#mire's gallery

[mlleclaudine]

Artist Paints Striking Portraits of Real Women of Color as Fearless Female Warriors

by Regina Sienra - My Modern Met, August 5, 2024

“Ebony Obsidian the Unbreakable”

Artist Tim Okamura first heard about Tomoe Gozen, a Onna-Bugeisha or “woman warrior” about 10 years ago, but the story stuck with him ever since. “I think the fact that the female samurai fought alongside men, had the same responsibilities and expectations resonated with me deeply,” he tells My Modern Met. In this figure, he found a creative engine, sparking a powerful series of paintings titled Onna-Bugeisha, where women of color are ready to take a stand and emerge victorious in a dystopian near future.

Okamura felt drawn to depict women from underrepresented communities both due to having grown up with a diverse group of friends and the lack of representation in portraits he saw in the galleries and museums he visited. “I felt called to consciously focus on creating work, specifically portraits based in an academic tradition, of people who were missing from the museums, people of color, whose stories deserved to be captured on canvas, with great care and reverence,” he says.

In his paintings, women don ornate kimonos and traditional garments, but also hold katanas with a defying look in their eyes. The highly realistic approach goes beyond Okamura's proficient use of light and shadow in their expression. He expertly depicts the veins and bruises on their arms, as well as the texture of natural hair. While hands have been a perennial challenge for painters, Okamura appears to depict them effortlessly, even reveling in painting them in different poses.

“The Northern Emissaries”

The artist shares that he has always loved the challenge of painting faces and putting human stories on canvas, which has in turn influenced his style. “Portraying someone in a way that both celebrates them as an individual and points to a larger metaphor for the human condition has always been important to me. Therefore I've always worked in the mode of realism. I think my technique has developed over time to be more impasto (thicker paint), textured, and with more push and pull on the paint surface, and with more exploration of abstraction, or micro-abstraction, in my backgrounds.”

The women depicted in his paintings are all real women he knows personally and commends for their positive energy. “At the risk of sounding cliché, seeing the inner light projecting outward as an important consideration when choosing my subjects, whether the painting is about them specifically, or whether they are playing a role, such as that of a female Samurai, as in the Onna-Bugeisha series,” Okamura says. “I feel very fortunate that I've found such great alignment with the spirit of the work, and the women who have participated in the process. Having an energetic connection I think is key to creating the best work possible.”

Aware of the threat women's rights are facing around the world, Okamura felt compelled to create this group of fearless heroes. “I believe the role of the artist is to open up avenues to alternate, constructive pathways and to establish new visions through elevated narratives,” he concludes. “I hope the Onna-Bugeisha series will inspire viewers to get unstuck from the muck and mire of discrimination and prejudice and can offer inspiration for a better future women warriors will play a key role in building.”

“Yaya the Demon Slayer”

“The Expectant Guard”

“The Fatal Crane”

“Lethal Hummingbird and Golden Fox”

“Luminescence”

“Conduit _ Conductor”

“Lighthouse Fire”

“Laws of Nature”

“Encouraging Words (Omoiyari)”

“Eventide (Song of Liberty)”

“Safe Space”

Tim Okamura: Website | Instagram

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Richard van Bleeck - Portrait of Sir John Holt - ca. 1700

oil on canvas, height: 124.5 cm (49 in) Edit this at Wikidata; width: 99.7 cm (39.2 in)

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

Sir John Holt (23 December 1642 – 5 March 1710) was an English lawyer who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 17 April 1689 to his death. He is frequently credited with playing a major role in ending the prosecution of witches in English law.

Historian John Callow argues in his 2022 book, The Last Witches of England, that sceptical jurists, especially Holt, had already largely stopped convictions for witchcraft under English law even before the Witchcraft Act 1735 finally concluded such prosecutions. Callow particularly credits Holt with great courage in doing so in the face of religious pressure, mob violence, and popular superstitious belief in witchcraft.

The Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2. c. 5) was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain. The maximum penalty set out by the Act was a year's imprisonment.

It thus marks the end point of the witch trials in the Early Modern period for Great Britain and the beginning of the "modern legal history of witchcraft", repealing the earlier Witchcraft Acts which were originally based in an intolerance toward practitioners of magic but became mired in contested Christian doctrine and superstitious witch-phobia. Instead of assuming as the earlier laws did that witches were real and had real magical power derived from pacts with Satan, the new law assumed that there were no real witches, no one had real magic power and those claiming such powers were cheaters extorting money from gullible people.

The law was reverting to the view of the primitive and the medieval Church, expressed from at least the 8th century, at the Council of Paderborn, but contested by witch-phobic Dominican Inquisitors beginning in the mid 15th century, with some success in forwarding a new doctrine among the popes, as seen in the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484), but with far less success among the bishops. Thus the Act of 1735 reflected the general trend in Europe, where after a peak around 1600, and a series of outbursts in the late 17th century, witch-trials quickly subsided after 1700. The last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain was Janet Horne in 1727.

In the early modern period, witch trials were seen between 1400 and 1782, where around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. These trials occurred primarily in Europe, and were particularly severe in some parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Some witch-hunts would last for years, and some sources estimate 100,000 trials occurred. Groundwork on the concept of witchcraft (a person's collaboration with the devil through the use of magic) was developed by Christian theologians as early as the 13th century. However, prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft reached a high point only from 1560 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, with some regions burning at the stake those who were convicted, of whom roughly 80% were women, mostly over the age of 40.

