Disney-Britton

DESERET NEWS   By By Aubrey Eyr “Auset and Heru” by Melissa Tshikamba. Melissa Tshikamba SALT LAKE CITY — The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds great meaning for Melissa Tshikamba. As an artist, Tshikamba speaks through her paintings — and there’s a lot she hopes to say. Growing up a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Alberta, Canada, Tshikamba remembers feeling a disconnect between what she was taught, both at home and at church, and what she saw depicted in the images accompanying those teachings. As a Black woman, Tshikamba said she has rarely felt a connection to the religious art used to represent her faith throughout her life and, because of that, her own work is now largely focused on creating images that better represent the global population of the church. [ More ] 

THE GUARDIAN   Jesus Noir , a picture by Ingres modified by Titus Kaphar, right. Photograph: Courtesy Maruani Mercier and the artist/Christian Hogsted In his painting for the cover of the June edition of Time magazine, published in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, American artist Titus Kaphar portrayed the pain of the grieving African-American mother. Eyes closed, a black woman in a pose evocative of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, holds an outline where her child should be. The painting made Kaphar a figure of hate for some, who felt it had no place on the front of the prestigious publication. “It became a place to put their anger and frustration,” he says. “It was another example of how Black Lives Matter was destroying the country.” [ More ] 

THE ARTNEWSPAPER   By Kabir Jahal A digital rendering of the previously named Mughal Museum in Agra India, designed by David Chipperfield Architects © David Chipperfield Indian state officials have renamed a planned museum in the northern city of Agra that will explore the history of the Mughal Empire—a Muslim dynasty which ruled a vast portion of the subcontinent between 1526-1857—to that of a Hindu king. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, announced on Monday that the Mughal Museum, which will show the art, jewellery, weapons and fashion of the former Islamic empire, will now be named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, a 17th-century Hindu warrior-king. [ More ] 

APOLLO MAGAZINE Eve on an apple bottom (2016), Kudzanai-Violet Hwami. Courtesy the artist In 2019 Kudzanai-Violet Hwami was selected as one of four artists to represent Zimbabwe at the 58th Venice Biennale. In the same year the young painter mounted her first institutional show, at Gasworks in London. Titled ‘(15,952km) via Trans-Sahara Hwy N1’ after the route from her birthplace in Zimbabwe, via her former home in South Africa, to her current home in the United Kingdom, the exhibition presented a series of vividly coloured, palimpsestic paintings that draw on family history and the specific details of these different locations. In contrast to her busy 2019, this has been a year of quiet reflection for Hwami. For Hwami, it’s important to focus on the smaller things that can be changed. ‘I think it begins at home,’ she says. ‘Water the garden that’s close to you.’ [ More ] 

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Hari Kunzru Naï Zakharia HOMELAND ELEGIES  By Ayad Akhtar   The city of Abbottabad, in the former North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, was named after James Abbott, a 19th-century British Army officer and player in the “Great Game,” the power struggle in Central Asia between the British and Russian Empires. Today it’s perhaps best known as the garrison town that sheltered Osama bin Laden before he was discovered and summarily executed by American Special Forces in 2011. When the narrator of Ayad Akhtar’s moving and confrontational novel “Homeland Elegies” goes there with his father in 2008 to visit relatives, he gets a lecture from his uncle about the tactical genius of 9/11, and his vision of a Muslim community based on principles espoused by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, one that “does not bifurcate its military and political aspirations.” The narrator, like Akhtar, is an American-born dramatist, whose own politics have been forme...

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER By Thomas Hine One page of “The Book of Wood,” seven massive relief carvings with 33 scenes depicting parts of Jesus’ life — including Christ knocking at the door and entering Jerusalem. The celebrated work is one massive wooden “book” rests on a lectern with “pages” that turn. PHILADELPHIA---The new show at the Barnes Foundation is called “ Elijah Pierce’s America ,” but it could just as easily  be “Elijah Pierce’s Cosmos.” In a biblical flood of carved imagery, this barber turned preacher turned wood-carving artist and storyteller shows us heaven, temptation, and grace. The devil fishes for sinners using money, dice, and a scantily clad woman. We see Father Time, shirtless and in shorts, running frantically, his scythe tucked under his arm. We see Richard Nixon being chased by inflation, which looks like a fat and nasty dog. There are elephants, a crocodile, and a couple of Popeyes, one of them Black. God the Father and his son spread grace upon the world, a...

