Disney-Britton

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Hilarie M. Sheets Sarah Harrelson at home in Miami Beach with “Shoyru Statue (original blue),” 2018, by Bunny Rogers. MIAMI BEACH — For Sarah Harrelson, running an arts magazine, raising three teenagers and collecting contemporary art are intimately entwined pursuits. Austin Harrelson, her husband and a designer, landscaped the pool area outside and appointed the interior with furnishings by classic modernists including Karl Springer and Samuel Marx, while the family as an ensemble has had a say in the mix of art — often by women, some of them very young — in their home. “We’ve all gone to Art Basel in Switzerland together for the last eight years,” Ms. Harrelson said. Today, they own close to 200 works by artists including Lucy Dodd (who paints with natural elements like yew berries and avocado skins), Tschabalala Self (who depicts exaggerated black female bodies) and Ella Kruglyanskaya (who makes stylized, cartoonish representations of ...

WISH TV "Reliquary" by Shamira Wilson was inspired by his year’s theme, Black Migrations and Urban Realities The Arts Council of Indianapolis will celebrate Black History Month with a series of free, daily performances and not-to-be-missed events at the Indianapolis Artsgarden. This is the 23rd year of the celebration, known as Art & Soul, which will run from February 2 – 28. Shamira Wilson, featured artist at this year's celebration, previews this year's festivities, including an African drum procession, a youth choral performance, Indianapolis Living Legends: Men in the Fire and Sandy Lomax, singing of the Black National Anthem, an inspirational dance performance by Kenyetta Dance Company, and performances by this year’s four featured artists: Allison Victoria (voice), Lalah Hazelwood (dance), Joshua Thompson (piano) and Shamira Wilson (visual).[ More ]

ANDREW MELLON FOUNDATION ARLINGTON, VA – January 15, 2019 – The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the only organization representing the entire scope of the museum community, today launched an unprecedented national initiative to diversify museum boards and leadership. Backed by $4 million in grants from three foundations (The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Alice L. Walton Foundation, and Ford Foundation), “Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity & Inclusion,” will provide the framework, training, and resources for museum leaders to build inclusive cultures within their institutions that more accurately reflect the communities they serve. The three-year grant is the largest in AAM’s 113-year history and will fund diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion work starting this year. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Paulette Perhach On Shaun Kardinal’s wall, left to right: “Royalties Wanted,” by Anthony White (2018); an untitled painting by Ken Kelly (2010); and “500/500,” by Mr. Kardinal (2011). SEATTLE — Shaun Kardinal, 36, doesn’t know where he’d fit another piece of art in his one-bedroom apartment, which is bursting already with more than 100 works. “Art tends to find the nooks and crannies for things to happen,” he said. Mr. Kardinal’s collection was born of the artistic community he has tapped into since his early days working at a frame shop. The items he pointed out in a visit to his Seattle home chronicle his 18 years there: There’s a colored-pencil drawing of him and his cat by Troy Gua; a painting by a neighbor of her bathroom, which is identical to his; and several pieces acquired through trades with artists he has befriended over time. [ More ]

USA TODAY By Sara M Moniuszko and Jayme Deerwester, Chicago Police say they are still searching for the assailants who attacked "Empire" star Jussie Smollett early Tuesday morning in what Chief Communications Officer Anthony Guglielmi says they are investigating as a "possible hate crime." "As of 10 p.m. Tuesday, detectives canvassed and reviewed hundreds of hours of video and have now expanded the search area," Guglielmi said in a statement updating USA TODAY on the status of the investigation. However, he said no video of the alleged assailants or their vehicle had yet been found. In an earlier statement on Tuesday, Guglielmi said that Smollett, who had returned Chicago one day earlier for work was fully cooperating with investigators and helping them establish a timeline of the assault. [ More ]

THE MIAMI HERALD By Augusta Robinson, Tyler Morning Telegraph Add caption TYLER, TEXAS -- While viewing Robert Puschautz's "Madonna of the Roses," Tyler residents may feel they have a clear symbol of their city's connection to God's plan. The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports in the painting — which is inspired by a work by William-Adolphe Bouguereau that bears the same name — red roses drawn from those in the Tyler Municipal Rose Garden spring up in full bloom from a bush that surrounds Mary and Jesus Christ. The trees in the background are modeled from those created by American landscape painter George Inness, but might remind some of the Piney Woods of East Texas. Because Puschautz, a Chicago native who now lives in Tyler, avoids using photographs to create his works, even Jesus Christ was drawn based on a model — in this case his neighbor's sleeping baby. [ More ]