Richard van Bleeck (1670–1733) was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

[si-national-portrait-gallery]

Marquis De Lafayette, Noël Le Mire, 1781, Smithsonian: National Portrait Gallery

Size: Image: 42.3 x 32.1cm (16 5/8 x 12 5/8") Medium: Engraving on paper

https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.84.126

[pallanophblargh]

Still thinking aloud a little bit, so pardon the chatter.

Earlier this year before the Doom Cloud descended in earnest, I had intended to open a few special commission slots after I had finished the last batch of custom Aequis designs. Then... things got pretty mired up and I fell behind in my day to day tasks. It felt... lousy. And I lacked energy to do a decent AND quick job on anything, so the guilt piled up, too. I finally have a clear (sort of) plate again. 

The problem is, I’m now split between two things: I either pinch my pennies in other ways and take the rest of the summer off from commissions and use the free time to ��take it easy” (not exactly possible for me) and spend those hours getting actual real work done on the pieces I’ve planned for next year’s small gallery show. I only have concepts and tonal studies roughed out for 80% of the work I’m planning on showing, so I’m getting anxious knowing I have less than 6 months to complete the 10 pieces I wanted to do.

On the other hand, taking care of various medical issues is likely going to cost some money if I drain my health savings account. I’ve also lost some savings this year and am not sitting as comfortable as I’d like, though I’m nowhere near being in financial distress. Taking on a few easier commission slots would put my mind at ease, I think. But then I’d have more Things To Do. (GAH?)

I love doing commissions, but I’m perpetually terrified I’ll make people wait too long. I pretty much always warn folks up front and keep them updated when I do have progress, but... it’s just not easy being slow, and the day job makes that even slower.

The potential commissions, for those wondering, would be colored pencil portraits/full body poses on black paper, with or without light background details. I don’t think I’d take on more than 5 before closing them, and they’d start out at $75 for a single portrait. I’m hoping to make my decision soon, so I can announce any potential slots.

[hydecurator]

If not graven idols, what is Christian art?

For Christians, Sunday was Palm Sunday, the day they celebrate, and some even reenact, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, when his supporters climbed the tress and strew his path with palm fronds. 

Anonymous (French), Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, ca. 1325, stained glass (20 1/16 x 13 5/8 in.), The Hyde Collecction, Glens Falls, New York, Bequest of Charlotte Pruyn Hyde, 1971.114. Photo credit: Michael Fredericks.

In the Middle Ages, when every church was perceived as a manifestation of the Heavenly Jerusalem, the church became a representation of the early city. Galleries were built over the west door for the choir to occupy as the clergy and laity processed in as Christ had once ridden into the holy city. At Wells Cathedral, a hidden gallery was constructed within the stone façade to accommodate the choir. The boys’ voices emerged through holes in the wall behind sculptures of angels.

Detail: West facade of Well Cathedral, 1220-48, Wells, Somerset, UK. Holes behind the quatrefoils filled with sculpture allowed the sound of the cathedral choir to resonate as one entered the cathedral’s west door on Palm Sunday. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Wells Cathedral," in Smarthistory, July 18, 2017, accessed April 6, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/wells-cathedral/.

This week, Holy Week, is the most important in the Christian calendar. On Maundy Thursday, the faithful will commemorate Christ’s last supper with his disciple, when He washed their feet, mourn His crucifixion on Good Friday, and celebrate His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

At the end of the Maundy Thursday service, priests in Catholic and Episcopalian churches will follow the centuries-old tradition of stripping the altars of their rich liturgical paraphernalia. They will carry away candlesticks, chalices, and crosses, and fold up richly embroidered altar cloths. Statues will be removed or covered. The church will be left bare. The sacrament will be removed from the high altar and placed in a temporary Easter Sepulcher, representing the removal of Christ’s body to Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. I always find it striking to watch this ceremony. The congregation leaves the darkened, denuded church in silence.

It is a wonder, given the stricture against “graven idols” in the Ten Commandments, that Christian churches should have so much religious art and, indeed, such a rich cultural history of fine art, architecture, music, and the decorative arts. Once the Early Church started to accept Gentiles, particularly anyone who had grown up with the Greek and Roman pantheon of gods and statuary, it was something of a losing proposition to forbid all imagery. The fight was lost with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in 315. He gave the Roman church silver statues of Christ and the apostles. Such cultural largesse was a standard form of imperial patronage and one the recently legalized Church was not in a position to refuse.

The Church developed several arguments for its use of and expenditure on art. Firstly, it needed to be able to perform the liturgy in a suitable building and with ritual implements. Secondly, as Pope Gregory argued in around 600, imagery helped to educate and catechize a largely illiterate congregation. The twelfth-century Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, who in some sense was the creator of the Gothic style, wrote in his defense of the artistic riches of his abbey church that the beauty of the bejeweled liturgical vessels and the  aura created by the brilliant stained glass helped to raise his thoughts from the mire and sin of this world towards the glory of heaven. In truth, he was also motivated to use art in the same manner as royalty and the aristocracy. He sought to instill awe in those who might otherwise challenge the Church’s position. It was necessary to ape the trappings of secular authority to advance and protect the Church’s own claim of independence and internationalism over and above the power of local rulers. As a divinely established institution, the glory of the Church reflected the majesty of God.

