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MR PORTER “Cerberus”, 2018, mixed media on canvas by Mr Mark Bradford In this age of frantic alarm over borders, Hades’ old hound Cerberus – the wild, three-headed beast that entraps the doomed in the underworld and spares the innocent – makes for a screamingly appropriate symbol. And Cerberus is the gathering point around which the Angeleno artist Mr Mark Bradford has built the body of work that he will show during Frieze London next month. “It was one of my childhood obsessions,” says Mr Bradford from his studio in Venice, California. “Cerberus, it haunted my dreams.” According to the artist, these new pieces, executed in Mr Bradford’s signature style – dense layers of paper applied to a stretched canvas then carved up – are largely about containment. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Kehinde Wiley, 42, at the statue's unveiling on Friday at Times Square in NYC of Richmond, Virginia addition to its Monument Avenue to be installed in 2020. Kehinde Wiley's 27 feet high bronze sculpture of an African American man riding a horse is headed to Richmond, Virginia's Monument Avenue , a 1.5-mile boulevard of equestrian monuments honoring Confederate traitors. Richmond is home to America's only monumental urban expression of white supremacy, and soon Kehinde Wiley's "Rumours of War" statue will integrate that boulevard. “Today,” he said , “we say yes to something that looks like us. We say yes to inclusivity. We say yes to broader notions of what it means to be an American.” A love for equality makes Kehinde Wiley, our artist of the week .

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Reggie Ugwu The sculpture, called “Rumors of War,” is Kehinde Wiley’s first work of public art and his first major piece since his portrait of President Obama. He looks like a man lost in time, uprooted, with the horse he rode in on, from a previous century, perhaps, or was it a future one? In a riot of flashing neon signs and costumed avengers, populating a patch of Times Square on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets, he can be seen looking regal and triumphant astride a rearing steed worthy of Napoleon, flanked between the modern colonial outposts of American Eagle Outfitters and Express. The new statue, a bronze sculpture on limestone titled “Rumors of War” and unveiled on Friday, is the first public work by the artist Kehinde Wiley . Mr. Wiley, 42, is best known for his aristocratic portraits of African-American men, including the one of President Obama that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Ted Loos Marlies Verhoeven in her living room with Jonas Wood’s “Square Red Dot” (2009), center, and two Johannes Albers sculptures, “ballpoint pen (red)” (2018), and “ballpoint pen (yellow)” (2018). In their four-story townhouse in the West Village, Marlies Verhoeven and her husband, Jacco Reijtenbagh, have amassed a collection of contemporary art that’s notable for its mixing of artists who are known quantities, like Cecily Brown and Rashid Johnson , with new names such as Royce Weatherly . The 60 or so pieces are all placed just-so in a sharp, modern design scheme. Ms. Verhoeven, 37, is the co-founder of the Cultivist, which she describes as “a culture club meets arts concierge service.” The Cultivist charges members a fee and gives them special access to art-world doings. So she interacts with other collectors all the time, and has a good bird’s-eye view of her own trove. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Andrea del Verrocchio’s “Bust of Christ” (c. 1470/1483). Credit Yale University Art Gallery The 15th-century painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio stood at the center of the Renaissance. A favorite of the Medicis, he was a teacher to Pietro Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci. With lips set and eyes downcast, Verrocchio’s painted terra-cotta bust of Christ — one of dozens of treasures in “ Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence ” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. — projects confidence, resignation, weariness, compassion, devotion to duty, pain and an exalted kind of loneliness. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS BYRON KIM Sunday Painting 4/20/10 2010 Acrylic and pen on canvas mounted on panel 14 x 14 in. 35.6 x 35.6 cm JCG9514 Every Sunday for the past eighteen years, Byron Kim has taken the time to look upward and capture a portrait of the sky onto a fourteen-by-fourteen-inch canvas. The ongoing series—aptly titled Sunday Paintings —captures the ever-changing colors of our shared sky while simultaneously operating as a record of Kim's life. In addition to soft washes of color—vibrant blue, stormy gray, wispy white—each painting contains a short rumination on the day or week, which Kim writes directly onto the surface of the canvas, alongside the specific time and place where the painting was created. MoCA's exhibition. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES  By Farah Nayeri Antony Gormley and his installation “Matrix III” (2019). LONDON — The seawater — nearly 9,000 gallons of it — fills the vastness of the gallery, up to about ankle level. Beneath the surface is a layer of light brown clay that forms a kind of seabed on the gallery floor. At the other end of the stretch of water is a closed-door that stands like a gateway to the afterlife. This is “Host,” the culmination of a major new exhibition by the British sculptor Antony Gormley at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. It’s one of 142 works (including 36 sculptures) in the show, from the minute to the monumental, the natural to the laboriously engineered. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Shiva Ahmadi (b. 1975, Tehran, Iran); Ascend; 2017; single-channel animation; 6 min. 48 sec.; courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco; photograph courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, San Francisco NEW YORK---The Rubin Museum of Art presents "Shrine Room Projects: Shiva Ahmadi / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge / Tsherin Sherpa," three contemporary art installations in dialogue with the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. The exhibition includes rotating video installations by Shiva Ahmadi ; an interactive sculptural piece by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge ; and newly acquired work by Tsherin Sherpa . "Shrine Room Projects: Shiva Ahmadi / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge / Tsherin Sherpa" will be on view