BLOODY DISGUSTING By Brad Miska Ahead of the Sundance Film Festival premiere, Magnolia Pictures shared the official artwork for Hail Satan?, which depicts the Statue of Liberty turned into Baphomet. This should piss a few people off…Penny Lane’s film charts the rise of The Satanic Temple, a mysterious organisation led by Lucien Greaves that has called for a Satanic revolution to save the soul of the US. Magnolia plans a spring 2019 theatrical release. “Penny Lane has crafted an eye-opening and completely satisfying film about outsiders who have united around the common causes of love and religious freedom,” said Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles when first announced by ScreenDaily. “Hail Satan? is as uplifting and hilarious as it is thought-provoking.” [ More ]

THE HINDU By Rohan Manoj A work by 3rd Space Lab Collective | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement What do we see through a glass darkly? Mere reflections, or a façade hiding an eldritch realm that lies just beyond our ken, populated by demons plotting to invade the material world and devour all mankind? The ancient Chinese believed the latter, dubbing these creatures the ‘fauna of mirrors’ — and this concept has been adopted as the title for the second edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale (CPB). The Biennale, an international festival of photography co-founded and co-organised by the CPB Foundation and the Goethe Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, will be open to the public from February 22 to March 24, and will feature works by more than 100 artists from 13 countries, with exhibitions in various venues across the city, including heritage sites. [ More ]

THE GUARDIAN By @SearleAdrian Theatrical … Bill Viola’s Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), 2005. Photograph: Kira Perov/courtesy Bill Viola Studio Bill Viola/Michelangelo is subtitled Life Death Rebirth. The three words are the first thing you see in the Royal Academy’s pairing of the two artists. You enter fully alive. About half way through the dark, labyrinthine galleries, we meet an naked elderly couple, each projected on a slab of black granite, examining their own bodies with small torches. Apparently, he is searching for immortality, she for eternity. By now I wish it were over. At the end, we come across a woman silhouetted against a wall of flame. This is the last frontier. The pairing of Viola’s video installations with Michelangelo drawings is not, the RA insists, an attempt to elevate the American video artist to the status of a modern Michelangelo. Rather, it is an attempt to point out affinities in subject matter and spiritual aspira...

ARTNET NEWS By Naomi Rea The Royal Academy of Arts in Londo n, one of the city’s most esteemed institutions, is pairing a group of exquisite late drawings by Michelangelo with—and you’re reading this correctly—videos by the polarizing video artist Bill Viola . It’s the first time the academy has staged a significant exhibition of video art, and it puts Viola, known for his “sacred” video installations, in a direct line of succession from the universally acclaimed Renaissance Old Master. Fourteen of Michelangelo’s drawings, including The Risen Christ (around 1532), are juxtaposed with 12 of Viola’s video installations spanning 1977 to 2013. “ Bill Viola/Michelangelo: Life Death Rebirth ” is on view January 26 through March 31, 2019, at the Royal Academy in London. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES  By Farah Nayeri Drawings by Michelangelo depicting the crucifixion flank “Surrender,” a video work by Bill Viola, in a new exhibition the Royal Academy in London. LONDON — They are among the last drawings that Michelangelo ever produced: ethereal depictions of Christ on the cross, his legs a nebulous haze, his face a spectral blur. Grieving at his feet are the Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist. Those 16th-century chalk drawings hang on either side of a dual-screen video installation produced in 2001 by the American artist Bill Viola : two modern-day mourners (one pictured upside down) who weep in silence until their figures dissolve into a pool of water. Born nearly 500 years apart, the two artists have been coupled in an exhibition opening Saturday at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Yet staged in the Royal Academy’s dimmed and vaulted galleries, the show is something like a religious experience. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton From the series "Río Abajo: Drifting Away #7" (2008) by Erika Diettes at the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, Saint Louis, MO Erika Diettes is a photographer who explores issues of memory, pain, absence, and death. Her “Río Abajo: Drifting Away #7" is one part of a photographic series of twenty-six pieces of clothing created in response to the disappearances of her fellow Columbians. Like the play “ The Diary of Anne Frank ,” Diettes’s #7, a corpse-like blue shirt floating down a river is a spiritual charge to face violence early, including our own  MAGA movement . “Drifting Away #7" by  Erika Diettes  is now at the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art , and that’s why it is our art of the week.