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Show Us Your Walls By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton   Ernest Disney-Britton, at home in den with "Madonna" (1966) by Ben Smith, woodblock print RBG, Fonseca, and the Conch Republic . Because of them, we'll be selling art to raise money for the Biden-Harris campaign. The passing of RBG, our friend  Bryan Fonseca   from Covid-19, and the loss of our third potential  Key West  vacation-home, inspired us to sell off the  artworks in storage   beginning next Sunday. There are bigger  initiatives , but our focus will be on the art of the religious imagination with artists like Atlanta's  Ben Smith . Where your treasure is, there your heart is also, so using your artistic treasures to advance equality is our tip of the week.

https://www.americanartcollector.com/issues/179/collector-home

THE NEW YORK TIMES By Jason Fargo “Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe,” Albrecht Dürer / Alte Pinakothek, Munich Who are you, and what are you doing here? You, there in the mirror, there in the lens of your phone: What do you see? In the eyes of us poor moderns, it seems self-evident that a picture can capture who you are. That your posed image, your face and your clothing, express something essential about your personality. It’s the myth on which every selfie stands. More than five centuries ago, Albrecht Dürer painted images so detailed and exact that they seemed some kind of divine creation. One subject fascinated him above all: himself. This self-portrait was its own legitimation, with no need for likes. It was the work of an individual already facing the future head on. [ More ]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/arts/design/philip-guston-exhibition-delayed-criticism.html

ARTNEWS Durjoy Rahman with Atul Dodiya’s Kiefer’s Cell (1999) on background left. Courtesy of Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation. In a year marked by slowdown, art collector Durjoy Rahman has been busier than ever. He founded the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation, based in Dhaka and Berlin, two years ago to support art from South Asia. Since the lockdown hit, the foundation established two dovetailing initiatives to help local artists stay afloat. Rahman’s personal art collection, which he started in the 1990s, echoes this interest in both the global South and the Western cannon. His 1,000-plus collection includes British stars David Hockney and Lucien Freud, as well as such Indian and South Asian masters as Rafiqun Nabi and Safiuddin Ahmed. We took a peek at Rahman’s resplendent collection inside his Dhaka home. [ More ] 

THE NEW YORK TIMES   By Julia Jacobs A Philip Guston retrospective has been postponed until 2024. The delay may have been rooted in concerns that trenchant works like “Edge of Town” (1969), which was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, show hooded Klansmen. Credit...Vincent Tullo for The New York Times Four major art museums said they are postponing until 2024 a much-awaited retrospective of the modernist painter Philip Guston after taking into account the surging racial justice protests in the country, adding that the work needed to be framed by “additional perspectives and voices.” The works that the museums appear to be grappling with include white hooded Ku Klux Klan figures, a motif in the politically-engaged artist’s work since the early 1930s. The four museums that organized the exhibit, called “Philip Guston Now,” include the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. [ More ]...

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/25/archibald-prize-2020-winner-portrait-vincent-namatjira-adam-goodes

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/september-web-only/briggs-nouwen-scars-help-others-heal-wounded-healers.html

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/rothko-chapel-houston-modernism-religion/

THE NEW YORK TIMES   By Teju Cole “The Flagellation of Christ” (1607), by Caravaggio. Raised in Milan and the village of Caravaggio in a family that some say was on the cusp of minor nobility, Caravaggio was 6 when he lost both his father and grandfather, on the same day, to the plague. “Caravaggio,” the name of the Northern Italian village from which his family came, reads like two words conjoined, chiaroscuro and braggadocio: harsh light mixed with deep dark on the one hand, unrestrained arrogance on the other. As a boy in Lagos, I spent hours poring over his work in books. The effect his paintings have on me, the way they move me but also make me uneasy, cannot be due only to long familiarity. [ More ] 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/theater/faith-healer-review.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/theater/nicholas-edwards-godspell-berkshires.html

APOLLO MAGAZINE A woman visiting two Nath yoginis (detail; c. 1750), Mughal, North India. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum LONDON--This display of more than 100 works argues that the ancient philosophy of tantra – which originated in India in the sixth century – has been a force for political and sexual transgression. Depictions of goddesses defying gender norms sit alongside material revealing tantra’s impact on counterculture. Find out more from the British Museum’s website. British Museum, London 24 SEP 2020 - 24 JAN 2021 [ More ]

SAINT LOUIS POST-DISPATCH   By Pat Eby Jerusalem, a acrylic painting of buildings in the city. Photo by Kim Phillips Artist Kim Phillips makes her marks in the world through drawing, typography, design, paper cutting, painting and more. Her works are a pleasure to behold, and the focused intent she brings to her pieces is grounded in a faith she lives each day. Phillips, who wanted to better understand her Jewish friends’ religion, spent a year immersed in the study of Judaism. “Well, I read an lot of books in those 12 months on theology, history, the Bible, holidays, art and more. When I finished in 2001, I told the new rabbi at the synagogue I attended ‘I want to convert.’ I did, and she’s my rabbi to this day.” [ More ] 

