Disney-Britton

FINE ART MULTIPLE By Linda Greene Jasmine and Todd in their apartment. Image: © Linda Green New York collector, curator and director of Team Gallery , Todd von Ammon, has a private collection teeming with works from artists he knows and loves. “I think people need to accept and embrace the absurdity of the collecting impulse.” He gives us some insights into the mind of a collector and we find out about his herd of lava lamps. "I think people were led to believe that there was investment potential in young contemporary art, but the resounding conclusion is that there probably isn’t! It’s a totally irrational thing to want to have this stuff. I think people need to accept and embrace the absurdity of the collecting impulse." To follow Todd von Ammon’s Instagram account please click here . [ More ]

CBS NEWS By Dean Reynolds JJ Warren embraces Julie Arms Meeks during protests at the UMC national converntion CHICAGO---The United Methodist Church worldwide conference made a decision Tuesday that pleased traditionalists, but raised doubts about the church's modern motto: open hearts, open minds, open doors. On Tuesday, after three days of debate, church officials and lay members voted to place a ban on gay and lesbian clerics and the officiating of same-sex marriages. Traditionalists said loosening the faith's ban on same-sex marriage and ordination of gay and lesbian clergy defied the word of God. Reverend Keith Boyette, the Wesleyan Covenant Association first president, said LGBT members are welcome into the church — up to a point. Clergy who officiate at same-sex weddings could be suspended without pay for a year, and defrocked if they do it again. [ More ]

DAILY ILLINI Abhisandhita Nayika: Radha and Krishna estranged by a quarrel, 19th century. Northern India, Himchal Pradesh, Parahi school, Kangra.  Opaque color and gold leaf on paper. Gift of George P. Bickford, 1970-10-5  CHAMPAIGN, IL---The Krannert Art Museum’s new art exhibit, “ From Hand to Hand: Painting and the Animation of History in Northern India ” will be unveiled for public viewing on Feb. 28. The art pieces in the exhibit consists of paintings created in India from the late 1500’s to the early 1800’s. The pieces include Hindu epics, love poetry and portraits of Rajput royals. Many of the Indian paintings were donated by well-known collectors such as Alvin O. Bellak and George P. Bickford. “We’ve declared 2019 the Year of the Collection, and Krannert Art Museum is using many of our exhibitions to shine a light on truly important artwork,” Julia Kelly, the communications director, said in an email. [ More ]

KATHMANDU POST By Sanyuka Shrestha Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita dated 1015 AD In the textbook titled Chitrakala (Painting) published by the Education Ministry for students of grades 9 and 10, the first mention under the history of Nepali art is of Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita dated 1015 AD. There is no accompanying image, and the textbook further claims that such manuscripts are preserved in Nepali museums. Min Bahadur Shakya’s pioneering work Sacred Art of Nepal dedicates a short paragraph and an unclear facsimile image from this same manuscript. This is all the information that Nepali students of art have about their oldest illustrated manuscript. Arguably the most significant out of the 450 documents that Daniel Wright took back with him after serving as a surgeon at the British Residency in Kathmandu from 1866-76, this copy of Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita was purchased by the Cambridge University Library in 1876. [ More ]

NEWS 5 CLEVELAND By Kaylyn Hlavaty Seated Tenjin, 1259. Kamakura period (1185–1333). Wood with color; 94.9 x 101.5 x 68.8 cm. Yoki Tenman Jinja, Nara. Important Cultural Property. Photo: Nara National Museum CLEVELAND---The Cleveland Museum of Art is welcoming an exclusive exhibition straight from Japan, featuring 20 works designated as Important Cultural Properties by the Japan government. The exhibition, Shinto: Discovery of the Divine in Japanese Art, features art exemplifying Shinto, which is Japan's unique belief system focused on the divine phenomena called kami. The exhibition is an expression of the everyday engagement of people with divinities in their midst, according to a release from the museum. Inside the exhibition about 125 works in different media—from calligraphy, painting, sculpture, costume and decorative arts— are a collection of more than 20 religious institutions and museums in Japan. [ More ]