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Ralph Blumenthal Chaskel Tydor, a survivor of Auschwitz, described for his family how, despite the danger, this shofar, or ceremonial ram’s horn, was blown at the camp during prayers. For years there have been fragmentary reports of almost unbelievable acts of faith at the Nazi death camps during World War II: the sounding of shofars, the ram’s horn trumpets traditionally blown by Jews to welcome the High Holy Days. These stories of the persistence of hope even in mankind’s darkest moments have been passed down despite limited evidence and eyewitness detail. But could camp prisoners have found ways to sound these horns, piercing the heavens with sob-like wails and staccato blasts, without putting themselves in immediate mortal danger? [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS James Tissot (French, 1836-1902). What Our Lord Saw from the Cross, 1886-1894. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray-green wove paper, 9 3/4 x 9 1/16 in. (24.8 x 23 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscription, Image provided courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco SAN FRANCISCO--- James Tissot (1836–1902) was one of the most celebrated French artists during the 19th century, yet he is less known than many of his contemporaries today. James Tissot: Fashion & Faith provides a critical reassessment of Tissot through a 21st-century lens. The exhibition will include approximately 60 paintings in addition to drawings, prints, photographs, and cloisonné enamels, demonstrating the breadth of the artist’s skills. The presentation at the Legion of Honor will be the first major international exhibition on Tissot in two decades and the first-ever on the West Coast of the United States.

THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL By Kathleen Roberts “Beyond Civilization to Texas,” 1950 oil on canvas by Robert Gribboek. (Courtesy of the New Mexico Museum of Art) ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Transcendentalist Painters pushed art beyond Modernism into new concepts of space, color, light, and spirituality. These New Mexico artists ignored the stunning Southwestern landscapes and portraits of traditional American Indian life to forge something different by turning their gaze inward. The New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe has announced the irrevocable gift of eight works of art by members of this Taos-based group from the William Dailey Trust and Dr. Nicole Panter Dailey. The pieces are not yet on public view. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Hilarie M. Sheets Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz in their home in Philadelphia, with, in the foreground, from left, two William Edmondson sculptures, “Horse With Long Tail” and “Woman.” In the background, from left, on the wall, Justin McCarthy’s “Ice Capades” (1971) and a painting by Anselm Kiefer. The shelves of ceramics are the work of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Vases by Jill Bonovitz join his works on the third shelf, right. PHILADELPHIA — Eugene Von Bruenchenhein never sold a piece of his art during his lifetime, but Sheldon and Jill Bonovitz have plenty of examples of it in their home near Rittenhouse Square. Among their prized ceramics by Von Bruenchenhein are fantastical little thrones some six inches tall, constructed from chicken bones salvaged from TV dinners; dazzling crowns; and lacy, tabletop towers. “When we moved here, we placed all the art first and then bought the furniture,” said Mrs. Bonovitz, surrounded by the work of B...

