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Visual Synergy across Centuries

LONDON.- As part of Christie’s Classic Week, Remastered: Contemporary Art & Old Masters, an online-only auction running from 21-30 July 2020, will celebrate the visual synergy between centuries, recontextualising contemporary and old master artworks. Continuing on from 2014 Christie’s Mayfair Exhibition The Bad Shepherd and the 2018 exhibition Sacred Noise, this auction will highlight the continual thematic threads that have occupied artists throughout the ages. Artists are in constant conversation through a visual and cerebral language that spans the centuries, and this auction seeks to bring those dialogues to light through four strands of exploration. The Human Condition Painting, from its earliest inception to the present day, has been a way of telling stories: part of the narrative fabric of myth, religion and history that helps us make sense of the world. Pieter Brueghel II’s The Adoration of the Magi (estimate: £200,000-300,000) refreshes a well-worn Biblical scene by transposing it into the hubbub of a snowy Netherlandish town. Created some four centuries later, George Condo’s Dispersed Figures (1998, estimate: £250,000-350,000) fractures a crowd of bodies to nebulous abstraction. While engaging with art history, Condo’s ‘psychological Cubism’ is also about the tales we tell ourselves: how we build our own self-images, and how we situate ourselves in society.

 Portraiture Painted in 2013, the year that Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was nominated for the Turner Prize, Liberation Two-Piece (estimate: £200,000-300,000) is steeped with art-historical echoes. Her paintings have the gravity and grace of nineteenth-century portraits by John Singer Sargent while their shadows play with the chiaroscuro drama of Goya and Caravaggio. The noble profile of the sitter in Portrait of Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan (1470-1524, estimate: £200,000 – 300,000), painted by a follower of Leonardo da Vinci, is a product of power and patronage, broadcasting a poised, compelling image for posterity. In The Stars (2008, estimate: £200,000-300,000), Michaël Borremans quite literally turns away from convention to create an enigmatic study in body language. Although dramatized in Old Masterly brushstrokes, the work suspends character, narrative and even the subject’s expression just out of the picture. Happy Birthday (2019, estimate: £20,000-30,000) exemplifies the boldness and beauty of Amoako Boafo’s portraiture. Boafo counts Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Kerry James Marshall, Jordan Casteel and Kehinde Wiley among his influences alongside Egon Schiele who he cites as the painter who inspired him to be free with his own strokes, characters and composition. Vanitas The skull, musical instruments, coins and jewellery arranged in Edwaert Collier’s composition, A vanitas still life with coins, pearls, a pocket watch, eyeglasses, an earthenware candleholder, a skull, musical instruments, books, an overturned roemer, sheet music, a globe and an hourglass table before a curtain (1661, estimate: £40,000-60,000), are familiar symbols in the vocabulary of vanitas. A violin string is conspicuously snapped. Spectacles, books and a globe warn that even learning is in vain. We are reminded that all human life drifts past like music, or sand through an hourglass. The conch, candlestick, fish and fruit in David Salle’s 1998 Angels in the Rain (estimate: £100,000-150,000) are plucked from context to take part in a discordant clash of cycling bears, angelic statues and abstract pattern. Faith and Mortality Lucio Fontana’s Crocifisso (1950–1955, estimate: £150,000-200,000) is a superb example of the artist’s Baroque spirit in action. With deft use of raw terracotta, a black backdrop and vivid splashes of white, Fontana conjures a crucified Christ that glows with dynamic energy, bringing a time-honoured subject into the modern era. Jacopo Bassano’s sixteenth-century The Agony in the Garden (estimate: £150,000-250,000) depicts Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper. His disciples sleep before him as his captors approach with burning torches; an angel holds a cup that symbolises his impending sacrifice. The golden light of dawn, however, glows softly in the distance, suggesting the hope of salvation. Art, for Old Master and Young British Artist alike, can transcend life on earth to speak of the divine.

