20 years of Kent’s work, from 1952-1972, and features 40 pieces, created using mediums like silk-screen printing, collage and cut-and-paste, and incorporating popular culture at the time, such as lines from beat poetry and advertising slogans. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Probably Eastern German or Polish, Torah Crown, circa 1830, silver and brass: filigree, cast, chased, partly gilded, H. 5 in. x Diam. of rim 3 3/8 in., Gift of Lynette and Michael Green in memory of John and Ursula Green and Bernard Szabo The permanent collection of Judaic art at the North Carolina Museum of Art illuminates the spiritual and ceremonial life of the Jewish people through works of art of aesthetic excellence. The gallery features decorative ornaments for the Torah and synagogue as well as objects used to honor the Sabbath and other holidays, to sanctify the Jewish home, and to mark the cycle of life. The objects, created for Jewish communities throughout the world, express a wide variety of forms and styles, both historical and modern. Together, the objects on view in the Judaic Art Gallery attest to the power of art in the service of faith and community. [ Source ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Matthew Schneier Kim Kardashian West.CreditLandon Nordeman for The New York Times NEW YORK---As the sages tell us, heavenly bodies compel every body: celebrity bodies, financial bodies, philanthropist bodies, political bodies. So it came to be that the first bodies spotted wandering around “Heavenly Bodies,” the spring show at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose subject is “fashion and the Catholic imagination,” happened to be two of America’s most famous Mormons: Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann. Mr. Romney said he hadn’t been entirely aware of the gala, the Costume Institute’s annual fund-raiser, and the undisputed highlight of the New York social calendar. “Ann said, ‘Are you kidding?’” He attended at the invitation of Stephen Schwarzman, an old friend and business associate, and one of the honorary chairmen of this year’s event. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Alfred Manessier ~ Les Cantiques Spirituels de St Jean de la Croix (The Spiritual Canticles CHARLOTTE, NC---Now through July 8, 2018 the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art presents Alfred Manessier, an exhibition of paintings and prints by an artist who sought to create contemplative images where the natural and spiritual realms would converge, offering spaces for both respite and resistance. In addition to landscape-inspired paintings, the show includes Manessier’s illustrations for St. John of the Cross’ Spiritual Canticles , Eugène Guillevic’s Cymbalum , and the elephantine portfolio Presentation of the Beauce at Notre-Dame of Chartres . Manessier chose religious subjects because they seemed as elusive and vast as the natural world. Towards the end of his life, he reflected on his 40 years of painting spiritual themes, saying they “were at my fingertips and at the same time, infinite.”