YALE NEWS By Michael Cummings Two temples at Pattadakal in India. Subhashini Kaligotla, assistant professor of art history, points to a photograph on her computer screen of elaborate sandstone towers at Pattadakal, a medieval temple complex in northern Karnataka, India. “I always ask my students if they see different architectural styles,” she said, seated in her office at the Loria Center. She points out two distinct types of tower: One is curvilinear and rises vertically while the other is pyramidal and tiered. The first style is associated with the architecture of North India, the other with South India. About the size of a New York City block, Pattadakal features nine Hindu temples and a sanctuary dedicated to Jainism — a religious tradition that advocates nonviolence as a pathway to spiritual enlightenment — as well as numerous smaller shrines. [ More ]

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL By Kathleeen Roberts Rosemary Buckley of Fishkill, N.Y., looks at the Processional Shield Painting "The Nativity (recto)" and "The Virgin and Child (verso)" from the Viceroyalty of Peru in "Visions of the Hispanic World: Treasures From the Hispanic Society Museum & Library" at the Albuquerque Museum. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal) An art exhibition from New York’s Hispanic Society is producing visions of visitors at the Albuquerque Museum . Since the show opened in early November, attendance at “Visions of the Hispanic World: Treasures From the Hispanic Society Museum & Library” has skyrocketed by 59 percent compared to the same period in 2017. Featuring works by such high-profile artists as Goya, Velásquez and El Greco, “Visions” encompasses Celtic, Islamic and Judaic cultures, as well as the Impressionist paintings of Joquin Sorolla y Bastida. The exhibition is open through March 31. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS My 60s At Eastern Michigan University, I found my path to college graduation with a major in art management, and I found the Roman Catholic faith. Now, at the beginning of my 60th year, I began combing through the blog what I share with my husband, Gregory Disney-Britton, and looking for images that reflect each decade of my life. At our home in Indianapolis, we display some 60 works by artists including many we discovered them through our daily blog research, such a Nicollo Cosme. Others we acquired following our annual reader's poll, the Alpha Omega Prize such as winners Kelvin Burzon (2017), and Kehinde Wiley (2008).

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Kehinde Wiley's "Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of the Last Judgment" (2018) inspired by Jusepe de Ribera in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum. Oil on linden, 96 x 72 in Who is the greatest artist of our age? It’s Kehinde Wiley , and the monumental evidence is currently on dramatic display at the Saint Louis Art Museum. What better way to make underserved audiences feel part of their museum than to commission eleven original portraits of community members for display inside the museum? Wiley's "Saint Jerome Hearing the Trumpet of the Last Judgment" is inspired by a 1621 etching by Jusepe de Ribera. See them both through February 10, and that’s why “ Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis ” is our art news of week.

TRUTHOUT By Nicholas Powers Director Barry Jenkins discusses his romantic drama film If Beale Street Could Talk at the Build Studio in New York City on November 28, 2018. How does love survive separation and injustice? The question drives Barry Jenkins’s new film, If Beale Street Could Talk, an adaptation of the 1974 James Baldwin novel, where young Black lovers are nearly destroyed by racism. Everywhere they go, bigots prey on them — whether a carping boss, predatory landlord or racist cop. Baldwin’s answer is that love lets us see (if not touch) a future beyond suffering. Prophetic art is a tradition in Black culture, present in slave narratives, gospel, rap and films like If Beale Street Could Talk. A key feature is that love becomes a vision that transcends cotton fields, ghettoes and prisons. It shimmers like a dream in the brutal world. The implicit prophecy is that for Black life to be honored, the US must be radically transformed or cease to exist. [ More ]