BBC NEWS By Cath Pound Christ, Mary, and Saints (detail), Michelangelo, Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, altar wall, fresco, 1534-1541 (Vatican City, Rome) Renaissance artists transformed the course of Western art history by making the nude central to artistic practice. The revival of interest in classical antiquity and a new focus on the role of the image in Christian worship encouraged artists to draw from life, resulting in the development of newly vibrant representations of the human body. The Renaissance Nude at the Royal Academy in London explores the development of the nude across Europe in its religious, classical and secular forms – revealing not only how it reached its dominant position, but also the often surprising attitudes to nudity and sexuality that existed at the time. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Ernest Disney-Britton Ernest's fracture boot fitted at Dr. Lyon's office in Indianapolis after breaking right heel in Key West, FL Greg said I had to post something about my accident in Key West. Okay, here it is: I fell and broke my foot. So, the Key West urgent care doctor sent me home to Indy to see a specialist. Now, I am wearing a stormtrooper boot for a few weeks. I should be back to climbing again very soon. While recovering, I have three books to finish, “New Power” by Henry Timms, “Another Country” by James Baldwin, and “You, Your Child, and School” by Sir Ken Robinson. Hopefully, I didn’t bore you too much with this update. I’d have been bored had you posted it! That makes my broken foot the news of the week. Yikes!

CULTURE TYPE By Victoria L. Valentine DURING HIS LIFETIME, James Baldwin (1924-1987) had a lot to say. His insightful observations and thoughtful, sometimes fiery, words about race, civil rights, and the American paradigm resonate 30 years after his death. A treasure trove of published and unpublished manuscripts, novels, essays, telegrams, interviews, correspondence, and handwritten notes, the Baldwin Archive includes about 70 boxes—30 linear feet of personal documents, along with photographs and audio recordings. Offering an in-depth look at Baldwin’s creative process and literary, political, and personal life, the collection spans his entire career, from the 1940s until his 1987 death at age 63. Delaney's paintings are a visual record, providing a sense of how Delaney viewed and observed Baldwin. [ More ]

ALETEIA By Stephen Beale Annunciation Triptych The Cloisters was founded in 1933 thanks to a donation from J. Pierpont Morgan, who also contributed many of the original pieces in the collection. The museum has benefited from several other contributions over the years, including a number of medieval sculptures acquired by George Grey Barnard that were purchased through funding provided by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., according to the museum’s official history. The Cloisters features manuscripts, stained glass, paintings, and sculptures spanning the Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque, and Gothic periods, according to an official description. It contains over 5,000 pieces. Here are four must-see treasures. [ More ]

LA GAZZATTA ITALIANA By Stephen N. Fliegel A Painted Crucifix from Pisa The cross is one of the oldest and most universal of all symbols. It is the central image in Christian art, the unique symbol of Christ himself because of his Crucifixion. In a broader sense, the cross has become the mark or sign of the Christian religion and in the eyes of Christians, the emblem of atonement and the symbol of salvation and redemption through the Christian faith. La Gazzetta Italiana began publication in May of 1992 to meet the growing demand by the Italian American community in the Greater Cleveland area for an Italian American newspaper. The publication's primary objectives at that time were to not only recognize our proud Italian heritage, traditions and culture but also to disseminate recent news, upcoming social events and local achievements.[ More ]

KOTTKE.ORG By Tim Carmody Back in 2015, I wanted to write an essay for T he Message (where I was working at the time) about James Baldwin . At that time, it seemed to me, Baldwin was everywhere, but somewhat below the radar; everyone was talking about him, but nobody seemed to notice that everyone was talking about him, or about the things he talked and wrote about. But The Message turned over its writing staff and quickly shut down, and that was the end of that. Four years later, Baldwin is not below the radar. Baldwin is everywhere, and we know he’s everywhere; we all know we’re talking about him, and if we’re not reading him and citing him, we’re apologizing about it. In short, James Baldwin is finally getting his due as the essential voice not just of the 20th century, but also of the 21st—a bridge not very many thinkers of his generation (or the one before or after) managed to cross. [ More ]

THE ART NEWSPAPER  By Nancy Kenney Egungun costume (around 1920 to 1948) at the Brooklyn Museum Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museu With its colourful swirling fabric panels, the African Yorùbá masquerade costume known as the egúngún mask is both a potent symbol of belief and a source of entertainment. Worn by a ritual performer to summon and honour the spirits of ancestors, it testifies to a family’s wealth and design sense, with each of the textiles adding a layer of nuance and status. For Kristen Windmuller-Luna, a curator of African art at the Brooklyn Museum, the costume has also been a brain-teaser of sorts, posing stubborn questions about provenance and history. One: Egúngún, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 8 February-18 August [ More ]