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS Show Us Your Walls By  Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton   Greg Disney-Britton at home in living room next to newest purchase, "Water Lilly" by Adam Russell. The photo was taken last night after our niece's wedding . We spent 7-days in Key West (following our Fauci Travel Guide ), and we brought back a crocodile. We bought Adam Russell's " Water Lilly ," a limited edition print of a Florida Key's crocodile, plus we bought a second " Walking Fish ," from Russell's production pottery shop . It's all secular stuff. It's totally whimsical, and we can't get enough of his tropical modernism. We'll be back for more. The call to return to the Florida Keys makes Adam Russell , Key West Pottery, our week's tip.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/arts/music/playlist-justin-bieber-chance-the-rapper.html

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/franco-prussian-war-artists/ Sent from my iPad

ARTSY  By Jordon McDonald Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty - The Fugitive Slaves, March 2, 1862, 1862. Courtesy of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. During the late 19th century, in the midst of the United States Civil War, two free Black men set out to plan an art exhibition. At a time when the future of chattel slavery and Black life hung in the balance of a national quarrel, these men, William H. Dorsey and Edward M. Thomas, negotiated their precarious freedoms through the collection and promotion of Black art. Thomas, who worked for the government as a messenger of the House of Representatives, had established himself outside of work as a fervent collector of art and literature. His collection—which boasted 600 volumes, artworks, coinage, autographs, and archival documents—was stored in his home at the corner of Washington, D.C.’s K and 17th streets. [ More ] 

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/lacma-zumthor-building-interior-renderings-1234571159/

THE NEW YORK TIMES  By Catherine Hickley With recurring patterns and intense colors, Mr. Richter’s windows resemble the design of a Persian rug. Felix Schmitt for The New York Times THOLEY, Germany — For Abbot Mauritius Choriol, the new church windows being ceremoniously inaugurated on Saturday at Tholey Abbey are a gift: from God, from two generous patrons and from Gerhard Richter . The three windows — with deep reds and blues prevailing on the two outer displays and the central one dominated by radiant gold — are made in stained glass to a symmetrical design by Mr. Richter, the revered German artist. “Abstract art is not normally my thing,” said the abbot, who oversees Tholey Abbey. “But you don’t need to be an art expert to appreciate the qualities of these.” [ More ] 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/arts/design/jacob-lawrence-metropolitan-museum.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/09/16/sean-feucht-prayer-rallies-kenosha-chicago/

Sent from my iPad www.disneybritton.com Begin forwarded message: From: TASCHEN <contact@subscription.taschen-mail.com> Date: September 17, 2020 at 1:44:21 PM EDT To: disneybritton@icloud.com Subject: Masterpieces in detail Reply-To: TASCHEN <contact@subscription.taschen-mail.com>  "Superb color reproductions and numerous details allow us to examine Bosch's fantastic imagery with a clarity seldom possible, even in a museum gallery." — The Burlington Magazine       Bosch. The Complete Works     New edition, only US$ 70 Original edition US$ 150     "Superb color reprod...

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/sagrada-familia-completion-date-delayed-coronavirus-1234571032/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/t-magazine/tavares-strachan.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/arts/design/brooklyn-museum-sale-christies-coronavirus.html

APOLLO MAGAZINE  By Susan Moore Grey schist relief triad of Buddha Shakyamuni with bodhisattvas (c. 3rd/4th century), Gandhara. Christie’s New York ($600,000–$800,000) Of the late September offering of auctions of private collections, two sales stand out. One presents an exceptional group of museum-quality works of art; the other, exhibits from a former museum. ‘Devotion in Stone: Gandharan Masterpieces from a Private Japanese Collection’, at Christie’s New York on 23 September, offers the first tranche of a selection that includes some of the most celebrated of all Buddhist sculptures from the ancient region of Gandhara, which spans parts of present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. A second sale is scheduled for March 2021. According to the auction house’s specialist Tristan Bruck, the group, which was assembled by an adviser and sold in 1990, is ‘probably the most important ever to come to the market’. [ More ] 

https://uscatholic.org/articles/202009/god-is-beyond-race-and-gender-its-time-our-sacred-art-is-too/

THE HINDU  By Aishwarya Upadhye Artwork by Veer Misra Queer art projecting stories of struggle and survival is gaining popularity in India, giving the LGBTQIA + community long-due appropriate representation.  “One of the highs of my career as an artist was when a person I met at an exhibition wrote to me about how he had used one of my paintings to come out to his parents, something he had struggled with for years,” says Veer Misra, a 24-year old graphic designer, illustrator and artist. Veer uses his art to tell tales from the queer community and normalise their experiences of coming out, finding a partner and falling in love. “Coming out is just a part of the process, there is so much more to our lives." [ More ]