APOLLO MAGAZINE A03-CaravansofGold-SeatedFigure-copy Seated Figure (detail; late 13th–14th century), possibly Ife, Nigeria. Courtesy National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Abuja, Nigeria In the Middle Ages, gold from West Africa was transported across the Sahara Desert in vast quantities, to be used across North Africa, the Middle East and Europe for luxury wares and religious objects, from jewellery to picture frames, and for minting currency. This exhibition places medieval Africa at the centre of a global trade network, and explores through some 250 objects how art and ideas, as well as gold, travelled across the Sahara. Find out more from the Block Museum’s website . [ More ]

THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER By Mark Curnute These bronze statues on display at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center represent the early period of African slaves being brought to what would become the United States. This year marks the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans being brought against their will to the British colonies at Jamestown, Virginia. Cincinnati's 44th annual celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day national holiday on Monday coincides with a significant anniversary. This year marks the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans being brought to the British colonies in Jamestown, Virginia. The theme of the commemoration at Music Hall is "400 Years of Enslavement: It Stops with Us." Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million people were stolen from Africa. The treacherous journey from West Africa to the West Indies or the Americas, known as the Middle Passage, claimed 1.8 million lives. About 388,000 enslaved Africans were shipped directly to Nort...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Dionne Searcey and Farah Nayeri A Bamoun statue from Cameroon, left, and a 2018 painting, “Redresseurs,” from a Cuban art collective The Merger, at the new Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar. It retraces cultural contributions of Africa up to present time. DAKAR, Senegal — The 19th-century sword rests in a glass case alongside a frail Quran in a spacious gallery where scrolls hang from the wall and soft religious chanting is piped in. The saber’s etched copper handle is shaped like a swan’s beak, with a ring at the end. Its leather sheath rests nearby. The sword belonged to Omar Saidou Tall, a prominent Muslim spiritual leader in the 1800s in what is now modern-day Senegal. Like most artifacts from France’s African colonies, it wound up in a French museum. But the sword is now back in Senegal — and the Senegalese would like to keep it here. It is one of the most important pieces on display at Senegal’s new Museum of Black Civilizations, which has opened ...

THE WASHINGTON POST In this Dec. 6, 2018, file photo, Karen Pence smiles as she gives a tour of the holiday decorations at the Vice President's residence in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — It's back to school for Karen Pence, Vice President Mike Pence's wife. Mrs. Pence began teaching art to elementary students at Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia on Tuesday. Mrs. Pence accepted the job in December and was to have rebooted her teaching career on Monday. But classes were canceled after a heavy weekend snowfall across the Washington region. Her office says she'll teach twice a week until May. The second lady is facing backlash after it was revealed Immanuel Christian School requires teaching applicants to agree to a "personal life of moral purity," and acknowledging marriage is between a man and woman. [ More ]

THE RED & BLACK By Kyra Posey | Contributor Sister Louisa’s Church of The Living Room & Ping Pong Emporium is a dance-centric bar at the end of Clayton Street in downtown Athens and boasts an eclectic collection of religious art inside. This bar originated in Atlanta, and its sister location just celebrated its eighth anniversary. (Photo/Erin Schilling, eschilling@randb.com) On the outskirts of downtown Athens, Sister Louisa’s Church of The Living Room & Ping Pong Emporium is an established name for Athens locals, students and out-of-towners. Whether patrons visit for the frequent exhibition of drag shows or find themselves there the majority of the week — becoming what owner Jon McRae might call a “Parishioner” — you can find throngs of people dancing to classic pop hits from today (and decades before), or observing eccentric art confronting topics like Christianity and sexuality. [ More ]

SECRET LONDON By Alex Landon Now rebranded as The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, the Westminster Abbey’s old triforium has undergone a £22.9 million refit. They say good things come to those who wait. But if you’ve been waiting to get a glimpse inside Westminster Abbey’s old triforium, you’ve missed a hefty chunk of human history in the process: 700 years, in fact! Luckily, your wait is over, as the hidden gallery opened for public viewing this summer – for the first time since it was built, way back in the 13th century. Patience is a virtue, you know… For many years, the triforium was essentially Westminster’s attic, used as storage space or as a spillover viewing gallery for coronations (one ticket, found during the renovation and now part of the display, was from the 1702 coronation of Queen Anne). It even served as the BBC’s outpost during Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, as Richard Dimbleby narrated the affair to a captive TV audience.[ More ]

