OLD NEWS

IO IN TRUE COLOR
<https://tinyurl.com/3nvxe39v> +NASA

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KOULA SAVVIDOU, ARTIST WHOSE WORK MINED MEMORY AND LOSS, 1959-2026
<https://tinyurl.com/uwk2btpt>
Neflie (1990–95), for example, is an abstracted human figure constructed of gypsum, metal and ceramic parts, shown holding its head in its hands, the surface textured with pencil and wax.
The piercing of sculpture with sharp blades was a recurring motif in Savvidou’s work: in a 2021 untitled wall work, in which stretches of painted string are held taught between two blocks of wood, a picket knife is slotted precariously between the cord. Likewise, in the metal, stone, graphite and rope work No Man’s Land (1990–1995), a pair of scissors strikes through the arrangement.
Born in London, Savvidou studied fine art at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in France from 1975 to 1981.
<https://tinyurl.com/bdex92u7> _ArtReview

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PAINT
<https://tinyurl.com/ms97b4jh> _DavidShrigley

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FRA ANGELICO ETCHED THE DIVINE IN STONE
<https://tinyurl.com/5956mufr>
As Italy celebrates its largest Fra Angelico retrospective since 1955, at the Palazzo Strozzi and Museo di San Marco, it’s easy to overlook the small details in favor of the grandiosity of the art and the feat of bringing it together in one place. But look at the marble surface on which John the Baptist stands in the Perugia Altarpiece. The veiled symbolism of the veined stones has flown under the radar in most major English-language reviews of the exhibition. But these mystical depths are too profound to miss out on.
One of the great questions in Fra Angelico studies is how many intricate layers of theological symbolism he wove into his art, gleaned from his erudite studies as a Dominican friar. The theological evolution, ushered in by the Franciscans and Dominicans, demanded new styles to meet new spiritual needs, as scholars including Donal Cooper, Joanna Cannon, and Holly Flora have recently begun to explore. The significance of blood, gold, and emotional displays are just the tip of the iceberg.
Designating a former monastery, the Museo di San Marco, as the exhibition’s second venue both spotlights the many immovable frescos Fra Angelio painted there for personal devotion in the monk’s cells — for instance, the "Mocking of Christ" (1439–41) — and invites attention to the devotional aspects of the works. Yet the curators avoided one of the most hotly contested questions in Fra Angelico studies. Why did the artist go to such great lengths to incorporate marble and stone details into so many of his works?
<https://tinyurl.com/mv2mf46n>
In the "Montecarlo Annunciation Altarpiece" (1432–35), the marble panel and floor are visually commanding enough to interfere with the rest of the composition, and distract attention from Mary and Archangel Gabriel. Spectacular to behold, the shimmering stones — simultaneously evoking both fire and water — tempt comparisons with abstract painting. Such “zones of stone” feature prominently in over half the works in this show, begging the question: Why would a Dominican friar who took a vow of poverty take such pains to paint ornamental diversions without a nuanced and widely accepted theological justification?
Exploring the meaning of marble and stone can totally change perceptions of several works on view in Florence. In 1990, the french art historian and philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman set out to answer the riddle of the marble’s iconography in his landmark book Fra Angelico. Dissemblance et figuration, later translated by Jane Marie Todd into the English Dissemblance and Figuration.
<https://tinyurl.com/589jprur>
Didi-Huberman was struck by the mystical meanings ascribed to stones and crystals in a now largely forgotten treatise by one of the 14th century’s most revered Dominicans, Giovanni di San Gimignano. In Book 2 of Liber de exemplis et similitudinibus rerum (Book of Examples and Similitudes), circa 1300, the Dominican writes that all stones are figures of God’s love because God’s love is as solid as a stone; stones represent a transmutation of the original clay, and a sacred virtual fire; marble’s multiplicity of colors exemplifies the principle of beauty. San Gimignano even compares Christ to a Chrysolite that shimmers like fire but resembles the sea. Didi-Huberman hypothesized that Fra Angelico pictorialized these analogies by interspersing Mary, Jesus, and the Saints with brightly colored stones, which Giovanni di San Gimignano believed could inspire the faithful.