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This photograph taken on July 18, 2020 shows children playing in a car made of scrap metal parts at the Ban Hun Lek museum in Ang Thong, some 100km north of Bangkok. "Ban Hun Lek" or "The House of Steel Robots" is a museum where a collective of artists display their scrap metal creations depicting popular comics and sci-fi film characters

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15 year Reunion of work by the artists ‘Art Below’

LONDON.- ‘Every Day is a Miracle’ is Art Below’s first gallery exhibition since January, and is now on view at Ad Lib Gallery. Following months of isolation and global uncertainty, ‘Every Day is a Miracle’ celebrates a reunion of work by the artists Art Below has presented throughout its fifteen-year history, as well as an optimistic look towards the future. Open to the public for ten days, this exhibition comprises a series of events, each with a limited capacity to comply with guidance as the COVID-19 lockdown measures begin to lift. We live in extraordinary times, and beyond great tragedies, recent years have also seen triumph and pride in moments of adversity, from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee to the 50th Anniversary of the first moon landing and the great work of our NHS – themes which have been explored in past exhibitions and which are returned to again here as Art Below looks optimistically towards the future, with fresh works recently created by artists longstanding and newly brought on board. Curator and Art Below Co-Founder Ben Moore says: “I feel that the coronavirus has created a wall in history, and that everything that happened before 2020 we will reminisce about for years to come – about the way things used to be. This brief window of time is an opportunity for me as a curator to reflect on those wonderful years as Art Below went on its journey, from 2006 to its last event at the start of this year. This is a chance for us to relive that wonderful time, enjoying a gallery as we used to do and seeing those iconic works that once starred on the walls of the London Underground in a new environment. Things, I believe, will not be the same again in our lifetimes, however with change comes opportunity, and we are looking forward to our continued work with new, emerging artists on the scene, as well as those with whom we have collaborated for over a decade.” The exhibition is part retrospective, looking back at some of the most iconic billboard posters from Art Below’s fifteen-year span, including Ben Eine, Sarah Maple, Billy Childish and Alison Jackson, as well as work from the Art Wars collection by artists such as Hayden Kays, Philip Colbert, Orlanda Broom and Joe Rush. The show also unveils fresh new work by James Ostrer, Karen Bystedt, Anna Kenneally, Tom Lumley, Jeffrey Robb, Ben Eine, Ru Knox, Mark Metcalfe, Pauline Amos, Nasser Azam and Mikey Voice. A section of the show is being dedicated to the work of underwater photographer Terry Arpino (12 December 1944 – 7 April 2020), who sadly passed away in April. Terry was a regular Art Below exhibitor from its earliest days and will be greatly missed. He became passionately interested in underwater photography over 35 years ago, excited about how nature shows its beauty and colour in the shapes and forms of organisms, living in this challenging yet serene environment. He enthusiastically described his unique practice as being at times “beyond imagination and dreams.” A billboard poster of work by Terry Arpino was installed at Hyde Park Corner Tube Station on Monday 13 July 2020. RIP Terry.

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Paintings by Michael Cassidy

SANTA FE, NM.- Gerald Peters Gallery is presenting, Far West, an exhibition of paintings by Michael Cassidy inspired by the western pulp fiction and movie posters of the 1920s and 30s. This is Cassidy’s first solo exhibition at the gallery and a continuation of his Western Pulp Series. The exhibition features 25 paintings including his popular western portraits. The exhibition is available to view online on the gallery's website. In addition, a digital and hard cover catalog is available. The myth of the Old West is solidified into the American psyche and can be traced back to the dime novels of the mid early 19th century. Before there were films about the west, there were sensationalized stories of cowboys, Indians, cattle rustling and danger. The literary quality of these pulp books were not particularly high, but the imagery captured our imagination. In our western history and stories, real and imagined, we see ourselves as we would like to be seen. Cassidy states: “The West is a place but also a state of mind. There’s a reason why Western art is still popular today more than a 120 years after the heyday of its subject matter. It represents something intrinsic to us. I acknowledge that the myth and the reality of the West are two different things. The reality was a beautiful but wild, harsh, brutal and unforgiving environment for all concerned. Today, the myth of the West may be more important than the reality. The West represents something crucial to living life to its fullest: Beauty, romance and adventure. The things that really make us come alive. Some of the works in this exhibition are my idea of what the cover of a dime novel would look like on the scale of the old Western movie poster. The story titles used in the paintings are from real stories, complete with their author’s names. The romance of the West is still here. Resilience, romance and adventure still exist in this country. That’s why the myth of the West still lives. It’s hardwired into us. It’s my hope, desire and pleasure to tell those stories through painting. These paintings are stories on a wall to remind us what we’re looking for and what really makes us come alive.”