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Sandra E. Garcia Mattel's newly released doll, adorned with motifs associated with the Mexican holiday, has raised concerns about the watering down of a 3,000-year-old tradition. In Mexican culture, the Día de Muertos — or Day of the Dead — is when the gateway between the living and the dead is said to open, a holiday during which the living honor and pay respects to loved ones who have died. A new Día de Muertos Barbie , released on [September 12], was intended less as a portal into the realm of the dead and more as a gateway into Mexican culture. At least that is what Mattel is hoping for. Many have expressed worries about cultural appropriation and the use of a 3,000-year-old tradition for profit. The man who designed the Barbie, Javier Meabe , 34, said he drew from his Mexican heritage and his personal experiences celebrating Día de Muertos as a boy.[ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES Show Us Your Walls By Shivani Vora Melissa Wood-Tepperberg and Noah Tepperberg in their apartment with their children, from left, Elanor, 10 months, and Benjamin, 4, in front of “Impenetrable by Time” by Gregory Siff (2018). Noah Tepperberg has been buying art for two decades, but when he married Melissa Wood they went back to square one to accommodate their shared tastes. Tepperberg, who is known for being one of the founders of several nightclubs and restaurants, including Lavo and Tao, with outlets in New York and beyond, says art interests him almost as intensely as his business does. Although Mr. Tepperberg, 43, has been acquiring art for about 20 years, he and his wife, Melissa Wood-Tepperberg, 36, started building a new collection when they married in 2016. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Anila Quayyum Agha. Image courtesy of Arts Council of Indianapolis - Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship  Anila Quayyum Agha is best known for her mystically immersive installations that challenge viewer perceptions. She’s inspired an international following with work that challenges systems of oppression, including sexism and fundamentalism. We’ve traveled the nation to see her shows including yesterday’s drive to Expo Chicago , and Ernest hosts an artist talk with her on Thursday in Indianapolis . Spotlighting oppression makes Anila Quayyum Agha  our artist of the week .

BOURSAN CONTEMPORARY Bill Viola, Tempest (Study for the Raft), 2005; Color High-Definition video on flat panel display mounted on wall, 43 x 26 x 4 inches; 109 x 66 x 10.2 cm Congratulations to Bill Viola on the opening of Bill Viola: Impermanence , on view now through September 13, 2020, at Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, Turkey. Curated by Kathleen Forde, Impermanence is Viola's first major survey exhibition in Istanbul. The works are like koans with their narratives—classic Buddhist riddles that are unresolvable, inviting us to experience a glimpse of what Viola calls the “invisible world” where our standard intellectual configurations of existence are revealed to be artificial. His works have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Anila Quayyum Agha’s “Shimmering Mirage” (2019 ); Lacquered steel and halogen bulb, 48 x 48 x 48 inches Opening the fall art season each September,  EXPO CHICAGO  hosts leading international art galleries presented alongside one of the highest quality platforms for global contemporary art and culture. This year Sundaram Tagore Gallery of New York City, Hong Kong, and Singapore is featuring the work of Indy-based artist Anila Quayyum Agha, along with Zeng Lu , Chun Kwang Young , and Hiroshi Senju . The booth number is 169, and it ends tomorrow. CLICK HERE FOR DETAIL .

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE By Darcel Rockett The apples by Barnaby Barford (which look very Midwestern variety, by the way), are hand-painted in oils bearing any one of 80 words — the interpretation of those words and "their meanings are heightened when you add the prefix “more”. Even before you step foot into EXPO CHICAGO , the annual International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, you are greeted with art activations like Ship of Tolerance, the 25-by-35-by-34 foot inflatable sculpture “Founders” that features four busts notable to our city. And once you step through the doors, you can almost strain your neck looking back and forth at the art pieces present. Barnaby Barford’s steel and PVC pipe creation, “The Apple Tree" is something to behold. Barford said he examined man’s search for happiness and his subsequent need for more. [ More ]