The chevet (ring of eastern chapels) at Saint-Denis, ca. 1140, Paris, France. © 2018 Richard Chenoweth. 

The adoption of worldly trappings of authority is beautifully rendered in The Hyde Collection’s St. Peter Enthroned (ca. 1475-1500). Here Christ’s chosen head of the Church, the first pope is regally attired like a medieval monarch. He sits on a grand sculpted throne, swathed in a bejeweled cope of rich velvet and gold threads, wearing the papal triple tiara and holding the regalia of his office: the cross and the keys to the kingdoms of heaven and earth given to St. Peter by Christ Himself.

Unknown (Flemish or Portuguese, St. Peter Enthroned, ca. 1475-1500, oil on panel (12 1/4 × 8 1/2 in.) The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, Gift of Charlotte Pruyn Hyde, 1971.6.

There have been moments in the Church’s history when it has banned imagery. The Orthodox Church went through two periods of iconoclasm, the destruction of imagery, in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Calvinists during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation whitewashed church interiors. English Puritans decapitated sculptures and smashed stained before boarding ships and sailing for the New World where they built their stark, unadorned meetinghouses.

The Catholic Church enthusiastically reasserted the power of religious art in the Baroque period. Shaken by the Protestant Reformation, it reclaimed its authority and rebuilt itself, constructing massive, richly adorned churches. The princes of the Church were as magnificent as any lord or princeling, the Pope as any monarch. We see redecoration of churches The Hyde Interior of a Gothic Church after Pieter Neeffs the Elder (1625-50). The side altars are dressed in altar cloths and adorned with tall winged Baroque altarpieces. At the far east end of the church, through the arch of a rood screen that divided the world of the clergy from that of the laity, one can discern a high altar, bedecked with candlesticks and a colorful altarpiece. 

After Pieter Neeffs the Elder, (Flemish, ca. 1578 - 1659), Interior of a Gothic Church, ca. 1625 - 1650, oil on panel (13 × 11 3/4 in.) The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, Gift of Charlotte Pruyn Hyde, 1971.31.

In its day, the painting would have been viewed as a confessional declaration. Protestants in the newly independent Dutch republic possessed paintings of their whitewashed church interiors. In this painting by Pieter Saenredam ( 1597-1665), the Calvinist emphasis on the spoken word over the liturgy performed at an altar is manifested in the prominent pulpit positioned halfway down the left side of the church.

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (Dutch 1597-1665), The Interior of St Bavo's Church, Haarlem (the 'Grote Kerk'), 1648, oil on panel (174.8 x W 143.6 cm), National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Gallery, NG 2413, Photo credit: National Galleries of Scotland

The Hydes were Presbyterian. Charlotte Pruyn’s family were descendants of Dutch Calvinists. I have always thought that a certain Reformist modesty regulated their lives and collecting. It did not affect the quality of their collection, rather it manifested itself in the scale and tone of what they collected. Hyde House is unique in its design but not ostentatious in scale or decoration. The Rembrandt is the largest painting the Hydes ever bought. In collecting religious imagery, they avoided large altarpieces, gruesome martyrdoms, and Baroque saints in ecstasy. Neither did they buy grand eighteenth-century portraits alluding to an Old World aristocratic heritage.

As patrons of religious architecture, they were governed by an elegant restraint. We see this in their patronage of Ralph Adam Cram (1863-1942) architect of the First Presbyterian Church (1927) in Glens Falls. Cram was the leading American Gothic Revival architect of the early twentieth century, the architect of New York’s Riverside Presbyterian Church. The Hydes’ archive contains many letters to Cram concerning design and decoration. They traveled into the Midwest and through New England to visit and review other churches, garner ideas, and assess the work of craftsmen. The restraint in the architectural decoration at First Presbyterian is reminiscent of that of the Cistercian movement, founded in response to the lavish decoration of Benedictine monasteries like Saint-Denis. St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the founder of the Cistercian order, argued that for monks who were devoted to the study of the Bible, narrative cycles, whether painted on walls or glass, were an unnecessary and indeed dangerous distraction. Direct access to scripture negated the need for religious art.  

Ralph Adam Cram (American, 1863-1942), First Presbyterian Church, 1927, Glens Falls, New York.

For the Hydes as collectors, religious art exemplified styles and movements within the history of Western art. They largely overlooked its religious function and meaning. Yet the art was never intended simply to be pretty. Its raison d’être lay in its liturgical role, what it taught, or the power it projected. I will examine these roles in further postings this Holy Week.

[chocolateheal]

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[estamostontosdelacabeza-blog]

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[raystart]

A Driver’s License Can be Revoked for the Elderly, but Artistic License? Never.

She was due for retirement. Try telling her that.

Louise Fili, the designer behind logos for Tiffany & Co., Good Housekeeping, Paperless Post, and Sarabeth’s was, as always, a font of great ideas. “I think you should be focusing on the great octogenarians out there — Seymour Chwast, George Lois, Ed Sorel, R.O. Blechman, Bob Gill, Henrietta Condak, Sara Giovanitti…there are so many,” she said in her graceful decline to be a part of this story. “I will be happy to participate when you update the article in, say, 20 years.” Fili is 65, the touchstone — albeit arbitrary — retirement age. Time will tell. But that’s an offer she can make confidently.