The "Montecarlo Annunciation Altarpiece"’s marble elements support this reading. Similarly, the "Annalena Altarpiece" (1445) abounds with painterly marble: A richly veined amber slab lay beneath the Virgin's flowing robe, with narrow slabs of green and pink marble underneath it. Niches with bright semi-circular pink marble panels float above the heads of the saints. Embedded in that familiar formula of enthroned virgins flanked by saints, Fra Angelico could be nodding to monks and priests in the know about secret mystical meanings of marble and stones.
<https://tinyurl.com/yuhfyf4h>
Fra Angelico went out of his way to feature rocks in other compositions as well, many included in this exhibition. One of the most explicit examples is the small predella panel of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. Now in the Vatican collection, it was originally part of the so-called Franciscan Triptych, which has been temporarily reassembled here. The rays of light from the angel mirror the diagonal crag beneath it. Those cliffs dominate the composition far more than in comparable depictions by Giotto <https://tinyurl.com/3pfe35sh> , Gaddi <https://tinyurl.com/2cbdpasn>, and Sasetta <https://tinyurl.com/yc8yt3aa> , who all relegated rocks to the background. Was Fra Angelico alluding to St. Paul’s frequently quoted metaphor that Christ is our rock in this work? Is this a visual echo of Giovanni di San Gimignano’s idea that God’s love is as solid as stone?
Fabio Barry's recent book on the history of marble in art posits the term “lithic imagination” to retrieve what was once the prevailing belief that something divine or astral dwelled within marble. Sterile geological definitions may be today's default, but it’s important to guard against projecting it back onto old masters who saw marble differently. Stones are downplayed in the wall didactics of the retrospective, and trivialized as bracketed mentions and footnotes in the catalog, while Didi-Huberman’s book —the most disruptive and provocative study of Fra Angelico’s iconography to date — is effectively absent. It’s an egregious error of omission not to address his ideas more directly and substantially.
<https://tinyurl.com/52jvxcuk>
What the curators have featured, in the monastery's former library, is a 14th-century manuscript of Pseduo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Giovanni di San Gimignano connected his own marble, stone, and crystal metaphors with the notion of dissemblance advanced in this manuscript.
Pseudo-Dionysius cautioned that if the divine is truly inexpressible, then no concept can adequately represent it. The more effective a sacred symbol seems to be, the greater the risk of masking the ineffability of the divine. Pseduo-Dionysius the Areopagite instead encouraged dissimilitude — the use of unorthodox metaphors, those that do not seem to resemble the divine as commonly understood, in order to precipitate a crisis of interpretation.
<https://tinyurl.com/mr3aah8k>
Accordingly, Didi-Huberman argued that Fra Angelico was approaching marble and stone as discordant symbols, accepting Giovanni di San Gimignano invitation to embrace rocks for their sacred dissimilitude. This opens up a Pandora's Box of possibility that everything in a Fra Angelico painting might mean something else.
In her famous 1376 letter, St. Catherine of Siena urged Stefano Maconi to “be who God meant you to be, and set the world on fire.” As Fra Angelico stepped into his authenticity and maturity as an artist, he continued to incorporate far more stones and marble than his predecessors. By downplaying this aspect of the art in Florence, the curators and critics played it safe. As a studious Dominican friar, Fra Angelico imbued his paintings with the divine stones and marble he admired, setting the world on fire.
<https://tinyurl.com/46242vv3>
<https://tinyurl.com/3vfuezys>_Daniel Larkin_Hyperallergic

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THE MOUNT WASHINGTON POST
<https://tinyurl.com/j2d6wkvs> _LisaAnneAuerbach