ARTDAILY "McJesus" by Jani Leinonen on display at the Haifa Museum of Art. JERUSALEM (AFP).- A fast-food clown nailed to a cross has united its Finnish creator with Holy Land Christians demanding the artwork's removal from an exhibition at an Israeli museum. The controversy involves "McJesus", a statue of a crucified Ronald McDonald by Jani Leinonen on display at the Haifa Museum of Art. It, along with a figurine representing Jesus as a smiling crucified Ken doll, has raised the ire of members of the local Christian community. The works are part of "Sacred Goods", an exhibition about consumerism running in the northern coastal city's museum since August. McJesus", created by a Christian artist, has been displayed "in many European museums," and "is about the cynical use of religious symbols by giant corporations. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Steph Yin Blue flecks of lapis lazuli in the tartar of a 10th-century nun. She likely was an accomplished painter and manuscript illuminator, who used her (unbrushed) teeth to shape her paintbrush.CreditCreditChristina Warinner Anita Radini, an archaeologist at the University of York, in England, spends a lot of time looking at tartar. Really old tartar. But several years ago, when studying the dental plaque of a nun from medieval Germany, Dr. Radini saw something entirely new: particles of a brilliant blue. She showed the findings to Christina Warinner, another tartar expert, who was shocked. The particles, it turned out, were of ultramarine pigment, the finest and most expensive of blue colorings, made of lapis lazuli stone from Afghanistan. The German nun with the pigment in her teeth — B78, as she is known in the archaeological literature — was likely a painter and scribe of religious texts. And she must have been highly skilled to have been entrusted wi...

ARTDAILY Thai gilt copper alloy figure of a bodhisattva, late 19th century (est. $600-800). LOS ANGELES, CA.- Andrew Jones Auctions’ first DTLA Collections & Estates Auction of the New Year, on Sunday, January 20th, will feature a vast selection of over 500 lots of market fresh furnishings, decorations and accessories including fine art, antiques, design, Asian works of art, estate jewelry and fine silver from several local collections and estates, all enticingly priced. The auction will start promptly at 10:30 am Pacific standard time. The sale will be held online (via Invaluable.com and LiveAuctioneers.com) and in Andrew Jones Auctions’ roomy gallery at 2221 South Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton ""The Resurrection of Christ" (1622) by Johann König What makes life worth living? On Friday, we saw the dramedy, “ Every Brilliant Thing ,” where an actor shares his list of one-million things that make life worth living. Four things on our list are: #1. Six inches of snow; #2. Eight perfect push-ups ; #3. Finding lost puppy-toys; and #4. The luminous colors of “ The Resurrection of Christ ” at the Cleveland Museum of Art. What makes life worth living? We know it’s worth it because we know that God is present ( Ecclesiastes 3 ). That’s why Johann König’s “The Resurrection of Christ” is our brilliant thing of the week .

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Vertical Poetry of Light" (2018) by Wang Gongyi NEW YORK CITY---Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening on November 17, 2018 of Wang Gongyi: Winsor Blue . This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York. Wang Gongyi was born in Tianjin, China in 1946. In 1986, she made her first trip abroad when she was invited by the French Ministry of Culture to study art and art education, and 1992 she went to Aix-en-Provence and Lyon to learn the technique of lithography. After periods as artist-in-residence at the Museum of Oregon State University and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, she moved permanently to the US in 2001 and is now based in Portland. Chambers Fine Art, 522 West 19th Street New York, NY (Through January 19, 2019) [ More ]

THE YORK TIMES By Jesse Green The Broadway premiere of Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney's acclaimed drama. You haven’t seen a character like Pharus before. Certainly not on Broadway. It’s not just that he’s “an effeminate young man of color,” as Tarell Alvin McCraney thumbnails him in the script for “ Choir Boy .” But by the time Jeremy Pope, making a sensational Broadway debut in the role, gets through with him, that sketch has been filled in, roughed up and turned inside out — and with it a world of tired ideas about what it means for a man to be strong. When “Choir Boy,” which opened on Tuesday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, sticks to that idea, focusing on Pharus’s discovery, through exuberant music, of the brawn inside his perceived weakness, it is captivating and fresh. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Jacob de Backer's "The Annunciation; Pentecost"  Sotheby’s is delighted to announce that we will be hosting an Old Masters Online sale during Sotheby’s famous Masters Week in 2019. This sale will feature works from the 15th through the 18th centuries that depict important historical sitters, intriguing mythological episodes, idealistic landscapes, and emotive religious scenes among others. Bidding will be open from 21 January – 5 February with an exhibition on view in our New York galleries from 25 January – 2 February. [ More ]

