OLD NEWS

GREG ITO'S TIMELY CONFLAGRATIONS by William Poundstone
<http://tiny.cc/66p6001>
A trigger warning at the admission desk of the Long Beach Museum of Art informs visitors of fire-related content in the show "Greg Ito: Motion Pictures". Burning landscapes, windows, and still lifes are signature motifs of Ito's art. So yea, the timing could be called awkward. OTOH, it's fitting. Like Joan Didion and Mike Davis—quoted in countless op eds of the past few days—Ito sees California's wildfires as a memento mori relevant beyond a particular climate, landscape, or golden frontier.
<http://tiny.cc/d6p6001>
<http://tiny.cc/g6p6001>
Ito's chromatically lush acrylic paintings are hard-edge figuration with a metaphysical bent. The painted flames are fractals, drawing on Japanese tradition. They are often accompanied by California ("fire") poppies, one of the first plants to bloom after a wildfire. The LBMA exhibition is small, just 15 objects spanning paintings, sculptures, installations, and an animated video, Ascend. Every work is dated 2024, evidence of a productive year. For all of us, time is running out.
<http://tiny.cc/l6p6001>
<http://tiny.cc/l6p6001> _LosAngelesCountyMuseumOnFire

>>>

LONG
<https://tinyurl.com/2c2r5nsr> _DavidShrigley

>>>

83. ROBYN O'NEIL, ON SORROW by Rainey Knudson
<https://tinyurl.com/25ecuh86>
Sorrow often feels like something that emanates from our core, pressing up against our skin. But in Robyn O’Neil’s dramatic imagining, sorrow is an inverted ocean hanging over us. A sticky darkness, impassive and impassable, its tentacles cannot be avoided. There’s no stiff-upper-lipping this one, no brave-facing this desolation. But—what is wrong with surrendering to grief for a time? Living fully means laughing all of our laughter and, yes, weeping all of our tears. It’s terrifying to think we’ll never get to the other side of sorrow, the wispy clouds of gentle, clearer skies. But we do, every time. _TheImpatientReader/MFAH100

>>>

VIRGINIA OLDOINI, COUNTESS OF CASTIGLIONE (1837-1899),
<https://tinyurl.com/2cedjocu> _#WomensArt