[artworldnews]

Ancient Roman Mosaic at Dorset

LONDON.- Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage has placed a temporary export bar on a panel of mosaic from a Roman villa at Dewlish, Dorset. Thought to date to the 4th century AD, the mosaic is considered by many to be an exceptional piece and is at risk of being lost abroad unless a buyer can be found to match the £135,00 asking price. The mosaic would have been part of an elaborate pavement in the reception room of a luxurious villa and includes a depiction of a leopard pouncing on the back of an antelope as blood drips from its wounded prey. Floor mosaics like this would have been chosen to reflect the values and beliefs of the villa’s owner and can help modern viewers understand the aspirations and education of country landowners who held power in the final decades of the Roman Era. Apart from one smaller piece in the Dorchester Country Museum, much of the mosaic floor at the Dewlish Roman villa has now been destroyed, so this fragment is of crucial importance to understanding the whole composition.

This fragment has strong similarities to other fourth century mosaics found in the region surrounding Dorchester, ascribed to a Durnovarian School of mosaic workers. Although notable examples survived, including the Hinton St Mary mosaic in the British Museum, many of the mosaics assigned to the Durnovarain school have been reburied or destroyed. Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage said: This mosaic is a piece of history telling us about the lives of our Roman ancestors more than 2,000 years ago. It is an incredibly rare example of the Roman occupation of Britain and I hope that, even in these challenging times, a buyer can be found to keep this important and striking work in the UK. The Minister’s decision follows the advice of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA). The committee noted that there were few mosaics from the Durnovarian school showing this quality and exceptional workmanship. It was also widely agreed that there was much to be learned about Romano-British mosaics from further research and study of the fragment. The RCEWA made its recommendation on the grounds of the mosaic’s outstanding significance to the study of Romano-British art and history. Committee member Leslie Webster said: The mosaic‘s spirited depiction of a leopard bringing down an antelope is a brilliantly accomplished image of nature red in tooth and claw; the soaring leap of the deer, and the precise delineation of the leopard’s muscular power and ferocious grace is a tour de force of the mosaicist’s art. Such a resonant image, with its origins in the art and mythology of the classical world and beyond, has travelled a long way to Dorset, to feature in the villa of a wealthy Romano-British landowner; it must have been the latest thing in up-market house decoration. The grand mosaic from which this fragment came, dominating the principal public room of the villa, was clearly designed to impress the spectator with the learning and cultural aspirations of its owner. Perhaps this exotic symbol of the hunt, popular elsewhere in the Empire but exceptional in Britain, and its implicit theme of domination, were also intended to suggest its owner’s status and power. In the later years of the Roman era in Britain, the representational innovation and technical sophistication of this mosaic, and of others produced by the Dorchester school of mosaicists, give fascinating insight into the lives of local Roman magnates, in a period seen as one of change and decline; they open up many questions and opportunities for investigation. For us to lose it from Britain would be a great misfortune. The decision on the export licence application for the mosaic will be deferred until 16 October 2020. This may be extended until 16 January 2021 if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase it is made at the recommended price of £135,000 plus VAT.