MOSAIC MAGAZINE By Meir Soloveichik A detail from Moses with the Ten Commandments by Rembrandt, 1659. Wikipedia. Jews the world over prepare to celebrate Shavuot, the anniversary of the giving of the Law, few biblical scenes are more appropriate to contemplate than the spectacle of Moses bringing the tablets of the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai. And, incongruous though this may seem to many Jews, no more appropriate image of the scene exists than Rembrandt van Rijn’s depiction of the prophet holding aloft the two tablets bearing their Hebrew inscriptions (1659). Not only strikingly beautiful, the painting also happens to be one of the most authentically Jewish works of art ever created. How so? [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Kansa Shrine at Lake Tazawa, from the series Souvenirs of Travel III, 1927, Kawase Hasui (Japanese, 1883 - 1957), Woodblock print; ink and color on paper. René and Carolyn Balcer Collection. This Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition features twelve woodblock prints by Japanese artist Kawase Hasui (1883-1957). Selected from nearly 700 Hasuiprints donated to the museum by René and Carolyn Balcer, these works focus on scenes of temples and shrines across Japan, celebrating their sacred architecture and connections between people and nature. This installation is curated by Li Jian, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of East Asian Art, and coincides with the 100th anniversary of the first prints created by Hasui in 1918. [ More ]

GLOBAL BUDDHIST DOOR By Anne Wisman The Buddha statue being prepared for transport to Switzerland. From thenews.com.pk The Peshawar Museum in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has lent an approximately 2000-year-old, monumental Buddha statue to the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, Switzerland, where it will be exhibited to the public from 12 December 2018 to 31 March 2019. The three-and-a-half-meter tall statue, titled Buddha Shakyamuni, will be the flagship display of the “Next Stop Nirvana – Approaches to Buddhism” exhibit at the museum. According to Asif Raza, the curator of Peshawar Museum, the Buddha statue is nearly 2000-year-old, estimated to have been sculpted between the first and the third centuries CE. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Lovia GyarkyePhotographs by Pieter Henket “Congo Tales,” a new book published recently by Prestel, began as a call to action to save the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the heart of the Congo Basin, which is the second-largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon, from the threats of climate change. It soon became a book about the stories of the people who live there. “Congo Tales,” a new book published recently by Prestel, began as a call to action to save the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the heart of the Congo Basin, which is the second-largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon, from the threats of climate change. It soon became a book about the stories of the people who live there. [ More ]

TIMES OF MALTA By Stephanie Fsadni Eleńa Ryzhykh is mainly known for her abstract and figurative works. Photos: Chris Sant Fournier An abstract painting on which an image of the Madonna and a Cruficix allegedly appeared have led Ukrainian artist Eleńa Ryzhykh to turn to religious art. “In 2008, a miracle happened on one of my abstract works. Scenes of the Madonna with a baby and a praying figure with a Crucifix appeared on a vertical, large canvas. I felt indebted to God for this miracle and spent four years writing Bible stories,” Ryzhykh told the Times of Malta. A selection of her Bible-themed works are among 30 paintings currently on display at the Fortress Builders − Fortifications Interpretation Centre in Valletta. The exhibition, titled Spectrum, also features abstract coloristic structures and laconic landscapes. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS You are welcome to join us on our road-trips this year. Quarterly, our friends & family get together to talk about contemporary religious art and ideas. The first one in 2019 is to Saint Louis, MO to visit the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art on Saturday, January 19, 2019. Make your reservations at Marriott St. Louis Grand, 800 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri, and we'll meet you there. Find us at other museum exhibitions  too:

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS LALLA ESSAYDI Harem #7, 2009 Chromogenic print mounted to aluminium with a UV protective laminate 152.4 x 121.9 cm For the first time at Sundaram Tagore Gallery, a specially curated selection of images by internationally acclaimed Moroccan artist Lalla Essaydi will be on view. This exhibition brings together three of Essaydi's most powerful photographic series: Les Femmes du Maroc, Harem and Harem Revisited. Working across multiple disciplines—including painting, video, installation and photography—Essaydi challenges the social norms and hierarchies that shaped her life as a young girl in Morocco.
 Lalla Essaydi: Truth and Beauty (26 October 2018–12 January 2019); Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
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ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Angel Hosts" by Sue Prince Manger Gallery presents The Angel Project through January 31, 2019 in Devonshire, England. The Angel Project is a touring exhibition featuring imaginative work by some of England’s most inspiring artists of the religious imagination. Exhibiting artists include Maggie Cullen, Paul Smith, Michell Holmes, Elizabeth Forrest, Sue Prince, Duncan Pass, Rebecca Mercer, John Rattigan, Sarah Sharpe and Anna Thomas. Participating artist, Michael Cook established the Manger Gallery to draw attention to a handful of regional artists who share his narrative of visionary, spiritual or religious themes. For more information, visit mangergallery.co.uk .

GLOBAL BUDDHIST DOOR By Lyudmila Klasanova Bronze sculpture. From geometria.ru SOFIA---An exhibition titled “Our East. Buddhist Art of the 14th–20th Centuries from Museums and Private Collections,” opened on 14 December at the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts, one of the largest art museums in the Ural region of Russia. The exhibition consists of bronze sculptures, thangkas, and ritual objects from Bhutan, Buryatia, China, Mongolia, Nepal, South Korea, and Tibet. It brings together 80 Buddhist artifacts from the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the largest collection of Buddhist art in Russia, as well as objects from several Ural museums: Sverdlovsk Regional Local Lore Museum, the Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts, and the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. [ More ]

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER By Steven Litt Gallery 214 at the Cleveland Museum of Art features a powerful recent addition to the permanent collection: "The Resurrection of Christ," 1622, Johann Konig (German, 1586-1642), painted in oil on copper. Photo: Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer. CLEVELAND, Ohio – When you spin through the permanent galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art, it’s tempting to say to yourself been here, seen that. But part of the fun of visiting the museum is trying to figure out what’s new and different. The institution frequently rotates objects on and off view or inserts newly acquired artworks. Permanent doesn’t mean static. Three newly reinstalled galleries focusing on 17th and 18th-century northern European art, numbered 213, 214 and 215, are a visually delicious case in point. The reconceived galleries trace European art history from the early 1600s in the Netherlands to the late 1600s and early 1700s in France, with a stopover in between that su...

COMICBOOK TV By Jamie Lovett Celebrities Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas were married earlier this month. Artists have now commemorated the event with depictions in the style of The Simpsons. Chopra and Jonas held two wedding ceremonies, one Hindu and one Christian, in Jodhpur, India. Chopra shared Simpsons-style artistic depictions of both ceremonies on social media. Both caricatures feature characters from The Simpsons in the background. Rino Russo created the Simspons-style depiction of Chopra and Jonas’ Hindu wedding, seen below. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Christ as Triumphant Redeemer" by Jan Sanders van Hemessen(1504 - 1556)   This January’s Evening Sale will feature an exciting array of works from the 14th to 19th centuries lead by masters such as Orazio Gentileschi and Pieter Brueghel the Younger. This striking Christ as Triumphant Redeemer is an important addition to the corpus of the Flemish master Jan Sanders van Hemessen. Until very recently, the picture had been nearly completely over-painted, thus masking the incredibly well preserved original composition lying underneath (fig. 1). The powerful rendition of the painted figure, its monumentality and idiosyncratic color scheme, along with the technical prowess of Christ's portrayal all point to Hemessen's work from the mid 1540's, thus making this a mature and significant picture of the High Renaissance of Flemish painting.  [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Juan Gonzalez, "Free Fall," 1993, from the collection of Teresa and Lawrence Katz. (Courtesy of MOCRA) We all know the story the Church celebrates this Sunday, Epiphany Sunday, but when did you last take a leap of faith? In “Free Fall” by Juan Gonzalez (1942-1992), seven men dive into a watery abyss. Like the three wise men in Matthew 2:1-12 , Gonzalez’s divers confront both the promise and fear of a leap of faith. Religious iconography and Spanish Surrealist styling are apparent in Gonzalez's paintings, and this work is now on exhibit in Saint Louis at the  Museum of Contemporary Religious Art . That is why Juan Gonzalez’s “Free Fall” is our news of the week .