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THE (UN)DAILY PIC by Blake Gopnik
<https://tinyurl.com/yc73y3xr>
<https://tinyurl.com/4673dd5f>
<https://tinyurl.com/5c6y6ezf>
is “Glass Tears,” a 1933 image from the fabulous Man Ray show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The wall text said that the photo was conceived (and used) for an ad for smudge-proof mascara.
<https://tinyurl.com/yc85xkrs>
Other texts explained that the second image at the top of this post, from the pages of the spring 1922 issue of the culture magazine Feuilles Libres, was the first publication of one of Man Ray’s great photograms, with more published that fall on a page in Vanity Fair (my third image).
I’ve been working through ideas about the way that modern artists (and especially Marcel Duchamp) realized that, since the Renaissance, Western fine art has always been about picking out certain objects to use as art, rather than creating objects that were inherently art-full. (Because nothing stands as art, without being used as that.)
Man Ray’s integration of fine and commercial art is grist for my mill, but I’m more interested, right now, in how fine art got adopted into the world of the commercial. I wonder if art directors intuited the modernist blurring of borders that I’ve been thinking about: If, at any given moment, an object might or might not be working as fine art, that meant that it might always be available for commercial purposes. _BlakeGopnik

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YES, I KNOW A LOT'S GOING ON, BUT...HOW DID I NOT KNOW
Cindy Sherman did an early homage to Claude Cahun??
This is from 1975—before the untitled film stills,
earlier even than the bus riders.
Cahun was little-known then,
so I'm curious how Sherman knew about her work
<https://tinyurl.com/59fx2asu> _MichaelLobel

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15. RALPH LAUREN POLO SHIRT by Rainey Knudson
<https://tinyurl.com/yc6ew5tn>
It’s often noted that Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx, son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus. But Lauren has never tried to hide his origins, nor his company’s early financial struggles. Struggles, that is, until they came up with the Polo shirt in 1972. Seasonal fashion may get press, but if you want to build an empire, you need a beloved staple—something people will buy again and again.
The Polo shirt was not original; it copied Lacoste, down to the logo on the chest. But it had the quality of yesteryear: natural fibers, better stitching, pearlized buttons instead of plastic. It was designed to fade, to embody the easy glamour and inherited confidence of old Ivy League money, referencing an aristocratic sport almost nobody actually plays. But strangely, the shirt is somehow a blank canvas. This is its magic—this garment embodying elitism and exclusivity is profoundly democratic, thriving on mass adoption. Everybody has worn a Polo shirt.
Ralph Lauren showed us that the American Dream is not just about making money, but about writing our own story. He created his myth and gave us the tool to create our own, to imagine our life as a fantastically gorgeous narrative. Bounded by nothing but the limits of our desire. _TheImpatientReader

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POST OFFICE DALE, WI
<https://tinyurl.com/4kdbfxs2> _RuralIndexingProject

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CULTURAL TRENDS I’M WATCHING by Ben Davis
This is the first piece I’m posting in 2026, so I thought I would post quick thoughts on a bunch of trends and topics that are disconnected—things that are on my mind, that I think are worth commenting on, that are significant when it comes to the pieces that make up the overall vibe, but that I am worried I won’t have enough time to draw out in full.
I’m going to go from the very serious to the trivial. Here we go.
The Chaotic Style.
I keep hearing that we are stuck in time and that the present doesn’t have a signature style. But Year 1 of Trump 2 had a very distinct, very chaotic set of cultural coordinates that time-stamps it: It’s A.I. slop, esoteric Nazi dog whistles, and internet trolling, mashed together with appeals to Americana, Classic Western Art, and gaudy luxury. The PragerU-sponsored talking A.I. portraits of the Founding Fathers in D.C. that I wrote about last year are a perfect example (though it must be said that, melted as they are, they are among the less noxious output in this vein). There’s a disturbing energy produced by internet-brained alt-right stuff whipped together with meme-ified symbols of tradition and taste. I’m sure there will be a lot of art about this, of some kind.
Post-Antiwokeness? L
ast year’s Fall of Freedom initiative, hoping to get cultural institutions to do a day of programming on authoritarianism in November, ended up pretty muted—and it was a small ask to begin with. Now, the Trump administration is laying siege to the Twin Cities, touching off several foreign conflicts, destabilizing the economy, and censoring cultural institutions. The alt-media cultural figures who supported Trump and made him look affable have turned on him. The mounting unpopularity of this increasingly non-metaphorical culture war has only made the attacks from on high more feral. At some moment the plates are going to slip under the pressure, and there’s going to be a new cultural earthquake. Just what that would or should or will look like, I don’t know, given the cynicism that the #Resistance era of culture now invites. Some courage and ingenuity will be needed.
The Palestine Exception Lives On.
From the New York Times and the Democratic Party to Artforum and the Whitney ISP, almost all liberal establishment institutions have bled credibility with young and politically engaged audiences over their failures relating to the immense carnage in Gaza over the last three years. As suggested by the very title of Omar El Akkad’s 2025 bestseller, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, you might expect there to be a too-late outpouring/correction. Yet even given the sea change in U.S. opinion that has left “older Republicans as the sole American demographic firmly behind Israel,” according to the Brookings Institution, I still see only a small opening, because more than any other political issue, the divides on this one pass through the center of the U.S. art audience, and political art is always most eager to confront the audience that it doesn’t have. _artnet