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Post-Impressionist art

MONTREAL.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts invites visitors on a journey to the artistic effervescence of France at the turn of the 20th century with its exhibition Paris in the Days of Post-Impressionism: Signac and the Indépendants. Through over 500 works from an outstanding private collection, including the largest set of works by Paul Signac, the public will discover a magnificent body of paintings and graphic works by Signac and avant-garde artists: Impressionists (Degas, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro), Fauves (Dufy, Friesz, Marquet, Vlaminck), Symbolists (Gauguin, Redon), Nabis (Bonnard, Denis, Lacombe, Sérusier, Ranson, Vallotton), observers of life in Paris (Anquetin, Ibels, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec), Cubists (Picasso, Braque), Expressionists (Feininger, Heckel), and above all, the Neo-Impressionists (Angrand, Cross, Hayet, Lemmen, Luce, Seurat, Van Rysselberghe). Visitors will learn about the social and pictorial issues of the era and what prompted a group of artists led by Signac to create the Salon des Indépendants in 1884, which promoted the democratic ideal of an exhibition with “neither jury, nor award.” Art, they believed, should be accessible to all and could contribute to the common good. From its inauguration in 1884 to the First World War, the Salon des Indépendants served as a platform for major art-historical developments of the time including: Neo- Impressionism, the Nabis movement, Symbolism, Fauvism and Cubism.. The exhibition situates the Indépendants in the sociocultural and political context of Paris during the Belle Époque. Paul Signac and the Salon des Indépendants, 1884-1914 Paris, 1900: a revolution was underway in the Belle Époque. “Art for all!” declared artists who exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants under the motto “neither jury, nor reward.” Co-founder of the Salon des Indépendants, Paul Signac (1863-1935) made a name for himself as the theoretician of the so-called “postimpressionist scientists.” Inspired by the chromatic theories of Charles Henry, Ogden Rood and Michel-Eugène Chevreul, he applied pure colour to the canvas in tightly placed dots, such that the form would emerge from the optical blending in the viewer’s eye. With his “divisionist” technique, he sought to create total art somewhere between the paradise lost of the golden age and social utopia. Signac championed positivist painting, which promoted technical and political modernity. The new pointillist style of his “Neo” peers spread quickly from Paris to Brussels, glorifying the better days to come. According to the writings of such critics as Fénéon, Signac positioned himself as an engaged intellectual in the era of the Dreyfus affair. “Justice in sociology, harmony in art: one and the same thing.” These words uttered by Signac sum up the vision he applied to both politics and art and reveal his quest for social justice and harmony. Nearly 80 creations by Signac will enlighten us on the artist’s quest for social and chromatic harmony as well as on other movements born of the turbulent era, including Symbolism, Nabism, Fauvism and Cubism. The first Canadian exhibition of this scale dedicated to Neo-Impressionism, Paris in the Days of Post-Impressionism is a unique opportunity to view these works together, many of which have never been exhibited before. Commenting on the work that went into producing the exhibition, curator Mary-Dailey Desmarais adds, “It has been a tremendous pleasure to work with this truly exceptional collection. Together with the superb teams at the MMFA and the cocurators of the exhibition, Gilles Genty, I hope that visitors will come away having learned more about artistic freedom, ‘indépendance’ and the power of art to create social change.” “Some exhibitions simply illustrate an era; this one instead invites visitors to experience the extraordinary aesthetics of the late 19th century. For me, it has been a great privilege to be part of this adventure,” says Gilles Genty, guest curator. Rare loans In addition to the over 500 works from the private collection, two rare pieces have been loaned to the Museum from the archives of Paul Signac's descendants. One is the portrait Paul Signac as a Yachtsman (1896) by Theo Van Rysselberghe (1862-1926), and the other is a sketch for In the Time of Harmony (1893) by Paul Signac that will enable the public to learn more about this masterpiece, which cannot be transported owing to its size.

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Edward Hopper and the American Hotel at  the Indianapolis Museum of Art

INDIANAPOLIS, IND.- Explore  the highly-anticipated exhibition, Edward Hopper and the American Hotel at  the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields from  July 19, 2020 through October 25, 2020. This exhibition is welcoming guests  back inside the IMA Galleries for the first time since mid-March. Travel back  in time to experience the iconic American painter like never before in this  major loan exhibition.

   “Newfields is thrilled to welcome guests back inside the Indianapolis Museum  of Art with this major exhibition,” said Dr. Charles L. Venable, the Melvin  & Bren Simon Director and CEO of Newfields. While Hopper has long been  considered one of the most important American masters, interest in his work  has soared during this period of anxiousness and isolation. His depictions of  individuals alone in their hotel rooms and even completely empty rooms have  even more relevance now.”    The exhibition features 57 of Edward Hopper’s (1882-1967) paintings,  drawings, watercolors and magazine covers–including the Indianapolis Museum  of Art’s iconic Hotel Lobby—that show his fascination with commonplace  hospitality settings of the time. Hopper’s work is often explored through a  lens of loneliness, but American Hotel provides a different context for the  celebrated American artist’s work. Guests will discover how 20th-century  Americans participated in travel culture, depending on their race, gender,  and class; and see how Hopper’s works fit into a larger tradition of the role  of the hotel in art. Hopper’s paintings and works on paper are being  presented alongside 31 works by over 20 other artists including Derrick  Adams, David Hockney, Cindy Sherman and John Singer Sargent.