ARTSY By Alexxa Gotthardt Norman Rockwell. Photo via Bettmann/Getty Images. What kind of art has the power to charm millions of Americans? It’d be a good question to pose to Norman Rockwell, that famed painter of quaint, funny scenes depicting mid-20th-century American life. His works were reproduced ceaselessly on magazine covers in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s—and their appeal was immense. By the 1940s, Time magazine had already christened Rockwell as “probably the best-loved U.S. artist alive,” while the New York Times had affectionately compared his paintings to Mark Twain’s novels. On the other hand, the fine art world’s burgeoning band of critics, led by Clement Greenberg, derided his work as too sentimental, saccharine, and commercial.[ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Hilarie M. Sheets Laura Hoptman and Verne Dawson in their Manhattan home in front of, from left, Jim Lambie’s “Psychedelic Soul Stick” (2001); Bill Lynch’s “Family”; and Urs Fischer’s “Untitled.” Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London; Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times On the day in 1983 when Laura Hoptman graduated from Williams College, she took a bus to Manhattan and moved into an apartment on East 10th Street. “I knew I wanted to be in the contemporary-art world, I knew I wanted to be a curator, but most of all, I knew I just wanted to be around artists,” said Ms. Hoptman, now executive director of the Drawing Center. Over the last three decades, she’s achieved the life she envisioned, and it’s reflected on the walls of the home she shares with her husband, the painter Verne Dawson, at another address on East 10th. The couple’s grown-up bohemian apartment is filled with artworks accumulated from their network of friends...

THE ART NEWSPAPER By ANNA SANSOM Theaster Gates's studio © Photo: Chris Strong The US artist Theaster Gates has taken the eviction of a mixed-race community from a small island in Maine as the starting point for his first solo exhibition in France, opening this month at the Palais de Tokyo . In 1912, 45 people from Malaga Island were evicted by the state authorities and eight of them were committed to the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded following the state's purchase of the island in 1911. The island, a poor fishing village of black, white and mixed-race people, was ridiculed in a Maine newspaper as a “strange community” of “peculiar people”; its eviction has recently been described by a US documentary as having been motivated by economics, racism, eugenics and political retribution. Through new works including sculptures, a film and a video, the Chicago-based artist has developed the wide-ranging project and exhibition, Amalgam, which explores the complexity of interr...

SWISS INFO By Anand Chandrasekhar The Buddha statue at the site in Sahr-i-Bahlol from where it was excavated in 1909. The loan of a three-metre tall, 2,000-year-old Gandhara-period Buddha statue proved to be a bigger challenge than anticipated for Zurich’s Rietberg museum. Museum curator Johannes Beltz remembers when he first set eyes on the statue housed in the Peshawar museum, located near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. “The museum was half empty as many exhibits were on their way to South Korea for an exhibition on Buddhism. The other artefacts were covered up as there was some renovation work going on,” he told swissinfo.ch. Disappointed, Beltz asked for the largest statue to be unveiled. It was love at first sight and he was determined to bring the huge stone sculpture to Switzerland. [ More ]

THE GUARDIAN By Tim Adams ‘Divine muscular energy’: Michelangelo’s The Risen Christ, c1532-3. Right: Tristan’s Ascension (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), 2005 by Bill Viola. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019; Bill Viola Studio Eer since Bill Viola first pitched up in Florence as a 23-year-old film technician in 1974, there has been a certain inevitability that 45 years on he would end up here, sharing a mostly hushed and dimly lit Royal Academy with Michelangelo. Viola was in Italy back then working in a studio patronised by some of the pioneers of video art – including Nam June Paik and Bruce Nauman – but he was also encountering for the first time the work of Renaissance painters face-to-face in the city’s churches, an experience that he later described as something like “total immersion” for him. Along the way the two experiences – fresco and video, altarpiece and flatscreen – seemed to have fused in his imagination. Viola sa...