>>>

THE ‘DOLLAR PRINCESSES’
<https://tinyurl.com/2ydj3gqu>
Margaret “Daisy” Leiter was just 19 when in 1898 she was painted by the most celebrated society portraitist of the age, John Singer Sargent <https://tinyurl.com/2cvut5qn> . Leiter, the youngest daughter of an American retail magnate, was a celebrated beauty who was said to have “the loveliest eyes in Washington”.
Sargent’s resulting portrait <https://tinyurl.com/2327efor> , in which Leiter stands full length, exuberantly swathed in fabric, radiates with the monied self-assurance of a young woman fully aware of her own social power.
Her confidence was not misplaced. Six years later, after her older sister Mary had married Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India, Daisy also bagged herself a British aristocrat in Henry Howard, Earl of Suffolk. He was known to have cashflow problems; happily the new Countess of Suffolk could help.
<https://tinyurl.com/295hb2wg>
Leiter was not the only wealthy American heiress to cross the Atlantic to marry into high society – nor the only one to be painted by Sargent. Marking the centenary of his death in 1925, an exhibition at Kenwood in London will feature 18 of Sargent’s portraits of the women once sneeringly referred to as “dollar princesses”.
They include his paintings of Edith, Lady Playfair (1884), formerly the Boston heiress Edith Russell <https://tinyurl.com/23hvxfn3> , on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Mrs Joseph Chamberlain (1904), the former Mary Crowninshield Endicott of Massachusetts, which has been loaned by the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
Sargent, himself an expat American, was prolific but also very expensive, meaning he was particularly favoured by the US and European elite. The Brooklyn native Jennie Jerome, who became Lady Spencer-Churchill, mother of Winston, sat for Sargent <https://tinyurl.com/2ynwexly> , as did Viscountess Astor, <https://tinyurl.com/25zf7j9j> the first female MP to take her seat in Westminster, who began life as Nancy Witcher Langhorne in Danville, Virginia.
<https://tinyurl.com/26kcgvg7>
Given the arresting character of many of Sargent’s portraits of American society wives, it is a surprise they have never before been exhibited together, said Wendy Monkhouse, the curator for English Heritage, which looks after Kenwood.
“I realised these women have been languishing behind the ‘dollar princess’ stereotype for 100 years, and it was time to take it to pieces,” she said. “Even though these women were extremely wealthy and married into the aristocracy, there is actually very little known about them today. So we’ve done a lot of original research into their lives [to highlight] what they achieved, how the painting fits into their life story. We have looked at their husbands, their lovers, their children, their houses and really tried to flesh them out.
“There’s a subtle, or not so subtle, misogyny in all of the descriptions of the women on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, they are resented because they’re taking money from America. In Britain, they’re resented because they are scooping up the British aristocracy and thereby reducing the marriage pool for the female British aristocracy.”
While the women would doubtless have resented being bundled together, Monkhouse said, she believes Sargent has given his American heiress sitters some common characteristics.
“I think they do look out at you with all the confidence of bright and intelligent and quick-witted women. But then again – and this is the magic – they’re being painted by Sargent in a way that looks back at Gainsborough and Reynolds and other great British portraitists, to make them look as though they belong in the homes that they were going to hang in.
“So you’re getting the best of both worlds. You’re getting what was perceived as an American candour and confidence, but in the dress and the context of a British aristocratic portrait.” _Esther Addley _GuardianUK

>>>

GREAT DAY FOR ARTIST'S BIRTHDAYS!
First up, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, born on this day in 1889,
a radical innovator who engaged with avant-garde movements like Dada & Constructivism
<https://tinyurl.com/2brf4lsz>
to introduce all sorts of new possibilities & forms into art making,
<https://tinyurl.com/25hu7hlr>
from performance to puppetry to embroidery and beyond
<https://tinyurl.com/2belggc2>
Some more examples of performance costumes by,
<https://tinyurl.com/297n9uc2>
and worn by,
<https://tinyurl.com/2clrb5gx>
artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp
<https://tinyurl.com/2c62ed76>
Another major artist's birthday today:
famed Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne,
born on this day in 1839.
While there's no scarcity of iconic paintings by Cézanne,
I'm drawn to some of his more eccentric images,
like the strange, contorted forms in this watercolor of a coat piled onto a
<https://tinyurl.com/243ze3pp>
Cézanne clearly knew what to include
but also what could be left out of a picture,
as evidenced in this delicate watercolor rendering of three pears on a plate,
the decorative traceries of a textile behind them
and plenty of blank space all around
<https://tinyurl.com/2yw773rf>
Cézanne's skulls are pretty badass,
like these three arranged in a row on a tabletop,
a painting now in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts
<https://tinyurl.com/2d6fq9g7>
Another picture of three skulls by Cézanne,
this one in watercolor,
in which the bony white forms are contrasted with the lush,
multifarious colors of the textile on which they've been placed
<https://tinyurl.com/2y6kqvnh>
And a wonderful Cezanne skull
in the White House collection:
<https://tinyurl.com/2al7fh8e>
My god, that's fantastic -
didn't know about that one!
What are the chances they'll keep it up in the coming years..?
Just realized that the White House/NGA painting
must be related to this watercolor
in the Detroit Institute of Arts collection
<https://tinyurl.com/29s8msr2>
Another artist birthday today: Cindy Sherman,
born on this day in 1954.
While best known for her untitled film stills
she also made images perfect for the circus starting in Washington,
namely her clown photos: Untitled #417, 2004
<https://tinyurl.com/2aksdwxl>
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #424, 2004
<https://tinyurl.com/28blve43>
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #412, 2003
<https://tinyurl.com/256zxyjb> _MichaelLobel