Artists exist in careers without reply-all emails about the break room fridge, or dress codes, or — and most importantly — without punch clocks. They are timeless talents.

In 1972, at 90 years old, Pablo Picasso painted “Facing Death,” a self-portrait; he died the next year, having painted since 1891, when he was 9. I.M. Pei, the architect, is set to turn 100 this year as he works on 28 projects in six countries; he’s been working since his designs first caught fire in 1949. “I know how lucky I am,” Roger Angell, then 93, wrote in The New Yorker in 2014, “and secretly tap wood, greet the day, and grab a sneaky pleasure from my survival at long odds.” He has been contributing to the august magazine since 1944, most recently about the Chicago Cubs’ World Series victory, their 108-year championship drought being one of the few things in this world that predate him.

Now 94, Norman Lear is rebooting his 1975 sitcom classic One Day at a Time for Netflix, a Latina spin anchored by Rita Moreno, the 85-year-old EGOT superstar, who plays a 73-year-old sexualized grandmother. Hayao Miyazaki, the anime demigod, has came out of retirement to turn a 12-minute short film titled into a feature-length project, as you do at 76 years old.

There is an element to vocation beyond Western raison d’être, the French “reason for being” mired in Enlightenment sensibilities, that approaches the looser Japanese concept of ikigai, which can be translated as “a reason to get up in the morning” but was best described in a 1990 article in the Japanese business publication The Nikkei (formerly The Nihon Kaizai Shinbun) as “the process of allowing the self’s possibilities to bloom.” That process is itself a craft. Sorry, Tim Ferriss, there is no Four-Hour Ikigai.

These are all-work-and-all-play lives lived in the livelihood of humanity’s lifeblood: art, creativity, design. “To create is to live twice,” Albert Camus famously mused. While that wisdom may have been a gesture at the metaphysical immortality of fame and legacy and the stuff of lifetime achievement awards, it can also be taken literally as the doubling — or more — of creative professional lives as compared to the workaday world’s corporate drones, to say nothing of the relatively fleeting glories afforded professional athletes, dancers, and porn stars. A driver’s license can be revoked for the elderly, but artistic license? Never.

“To create is to live twice.”

“It’s not about doing something well over and over. It’s about doing something new over and over,” said Ivan Chermayeff, the 84-year-old graphic designer behind iconic logos for Barneys, Mobil, National Geographic, NBC, and the Smithsonian. “People who want to retire want to do other things. Travel. Plant a garden. I don’t. I’ve been doing those things every day my whole life. It’s a good racket,” he added from his office, with Wally, his Australian labradoodle barking in agreement at his feet.

Ivan Chermayeff, image courtesy of Chermayeff.

Chermayeff noted the physical costs of activity outweigh the mental and emotional costs of lethargy. “I have a bad knee but thankfully it has very little bearing on graphic design abilities,” he said. 

“I was a professor, a teacher. I just stayed in offices. It was awful,” said the prolific architect Daniel Libeskind, 70. “I have lived in reverse, my active period coming after the introspective, reflective period. With architecture, I fell into a new dimension. I made my first building when I was 52! Instead of withering me, time gave me a sense of flowering, of growing. To be honest, I don’t think of aging. There is an immortality to being creative. You are like God, who is the poetic symbol of creation, the poetry of creativity. As your work continues, you become younger. You discover youthfulness — braver, bolder, more confident, more adventurous. You discover possibilities.”

Daniel Libeskind at the Roca London Gallery. Photo courtesy of Libeskind.

Not that it’s easy. “You have to make a conscious decision early on that the suburbs and its finished basements aren’t for you. I had an illegal apartment for ten years, 1971 to 1981, $50 a month in a garret at 55th and 7th. I paid another $50 a month for a work space. So I was free,” said Larry Hama, 67, the comics superhero who single-handedly revived the series G.I. Joe and Wolverine, among other feats. “I’ve had years without any work. But I still did what I wanted. The only difference is I got paid during the working years, which was nice, but it wasn’t the reason I worked.”

There are, of course, life hacks to this Fountain of Youth.

For Libeskind, it is thermodynamics: A body in motion stays in motion. “I’ve lived in 18 cities,” he said. “Sometimes without knowing the language. Sometimes without having a job. Warsaw, Berlin, New York, São Paolo, Milan. They contribute so much energy to your mind. I’ve never been one for the beach or solitary walks in the woods.”

“As your work continues, you become younger. You discover youthfulness — braver, bolder, more confident, more adventurous.”

For Jonas Mekas, 94, the filmmaker who founded Film Culture magazine in 1954 and what would become the Anthology Film Archives in the 1960s, it is cultivating prickliness — not antisocial, just countersocial. “I was an urchin, a sea urchin, covered in spikes. Society could not swallow me. I did not fall into its holes. And those of us who escape enjoy a camaraderie. We don’t have to talk or get together. But we show other people what life is. We lure them into life with the things we make,” he said.

