Art

If You Happen To Be In Venice

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Work by Yuku Mohri at Japan’s pavilion. Moisture from the rotting fruit on display is converted into electric signals, which generate sounds or turn on suspended lightbulbs. Matteo de Mayda for The New York Times

It is the end of the standard work week for many, so here is an art concept to take them into the weekend, thanks to the New York Times art critics:

Given the Venice Biennale’s reputation as “the Olympics of the art world” — set in a spectacular city, no less — artists and curators here often favor grand, weighty gestures. This year’s Japan Pavilion wonderfully eschews gravitas for modesty and play, while still getting at something profound.

Mohri’s work was inspired by the rough and ready materials used to fix leaks in Tokyo’s subway. Matteo de Mayda for The New York Times

For her exhibition “Compose,” curated by Sook-Kyung Lee, the artist Yuko Mohri has created two installations of contraptions-slash-sculptures from local materials. One set, inspired by the D.I.Y. methods for fixing leaks in the Tokyo subway system, features tubes and everyday objects — like pans, rubber gloves and coat racks — rigged together and dangling through the air. The systems catch and recirculate water seeping into the pavilion, sometimes activating chimes in the process. Continue reading →

New Landscape Vision For Dia Beacon

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Rendered view looking north toward the new wet meadow after a big storm. “This will actually be something that you could come to experience in and of itself,” Dia’s director, Jessica Morgan, says of the landscape. Studio Zewde

We are impressed with the new direction that this institution is taking with one of the profession’s rising stars:

In a high-profile commission, Sara Zewde, a landscape architect, is designing eight acres of varied terrain at Dia Beacon that includes meadowlands, wetlands, rolling topography and pathways for visitors. Rafael Rios for The New York Times

Sara Zewde Sows, and Dia Beacon Reaps

On eight acres, a landscape architect challenges ideas about the legacy of the land, the museum’s history and climate change.

When it is introduced this year, the new and varied terrain of Dia Beacon, with its sculptural landforms, meadowlands and pathways, may surprise and delight.

Sara Zewde, the landscape architect who received the high-profile commission in 2021 to reimagine the museum’s eight back acres, says the goal wasn’t just dressing up Dia’s buildings with attractive plants. She sees her profession as a field “that has the skill set to take ecology, to take culture, to take people and tap into something bigger.” Continue reading →

Basketry, Craft & Art

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A coiled basket by Louisa Keyser (Dat So La Lee) of the Washoe people of Nevada, titled “Our Ancestors Were Great Hunters” (1905), with an oval degikup form, was made for the curio market. Her work comes to the Independent 20th Century fair this week. Donald Ellis Gallery

When craftwork is treated as artwork, valorization is the word that comes to mind. Not all craft is art, nor need it be; but we applaud the impetus of the Independent 20th Century fair. If this is your interest, and you are in New York City, the fair is open:

A couple recognized the Washoe weaver Louisa Keyser’s prodigious talent and spun myths to promote it. But her fortitude shines in work that today can be seen in museums and at the Independent 20th Century fair.

A portrait of Louisa Keyser, the most famous Washoe basket maker, who helped transform a utilitarian craft to fine art and was promoted at the time as a “princess” by a couple who sold her work. Donald Ellis Gallery

The Native American baskets sold in the early 1900s out of Abe Cohn’s Emporium, a men’s clothing store in Carson City, Nev., were exceptional. They were woven by Dat So La Lee, said to be a “princess” from the nearby Washoe people whose royal status permitted her alone to utilize a special weaving style.