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CHARLES-ANTOINE COYPEL, DON QUIXOTE LED BY FOLLY, 1714-1734
<https://tinyurl.com/bdrpr6py> _JesseLocker

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NEW PHILADELPHIA ART MUSEUM DIRECTOR SAYS BOARD DOESN’T NEED ‘RADICAL RESTRUCTURING
In one of his first extensive interviews as the new director of the Philadelphia Art Museum, Daniel H. Weiss told that his institution’s board doesn’t require major changes after the abrupt firing of his predecessor last year’
Amid a controversial rebranding, Sasha Suda was terminated in November for what an email described as “cause.” Following her dismissal, media reports revealed that the board had accused her of misappropriating funds by growing her salary by $39,000 across a two year period. Suda, who is currently locked in a lawsuit against the museum, claimed that that increase was authorized.
Weiss, who formerly served as president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was brought on as the Philadelphia Art Museum’s director and CEO in November, not long after Suda’s firing.
The interview suggested that he continued to stand by the museum’s board. Previously, Suda’s lawyer claimed that certain trustees “commissioned a sham investigation to create a pretext for Ms. Suda’s termination.”
Yet he did not mince words when he spoke of the need for changes at the museum, particularly when it comes to its financials. “We have a deficit,” Weiss said. “It is not sustainable and we need to fix it. In order to do that, we need to take a larger look at the organization and build a healthy model.” Weiss has begun a “listening tour” with museum staff that he said will involve assessing “the most present problems that need to be addressed.”
“We need to sort out the rebrand and determine whether we change it or stay with it,” Weiss said. “And we’re looking at that.” The interview was published on Tuesday, one day after the marketing chief who led the rebrand effort had resigned. _Alex Greenberger _ARTnews

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ALEX COLVILLE, MAIN STREET, 1979
<https://tinyurl.com/y2yfc8t9> _RabihAlameddine

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FAKES ON A PLANE by William Poundstone
<http://tiny.cc/oqyx001>
USC's Fisher Museum of Art will host the set of Founders' documents being circulated by the National Archives for the nation's 250th anniversary. The so-called Freedom Plane National Tour is to make brief visits to museums in eight cities. The name evokes the Bicentennial's Freedom Train, a locomotive carrying a blockbuster exhibit of famous documents and cultural artifacts. The current show is much more limited in scope, centering on eight Revolutionary period documents, none of them especially famous. The main attraction is an 1823 engraved replica of the Declaration of Independence, made because the ink of the 1776 original was fading. More interesting is a 1787 draft copy of the Constitution with handwritten annotations. But the original Declaration and Constitution that draw crowds to DC aren't in the show. The National Archives—whose acting director, Marco Rubio, has a full plate—must be hoping that outside-the-beltway audiences won't care.
The exhibition does have the original 1783 Treaty of Paris, in which Britain first recognized the U.S. nation, and an 1787 tally of votes from the Constitutional Convention. Hamilton fans will find oaths of allegiance signed by Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and George Washington. _LosAngelesCountyMuseumOnFire

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HOW SOTHEBY’S INSTITUTE OF ART IS TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS IN LUXURY
_artnet