APOLLO MAGAZINE By Martin Gayford Dia Al-Azzawi (b. 1939) After the Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, the Phalangists had their opportunity to take revenge on old people, women and children. I have a lot of Palestinian friends, some artists and writers, and I knew those camps. Within two days, up to 3,500 people were killed. So this work had a moral side: to defend unarmed people with no voice.’ Dia Al-Azzawi (b. 1939) is talking about his huge ink and wax-crayon drawing, Sabra and Shatila Massacre 1982–3 (1982–83), which, since Tate acquired it in 2014, has become one of his best-known works. It is, unsurprisingly, a sombre piece – executed almost entirely in monochrome with occasional touches of brown and red, the latter perhaps standing for blood. [ More ]

ARTNET NEWS Production still from the Art21 “New York Close Up” film, “Kevin Beasley’s Raw Materials.” © Art21, Inc. 2019 As Kevin Beasley drove down the long, twisting driveway up to a farmhouse in Valentines, Virginia, for a family reunion back in 2011, he was just getting started on a journey that has finally culminated in a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. What triggered the artist’s years-long project was encountering fields planted, as far as the eye could see, with cotton. The plant is more than just a crop. It has infiltrated every aspect of capitalism, social interaction, cultural history, and identity in America. When Beasley saw the white-tufted stalks, it was a moment of reckoning. [ More ]

THE HINDU By Vangmayi Parakala Myriad art forms: A visitor taking a look at one of the exhibits | Photo Credit: Vangmayi Parakala It is this message of sustainable solutions that the Gandhi Virasat – Kagaz Kala exhibit at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) gives as soon as you enter its space. The entry has sheets of handmade paper, hung loosely on a large wooden frame. About a score of them, in various colours, are there for you to touch and feel their different textures. It's a subtle way of advocating for handmade paper as a green, multi-solution-driven supplement to mass-produced paper. Infusing this canvas with more meaning, is the work of 11 calligraphy, type, and calligram artists.“Calligraphy isn't simply an art form. It honours the beauty of script and language. We have 22 official languages and 13 scripts. Why haven't we ever promoted calligraphy?” Jaitly asks, explaining that the art of lettering has existed with both Persian and Hindu...

THE JEWISH NEWS By Laura Paull Artist and arts educator Lola Fraknoi Lola Fraknoi is a professional artist who wants everyone to try it. Making art, that is. Especially older adults, whom she instructs at multiple venues around San Francisco, introducing them to art techniques that enable self-expression. “Whatever tricks I learned from my classical training in art, I share and adapt for them,” Fraknoi said. “I have profound respect for their life stories and want to allow them to be creative and to develop skills to tell their story.” Fraknoi, 64, has stories of her own that emerge in her art. Born in Peru, the daughter of Jewish Romanian Holocaust survivors who made their way to South America after World War II, she came to the United States to study art as a young woman. Those early years and her family history resonate in her teaching work and in the subjects that have surfaced in her paintings, prints, collages and sculptures. [ More ]

RUETERS By Ayat Basma A man looks at the painting during an art exhibition at the Mosul Museum Hall in Mosul, Iraq January 30, 2019. REUTERS/Ari Jalal Fathi’s work is on display in “Return to Mosul” - the city’s first art exhibition since before it was seized by Islamic State, whose ultra hardline version of Sunni Islam prohibits most art forms. Artists from across Iraq are taking part in the six-day show, including many who lived in Mosul when it was in the militants’ grip. Three years under the oppressive and violent rule of Islamic State and the military campaign which drove it out in 2017 left much of the northern city in ruins. Thousands were killed, rendered homeless or maimed. Those who survived are deeply traumatized. Artists from across Iraq are taking part in the six-day show, including many who lived in Mosul when it was in the militants’ grip. [ More ]

ARTNET NEWS By Sarah Coscone Cara Romero , Jackrabbit, Cottontail & the Spirit of the Desert (2019). Photo by Lance Gerber. The second edition Desert X has touched down in the Coachella Valley of California, with site-specific work by 18 artists selected by artistic director Neville Wakefield and co-curators Amanda Hunt and Matthew Schum (Each artist had a $25,000 budget for his or her piece). The biennial gives new meaning to the word sprawling, with works scattered about an area of around 55 miles, in eight of the nine cities of the Coachella Valley. Much of the work alludes to aspects of life in the desert that aren’t immediately apparent, such as the rich heritage of the region’s indigenous communities, the growing effects of global warming, or the power of the wind. Desert X is on view in the Coachella Valley, California, February 9–April 21, 2019. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Anila Quayyum Agha's "This is NOT a Refuge 1" (2019) - lasercut, resin coated aluminum and lightbulb, 8 x 6 x 4 feet at Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas, Texas through March 23, 2019 It’s 27 degrees in Indy this morning, but we’re heading to 80 degrees of warmth at our refuge in Key West . In Psalms 46:1 , the writer says, “God is our refuge and our strength, A very present help in trouble,” and when it’s cold, the help we need is a flight to Florida. On a serious note, the artist Anila Quayyum Agha is also interested in a refuge, but as safety from fear and pain. When at our worst Americans deny refuge . That is why Anila Agha’s “ This is NOT a Refuge 1 ” is our art of the week.