The truth was less exciting. Dat So La Lee preferred her English name, Louisa Keyser. She was a Washoe woman, but the tales Cohn and his wife, Amy, spun about her — her esteemed heritage, her meeting with the Civil War general John C. Frémont — were myths. Continue reading →

Museum Loot Going Home

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Earl Stephens, who goes by the Nisga’a cultural name Chief Ni’is Joohl, center left, and members of a delegation from the Nisga’a nation pose beside a 36-foot tall memorial pole during a visit to the National Museum of Scotland on Monday. Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated Press

The legitimacy of museums possessing artifacts from other cultures is not inherently dubious, but as the Parthenon marbles example has demonstrated, there are plenty of reasonable questions. This story about a museum’s move to the better side of history is worth a read:

The pole is soon to be moved to British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Totem Pole Taken 94 Years Ago Begins 4,000-Mile Journey Home

The 36-foot tall memorial pole has spent almost a century in a Scottish museum. Now it will be returned to the Nisga’a Nation in Canada.

Almost 100 years ago, a hand-carved totem pole was cut down in the Nass Valley in the northwest of Canada’s British Columbia.

The 36-foot tall pole had been carved from red cedar in the 1860s to honor Ts’wawit, a warrior from the Indigenous Nisga’a Nation, who was next in line to become chief before he was killed in conflict. Continue reading →

Spirit Catcher and Lumen-Less Lantern, An Art Intervention by Willie Cole

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Willie Cole in his artist-in-residence studio at Express Newark, where he has been assembling chandeliers made from thousands of used plastic bottles. Rachel Vanni for The New York Times

Recycling has been a key theme in these pages since we started. Sometimes upcycle has been the term. Of course, reuse is also interesting.

All of these are worth our attention and support.

Our thanks to Laura van Straaten and the New York Times for bringing Willie Cole’s exhibition into view:

The artist invited the community in Newark to reimagine objects that would otherwise be destined for a landfill — to look at them in a fresh, imaginative way.

“Spirit Catcher” by Willie Cole is made of thousands of water bottles held together with metal wire and sculpted to resemble a chandelier. Rachel Vanni for The New York Times

NEWARK — The artist Willie Cole has created two colossal new sculptures and generated a provocative group exhibition stemming from an unusual open call asking artists to transform objects destined for landfill into something imaginative and new. Continue reading →

Marbles Coming Home

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The Parthenon (“Elgin”) Marbles are displayed in the British Museum, London. Credit: Txllxt TxllxT via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

This politician, like any, wants to repatriate heritage taken away. We have no insight into his motives, but even if it were just for the bragging rights that is fine. We do not so much care who resolves it, so much as that it happens:

The Secret Meetings on the Parthenon Marbles Exposed by the FT

The Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday the secret meetings on the Parthenon Marbles between Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and George Osborne, chair of the British Museum. Continue reading →

Cover Considered

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We link to essays and articles, as well as profiles and book reviews from this magazine constantly, but never previously to a cover and only once, by reference, to cartoons. The cover of this week’s issue merits consideration:

Birgit Schössow’s “The Future Is Here”

The artist talks about incorporating environmental themes in her work, and the historical inspiration behind her cover for the Climate Issue.

By Françoise Mouly,  Art by Birgit Schössow

Hokusai’s “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” circa 1830-32, is said to have inspired Debussy’s piece “La mer” (The Sea) and Rilke’s poem “Der Berg” (The Mountain).

In her new cover, the Germany-based artist Birgit Schössow drew inspiration from an artistic masterpiece. Starting in the late seventeen-hundreds, the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai created woodblock prints in a genre called ukiyo-e, part of an artistic movement known as “the floating world.” One of Hokusai’s best-known works is one of a series called “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” that shows a giant wave cresting in the foreground. The wave’s dramatic curve and stature, topped with a skim of frilly foam, are so eye-catching that you might miss the slender fishing boat it’s about to topple onto. Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In New York City

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Installed in several locations on the Allen Street Malls between Broome and Hester Streets, this group exhibition features four artworks by five artists addressing themes of nature. Artists include Elizabeth Knowles and Eric David Laxman, Elaine Lorenz, Judith Peck, and Michael Wolf.