SOTHEBY'S Jean-Léon Gérôme, 'Riders Crossing the Desert,' 1870. Courtesy of Sotheby's The legendary Najd Collection provides a technicolor record of daily life in 19th century North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and the Middle East. At a time when Muslim artists were not working in the same figurative tradition as Western paintings, the work of artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Ludwig Deutsch and Charles Robertson, provides an invaluable documentary of regions that have since changed forever. Get a First Look at one of the greatest collections of Orientalist paintings in existence before it is unveiled to the public for the very first time (11 – 15 October | London). This unprecedented exhibition will be followed by a dedicated evening sale (22 October | London). [ More ]

OCULA By Sherry Paik Madhvi Parekh, Sea God (1971). Courtesy the artist. According to Kishore Singh, the curator of The Curious Seeker at DAG New York (13 September–27 October 2019), the artist Madhvi Parekh 'defies categorisation'. Parekh's oeuvre—from drawings and paintings to serigraphs and reverse paintings—fluidly draws from multiple sources, including European modernist works, Indian folk art, religious iconography, and personal memories. THindu fables are frequently referenced throughout Parekh's vivid paintings. The oil on canvas Sea God (1971) depicts a three-legged figure with bulbous limbs, surrounded by mythical creatures floating in bodies of blue and green. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Stephen Towns, We shall part the waves through turbulent waters, 2019, 35 x 46 inches / 88.9 x 116.8 cm. De Buck Gallery will present a booth this weekend at EXPO Chicago featuring an exciting selection of new and recent works by Devan Shimoyama, Stephen Towns , Rashaad Newsome, Sharif Bey, and Amani Lewis. The selection will include sculptural works by Bey, collages by Newsome, as well as highlight a number of figurative paintings by Shimoyama, Towns, and Lewis. The work in this booth is emotive and personal, with artists creating pieces that allude to narratives from their own life, the stories of their communities, and the stories of women in their families. E XPO Chicago - September 19 - 22, 2018; Booth 434; Navy Pier, Festival Hall; 600 E Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL .

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS A gilt-bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Padmapani Yongle Mark and Period | Estimate 500,000 — 700,000 Lot Sold 620,000 Last week's " Bodies of Light " auction at Sotheby's reached $3,460,250. Bodies of Infinite Light, an auction of Buddhist art spanning the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Qing dynasty, includes an exceptional polychrome wood figure of Jinasagara Avalokiteshvara from the Xuande period, a finely embroidered silk Qing dynasty thangka of Ekadashamukha Avalokiteshvara and rare bronzes from the Dali Kingdom, among other works. In addition, the sale features twenty sculptures formerly in the Chang Foundation Collection and illustrated in the seminal 1993 published catalog Buddhist Images in Gilt Metal. [ More ]

THE MONITOR By Nancy Moyer Jesus by Pedro Perez Oil Photo by Nancy Moyer McALLEN, TX--- STC art faculty member, Pedro Perez , imagines images of saints, martyrs, and deities with a contemporary twist. His sabbatical research exhibit, “Pentimento”, currently on display at the Library Art Gallery, transforms portraits of friends into modern-day saints by slipping them into the visual iconography traditionally used to depict images of Catholic saints. During his sabbatical in 2017, he immersed himself in Renaissance and Baroque art in Italy, France, and Spain, and studied the patronage of the church and wealthy families who supported the art. [ More ]

THE JEWISH VOICE Pesi Girsch, Angel 2015_Photo Credit by the artist. Human Nature, Shared Sensitivities The 4th Jerusalem Biennale for Contemporary Jewish Art, which explores the intersection between contemporary art and the Jewish world of content, will this year take as its theme For Heaven’s Sake! (LeShem Shamayim). The 2019 Jerusalem Biennale, which showcases the work of 200 professional Israeli and international artists in 30 exhibitions and projects exhibited in 14 venues around the city, will run October 10–November 28, 2019. Artists (Jewish and non-Jewish) from the USA, UK, Europe, Morocco and Argentina are participating in the 2019 Jerusalem Biennale, alongside artists from Israel. [ More ]