ARTNEWS By Alex Greenberger Guadalupe Rosales (left) and Hank Willis Thomas (right). COURTESY THE ARTISTS Artists Guadalupe Rosales and Hank Willis Thomas are the recipients of this year’s Gordon Parks Foundation fellowships, which are given annually to artists working on themes related to representation and social justice. The foundation based in Pleasantville, New York, is giving the artists $20,000 grants in support of new projects. Rosales, who appeared on an ARTnews list of Los Angeles–based artists to watch last year, frequently focuses her work on her city’s Latinx and Chicanx communities, and has made a project of archiving photography related to each. Her latest photographic research will be presented by the foundation in July. [ More ]

THE HINDU By Ruchir Joshi Every year, Delhi’s art season throws up all sorts of odd things. Nowadays there are art events in the NCR all across the year but the so-called season is in the cooler months, from mid-October to mid-March. However, a bit like the magnetic North Pole that’s currently playing catch-me-if-you-can, the exact epicentre of the season can be hard to pinpoint. An early winter show can define a particular season, or a big retrospective of a big-name artist at a museum might yank the point into March, but one steady fulcrum is the India Art Fair (IAF) that usually takes place in end January/early February, with all the shows and events that are clustered around that sales jamboree. [ More ]

FINANCIAL TIMES By Suzi Feay Bill Viola’s ‘Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire,Water)’ in St Paul’s You can’t help thinking that if Christopher Wren had wanted two permanent video installations in chapels next to the high altar in St Paul’s , he would have arranged to be born 300 years later. Why video? John Moses, the former dean of St Paul’s who commissioned the work, brushes off centuries of religious art with the words “If you have a painting, you stop for 15 seconds then pass on.” Speak for yourself, your worship! This contemporary form requires a greater degree of involvement from the viewer than the traditional ones, he explains. But [Bill] Viola is not just respectful of the Renaissance tradition, he is steeped in it, and this film demonstrates that his work really can bear the comparison. [ More ]

HYPERALLERGIC By Dorian Batycka Supporters surrounded the monument with flowers after the vandalization (all images courtesy of Anna Ehrenstein) A monument in Berlin’s Tiergarten, dedicated to the tens of thousands of LGBTQ people who were killed and persecuted under the Nazis, has been vandalized, again. The vandalism appears to part of a growing sense of homophobia in Berlin with fears mounting that the city’s infamous tolerance is yielding to violence and unease by far-right groups. Artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset , who designed the monument over a decade ago, says, “The memorial can be repaired — it is far worse when the victim of violent homophobia is a human being.”[ More ]

THE ART NEWSPAPER Our pick of the most significant new gifts and purchases to enter museum collections worldwide, from Dalí’s lobster telephone to a bumper gift of indigenous art. [ More] Musea Brugge. Bruges Panel painting by the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula. Musea Brugge has acquired Saint Veronica with the Sudarium (around 1500), an oil on oak panel painting by the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula.

NPR.ORG By Rachel Martin lter also tried to imitate the rhythm of the original — which was a challenge because Hebrew is a much more compact language than English. For 24 years, literary scholar Robert Alter has been working on a new translation of the Hebrew Bible and — "this may shock some of your listeners," he warns — he's been working on it by hand. "I'm very particular — I write on narrow-lined paper and I have a Cross mechanical pencil," he says. The result is a three-volume set — a translation with commentary — that runs over 3,000 pages. Working solo for so long on a project of this magnitude can take its toll, he says: "If you keep going verse by verse, looking at the commentary and wrestling with difficult words and so forth, you can get a little batty." "In trying to be faithful to the literary art of the Hebrew Bible I certainly edged it away from being merely a precursor to the New Testament — which is a different kind of w...