>>>

NIAGARA WAS TWACHTMAN’S ROUEN CATHEDRAL by greg
<https://tinyurl.com/22wgtzgb>
On one of his speedruns through the treasure houses, art historian pwlanier stuck a red heart on this atmospheric painting of Niagara Falls by John Henry Twachtman. It’s in a private sale at Christie’s, and as the lately retired auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen would say, it’s a lovely thing.
I know almost nothing about Twachtman, except now I learn he visited Niagara twice and painted it multiple times. And this painting looks like it was made around the same vantage point as the one at the Smithsonian <https://tinyurl.com/26gxq4eq> , but this tighter one, with less geology and more mist is more interesting.
<https://tinyurl.com/2azfl6qs>
More interesting still is the smaller Twachtman Niagara Falls painting Christie’s sold last October. It’s only 17 x 14, an even lovelier thing. It’s not quite as vibrant as the extremely similar one they sold in 2001. Was Twachtman in 1893 making studies of even the minutest changes in light on Niagara, like Monet was doing at Rouen Cathedral in 1892? Emerson is squealing, I’m sure.
Alas, he was not. Or not over this. Because though Niagara was Twachtman’s Rouen, that he painted at least fourteen variations of, this is the same painting. And whoever bought it in 2001 cleaned it with a scrub brush? Left it out in the sun for 23 years? I do not know. But I guess if you can wait 25 years, it’ll only get more ephemeral and atmospheric, and the price will continue to drop commensurately. Meanwhile, in the control group, the Brooklyn Museum is probably storing theirs <https://tinyurl.com/2bn2jpft> in the dark.
Hmm, just when I think the narrative arc is complete, it seems the Christie’s painting was described in 2003 <https://tinyurl.com/23sdlmqb> as turning up in an attic of a Twachtman family member, but the Christie’s provenance has 18 years of dealer and collector ownership befor then. Is that just the pace at which information trickles out among 19th century painting collectors? _greg.org

>>>

WELCOME SIGN KREMLIN, MT
<https://tinyurl.com/27cgnaow> _RuralIndexingProject

>>>

THE BIG PICTURE: MICHEL VANDEN EECKHOUDT’S LANGUOROUS HORSE by Tim Adams
<https://tinyurl.com/2y8pxnob>
Recent research <https://tinyurl.com/2b9y789n> into animal behaviour indicates that, contrary to the belief that horses only respond to stimuli in the moment, they have the ability to think ahead and plan their actions. The horse in this picture by Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt seems to have no urgent need for such strategic thinking. The mane of flaxen tresses, the loose ringlets of the tail, the languorous attitude, meadow flowers as far as the eye can see – Vanden Eeckhoudt’s horse seems to exist in a kind of pony club elysium, idly dreaming an afternoon away.
The Belgian-born photographer’s images of animals often invite you to imagine their subjects’ interior lives, though rarely is the vision as bucolic – or as apparently unperturbed – as this one. Vanden Eeckhoudt’s lazing horse – pictured in a field in Germany in 2012 – comes from his series of animal portraits in his book Doux-Amer (“bittersweet”). If this photo provides a dose of saccharine, it is set against other much starker images of animals in the landscape – feral farm dogs on stony ground, pigs ready for slaughter, catching the photographer’s eye.
Vanden Eeckhoudt, who died in 2015, expressed an uncanny connection with the animals he confronted with his lens. He had started out as a documentary street photographer, with a celebrated series of pictures of recent immigrants, struggling to make new lives in Belgium in the 1970s, and co-founded the fabled Vu picture agency in Paris. He transferred all of that gift for empathy with human subjects to his 1982 book Zoologies, a profound meditation on animals in captivity in which gorillas and monkeys and tigers appeared preternaturally alive to their incarceration. Later, he found vivid accidental comedy in portraits of dogs with their owners. _GuardianUK

