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Illuminated Figures Consider the Relationship Between the Body and Soul

“Vessel of the Universe (Sisidlan ng Kalawakan)” (2020), soldered metal, glass, LED strips, and electrical fittings, 64.5 x 47 x 12 inches. All images © Joshua Limon Palisoc, shared with permission

Joshua Limon Palisoc draws on the tenets of Filipino Psychology to inform his life-sized figures that radiate from the inside. Using mesh-like forms of soldered metal, the artist conveys the idea that the physical body is simply a vessel for the soul. LED lights nestled within the anatomical sculptures emit a warm glow through the seams, blurring the boundary between inner and outer selves.

The illuminated forms shown here are part of Ephemeral Vessels, Palisoc’s first solo show on view through November 29 at Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo, Philippines. Composed of upright and seated figures, the collection focuses on personality and conscience (loob), the body (labas), and reason (lalim), ideas that the artist gleans from the particular … Read the rest

Sheldon Solow, Real Estate Tycoon with Significant Modern Art Collection, Dies at 92

Real estate mogul and billionaire art collector Sheldon H. Solow died on November 17 at the age of 92. According to Bloomberg, which first reported the news, he died at New York’s Weill Cornell Medical Center. The cause of death was lymphoma.

With a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, Solow’s vast development portfolio includes a New York office building tower in his name, a group of rental buildings, and one of the city’s biggest development grounds in Midtown East. Solow began his real estate career in the 1950s. In 2000, together with the Fisher real estate group, he moved to expand development throughout Manhattan, winning a $600 million bid on a Con Ed property to build a complex. The deal would later turn into a legal battle between the buying partners.

Solow is also the founder of a nonprofit, the Solow Art and … Read the rest

Cloaked in Neon, Tate Britain Celebrates Diwali Through an Eclectic Technicolor Installation

“Remembering a Brave New World.” All images © Chila Kumari Singh Burman, courtesy of Tate Britain

A new installation by artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman masks the stately columns and ornate flourishes of Tate Britain’s facade, enveloping the London museum in a blanket of neon. In “Remembering a Brave New World,” technicolor symbols, pop culture references, and religious iconography transform the neoclassical structure into an illuminated space for celebration. The public artwork was revealed on December 14 to coincide with the start of Diwali, the five-day Indian festival of lights, and casts a kaleidoscopic glow on the surrounding area.

The eclectic collection draws on Punjabi Liverpudlian artist’s own life and family history, which manifests in pieces like the multi-colored ice cream truck. After moving to England, her father purchased one of the vehicles, an experience that imprinted her childhood.

Other elements focus on the United Kingdom’s history of … Read the rest

ARTnews in Brief: Room57 Gallery Opens in New York—and More from November 16, 2020

Monday, November 16

Room57 Gallery Opens in New York
Room57 Gallery, which will explore the intersections of art and design in an immersive environment, opens today in New York. Located at 235 East 57th Street, the enterprise will stage exhibitions in a manner that reflects “an upscale home,” rather than a conventional gallery setting, according to a release. The inaugural show at the gallery is titled “Chapter One,” and it features works by 20th-century and contemporary artists. Among the artists and designers in the exhibition are Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Grear Patterson, Roxanne Jackson, Danni Pantel, Campana Brothers, Peter Halley, and Allison Zuckerman.

Croatian Sculptor Ivan Kožarić Has Died at 99
Ivan Kožarić, a Croatian modernist sculptor and leading figure in the avant-garde of the late-1940s former Yugoslavia, has died at the age of 99. Kožarić was best known for his … Read the rest

Objet: Subsequence, the Ultimate Lifestyle Magazine for Quarantine

Lifestyle magazines come in many different forms, but the genre generally offers a glossy mix of luxury fashion shoots and product recommendations with moralizing content about using your phone less or updating your dinner-party etiquette, when that was a thing. Magazines like Kinfolk, Cereal, and Gossamer are ultimately about how to live your life as a conscientious but still tasteful consumer.

