NEWS — Art 19

Korea Herald: Artworks revive painful memories of democracy movement in Gwangju

GWANGJU - A dingy building that once served as the Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital had remained closed for years. It had treated the people of Gwangju wounded during the May 18 Democratization Movement in the city, but at the same time was also covertly used to conduct investigations and torture those involved in the movement.
The abandoned location is now open to the public as part of the special exhibition “MaytoDay,” commemorating the 40th anniversary of the May Democratic Uprising, organized by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. The works by Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota, British installation artist Mike Nelson and Algerian French installation artist Kader Attia bring back memories of the pains and sacrifices.

gabriela ancoNovember 15, 2020Chiharu Shiota

DW: Drama on canvas: William Kentridge takes African stories to Hamburg

The Deichtorhallen Museum in Hamburg is now showing one of the biggest Kentridge retrospectives ever, titled "Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawing to Work." Following a successful run at the Zeitz-MOCAA Museum in Cape Town last year, the exhibition brings hundreds of Kentridge's works to Germany, many of which will be seen in the country for the first time, recounting the career of one of the world's most prolific contemporary artists.

gabriela ancoNovember 10, 2020William Kentridge

Hypebeast: Leading Artists Create Billboards In Response to The Current U.S. Political State

Art At A Time Like This and Save Art Space have launched an open-air exhibition titled “Ministry of Truth: 1984/2020” across the five boroughs of New York City. The public presentation, curated by Barbara Pollack and Anne Verhallen, features billboards designed by 20 artists in response to the current U.S. political state. Participating artists include Shirin Neshat, Marilyn Minter, Abigail Deville, Dread Scott, Mel Chin, as well as emerging artists such as Ruj Greigam, Lola Flash and V.L. Cox.

gabriela ancoNovember 7, 2020Shirin Neshat

Artsy: Prints Are a Way to Collect Otherwise Impossible-to-Get Artists

For all but the very top one percent of art lovers, collecting a great work by a top artist can seem impossible. Along with the issue of scarcity, works by high-demand artists are often astronomically expensive and far out of reach for most collectors. But there is still a way to collect works by these impossible-to-collect artists.

gabriela ancoNovember 4, 2020Kiki Smith

The Art Newspaper : William Kentridge on turning his drawings into films, being inspired by dreams—and catching Covid-19

When you are an artist as in demand as William Kentridge, an international lockdown is a bittersweet scenario. Normally busy travelling and working on numerous projects, the coronavirus pandemic has meant that the South African artist has been able to spend eight months undisturbed at home. "I haven't had this amount of studio time for probably 40 years and it has been very rich," he says.

gabriela ancoNovember 1, 2020William Kentridge

The New York Times: The 25 Most Influential Works of American Protest Art Since World War II

On a recent afternoon, the artists Dread Scott, Catherine Opie and Shirin Neshat, as well as T contributor Nikil Saval and Whitney Museum of American Art assistant curator Rujeko Hockley, joined me on Zoom for a conversation about protest art. I had asked each to nominate five to seven works of what they considered the most powerful or influential American protest art (that is, by an American artist or by an artist who has lived or exhibited their work in America) made anytime after World War II. We focused specifically on visual art — not songs or books — and the hope was that together, we would assemble a list of the top 25. But the question of what, precisely, constitutes protest art is a thorny one — and we kept tripping over it. Is it a slogan? A poster? Does it matter if it was in a museum, in a newspaper or out on the street? Does impact matter? Did it change what you think or believe? Must it endure? What does that mean? And what is the difference, anyway, between protest art and art that is merely political?

gabriela ancoOctober 28, 2020Shirin Neshat, Yoko Ono

East Hampton Star: A Fresh Start to Fall at Guild Hall

The fall art season has officially arrived at Guild Hall, which is presenting three topical visual arts events in the coming days. A recorded talk with Shirin Neshat about her latest video and film project will be streamed on Sunday. An installation by Rosario Varela will open tomorrow, and a virtual talk with Renee Cox and Sanford Biggers will take place on Tuesday.

gabriela ancoOctober 25, 2020Shirin Neshat

Amnesty : GCC: Flawed laws exploited in pandemic to further crush freedom of expression

Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), specifically Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to continue pre-existing patterns of suppressing the right to freedom of expression in 2020, said Amnesty International today in a detailed statement.

gabriela ancoOctober 20, 2020

France 24 : For a teacher in France, a lesson on freedom of expression was followed by death

The middle school teacher knifed to death on the street of a Paris suburb on Friday showed his teenage students a cartoon lampooning the Prophet Mohammed as part of a class on freedom of expression earlier this month, parents said.

gabriela ancoOctober 17, 2020

East End Beacon: In Water Mill: “How to Meet an Angel”

A utopian vision by renowned Mattituck artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov graced the wall of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill on Saturday, Sept. 12.

From 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., the museum presented “How to Meet an Angel,” a one-minute looped animation.

gabriela ancoOctober 11, 2020Ilya&Emilia Kabakov

Artsy: A Gerhard Richter painting became the most expensive work by a Western artist sold at an Asian auction.

Gerhard Richter became the most expensive Western artist to sell at an Asian auction when his 1987 abstract painting Abstraktes Bild (649-2) sold for HK$214.6 million (US$27.6 million) at Sotheby’s live-streamed Hong Kong sale of contemporary art, which took place on October 6th. The painting, representative of Richter’s textured, multi-colored abstract style, sold to the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan.

gabriela ancoOctober 9, 2020Gerhard Richter

Artnet: The Director of a Major Polish Museum Is Under Fire for Using Public Money to Acquire a Homophobic Artwork

“The director of one of Poland’s most renowned institutions is under fire for reallocating funds from the country’s national art collecting program.“ […]

“When the ministry only allotted the institution only 1.3 million PLN ($346,000), the CCA followed through on purchasing Fangor’s work for 800,000 PLN ($213,000), but claimed it could not afford the joint Kosuth and Kabakov piece. Instead, the institution said, it would use the leftover 530,000 PLN ($131,000) to acquire several works by artists not included on the initial application: Jacek Adamas, Jerzy Kalina, Ignacy Czwartos, Zenona Cyplik-Olejniczak, and Dominik Lejman.“

gabriela ancoOctober 8, 2020Ilya&Emilia Kabakov