“You want what? That I go to the beach? I hate the beach. For one thing, it’s hard to get an espresso at the beach. And what is there? Ugly, grotesque people indulging their laziness while they cook and bake in the sun like slugs. That is joy? That is freedom? I don’t blame them for retiring at 65 because they have lived as robots in mechanical, menial, tedious tasks. They deserve a few years trying to feel human after all of that. They took my humanity and my youth in the camps. I was 17 in Lithuania and the next day, on the other end of the war, I was 27 in Brooklyn. I will never lose my youth again. I’ve worked too hard all my life to be this young,” Mekas says.

For abstract artist Carmen Herrera, as she puts it, “my bus was slow in coming.” She first sold her paintings in 2004, when she was 89. But what a ride it has been since then. Last year, at 101 years old, she had her first museum retrospective, at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her secret is her stealthiness. “I was liberated by being ignored,” she said. “I was free to do as I wish.” Not to suggest too much whimsy; asked her morning routine, she laid out her breakfast: “Cafe con leche, toast, butter and jam, orange juice, and work.” And work. As if it were a chewy bagel or bowl of porridge. She devours it. And it nourishes her. But at her own pace. She takes all week to read the Sunday New York Times, favoring the alchemy of its stories over the checklist of the task. Asked what advice she would give youngsters — y’know, people with mere double-digit ages — she spoke in her native Cuban Spanish: “Patience, darling, patience.”

Carmen Herrera in her New York studio. Image courtesy of Herrera.

For Hama, it was saying yes. “Whenever the train got into the station, I got on board. And wherever it took me, when I got there I didn’t want the guided tour,” he said. “I was in an elevator in 1974 and a woman asked me if I was an actor. I said no and she asked ‘Do you want to be?’ And later that day I was in an off-Broadway production of Moby Dick put together by the starlet Jean Sullivan. I was on M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live. They needed guys and I raised my hand.”

How do you retire from saying yes? “I can’t imagine retiring, and I have a great imagination,” he said. “If I go to the beach and try that, after an hour or so I just feel inert. Life is for action. Wander. Wonder. Surprise yourself. That’s the only adventure. You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. I’ve done, I think, 239 issues of G.I. Joe and never ended with a coming attractions of the next issue because I never knew. I don’t know what’s on page three until I’m halfway through writing page two. And I guess I’ve lived my life like that, too,” Hama says. 

“Life is for action. Wander. Wonder. Surprise yourself. That’s the only adventure.”

When he was a child, Mekas’ home would be visited by an old man who climbed his roof and stood on his head on the chimney. He was 100 years old and his upside-downness had a profound impact on Mekas. 

“You’re asking all the wrong questions. You’re asking why I’m active at 94. But why are people living like they are already dead at 60? Or 40? Even 30?” he said. “I am not the abnormal one. I am normal. I am alive. This is life. They are the abnormal ones. They just don’t see it because they happen to be the majority, sadly. They believe in patterns that suck out their energy — ads and transactions and labels and paperwork and technology that all tell them they are not enough, that they are behind, that they are lacking. What is retirement or even vacation except a stupid trap built to justify the first trap of this draining existence? I reject it! Instead I choose art! Art and the avant garde is the difference between making a life and mirroring one.”

[si-national-portrait-gallery]

Marquis De Lafayette, Noël Le Mire, 1781, Smithsonian: National Portrait Gallery

Size: Image: 42.3 x 32.1cm (16 5/8 x 12 5/8") Medium: Engraving on paper

https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.84.126

[si-national-portrait-gallery]

George Washington, Noël Le Mire, 1780, Smithsonian: National Portrait Gallery

Size: Image: 42.1 × 32.1 cm (16 9/16 × 12 5/8") Medium: Engraving on paper

http://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.77.225

[chocolateheal]

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[chocolateheal]

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[caveartfair]

$20 Million in Annie Leibovitz Prints Mired in Tax Controversy—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

Catch up on the latest art news with our rundown of the 10 stories you need to know this week.

01  A major 2013 donation of 2,000 Annie Leibovitz prints to a Canadian museum has not been exhibited after a government body denied certification of their cultural significance.

(via CBC News)

Valued at $20 million Canadian, the pieces were donated to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia four years ago by the Mintz family—just two days after they were purchased for $4.75 million US from Leibovitz herself. But the gift raised a number of red flags. By law, all donated art is reviewed by a Canadian board to determine if the works are of “outstanding significance” and “national importance.” Pieces that meet those requirements are then assessed for their value, which can result in a tax break for donors. Had a deduction been granted for the Leibovitz collection, it would have resulted in a tax windfall more than double the price originally paid for the pieces. The board originally rejected the collection’s significance entirely, later certifying 762 pieces at a value of $1.6 million. Now, a fourth and final application is before the board. But its refusal to certify the entire collection has prevented Leibovitz, who still holds the copyrights to the works, from being paid in full—under the terms of her deal with the Mintz family, the photographer was to be paid half of the $4.75 million upfront, with the other half coming after the expected tax deduction.

02  After alleging the Russian fashion designer Vika Gazinskaya ripped off one of his pieces for a line of dresses featured in Vogue, artist Brad Troemel was sent a cease and desist letter.