While at Cornell University last month I got my fill of early autumn florals and educational signage. While in the Botanic Gardens I was struck by a floral sculpture, a type of art I am not often moved by. But that one worked. And so, looking through the Art in the Parks section  of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation  website,  the  image to the right caught my  attention.  And scrolling further through that collection I saw the image  below, which on a day after hurricane-driven rains  in  Costa  Rica,  with  the  morning sky clear of clouds,  hits the spot:

Naomi Lawrence, Tierra Fragil

September 25, 2022 to September 10, 2023
Morningside Park, Manhattan

Description:Tierra Fragil, depicts endangered insects and birds with the flowers and plants imperative to their survival. The mural informs and encourages the preservation of familiar species whose presence we may have taken for granted.

Tierra Fragil is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement a regrant program supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, UMEZ Arts Engagement a regrant program supported by the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and administered by LMCC. Additional funding was provided by the Friends of Morningside Park.

Ocean, The Book

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It has been a long time since our last links to a favorite coffee table book publisher. Next month, it could be yours. And inside we see a page with homage to Rudolf and Leopold Blaschka, old favorites:

Ocean, Exploring the Marine World: (Pre-order)Phaidon Editors, with an introduction by Anne-Marie Melster

Price£44.95

About the book

Pre-order now. This title will ship from September 8th, 2022.

Experience the force, mystery, and beauty of the ocean and seas through more than 300 images – featuring underwater photography, oceanographic maps and scientific illustrations, as well as paintings, sculptures and popular films.

Oceanography and art collide in this visual celebration of humans’ relationship with the marine world. Continue reading →

Plastic Transformed With Purpose

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Interior detail of “Earth Poetica,” which is a huge globe created out of plastic waste. Amit Elkayam for The New York Times

The challenge of plastic is a topic that goes back a decade in our pages.  We have featured artisanal plastic upcycling initiatives that we have supported entrepreneurially, as well as articles about other artisanal initiatives.

Today, in the same vein: Israeli Artist Turns Plastic Pollution Into ‘Earth Poetica’.

Beverly Barkat in her Jerusalem studio assembling “Earth Poetica,” a huge globe, from plastic waste. Its permanent home will be a building at ground zero in Manhattan. Amit Elkayam for The New York Times

In Beverly Barkat’s quest to connect people with nature, she found that environmental waste could be a powerful medium.

JERUSALEM — When the Jerusalem artist Beverly Barkat began to create an artwork for the lobby of a building in the new World Trade Center complex overlooking ground zero in Lower Manhattan, she aimed to come up with something architecturally site specific and impactful, large enough to connect with the space but not so enormous as to disconnect from the observer.

Barkat had a stark message to convey. Years earlier, she said, she had been struck by an image of children scavenging on a once-beautiful beach awash in plastic waste. Continue reading →

Smithsonian Craft Show

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Some of the crafts we carry seem museum quality to us, but we offer them in the context of commerce.

We would love to attend this show at the Smithsonian, primarily to see the work of Jessica Beels, whose work is showing in the Mixed Media and Paper section of the Show. Her website is full of reasons to see more of her work.

Nowhere on that site do  we see works like these three bird figures. We favor birds in art, wherever it may be, and when the medium stretches boundaries as these do, all the more interesting.

Art Of The National Parks

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Click the image above if this is your kind of coffee table book. It is of course available elsewhere but please, support the publisher instead of the elsewhere option. We feature stories related to the national parks of the USA about as frequently as any other topic; here is a unique way to support the idea and the actions that flow from the idea.

Thanks to the Guardian’s feature on the book for bringing it to our attention:

The art director JP Boneyard ’s favourite park is Montana’s Glacier national park. “It’s breathtaking, I’m smiling just thinking about it ,” he says. For his screen-print project Fifty-Nine Parks, now collected in a book, he asked modern artists to reinterpret America’s classic national park posters, commissioned by the government in the 1900s.

“I hope they inspire people to visit the parks and connect with nature, but, heck, it’d be awesome if the book inspired folks to pick up a squeegee and start printing too,” he says.

The National Parks Conservation Association has been mentioned in our pages a couple times before, but only in passing. Finding out more about this book led me to their website for the first time, and I already see a post on that topic is needed, but on another day.