ARTNET NEWS By Henri Neuendorf, A scholar says this work, known as The Virgin with the Laughing Child (ca. 1465), is by Leonardo da Vinci. Photo: courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. An Italian scholar says a terracotta statuette in the collection of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is by Leonardo da Vinci, even though the museum isn’t convinced. According to The Art Newspaper , art history professor Francesco Caglioti of the University of Naples Federico II attributed the sculpture, known as The Virgin with the Laughing Child (ca. 1465), to the 15th-century master in an interview with an Italian newspaper. If he’s correct, it would be the only known sculpture by the Renaissance polymath in existence. The work is scheduled to go on view as part of the first retrospective of Leonardo’s mentor, Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488) at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence next month. The show travels to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in September. [ More...

NUVO By Laura McPhee Portrait of Chaney Lively, T.J. Reynolds (2019) Indianapolis was literally uncharted territory when chosen as the state capitol in 1820. With the exception of a few hardy settlers and a handful of Native Americans who refused to be chased off by the federal government, it was uninhabited wilderness. A Scotsman named Alexander Ralston was hired as surveyor in 1821 and tasked with laying out the new city—a plan that became known as the Mile Square. A lifelong bachelor with no known family, he came with a clerk and a housekeeper described as “a mulatto woman named Chaney Lively.” Chaney was 21-years-old when she arrived in the city and a free woman of color—the first to call Indianapolis home. [ More ]

NPR.ORG By Ari Shapiro Love Poems (For Married People) by John Kenney; Hardcover, 101 pages Honey? You awake? There's no shortage of romantic verse for people who have just fallen in love. But no one waxes poetic about the soft glow of a smartphone screen, or the sweet caress of sweatpants. So John Kenney, a "longtime married person," has filled this void with a slim volume called Love Poems (for Married People) , in which he celebrates what happens to romance after years (and years, and years) of partnership. The book started a few years ago as a rather hastily written humor column in The New Yorker and "it got a pretty good response," Kenney says. Every year on Valentine's Day, it resurfaces. "Whoever you are ... newly married, longtime married, whatever kind of relationship you're in, I think there are some universal truths about life together," Kenney says.[ More ]

ARTNET NEWS By Judd Tully Victoria Beckham with Artemisia Gentileschi's Saint Sebastian Tended By Irene at the exhibition for "The Female Triumphant" at Sotheby's New York. Photo courtesy of Tom Newton. It’s rare for an Old Master auction to receive coverage in Vogue and InStyle magazines. But this year’s Masters Week sales in New York, held in the freezing final days of January, generated more buzz than usual thanks to an unlikely celebrity endorsement from fashion diva Victoria Beckham, who promoted a selection of 21 works by 14 female artists. Did the stunt pay off? Might it help lure a younger crowd—particularly those interested in sifting through art history for overlooked talents—to the Old Master category? So far, it’s hard to say. The group of pictures—presented under the banner “the Female Triumphant”—realized $14.6 million, just overshooting pre-sale estimate of $8.9 million to $13.2 million. [ More ]

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE By Rose S. Aslan (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Muslims can pray anywhere in the world using the prayer carpet. Ritual purity is important for Muslim prayer practices. As Islamic studies scholar Marion Katz explains, prayer carpets provide a protective layer between the worshipper and the ground, protecting the clothing from anything on ground that is polluting. Muslim carpets have been traditionally produced for centuries in Muslim majority regions, sometimes known as “the rug belt,” spanning from Morocco to Central Asia and northern India. There is a wide variety of designs and materials. Islamic art historian Walter B. Denny, in “How to Read Islamic Carpets,” explains the different materials and symbolism in weaves used in these carpets. It is highly unlikely for Muslims to leave behind their prayer rugs or to even carry one on a perilous journey through the harsh desert. [ More ]