(via Instagram)

As is typical for these kinds of cases, the plagiarism allegations were first made on social media after Troemel posted a side-by-side comparison of his own work and the Gazinskaya-designed dress on Sunday. Both are grids containing a mix of multicolored squares and written letters and numbers, similarities Gazinskaya chalked up to “inspiration.” In a subsequent post, Troemel rejected the characterization, asserting that if that were the case, Gazinskaya “would’ve mentioned me as an inspiration when asked what influenced [the] line in Vogue.” On Monday, Troemel posted an image of a cease and desist letter from a lawyer representing Gazinskaya. The letter claimed that Troemel was “disparaging” Gazinskaya on social media “with false claims of ‘theft’ regarding [her] decision to use the idea of multicolored blocks and letters.” Troemel has consulted a lawyer and is considering pursuing future litigation of his own.

03  Ai Weiwei condemned the Chinese government for barring Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died on Thursday, from travelling for medical care.

(via The Guardian)

Prior to Liu’s death, Ai told the British newspaper The Guardian that Beijing’s stance was unconscionable. “He should not have been sentenced,” Ai said. “He should be completely out of jail, released without any conditions. He should be a free man, then he should make a free judgment about where to stay and where to get medical care, and who he wants to be associated with.” The Nobel Laureate, who was jailed for his pro-democracy activities, was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in June and died in Shenyang, in northeastern China, Thursday. Two doctors from the U.S. and Germany had visited him in a Chinese hospital and declared he could travel for treatment to either of their hospitals, contradicting claims by Chinese doctors that his condition left him unfit to move. Ai added that Western governments who claimed to stand for human rights were sacrificing activists like Liu in favor of pursuing their business interests. “Each of those deals sacrifices someone like [Liu]. So don’t pretend, when Liu Xiaobo is dying, or Liu Xiaobo [is in] such difficult circumstances, don’t pretend anybody is innocent,” Ai said.  

04  On Monday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco revived a 16-year-long Nazi restitution dispute centered on an Impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro, the value of which could exceed $40 million.

(Artsy)

Currently held by Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie (1897) was originally owned by German-Jew Lilly Cassirer, who sold the work to a Nazi functionary in 1939 for roughly $360. Asserting the transaction was a forced sale, Cassirer’s heirs filed a petition in 2001 in Spain seeking the work’s return after they learned where it was being held. When the petition was denied, Cassirer’s grandson and great-grandchildren sued the Spanish museum in 2005. In June of 2015, a lower court dismissed the suit, ruling the museum held the rights to the painting under Spanish law. But Monday’s ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that while Spanish law does apply, a trial is required to determine whether or not the museum knew the painting was stolen when it was acquired in 1993 from Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza as part of a $338 million purchase of his collection.

05 An Amsterdam Airbnb host who pushed a South African filmmaker down a flight of stairs has been charged with attempted manslaughter.

(via artnet News)

The victim, Sibahle Nkumbi, has been hospitalized with a concussion and extensive bruising to her face and body. Her friend, South African artist and activist Zanele Muholi, videotaped the incident. The two women were visiting the city for the opening of Muholi’s solo show at the Stedelijk Museum, which features a new series of photographic self-portraits alongside images documenting life in South Africa for the black LGBTQ community. Allegedly, the altercation began when the artists were late to check out of their Airbnb and one of the hosts became angry. Nkumbi claimed that the man began shouting at them, saying, “This is not Africa.” In a video interview with an Amsterdam-based journalist after the incident, she said, “I come from South Africa, where you’d expect that, because racism is visible….But to come here and get attacked like that, I didn’t expect that at all.”

06  Police arrested four suspects in Berlin in connection to the heist of an enormous gold coin.

(via U.S. News)

A several-hour-long raid on Wednesday targeted 13 buildings and resulted in the arrest of four suspects connected to the heist and the questioning of an additional nine. The object of the heist, which occurred this year at Berlin’s Bode Museum, was the Canadian “Big Maple Leaf” coin—valued at $4.5 million, despite lower face value estimates. The coin is a larger rendition of the Canadian $50 gold piece, with an image of Queen Elizabeth II gracing one side and a grouping of maple leaves on the other. Loaned to the Bode by an anonymous collector, the coin was one of only five manufactured by the Royal Canadian Mint. “We assume that the coin was partially or completely sold,” said Berlin state criminal officer Carsten Pfohl at a press conference. Experts predict the thieves melted down the coin in order to more easily sell the gold, making recovery a near-impossible prospect.

07  Fifty thousand square feet of artist workspace will be created at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, increasing affordable studio options for New York’s artists.

(via the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs)

Details of the plans were announced on Friday by the NYC Economic Development Corporation and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. The arts nonprofit ArtBuilt Brooklyn will develop and oversee the space, which will host up to 50 artists. Slated to open later this year, the terminal will offer studios between 250 and 4,000 square feet with affordable, long-term leases. “New York’s creative community is an extraordinary source of energy and vitality for our city,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl in a statement. “But for artists to continue to thrive and produce work that connects with communities throughout the five boroughs, we need to keep New York a place where they can afford to live and work.”

08  Art dealer Glafira Rosales was ordered to pay $81 million to victims of the Knoedler forgery scandal.

(via artnet News)

Rosales had pled guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion charges in 2013. The restitution order, filed July 5 in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, is an addition to a previous sentence of nine months of house arrest and three years probation for her role in the fraud scheme. It involved selling paintings attributed to Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Motherwell, but were actually created by a Chinese painter who has since fled to China. The U.S. attorney’s office explained the delay in filing the restitution order was due to the complex task of identifying all the victims of the fraudulent scheme, which dates back to 1994. Rosales says her former partner Jose Carlos Bergantiños Diaz, also named in the 2014 indictment, threatened her in order to keep her participating in the fraud.