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SOUTH AFRICAN ARTIST TO APPROACH HIGH COURT OVER CANCELLED VENICE PAVILION
The artist Gabrielle Goliath and the curator Ingrid Masondo are pursuing urgent legal action against South Africa’s sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie, with the aim of overturning his decision to cancel their project for the country’s Venice Biennale pavilion.
A legal team for Goliath, her studio manager James Macdonald and Masondo—led by Adila Hassim—will be filing an application at the country’s high court in Pretoria by tomorrow (22 January), in which they will ask the court to declare McKenzie’s interference unconstitutional and to overturn his decision to terminate Goliath’s participation in the Venice Biennale.
The legal action was set in motion with a letter of demand sent to McKenzie last Friday [16 January], “insisting that he immediately desist from any interference with our lawful participation at the Venice Biennale”.
McKenzie and the DSAC have not responded to numerous requests for comment.
In the statement the artist’s team added that: “A letter has also been sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa, alerting him to these demands and asking that he urgently intervene as head of the executive to whom Minister Gayton McKenzie reports.”
Since cancelling Goliath’s work, the DSAC has allegedly restarted the Biennale planning process behind closed doors and assigned at least one team of artists to prepare work for the country’s pavilion. A 30-artist collective called Beyond the Frames tells that they “have been in talks with the department regarding the Venice Biennale”.
The Cape Town-based group’s spokesperson, Hannes Koekemoer, was reluctant to expand on details of their works or the overarching theme, due to the potential legal action against McKenzie and his department, saying legal proceedings may “affect our processes and our involvement”. They did however say that their proposed exhibition is titled Shameless Rebellions: a South African Chorus.
Koekemoer declined to comment on how Beyond the Frames were selected to replace Goliath. The collective participated in the initial open call in November, following which the organising committee undertook a confidential process and unanimously selected Goliath to represent South Africa.
When asked if Beyond the Frames were working in conjunction with other artists outside their collective, Koekemoer said: “I do not want to confirm or deny any other involvement, as this a highly sensitive matter.”
Meanwhile, a number of petitions have been launched calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to dismiss
McKenzie for “reintroducing apartheid-style censorship and curtailment of freedom of speech in contravention of the Constitution of South Africa” based on his interference with Goliath’s pavilion. _ArtNewspaper

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOLLY REBECCA PARTON
<https://tinyurl.com/23bazxrm> _#WomensArt

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DESPITE DRASTIC FINANCIAL STEPS, MET OPERA TURNS TO LAYOFFS AND CUTS
<https://tinyurl.com/mtxhnjfs>
Over the past five years, the Metropolitan Opera has drained money from its endowment, entered a still-tentative $200 million deal with Saudi Arabia and cut back its performance schedule as it struggled to bring stability to an institution hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.
But in the latest sign of the persistent financial challenges facing the largest performing arts organization in the country, the Met announced on Tuesday that it would lay off workers, cut the salaries of its top-paid executives and postpone a new production from its coming season.
Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in an interview that he was forced to take these steps because of concerns about the deal with Saudi Arabia, under which the Saudis agreed to subsidize the Met in exchange for the company performing at the Royal Diriyah Opera House near Riyadh three weeks each winter.
Gelb said the Met was contemplating even more changes in an effort to overhaul its finances.
The company, he said, is considering selling the naming rights to its theater, following the lead of two other buildings in the complex
Also under consideration is the sale of two Chagall murals, valued at a total of $55 million by Sotheby’s, that were commissioned in the 1960s to hang in the building’s Grand Tier. (As a condition, the buyer would have to agree to leave them in place, with a donation plaque.) _NYTimes

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FINANCIALLY STRAPPED MET OPERA MAY SELL ITS PRIZED MARC CHAGALL PAINTINGS
<https://tinyurl.com/m3b2tm6p>
Chagall also contributed set and costume designs in 1966 for a staging of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, for which Chagall’s dreamlike works were thought to be a good match. “Everything is rich recognizable, vintage Chagall, the fanciful figures, the slashing, vibrant colors,”
An art gallery at the Met Opera, inaugurated in 2006, has hosted exhibitions of contemporary artists including Cecily Brown, Chuck Close, George Condo, Rashid Johnson, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, Nicholas Party, Elizabeth Peyton, and Dana Schutz.
<https://tinyurl.com/yvnchau8> _ARTnews

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A SOLAR ERUPTION FROM SDO
<https://tinyurl.com/mrx6tb6w> _NASA