ARTDAILY Derick Baegert, The Descent from the Cross, c. 1480-1490 (detail), Dallas Museum of Art, Marguerite and Robert Hoffman Fund in memory of Dr. William B. Jordan. DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art continued to strengthen and expand its exhibitions and educational programming, bilingual offerings, and curatorial team in 2018 with the appointment of new leadership across departments, the development of expanded education initiatives, and the acquisition of major works across its collections. In support of the DMA’s commitment to engaging the community through programs anchored by its collections, three new curators and a new director of education joined the Museum in 2018, and the Museum expanded its off-site and bilingual program offerings. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Wang Guangle, 180825, 2018. Acrylic on canvas 230 cm × 160 cm (90-9/16" × 63") © Wang Guangle, courtesy Pace Gallery Renowned Chinese artist Wang Guangle concluded " Duo Color ," is fourth international exhibition with Pace and third solo show in New York on February 9, 2019. One of the preeminent contemporary abstract painters, Wang’s work is rooted in an investigation of painting’s temporality and in the power of the canvas as a vessel of labor and marker of time. Within Wang’s practice and the cultural background from which his work emerges, the notion of “color” refers to a Buddhist concept used to capture the appearance of the material world, which is considered the result of the illusions and agonies of people’s minds. [ More ]

THE ART NEWSPAPER By Maev Kennedy Vine scroll frieze fragment from Period III Altar platform at Khirbet et-Tannur © Juan Orlandis Habsburgo Stones carved with foliage which once twined around the altar of an ancient Nabatean goddess have been returned to Jordan, after an Oxford academic helped a Spanish art dealer to identify them as missing fragments from a temple excavated more than 80 years ago. The three stones were instantly recognised by Judith McKenzie, an expert on Nabatean history and culture, as once forming part of Khirbet et-Tannur, a Nabatean temple dating back more than 2,000 years. The site is famous for the altars of two fertility images known as the Fish Goddess, which one of the stones joins, and the Vegetation Goddess which now stands in the entrance of the Jordan Museum in Amman. [ More ]

HYPERALLERGIC By Hakim Bishara On Wednesday, January 30, a small group of Israeli human rights activists gathered outside the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem to protest the display of looted archaeological artifacts from occupied Palestinian territories in a controversial new exhibition. Finds Gone Astray , which opened on December 30, features 40,000 artifacts that the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration (ADCA) — Israel’s military government in the West Bank — confiscated from looters and unauthorized dealers in antiquities over the past 50 years. The items were stolen from sites in occupied Palestinian territories, Syria, and Iraq. The protestors demand the immediate removal of the exhibition and the repatriation of the stolen items to the Palestinian Authority. [ More ]

ARTNET NEWS By Javier Pes Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, is the most architecturally sophisticated prehistoric stone circle in the world. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. A World War I epic produced by Steven Spielberg that filmmakers hope to shoot just six miles away from Stonehenge is meeting resistance from conservationists. Producers of the film, titled 1917 and directed by Sam Mendes, have asked to shoot for several weeks on Salisbury Plain, which archaeologists say could damage prehistoric sites that await discovery. Details of the movie are under wraps, but planning documents reveal that the shoot will involve a cast and crew of hundreds and a large-scale set built on land owned by the Ministry of Defence, which has given the production its blessing. Although Stonehenge is miles away, archaeologists say the site must be properly checked before building begins. David Dawson, the director of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, which has raised ...

LOS ANGELES BOOK REVIEW By Evan Kuehn David Kermani describes his book, Wonder Beyond Belief: On Christianity , as “freely associated meditations” on Christian art. Wonder Beyond Belief is an exercise in aesthetic reflection as a viable mode of negotiating religious discourse and distance. What Kermani provides is more than simply a model for dialogue between faiths, although he does do this. In his engagement with Christian visual art, we encounter a model for aesthetic judgment that also does justice to the everyday piety of religious believers, who may not engage with sacred art as works of genius, but do potentially invest a religious significance in these works that is open to recognition and question by the tourist. This approach recommends itself in large part because it is unassuming. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS This is NOT a Refuge 1, 2019 - lasercut, resin coated aluminum and lightbulb, 8 x 6 x 4 feet  In a new show at the  Talley Dunn Gallery  in Dallas, Anila Quayyum Agha exhibits her newest series of large scale works.  Anila Quayyum Agha: Itinerant Shadows  opened on Saturday, February 9, 2019, and features multiple laser-cut steel sculptural installations as well as a series of embroidered, cut, and layered works on paper. As a Pakistani-American artist who currently lives and works in Indianapolis, Agha’s work explores the intersection of perceived cultural and social polarities such as the masculine-feminine, public-private, and religious-secular.  Anila Quayyum Agha's   recontextualization of Islamic geometric motifs creates a quiet space of contemplation and earned her the Alpha & Omega Prize for Contemporary Religious Art for her “Intersections” sculpture in 2014.