Mysterious Appearances Of Non-Migratory Birds

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Andrea Mantegna’s “Madonna della Vittoria” was completed in Italy in 1496. Art work from © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Rebecca Mead, whose last appearance in our pages was referred to just yesterday, explores a five-century old mystery involving birds that is a fun half-hour read, especially but not exclusively for bird nerds:

Where Did That Cockatoo Come From?

Birds native to Australasia are being found in Renaissance paintings—and in medieval manuscripts. Their presence exposes the depth of ancient trade routes.

“Madonna della Vittoria,” by the Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna, must have looked imposing when it was first installed as an altarpiece in Santa Maria della Vittoria, a small chapel in the northern-Italian city of Mantua. The painting, which was commissioned by the city’s ruler, Francesco II Gonzaga, was completed in 1496, and measures more than nine feet in height. A worshipper’s eye likely lingered on its lower half—where the Virgin, seated on a marble pedestal, bestows a blessing on the kneeling, armored figure of Francesco—instead of straining to discern the intricacies of its upper half, which depicts a pergola bedecked with hanging ornaments and fruited vines. In the late eighteenth century, Napoleon’s forces looted the painting and transported it to the Louvre, where it now occupies a commanding spot in the Denon wing. Continue reading →

Alan Taylor’s Photo Selections

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Wild Asian elephants lie on the ground and rest in Jinning district of Kunming, Yunnan province, China June 7, 2021. A herd of 15 wild elephants has trekked hundreds of kilometres after leaving their forest habitat in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, according to local media. Picture taken June 7, 2021 with a drone. China Daily via REUTERS

It has been awhile, too long, since we nodded to Alan Taylor’s photo selections, so here is to closing out the week with images:

An optical illusion at the Eiffel Tower, scenes from the French Open, a surfing competition in El Salvador, a presidential election in Peru, Olympic qualifying skateboarding trials in Italy, a giant sinkhole in Mexico, a sunrise annular eclipse seen in New York City, a platypus health check in Australia, and much more

A Lupine field in full bloom is pictured near Sollested on Lolland island in Denmark on June 8, 2021. – Denmark OUT (Photo by Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT (Photo by MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

Continue reading →

Elizabeth Gould, Illustrator Of Note

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Gouldian Finches, named for Elizabeth Gould, from The Birds of Australia. Illustration: Elizabeth Gould/Public Domain

When we think of birds and illustrations, most frequently the work of John James Audubon comes to mind. But there were others:

Meet Elizabeth Gould, the Gifted Artist Behind Her Husband’s Famous Bird Books

John Gould’s ornithology books were hugely popular and cemented his name in history. But his wife’s illustrations were a big reason why.

In 1830, when English taxidermist John Gould was keen to publish his first volume of bird species, his wife Elizabeth asked him who would create the illustrations. She knew her unartistic husband wouldn’t be up to the task. Continue reading →

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest

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Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest: ‘I didn’t just want to talk about ‘hey, this is happening,’ without offering solutions.’ Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy

First reading about this in another publication (one that rarely features photographs), the concept was clear, especially if you are familiar with “What Is Missing,” a long-running project about ecological loss. Picturing the result for this new installation was not easy from that first review. The artist’s website offered the photo above, which is also featured in this Guardian review, and Madison Square Park’s website offers an audio tour of the exhibition along with the image below.

On her own website the artist’s description is worth reading:

Ghost Forest, 2021
Madison Square Park, New York, NY
Commissioned by Madison Square park Conservancy
May 10 – November 14, 2021
49 Atlantic Cedar trees (36 – 46 feet)

Photography: Maya Lin Studio / Andy Romer, courtesy MSPC

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest, brings a towering stand of forty-nine Atlantic white cedar trees, victims of salt water inundation due to climate change to downtown manhattan’s Madison Square Park. Continue reading →