YAHOO NEWS A Thai artist’s painting of the Buddha as the Japanese superhero Ultraman | Photo via Facebook Hardline Buddhists in Thailand called Thursday for the destruction of paintings depicting Buddha as Japanese superhero Ultraman, provoking fevered debate about using sacred imagery in art. The majority of Thais are Buddhist and a law on insulting religion carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail even if prosecutions are rare. The student artwork went viral on social media last week after it was shown in an exhibition three hours outside Bangkok. The artist, whose name has been withheld by her university over safety concerns, offered a tearful apology to monks for the four paintings, some of which had a backdrop with Louis Vuitton logos. [ More ]

THE XXXX By Henry Nelson O'Neil (1817-1880), Esther, 1850, oil on canvas, 41 1/4 x 30 3/4 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funding provided by Thomas R. and Diane Stevenson Stone, 2017. A new exhibition entitled “Rend the Heavens: Intersections of the Human and Divine” opened Friday at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art. The exhibition, comprised of pieces from the MOA’s permanent collection, features eight new acquisitions on display for the first time. One of these new pieces is an 1850 oil painting, “Esther,” by Henry Nelson O’Neil. Researching a brand-new painting is a time-consuming process for museum curators, but in this case, it was a BYU student who conducted an in-depth study of the painting. [ More]

SOTHEBY'S "Head of Christ" by Follower of Rembrant Harmensz. Van Rijn; Property from the SØR Rusche Collection   Old Masters are popping up everywhere in popular culture right now so what better time to start a collection. In this episode of Expert Voices , discover why our upcoming sale Old Masters Online (12 – 19 September) provides a great opportunity for new and established collectors to acquire exceptional examples of paintings by lesser-known artists from the Dutch Golden Age. This was an era when for the first time the middle and working classes were able to collect art and hang it in their homes. This sale offers a diverse range of genres to suit all tastes, including portraits, landscapes, still lifes, religious, historical and mythological subjects. Click here to watch more Sotheby’s videos. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) Hank Willis Thomas  is a conceptual artist, and we hung his " Plate " in our home this week. Working in photography, sculpture, mixed media, and video, his works are in public and private collections around the world. We are slightly newer fans because of his 2018 " For Freedoms " photo series, and we just saw his " Raise Up " sculpture at Alabama's lynching memorial. Thomas' first comprehensive survey,  Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal…  opens on October 12 at the  Portland Art Museum , and that's why  Hank Willis Thomas  is our artist of the week.

FODORS By Amanda Silberling Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand You might think that once you’ve seen a handful of Thailand’s 40,000 Buddhist temples, you’ve seen them all. But three of Thailand’s most memorable, awe-inspiring sites are far different than the traditional monastic centers that characterize Thailand’s peaceful landscape. Unlike most temples in Southeast Asia, monks don’t live and practice in the colored temples (the White Temple, Blue Temple, and Black House) because they aren’t actually religious structures–at least in a conventional sense. Rather, these temples more closely resemble art museums, as they represent decades of work from three artists native to Chiang Rai Province in Northern Thailand. [ More ]

VOX By E.J. Roller Not long ago, my wife, a composer, asked me if I would ever advise a student from a low-income family to pursue a career in the arts. I am a writer, librettist, and an arts and literature teacher. I thought the answer was obvious. “If a student were really passionate and talented, she’d figure out a way.” That’s always been something my parents told me. “Think about what you’d do if money were no object, and then work hard. You’ll find a way to make money.” She responded: “Your parents give you $28,000 a year. They paid for your tuition. They made it possible for you to do what you’d do if money were no object — because money was no object for you.” We want diverse voices in the arts. But we don’t like to talk about money. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Alex Marshall Arden Wray for The New York Times LONDON — The literary heavyweights Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Elif Shafak all feature on the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards. Atwood, who won the Booker Prize in 2000, is shortlisted this year for “The Testaments,” the highly anticipated sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is to be released in the United States and Britain this week. “It’s a savage and beautiful novel that speaks to us today with unusual conviction and power,” Peter Florence, the chairman of the judging panel, said at a news conference in London last Tuesday announcing the shortlist. [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS "Plate" (2019) by Hank Willis Thomas. Dye sublimation print on ceramic plate10 3/4 in diameter27.3 cm diameter Select Artadia Awardees , including Conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas,  created unique table-setting editions, which debuted at Artadia's Artist Luncheon in March. Thomas uses photography to explore issues of identity, history, race, and class. Inspired by the works of Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, and his mother, photographer Deborah Willis, he employs language and familiar imagery to address issues that are often overlooked in our pop culture-obsessed, consumerist culture.  Nick Cave's " Drinking Glasses ," is another noteworthy piece from this series. Artadia  supports artists nationwide with unrestricted, merit-based awards followed by a lifetime of program opportunities.