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER By Menachem Welker Michael Tracy, "Triptych: Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Stations of the Cross for Latin America — La Pasin," acrylic on tarpaulin mounted on wood with glass, pottery and mixed media, with tin corona, 1981-1988. (MOCRA collection) I still remember standing in front of Michael Tracy's enormous triptych on a February 2015 visit to St. Louis University's Museum of Contemporary Religious Art . The massive work continues to look out over the rest of the gallery, but it's now joined for the exhibit "MOCRA: 25" (through Feb. 17) by another of Tracy's works. The exhibit celebrates the museum's quarter of a century with the works of 25 artists. Prior exhibits have examined the spiritual side of Andy Warhol, AIDS and the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. [ More ]

APOLLO MAGAZINE By Paul Hills The Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels (detail; c. 1485–1500), Andrea Mantegna. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen Few displays of Italian art in recent years have been as absorbing and beautiful as this unprecedented selection of paintings, drawings and prints, devoted to the brothers-in-law Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506) and Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435–1516). The quality of loans in the exhibition, organised by the National Gallery in partnership with the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, is outstanding (the exhibition travels to Berlin from 1 March–30 June 2019). With the exception of a panel of St Jerome from Saõ Paulo, given to the young Mantegna, and the Portrait of a Humanist, attributed to Bellini, there are almost no questionable attributions among the paintings. [ More ]

THE ART NEWSPAPER By Nancy Kenney A pulpit carved by Giovanni Pisano is to be restored in Pistoia, Italy Photo: Nicolò Begliomini; courtesy of Friends of Florence Italian cultural officials have joined forces with the University of Florence and a non-profit group to rescue a renowned pulpit in the Church of Sant’Andrea in Pistoia whose carved marble elements are crumbling. The 1301 carved pulpit, created by Giovanni Pisano, will undergo a two-year intensive monitoring programme followed by conservation financed by €230,000 raised by the Washington, DC-based non-profit, Friends of Florence. The first step will be to attach probes to the pulpit that route information to a computer to establish whether the overall structure is moving, “inch by inch”, says Simonetta Brandolini d’Adda, the group’s president. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By Ernest Disney-Britton EL Greco's "Saint Peter in Tears" (1587-1596), El Greco Museum Museum in Toledo, Spain. Image courtesy of Sotheby's Trying again! I am counting on my friends to help me make my “2019” resolutions: 1. Read more. 2. Run more. 3. Pray more. I made the similar resolutions in 2018, so why will it be different this year? This year, I’ll turn sixty, and it will be the best year of my life. Last year, I took on reading the entire Bible in one year , but I gave up in August. There will be no health issue this year. Last year, I watched Greg run two mini-marathons, but I’ve not run more than a 50-yard dash since elementary school. I’m now registered for the Indy500 Mini-Marathon . Last year, I also hoped to pray more and not just the quick ditties that we recite at meal time. This year, I’ve signed up for the couple’s prayer retreat at our church, LifeJourney Church . My silver year will be my best year yet. [ link ]

NATIONAL REVIEW By Brian T. Allen Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Triumph of Death (1562-63) can be seen at the Kunsthistorisches Museum © Museo Nacional del Prado Who was Pieter Bruegel? We know he was among the premiere image makers of Western art. Two of his paintings, Hunters in the Snow and Tower of Babel, both from 1565, have been famous since he created them. His packed village scenes are the sociological beehives of his time. He spawned a century’s worth of Bruegel family artists, so he’s called “Pieter Bruegel the Elder.” With about three-quarters of his paintings and about half his drawings, from the museum’s own holdings and collections throughout the world, “Bruegel: The Hand of the Master” comes to us, finally. We’ve waited 450 years. I went to Vienna to see the show and spent the day in the museum, one of the splendid piles of variegated marble and fairy-tale temples on the Ringstrasse. [ More ]