During the pandemic, however, the options to exercise our taste are more limited, restricted to restaurants with outdoor tables, ecommerce sales instead of boutiques, and entertaining ourselves with whatever we can find within the bounds of our homes. Subsequence, a semiannual magazine produced by the Japanese menswear brand Visvim, is the antidote both to quarantine ennui and the avalanche of cookie-cutter millennial-minimalist lifestyle publications during the 2010s. It maintains an intense sense of aspiration — the magazine costs $60 and the binding is stitched with naturally … Read the rest

Dive into Van Gogh Worldwide, a Digital Archive of More Than 1,000 Works by the Renowned Dutch Artist

“Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat,” September – October 1887, Paris, 4.5 × 37.2 centimeters, Van Gogh Museum

A point of levity during the temporary shutdowns of museums and cultural institutions during the last few months has been the plethora of digital archives making artworks and historical objects available for perusing from the comfort and safety of our couches. A recent addition is Van Gogh Worldwide, a massive collection of the post-impressionist artist’s paintings, sketches, and drawings.

From landscapes to self-portraits to classic still lifes, the archive boasts more than 1,000 artworks, which are sorted by medium, period, and participating institution—those include the Van Gogh Museum, Kröller-Müller Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands Institute for Art History, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Each digital piece is supported by details about the work, any restorations, and additional images.

In his short lifetime that spanned just 37 years, the prolific Dutch artist … Read the rest

See David Adjaye’s Designs for a New Museum of West African Art in Benin City

David Adjaye has quickly risen to the status of one of today’s most sought-after museum architects, with upcoming projects including a new home for New York’s Studio Museum in Harlem and a revamped Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey. Add to these projects another, whose designs were revealed on Friday: the Edo Museum of West African Art, which is slated to open in Benin City in 2025.

The museum (EMOWAA, for short) is intended to house West African art and cultural objects of all kinds, and it will have the most comprehensive showing of Benin Bronzes to date. Located next to the palace of Oba, Benin’s traditional ruler, the institution will display both historical and contemporary objects. Its primary focus will be displaying objects that are being repatriated to Benin from European art institutions currently.

Execution of Adjaye’s designs for the museum is slated to begin in 2021, and … Read the rest

Artist Nari Ward Has Spent Decades Revitalizing Found Objects to Elucidate Counter Narratives

“We the People” (2011), shoelaces, 96 x 324 inches. All images courtesy Nari Ward and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London

Jamaica-born artist Nari Ward bases his practice in found objects and their inherent mutability. The Harlem-based artist has scoured New York City’s streets for 25 years gathering house keys escaped from a ring, discarded glass bottles, and clothing tossed season-to-season. Through sculptures and large-scale installations, the scavenged objects find new meaning, whether explicitly scribing a phrase from the United States Constitution or creating more subtle historical connections.

While commenting broadly on themes of race, poverty, and rampant consumerism, Ward is cognizant of the varied meanings burned wooden bats or shoelaces hold for different populations. No matter the medium, many of his works are site-specific in form and fluid in context, allowing the narratives to take new shapes as they travel from community to community.

His 1993 … Read the rest

Monet’s Magical Nuances: How the Impressionist Became a Worldwide Star

Guided by an intense interest in the natural world, Claude Monet created works that reflected the magical nuances and subtleties he observed in vast seascapes, quiet lily ponds, and other locales. His art played a key role key role in the development of the Impressionist movement in the 19th-century, and though it was derided by critics early on, it continues to fascinate audiences around the world today. His paintings can be found in the collections of major international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery in London, and many more. To mark the prolific painter’s birthday on November 14, ARTnews took a look back at his pioneering career.

As a young man, Monet learned about plein-air painting from artist Eugène Boudin.
Born in 1840 in the town of Le Havre in France’s Normandy region, a site that would be … Read the rest

An Oversized Statue of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Activist, Pensively Stares Toward Alcatraz

Statue of activist Leonard Peltier. All images courtesy of the Sn Francisco Art Institute

Peering out over the San Francisco Bay toward Alcatraz is a monumental statue that pays homage to an American Indian Movement activist who’s been incarcerated for decades. Created by Portuguese-American artist Rigo 23 in 2016, the 12-foot-tall figure resembles a small self-portrait that the activist, Leonard Peltier, painted while imprisoned.

Wearing a simple white shirt, yellow pants, and no shoes, Peltier sits on a cement base, which is the actual size of his cell, in a pensive position. “There was something Buddha-like about the pose, and it reminded me of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker,’ which is so muscular and epic,” Rigo 23 told Hyperallergic about the original portrait. “Usually, images of heroism and humanity are epic, and this is just a man sitting on the ground wearing prison-issued clothes. It has this different kind of spirituality.”

A … Read the rest