The works are accompanied by firsthand accounts of travel culture in Hopper’s time in the form of photographs, postcards and personal stories from Americans of different walks of life. While the white artist and his wife Josephine ‘Jo” Nivision Hopper could check into virtually any hotel of their choice in the mid-20th century, this was not true for Black Americans nor single women because of racism and sexism. These facts are highlighted in the show to give a more accurate depiction of hotel culture in America during this time. The exhibition features a life-size recreation of Hopper’s Western Motel painting that invites guests to peer into a mid-century modern getaway, much like the woman painted in the original scene. After a long day of travel (through Newfields) stop by Pop-Up: Hotel Bar, just steps away from the exhibition space, to sip cocktails that were popular among Americans during this time. Edward Hopper and the American Hotel was organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, in partnership with the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. The exhibition was conceived and curated by Dr. Leo G. Mazow, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s Louise B. and J. Hartwood Cochrane Curator of American Art, and curated for the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields by Anna Stein, Assistant Curator of Works on Paper. “There have been so many exhibitions and books written about the famous Edward Hopper. This one takes an especially thoughtful and creative approach to de-mystifying a great artist,” said Stein. “Dr. Mazow has brought together a stunning group of artworks that can rarely be seen together, and our team is so excited to present them in Indianapolis.”

[artworldnews]

Swipe Right to buy this Basquiat

NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Testing the notion that blue-chip art can be sold with a swipe, former Christie’s executive Loic Gouzer on Monday will use his new app as the auction block for a large drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat that is estimated to sell for $8 million to $9 million. The app, called Fair Warning, started as a lark, Gouzer said, a way to keep busy under lockdown and to see whether the art world could pivot to online sales in a meaningful way. (Auction houses have since held their first — successful — completely online sales.) The first piece he auctioned on the app, Steven Shearer’s 2018 portrait “Synthist,” sold to a private European collector for $437,000 — an auction high for the artist — on an estimate of $180,000 to $250,000. Gouzer said he has sold two works since then: a body print by David Hammons that sold for about $1.3 million (estimated at $500,000 to $700,000) and a piece by Steven Parrino that sold for $977,500 (estimated at $650,000 to $750,000). “It’s really an experiment,” said Gouzer, who while at Christie’s built a reputation as a bad-boy rainmaker for coming up with unorthodox sale ideas as well as procuring and positioning big-ticket artworks, most famously Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” for $450.3 million in 2017. “The idea was to create a guerrilla type of auction system,” he said, “where you could start moving paintings by using the cloud rather than physical locations.” So far, the large auction houses seem unconcerned about Gouzer taking a significant piece of their business. “The availability of only a single lot is a construct easily replicated,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, who called the app “clever and inventive.”

“The key factor will be the breadth of audience,” Porter added. “In that, he must contend with the worldwide data that the large auction houses, art fairs and megadealers have been investing in for years.” Buyers must apply for admission to the app, where they are evaluated for the seriousness of their collecting. Gouzer is trying to keep out speculators who would flip the works for higher prices to make a quick profit. He had hoped to avoid guarantees — lining up a minimum bid in advance — which have become routine among auction houses. But he said sellers demand them these days. (The Basquiat is guaranteed for an undisclosed amount around the low estimate, Gouzer said.) The untitled Basquiat, an acrylic and oil stick on black paper that measures about 4 by 6 feet, features many of the qualities for which the artist was best known, such as “all the obsessive scribbling and those words that come all the time like ‘tar’ and ‘asbestos,’ ” Gouzer said. He transformed his garage in Montauk, New York, into a climate-controlled viewing room where interested buyers can view the Basquiat starting Thursday (he hired security to guard it). The piece will sell on July 30. At this point, Gouzer is planning to sell one piece a week — assuming inventory cooperates — with auctions taking place on the app at 5 p.m. sharp on Sundays. The sales are conducted live with the app registering bids. Gouzer takes a 15% flat commission. While Gouzer has already been deluged with prospective future lots, he said he is picking and choosing carefully; should he fail to find pieces that satisfy his standards, he will simply wait until he does. “I only put works that I would buy for my invisible collection. My taste is eclectic but very selective,” he said. “I don’t have pressure, because I don’t have investors. It’s an extension of the curation I did when I was at Christie’s, but with complete freedom.”