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Saya Woolfalk (Japan, 1979) is a New York-based artist created a transhuman world of Empathics. When we entered the Tube Factory  gallery that contains Saya Woolfalk's installation " Empathic Cloud Divination ," we thought we'd transported into the Black Panther's Kingdom of Wakanda , but everyone was a blue female Emphatic ! Saya Woolfalk is a mixed-race artist (Asian, Black, white) best known for her Afrofuturism style that explores science, spirituality , race, and sex. Her installation opened this week in Indianapolis, and that makes Saya Woolfalk our artist of the week.

NYTIMES STYLE MAGAZINE By Hilton Als; Photographs by John Edmonds; Styled by Carlos Nazario Left: The Row T-shirt, $250, (212) 755-2017. A.P.C. jeans, $220, apc-us.com. Right: Hermès shirt, $960, hermes.com. Dior Men pants, price on request, (800) 929-3467.Credit...Photo by John Edmonds. Styled by Carlos Nazario Nobody wanted it. Certainly not the folks at Alfred A. Knopf, who published his first novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” in 1953. Back then, the young James Baldwin — he was just 28 when “Mountain” came out. Baldwin was made to feel suspicious and grief-stricken about his body long before he or a loving man could claim it. “Go Tell It on the Mountain” is a beautiful novel in part because its author understands the interiority of the characters who recall so much during a particular church service. “Giovanni’s Room” was Baldwin’s bastard child in the way he was a bastard child. Imagine the various publishers’ surprise when this novel of gay and bisexual love showed up ov...

THE NEW YORK TIMES Take in the subversive beauty of J’ouvert, a Caribbean street party in Brooklyn. Revelers go all out. A queen with devil horns, dressed in a rainbow of satin and shimmering gold tulle, sat on a throne along Brooklyn’s Empire Boulevard. Soon, Karen Herbert, 50, would return to being a retired company supervisor. But on J’ouvert, the daybreak celebration of Caribbean culture traditionally held in Brooklyn before the West Indian American Day Parade, “I am always a queen,” Ms. Herbert declared.The roots of J’ouvert lie in mocking slave owners and celebrating emancipation in the Caribbean. Monday’s event showed how the contemporary street-party version of the holiday retains a subversive, liberating edge. Some revelers, completely covered in motor oil, came to shine. Others came to wine. For the uninitiated, wining is a butt-shaking, pelvis-rubbing Caribbean dance. “It’s like one step away from sex,” said Molli Piitcha, 29. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Michiko Kakutani Cover of Margaret Atwood's sequel to 1985 "The Handmaid's Tale" The most chilling — and timely — lines in “The Handmaid’s Tale” occur near the beginning of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel. Nothing changes instantaneously, Offred observes: “In a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” The main story line in “The Testaments” is a kind of spy thriller about a mole inside Gilead, who is working with the Mayday resistance to help bring down the evil empire. It’s a contrived and heavily stage-managed premise — but contrived in a Dickensian sort of way with coincidences that reverberate with philosophical significance. And Atwood’s sheer assurance as a storyteller makes for a fast, immersive narrative that’s as propulsive as it is melodramatic. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Peter Libbey Michael Rakowitz’s “The invisible enemy should not exist (Lamassu)” here on display in Trafalgar Square in London, is a re-creation of a sculpture destroyed by ISIS. Michael Rakowitz, a Chicago-based artist dedicated to resurrecting the past and drawing attention to the neglected, has been awarded the 2020 Nasher Prize, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas announced on Wednesday. As a part of the award, which honors a living artist for their contributions to sculpture, he will receive $100,000. “There’s a part of me that is simultaneously grateful and really happy about it, but then there’s another part of me that hopes that one way or another, I can earn this someday,” Mr. Rakowitz said in an interview. The beginning of his career in the late-1990s, he added, “doesn’t feel like long ago at all.” [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Image courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art INDIANAPOLIS— Yayoi Kusama’s famed Infinity Mirror Room, All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016), is coming to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields October 4, 2019 through March 29, 2020. Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama rose to international fame in the 1960s for her provocative and avant-garde style, and is best known today for her mirrored-light installations that envelop viewers in a repetitive environment intended to share the inner-workings of her mind while challenging the notion of space and time. The pumpkins are enclosed by a box-like structure, surrounded by four mirrored walls and a mirrored ceiling, giving the illusion of an infinite universe full of pumpkins. [ More ]

