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Following Calls to Remove ‘Unflattering’ Portrait from Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, Billionaire Gifted a Different Portrait of Herself

Vincent Namatjira with various portraits by him, including one of Gina Rinehart, third from left in the bottom row. ©Vincent Namatjira/Copyright Agency/Photo Iwantja Arts/Courtesy the artist and Iwantja Arts If you can’t beat them, join them—as the old saying goes—or, perhaps, give them something else to discuss. This seems to be the attitude of Australian …

Following Calls to Remove ‘Unflattering’ Portrait from Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, Billionaire Gifted a Different Portrait of Herself Read More »

MFA Houston Can Keep Contested Nazi-looted Bernardo Bellotto Painting: US Appeals Court

Bernardo Bellotto: Marketplace at Pirna, ca. 18th century. Museum of Fine Arts Houston A United States appeals court has affirmed a prior ruling that the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Houston can keep an 18th-century painting contested in a lawsuit by the heirs of its original German Jewish owner. Bernardo Bellotto’s The Marketplace at Pirna (ca. 1764), …

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Ace Gallery Founder Convicted, Court Settles Restitution Confusion with MFA Houston, El Museo del Barrio Reveals Details for Trienal, and More: Morning Links for June 4, 2024

Bernardo Bellotto: Marketplace at Pirna, ca. 18th century. Museum of Fine Arts Houston To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. THE HEADLINES EMBEZZLEMENT CONVICTION. Douglas Chrismas, the 80-year-old, notorious founder of Los Angeles’s defunct blue-chip Ace Gallery, has been convicted of embezzlement by a jury. The May 31 ruling in …

Ace Gallery Founder Convicted, Court Settles Restitution Confusion with MFA Houston, El Museo del Barrio Reveals Details for Trienal, and More: Morning Links for June 4, 2024 Read More »

In His Mardi Gras Suits and Beadwork Paintings, Demond Melancon Creates Compelling Tensions between Representation and Opacity

Big Chief Demond Melancon in the 2019 documentary All on a Mardi Gras Day. Courtesy the artist Before he considered himself an artist, Demond Melancon boiled lobster at the Louisiana chain restaurant Drago’s Seafood, washed dishes at Emeril’s, and poured concrete for Hard Rock Construction. He laid and smoothed the cement walkway in front of …

In His Mardi Gras Suits and Beadwork Paintings, Demond Melancon Creates Compelling Tensions between Representation and Opacity Read More »

15 Important Women Surrealists

The founding French Surrealists loved the subconscious. They also loved women—as muses, as subjects of erotic desire, as sources of inspiration, but not necessarily as artists at first. Women weren’t present at the birth of the movement when poet André Breton published his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924. But inevitably women were attracted to the movement …

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When El Anatsui Isn’t Busy Being One of Africa’s Biggest Artists, He’s Collecting Vinyl

El Anatsui holding a record from his collection. Moz Photography/Courtesy Efie Gallery El Anatsui may be known best for his metallic tapestries made from bottle caps, but he is also a musician. In his university days, he played trumpet, performing music by Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington in a school band led by an American …

When El Anatsui Isn’t Busy Being One of Africa’s Biggest Artists, He’s Collecting Vinyl Read More »

Investigation Leads to 133 Antiquities Worth $14 M. Returned to Pakistan

The elaborately decorated head of a Bodhisattva statue was found in a storage unit. Courtesy HSI New York The Manhattan District Attorney‘s office recently announced the return of 133 antiquities “collectively valued at $14 million” to Pakistan after being seized as part of multiple investigations of trafficking networks. The press release specifically mentioned Subhash Kapoor …

Investigation Leads to 133 Antiquities Worth $14 M. Returned to Pakistan Read More »

Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Nonconformist Artist Who Merged Art and Design, Dies at 77

Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Celebration? Realife Revisited, 1972, installation view, 2016, Serpentine Galleries, London. Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Serpentine Galleries Marc Camille Chaimowicz, an artist whose unclassifiable installations trotted the line between art and design with aplomb, has died at 77. His death was announced on Thursday by Brussels’s WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, which do …

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Art Basel Subtracts a Plus Sign for Its French Fair, Now Titled Art Basel Paris

The refurbished Grand Palais in Paris, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and Art Basel Paris. Photo YOAN VALAT/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Art Basel’s Paris fair will see several notable changes when it opens its third edition this coming October. First among them is the fair’s expected relocation to the Grand Palais, which had …

Art Basel Subtracts a Plus Sign for Its French Fair, Now Titled Art Basel Paris Read More »