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Outdoor Sculptures at McNay Art Museum

SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The McNay Art Museum adds three new outdoor sculptures to its more than 22,000-piece Permanent Collection this summer, enhancing the richness of the Museum’s outdoor experience as Phase I of its Landscape Master Plan completes in September. The Sole Sitter by Willie Cole, Hashtag-Orange by Alejandro Martín, and Standing Tulip by Tom Wesselmann will be on view throughout the McNay’s 25-acre grounds beginning this August. “When our community is ready to reconnect with the beauty, hope, and inspiration that has defined us for decades, the McNay will be waiting with an experience that is more open, welcoming, and inclusive than ever before,” said Richard Aste, McNay Director and CEO. “Our new outdoor sculptures and our expanded, more accessible campus reflect our commitment to a mission of engaging and uplifting everyone.”

 The Sole Sitter by Willie Cole is inspired by the traditional masks of the Luba people, a large Bantu-speaking group from Central Africa, indigenous to the southern-central Democratic Republic of the Congo. In line with Cole’s body of eclectic postmodernist works, the sculpture combines the forms of several large high-heeled shoes to create a sitting figure reminiscent of a traditional Luba mask. This is the McNay’s first acquisition of an outdoor sculpture by an African American artist. Cole’s work has been the subject of several one-person museum exhibitions at, among others, the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, Montclair Art Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami (formerly Miami Art Museum), Bronx Museum of the Arts, and The Museum of Modern Art. The acquisition of The Sole Sitter is made possible by a gift from the Russell Hill Rogers Funds for the Arts.

Hashtag-Orange by Alejandro Martín is a vibrant orange painted metal sculpture reflecting the hashtag symbol, which will welcome visitors as they enter the McNay campus via North New Braunfels Avenue. Born in 2000, Martín is an emerging artist based in Mexico City. He began sculpting in 2017 after being exposed to the art form in high school, and his sculptures are informed by digital symbols of his generation. Bold, larger-than-life hashtags feature prominently in his artworks alongside asterisks and block figures that seem to emerge from a Minecraft© game. Martín’s first solo exhibition was on display at the San Antonio Botanical Garden from January 2019 through January 2020. The acquisition of Hashtag-Orange is made possible by a gift from Carolyn and Allan Paterson.

Standing Tulip is the first work of art in any medium by Pop artist Tom Wesselmann to be included in the McNay Collection. Standing 13-feet tall, the aluminum sculpture greets visitors with a bright pop of color as they enter the Museum’s main entrance. Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1931 and died in 2004. He received a BA in psychology from University of Cincinnati in 1956 and a BFA from Cooper Union, New York in 1959. The artist embraced the large scale of Abstract Expressionism, but applied it to objects from pop culture and everyday life. A laser cutting application allowed him to translate his drawings into cut-out metal. The acquisition of Standing Tulip is made possible by a gift from Marie Halff and the G.A.C. Halff Foundation.

“The acquisition of these artworks is a reflection of the McNay’s ongoing commitment to ensuring our Collection continues to champion diverse artists of all ages, races, identities, and backgrounds,” said René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs. “Focusing on enhancing our outdoor sculpture holdings is particularly important at this time as our community yearns for safe open spaces to experience moments of beauty, healing, and reflection.”

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Explore a quintessential painting in The Met collection by the 19th-century French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. His unique style garnered numerous admirers, particularly among the younger creative vanguard in Europe and the United States. Sleep, one of Puvis's favorite compositions, evokes the fragile beauty of repose and togetherness. 