ARTSY Saya Woolfalk, An Empathic Preparing to Paint Images from the Book Empathetic Plant Alchemy (Jillian), 2011. Copyright Saya Woolfalk, courtesy Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York. “Everyone always talks about how, in times of crisis, people start looking for God,” says Canadian, Berlin-based artist Jeremy Shaw . The artist’s interest in the universal desire for spiritual life, a yearning for some higher power or intelligence, or to “reach for something beyond,” as he puts it, has led him to some interesting places. Saya Woolfalk’s Empathics present both a utopian picture of a deep and molecular form of empathy toward other people and a dystopian counter-picture of corporate exploitation and cultural appropriation—when meaningful practices become commodified and lose their real, non-monetary value in the world. [ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Pope Francis boarding an airplane at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport while on his way to Maputo, Mozambique. Pope Francis Arrives in Mozambique, With Renewed Focus on Poverty and Climate---[ More ]

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Holland Cotter “Black Girl’s Window” (1969) by Betye Saar at MOMA LOS ANGELES — I ask the artist Betye Saar, who is 93 and set to open concurrent solo shows this fall at two major museums — the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — if she has any theories as to why big-ticket attention is finally coming her way. She skips mentioning the obvious factors: She’s a woman; she’s black; she’s lived her whole life on what she calls “the other side of the planet” (Southern California). “Because it’s about time!” she says. “I’ve had to wait till I’m practically 100.”[ More ]

STAR TRIBUNE By Jean Hopfensperger Riedel’s Ner Tamids hang in more than 120 synagogues around the world, from Israel to Australia. Claude Riedel is a Minneapolis artist known internationally for crafting Ner Tamids, the beautiful “eternal lights” that hang in synagogues. So when he received a phone call this spring from an assistant producer of the AMC series “Fear the Walking Dead” — a show he’d never heard of — he was totally bewildered. Turns out the zombie apocalypse series was scouting for a Ner Tamid to rent for synagogue scenes in an upcoming episode. The caller discovered Riedel’s work online, and asked if he’d be willing to temporarily part with one of his treasures. After getting assurances that this was legitimate, the bemused Riedel said yes. [ More ]

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES By Makeda Easter “The Sugar Shack” by Ernie Barnes, 3-by-4-foot canvas. At the California African American Museum’s retrospective dedicated to late artist and former NFL player Ernie Barnes , “The Sugar Shack” is an undeniable star. Visitors often form a line around the painting, said the show’s curator, Bridget R. Cooks, associate professor in the departments of African American studies and art history at UC Irvine. They all wait for their moment with Barnes’ work, a piece that entered pop-culture consciousness after appearing on the 1970s sitcom “Good Times” and as the cover art to Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album, “I Want You.” [ More ]

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton Courtesy of Instagram account of the artist, Beatrice Vasquez. Background: “Immigrant Family” 5ftx5ft. 2019 Did you know that Monarch butterflies cross the border each year to migrate between Mexico and the U.S.? We didn't. Mexican-American artist  Beatrice Vasquez  carved a series of portraits of immigrants with migrating butterflies that were on view this past Friday at Start with Art , a celebration of the arts in Indianapolis. Her modern approach to using traditional "papel picado" (cut paper), seductively makes a case for open borders . The Indy-based artist created this year's ARTI Awards , and that's why Beatrice Vasquez is our artist of the week.