HYPERALLERGIC By Hrag Vartanian The CEO of the Museum of the Bible , Ken McKenzie, appears to think that the Biblical story of David and Goliath is real, and that archaeologists have actually discovered the exact stone (which he’s weirdly specific about) used to slay the giant. A former pilot and officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force turned Airbus executive, McKenzie’s words are the latest example of the Museum of the Bible being involved in questionable intellectual activity and framing. Recently the museum, as reported by Michael Press for Hyperallergic, has engaged in what appears to be illegal archaeological activity on occupied lands and fake Dead Sea scrolls . [ More ]

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR By Domenica Bongiovanni Julie Goodman is the new president and CEO of the Arts Council of Indianapolis. (Photo: Photo provided) The Arts Council of Indianapolis has a new president and CEO. Julie Goodman, who grew up in Indianapolis and has spent decades in nonprofit work, will assume the post March 4, the council announced Monday. Goodman most recently served at Strada Education Network , where she was senior vice president of marketing communications. The Indianapolis-based nonprofit helps create opportunities between education and employment. Before she moved back to Indianapolis to work at Strada, she served in roles at Cincinnati Opera; ArtWorks, which hires youth and professional artists to create public and private art; MUSE Women's Choir; and Madcap Puppets, among others. [ More ]

CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY By Maria Di Mento DAVID X. PRUTTING/PATRICK MCMULLAN/GETTY IMAGES The late Standard Oil heir, David Rockefeller Sr., has left the Museum of Modern Art an estimated $103 million, adding to the $100 million pledge he made to the museum nearly 14 years ago, according to a Rockefeller family spokeswoman. [ More ]

HYPERALLERGIC By Julia Friedman Sandow Birk, “The Triumph of Fear”(2017) acrylic on canvas; 46 x 54 inches Sandow Birk’s exhibition at PPOW Gallery , Triumph of Hate , examines dark strains in the culture and politics of the United States, including Trump, gun violence, white supremacy, and greed. Birk’s body of work is unusual in that its explicit politics don’t read as overly didactic — a difficult line to walk successfully. Triumph of Hate is comprised of three distinct bodies of work: a series of satirical prints about Trumpian exploits, graphically violent paintings examining recent events, and a triptych of woodblock prints representing the battle of good versus evil throughout American history. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Rennie Harris' Lazarus. Photo by Paul Kolnik Alvin Ailey’s iconic “Revelations” is the big draw this week at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts  in Wash, DC., but it was a new work “ Lazarus ” by Rennie Harris that wrecked Ernest. The Washington Post reviewer described the experience as being thrust into “painful territory.” There is slavery, lynching, and AIDS, but finally, there is a resurrection. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater grips audiences in the same way as the art we bring home. The lighting, sound, costumes, dance, and transmutation of faith make “ Lazarus ,” our art of the week.

ARTDAILY A guide waits for visitors at the space museum located in Saint Paraskeva church in Pereyaslav-Khemlnytsky, a small town some 80 kilometers southeast of Kiev on January 11, 2019. ALEKSEY FILIPPOV / AFP. PEREYASLAV-KHMELNYTSKY (AFP).- Inside a traditional Orthodox church topped with a gold cross, instead of icons, visitors can see a lunar rover and the helmet of the first man in space Yuri Gagarin. The wooden church in central Ukraine is one of thousands of buildings that were repurposed or simply destroyed during an anti-religion campaign in the Soviet era. But now some believers are asking whether it's time for the blue and grey painted structure to be returned to the Church, especially as Ukraine is undergoing a religious revival. Last month the country created its own Orthodox Church in a historic break with the Russian Orthodox Church. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Mariam Ghani and Erin Ellen Kelly’s “Off Kilter,” from the series “When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved.”Creditvia Ryan Lee Gallery Dance and movement are increasingly infiltrating museum and gallery spaces, and they do so in Mariam Ghani and Erin Ellen Kelly’s “ When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved ” at Ryan Lee, which takes its inspiration from the Shakers, a Christian sect founded in 18th-century England. In the 22-minute video, spread over three screens, this movement can be fluid or jerky, collective or solitary, taking place on a wooden floor or under a tree. Through Feb. 16. Ryan Lee, 515 West 26th Street, Manhattan; 212-397-0742, ryanleegallery.com . [ More ]