Please note: This event is prerecorded. Featured Artwork: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (French, 1824–1898). Sleep, ca. 1867–70. Oil on canvas, 26 1/8 x 41 3/4 in. (66.4 x 106 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915, (30.95.253)

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Black Lives Matter Mural

A group of artists and volunteers paint a Black Lives Matter mural on the street outside the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery on July 18, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mural will be painted by 16 artists, who will each create their own individual artwork on a letter. 

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Exhibition dedicated to the history of photography by Kunstmuseum Basel

BASEL.- With the exhibition The Incredible World of Photography, the Kunstmuseum Basel celebrates a twofold premiere: the first comprehensive portrait of Ruth and Peter Herzog’s photography collection in Switzerland is also the first presentation at the Kunstmuseum dedicated to the history of photography. A serendipitous flea market find in the 1970s led Ruth and Peter Herzog to begin building what has since grown into a singular photography collection encompassing over 500,000 pictures. The holdings range from the medium’s early days to the 1970s and reflect all major developments in analog photography. For the nineteenth century, in particular, the two collectors made important discoveries that have deepened our understanding of the eventful history of photography. Ruth and Peter Herzog now rank among the world’s leading photography collectors. What the Herzogs have created is nothing less than a photographic encyclopedia of life in the industrial age. The myriad anonymous masterworks throw light on an overwhelming abundance of motifs and themes from around the world and illustrate how photography tells stories and relates history. The collection as a whole maps a variety of approaches to exploring the world with and in photography. Immersion in its riches demonstrates above all that photography is far from a unified phenomenon: each individual photograph unfolds a dense web of social, institutional, and historical interconnections.

Debut of a long-term cooperation The ca. 400 works from the ample holdings chosen for the exhibition represent selected foci of the unique collection, including, in particular, amateur photography, nineteenth-century commercial and scientific photography, and twentieth-century advertising and press photography. We showcase works by Swiss and international photographers that have never been on public display. Art museums generally prefer to present photography in the form of single prints on paper; our exhibition, by contrast, lays out the material diversity of photographic objects, including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ferrotypes, salt paper prints, albumen paper prints, autochromes, and gelatin silver prints. The exhibition marks the debut of a long-term cooperation between the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel, which has been the owner of the Ruth and Peter Herzog Photography Collection since 2015. In addition to providing the valuable exhibits, the Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel has designed an innovative exhibition architecture for the Kunstmuseum that was directly inspired by the setting in which the work at the Kabinett takes place and its sustained engagement with the rich spectrum of historical photography and its materiality. The design is informed by careful considerations on the perception and presentation of the artifacts, many of which are in small formats and light-sensitive. The diversity of the Ruth and Peter Herzog Photography Collection and its qualities as an “encyclopedia of life” (Martin Heller, 1989) are translated into a succession of nine galleries. Each room invites the visitors to sample the different ways in which photography presents a vast diversity of motifs and themes, from the contemplation of individual objects in arrangements on tables to wall projections of individual images. At selected junctions, the exhibition pairs the historic original photographs with major works from the Kunstmuseum Basel and treasures on loan from the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, including paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Robert Delaunay and works on paper by Andy Warhol and Martin Schongauer, as well as photographs by Thomas Demand and Bernd and Hilla Becher. These constellations draw attention to the dynamic interplay between photography and visual art and inquire into parallels on the levels of motifs and formal composition as well as the media’s (negotiable) boundaries. The ways in which they have influenced each other is scrutinized in exemplary studies on fundamental questions of photography such as seriality, reproduction, and the role of color or its absence. Interactive installation In preparing the exhibition The Incredible World of Photography, we have been able to build on an ambitious collection review and digitization project dedicated to the holdings of the Ruth and Peter Herzog Collection that was launched at the Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel, in 2015. Drawing on the resulting digital material, the iart studio for media architectures, working with students in the B.A. program in digital ideation at the Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences, has developed an interactive installation in the exhibition. Powered by artificial intelligence, the installation enables visitors to chart their own individual course through the collection. Scanning your museum ticket at one of two interactive stations, a randomly selected image appears in large format. A family of images with similar motifs is mapped around this initial picture. If two tickets are scanned, the algorithm connects the two images, creating navigational pathways between motifs from different periods. The algorithm works with image recognition, and constantly conjures up new formal relationships.