Anne Samat At Asia Society

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Anne Samat, Follow Your Heart Wholeheartedly, 2020. Rattan sticks, yarn, rakes, washers, plastic swords, toy soldiers, beads, metal and plastic ornaments. Left: H. 98 x W. 48 x D. 7 in. (249 x 122 x 17.8 cm). Center: H. 131 1/2 x W. 141 3/4 x D. 11 3/4 in. (334 x 360 x 30 cm). Right: H. 105 x W. 48 x D. 7 in. (266.7 x 122 x 17.8 cm). Front: H. 84 1/4 x W. 26 3/4 x D. 12 3/16 in. (214 x 67 x 31 cm). Courtesy of Richard Koh Fine Art and the artist. Photograph courtesy of Richard Koh Fine Art and the artist. This work was commissioned by Asia Society Museum, New York, for the inaugural Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone. Location: Asia Society Museum

If you are out and about in New York City, this may be for you:

Anne Samat is a contemporary artist from Malaysia who works with fiber and weaving techniques from archipelagic Southeast Asia. Continue reading →

Uncommon Response To An Uncommon Ocean Spill

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Replica Air Jordans, constructed by the artist Andy Yoder’s from trash gathered on dumpster dives, evoke the Great Sneaker Spill of 1990. Greg Staley

We shared another story years ago about a creative response to an ocean spill, but it was the frequent kind of spill, involving oil. More common in our pages are stories about creative responses to the plague of waste, especially that from plastic. Today’s story is in good company:

If the Shoe Floats

Over the decades, a mass of flotsam from a freighter accident has inspired scientific discovery, urban legend and, now, an art exhibition commemorating the Great Sneaker Spill of 1990.

Mr. Yoder wields a glue gun to create a sneaker replica for an installation that also stands as commentary on environmental destruction. Greg Staley

It seemingly happened so long ago that the event has assumed elements of urban legend — the saga of the Great Sneaker Spill.

Sometimes referred to as the Great Shoe Spill, the tale recounts an event on May 27, 1990, when, during a sudden violent storm in the North Pacific, five shipping containers were swept off the deck of the freighter Hansea Carrier somewhere between Seoul and Seattle.

Of the 40-foot steel boxes that broke loose and crashed into the ocean, one sank to the bottom and four broke open to spill out a stream of contents that included computer monitors, sex toys and 61,280 Nike sneakers destined for America’s basketball courts and city streets.

… cartons from McDonald’s takeout meals … Greg Staley

The incident went on to become a parable of environmental disaster, as well as a red-letter event in the history of sneakerheads. For months, the buoyant flotilla drifted, carried by wind and currents until, in early 1991, beachcombers reported coming upon batches of the sneakers off Vancouver Island in Canada, pushed north on the Davidson Current. That spring, driven southward by opposing breezes, more of them turned up along the coastlines of Washington and Oregon.

… and posters from a David Hockney exhibition. Greg Staley

The Great Sneaker Spill might have gone unremembered had it not been for the enterprising scavengers who washed and resold the flotsam and Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer who, alerted to the spill’s existence by his mother, later used it as the basis for a study of little-known currents. Continue reading →

Monday Morning, Shifting Gears

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In these pages the impacts of the pandemic have not been a regular feature, but since early on it was clear we would be feeling the impact for a long time. Each passing week has given us reason to think about how we can adjust what we do. Click the image to the right for a conversation with an illustrator who captures that spirit of adjustment in his own context. At the end of the conversation you can see past cover illustrations that have themes related to bicycles. Not a bad way to start a new week:

As covid-19 infection rates have risen in New York, and the city braces for winter, it can be hard to see a reason for optimism. For his latest New Yorker cover, R. Kikuo Johnson finds one: the welcome surge of cycling across the boroughs. We recently talked to Johnson about biking, working from home, and one of his favorite views in the city.

This is such a lovely image amid dark times. Was there a moment when inspiration struck?

When I think of New York City, the first image that comes to mind is the view from the Williamsburg Bridge. From the top, you see the whole city at once: skyscrapers, graffiti, at least four bridges, the Statue of Liberty, sweating crowds in a rush. Continue reading →