09  Some £3 million worth of jewelry was stolen from London’s Masterpiece art fair last week.

(via The Art Newspaper)

The Chelsea fair, which features a mixture of art, antiques, and jewelry, ran from June 29 through July 5 and welcomed a record 44,000 visitors. Police believe the heist took place during the final two days of the event, sometime between 5 p.m. on July 4 and 9 a.m. the next morning. The thieves targeted the booth of Swiss jewellers Boghossian, swiping several items that have since been valued in the millions. No witnesses have been reported; instead, investigators are combing through CCTV footage for clues.

10  A visitor posing for a photo in a Los Angeles gallery knocked over a series of pedestals displaying works of art, causing an alleged $200,000 in damage.

(via Hyperallergic)

The incident, which took place at the pop-up art space 14th Factory, occurred two weeks ago. But video footage was only uploaded to YouTube on Thursday, showing a female gallery-goer setting off a domino effect after losing her balance and falling backwards into one of the room’s many display pedestals. These were part of an installation titled Hypercaine, a collaboration between artists Simon Birch, Gabriel Chan, Jacob Blitzer, and Gloria Yu. In an interview with Hyperallergic, Yu said three of the crown-like sculptures atop the pedestals were irreparably damaged, and the others were affected to “varying degrees.” Some have hypothesized that the video, which captures the incident perfectly, may be a stunt to promote the show.

—Artsy Editors

Cover image: Portrait of Annie Leibovitz by Robert Scoble, via Flickr.

from Artsy News

[caveartfair]

$20 Million in Annie Leibowitz Prints Mired in Tax Controversy—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

Catch up on the latest art news with our rundown of the 10 stories you need to know this week.

01  A major 2013 donation of 2,000 Annie Leibovitz prints to a Canadian museum has not been exhibited after a government body denied certification of their cultural significance.

(via CBC News)

Valued at $20 million Canadian, the pieces were donated to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia four years ago by the Mintz family—just two days after they were purchased for $4.75 million US from Leibovitz herself. But the gift raised a number of red flags. By law, all donated art is reviewed by a Canadian board to determine if the works are of “outstanding significance” and “national importance.” Pieces that meet those requirements are then assessed for their value, which can result in a tax break for donors. Had a deduction been granted for the Leibovitz collection, it would have resulted in a tax windfall more than double the price originally paid for the pieces. The board originally rejected the collection’s significance entirely, later certifying 762 pieces at a value of $1.6 million. Now, a fourth and final application is before the board. But its refusal to certify the entire collection has prevented Leibovitz, who still holds the copyrights to the works, from being paid in full—under the terms of her deal with the Mintz family, the photographer was to be paid half of the $4.75 million upfront, with the other half coming after the expected tax deduction.

02  After alleging the Russian fashion designer Vika Gazinskaya ripped off one of his pieces for a line of dresses featured in Vogue, artist Brad Troemel was sent a cease and desist letter.

(via Instagram)

As is typical for these kinds of cases, the plagiarism allegations were first made on social media after Troemel posted a side-by-side comparison of his own work and the Gazinskaya-designed dress on Sunday. Both are grids containing a mix of multicolored squares and written letters and numbers, similarities Gazinskaya chalked up to “inspiration.” In a subsequent post, Troemel rejected the characterization, asserting that if that were the case, Gazinskaya “would’ve mentioned me as an inspiration when asked what influenced [the] line in Vogue.” On Monday, Troemel posted an image of a cease and desist letter from a lawyer representing Gazinskaya. The letter claimed that Troemel was “disparaging” Gazinskaya on social media “with false claims of ‘theft’ regarding [her] decision to use the idea of multicolored blocks and letters.” Troemel has consulted a lawyer and is considering pursuing future litigation of his own.

03  Ai Weiwei condemned the Chinese government for barring Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died on Thursday, from travelling for medical care.

(via The Guardian)

Prior to Liu’s death, Ai told the British newspaper The Guardian that Beijing’s stance was unconscionable. “He should not have been sentenced,” Ai said. “He should be completely out of jail, released without any conditions. He should be a free man, then he should make a free judgment about where to stay and where to get medical care, and who he wants to be associated with.” The Nobel Laureate, who was jailed for his pro-democracy activities, was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer in June and died in Shenyang, in northeastern China, Thursday. Two doctors from the U.S. and Germany had visited him in a Chinese hospital and declared he could travel for treatment to either of their hospitals, contradicting claims by Chinese doctors that his condition left him unfit to move. Ai added that Western governments who claimed to stand for human rights were sacrificing activists like Liu in favor of pursuing their business interests. “Each of those deals sacrifices someone like [Liu]. So don’t pretend, when Liu Xiaobo is dying, or Liu Xiaobo [is in] such difficult circumstances, don’t pretend anybody is innocent,” Ai said.  

04  On Monday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco revived a 16-year-long Nazi restitution dispute centered on an Impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro, the value of which could exceed $40 million.

(Artsy)

Currently held by Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie (1897) was originally owned by German-Jew Lilly Cassirer, who sold the work to a Nazi functionary in 1939 for roughly $360. Asserting the transaction was a forced sale, Cassirer’s heirs filed a petition in 2001 in Spain seeking the work’s return after they learned where it was being held. When the petition was denied, Cassirer’s grandson and great-grandchildren sued the Spanish museum in 2005. In June of 2015, a lower court dismissed the suit, ruling the museum held the rights to the painting under Spanish law. But Monday’s ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that while Spanish law does apply, a trial is required to determine whether or not the museum knew the painting was stolen when it was acquired in 1993 from Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza as part of a $338 million purchase of his collection.

05 An Amsterdam Airbnb host who pushed a South African filmmaker down a flight of stairs has been charged with attempted manslaughter.

(via artnet News)

The victim, Sibahle Nkumbi, has been hospitalized with a concussion and extensive bruising to her face and body. Her friend, South African artist and activist Zanele Muholi, videotaped the incident. The two women were visiting the city for the opening of Muholi’s solo show at the Stedelijk Museum, which features a new series of photographic self-portraits alongside images documenting life in South Africa for the black LGBTQ community. Allegedly, the altercation began when the artists were late to check out of their Airbnb and one of the hosts became angry. Nkumbi claimed that the man began shouting at them, saying, “This is not Africa.” In a video interview with an Amsterdam-based journalist after the incident, she said, “I come from South Africa, where you’d expect that, because racism is visible….But to come here and get attacked like that, I didn’t expect that at all.”

06  Police arrested four suspects in Berlin in connection to the heist of an enormous gold coin.

(via U.S. News)

A several-hour-long raid on Wednesday targeted 13 buildings and resulted in the arrest of four suspects connected to the heist and the questioning of an additional nine. The object of the heist, which occurred this year at Berlin’s Bode Museum, was the Canadian “Big Maple Leaf” coin—valued at $4.5 million, despite lower face value estimates. The coin is a larger rendition of the Canadian $50 gold piece, with an image of Queen Elizabeth II gracing one side and a grouping of maple leaves on the other. Loaned to the Bode by an anonymous collector, the coin was one of only five manufactured by the Royal Canadian Mint. “We assume that the coin was partially or completely sold,” said Berlin state criminal officer Carsten Pfohl at a press conference. Experts predict the thieves melted down the coin in order to more easily sell the gold, making recovery a near-impossible prospect.

07  Fifty thousand square feet of artist workspace will be created at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, increasing affordable studio options for New York’s artists.

(via the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs)

Details of the plans were announced on Friday by the NYC Economic Development Corporation and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. The arts nonprofit ArtBuilt Brooklyn will develop and oversee the space, which will host up to 50 artists. Slated to open later this year, the terminal will offer studios between 250 and 4,000 square feet with affordable, long-term leases. “New York’s creative community is an extraordinary source of energy and vitality for our city,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl in a statement. “But for artists to continue to thrive and produce work that connects with communities throughout the five boroughs, we need to keep New York a place where they can afford to live and work.”

08  Art dealer Glafira Rosales was ordered to pay $81 million to victims of the Knoedler forgery scandal.

(via artnet News)

Rosales had pled guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion charges in 2013. The restitution order, filed July 5 in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, is an addition to a previous sentence of nine months of house arrest and three years probation for her role in the fraud scheme. It involved selling paintings attributed to Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Motherwell, but were actually created by a Chinese painter who has since fled to China. The U.S. attorney’s office explained the delay in filing the restitution order was due to the complex task of identifying all the victims of the fraudulent scheme, which dates back to 1994. Rosales says her former partner Jose Carlos Bergantiños Diaz, also named in the 2014 indictment, threatened her in order to keep her participating in the fraud.

09  Some £3 million worth of jewelry was stolen from London’s Masterpiece art fair last week.

(via The Art Newspaper)

The Chelsea fair, which features a mixture of art, antiques, and jewelry, ran from June 29 through July 5 and welcomed a record 44,000 visitors. Police believe the heist took place during the final two days of the event, sometime between 5 p.m. on July 4 and 9 a.m. the next morning. The thieves targeted the booth of Swiss jewellers Boghossian, swiping several items that have since been valued in the millions. No witnesses have been reported; instead, investigators are combing through CCTV footage for clues.

10  A visitor posing for a photo in a Los Angeles gallery knocked over a series of pedestals displaying works of art, causing an alleged $200,000 in damage.

(via Hyperallergic)

The incident, which took place at the pop-up art space 14th Factory, occurred two weeks ago. But video footage was only uploaded to YouTube on Thursday, showing a female gallery-goer setting off a domino effect after losing her balance and falling backwards into one of the room’s many display pedestals. These were part of an installation titled Hypercaine, a collaboration between artists Simon Birch, Gabriel Chan, Jacob Blitzer, and Gloria Yu. In an interview with Hyperallergic, Yu said three of the crown-like sculptures atop the pedestals were irreparably damaged, and the others were affected to “varying degrees.” Some have hypothesized that the video, which captures the incident perfectly, may be a stunt to promote the show.

—Artsy Editors

Cover image: Portrait of Annie Leibovitz by Robert Scoble, via Flickr.

from Artsy News