>>>

HAPPY MONDAY!
Luca Signorelli, Deeds of the Antichrist (detail), San Brizio Chapel, 1499-1504
<https://tinyurl.com/26mqbr6q> _JesseLocker

>>>

THE SPECTRUM OF COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY IN A ROME EXHIBITION
<https://tinyurl.com/26rn227p>
“Color is bullshit,” the legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson once told his younger colleague, William Eggleston. Less vulgar but equally dismissive, Ansel Adams once likened photographing in color (though he did plenty of it) to playing an out-of-tune piano, and claimed that he could get “a far greater sense of ‘color’ through a well-planned and executed black-and-white image than [he had] ever achieved with color photography.”
<https://tinyurl.com/26nc54qg>
Indeed, color photography had a hard time of it after it was first developed in the mid-19th century, with critics and connoisseurs terming its seductive colors garish as opposed to the supposedly more dignified black and white. But that’s long since changed, and color photography is presently widely accepted, in fine art, fashion, journalism and other fields.
<https://tinyurl.com/242qbffj>
Now, multihyphenate artist Maurizio Cattelan has curated an exhibition on color photography along with Sam Stourdzé, director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Médicis. It’s taking place at that Renaissance villa just moments away from the famed Spanish Steps in the heart of the Italian capital, which was once the residence of Cardinal Ferdinando I de’ Medici and home to the Academy since 1803.
The show presents the work of some 20 artists, broken up into what the curators call “chapters,” with titles like Early Birds, Raining Cats and Dogs, Femme Fatale, and Stranger Things. On the roster are Miles Aldridge, Erwin Blumenfeld, Guy Bourdin, Juno Calypso, Walter Chandoha, Harold Edgerton, Hassan Hajjaj, Hiro, Ouka Leele, Yevonde Middleton, Arnold Odermatt, Ruth Ossai, Martin Parr, Pierre et Gilles, Alex Prager, Adrienne Raquel, Sandy Skoglund, Toiletpaper (the magazine established by Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari), and William Wegman.
<https://tinyurl.com/2c9mucof>\
“What if color could save us?” said Stourdzé in an email. “In a world of grey where the clouds seem to be pilling up, this exhibition invites you to a chromotherapy session featuring lemon yellow, limitless blue, vibrant red, and sunshine orange.”
Animals are frequent subjects. Wegman is perhaps best known for his photos of his Weimaraners in various poses, sometimes sporting human clothes. Chandoha, by contrast, is known as a cat photographer; of his archive of more than 225,000 photos, some 90,000 depict felines. “Cats are my favorite animal subject,” he said, “because of their unlimited range of attitude, posture, expression, and coloration.” A charming photo of his shows a furry specimen perched atop three stacked pillows; another shows a quartet in a loving embrace.
<https://tinyurl.com/22x4d3gm>
Food also comes in for close study, for example in Martin Paar’s Common Sense [Donut, Ramsgate] (1999), a delightful shot of a child’s hands, poking out of brilliant red jacket cuffs, grasping a sugary treat, and Juno Calypso’s Chicken Dogs (2015), showing a model mysteriously lying face-down on a tile floor near a can of the titular food item, one dog tentatively poking out above the rim. _Brian Boucher_artnet

>>>

HENRY MOORE - 'STUDIES OF THREE STANDING FIGURES' 1946.
<https://tinyurl.com/22ubmh64>
Hélène de Beauvoir – Women Suffer, Men Judge (1977).
<https://tinyurl.com/2xz22tmj> _RabihAlameddine

>>>

BROAD MUSEUM HIT WITH DISCRIMINATION AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUIT
<https://tinyurl.com/26z9lhsp>
The former human resources director of the Broad is suing the Los Angeles museum and its former chief operating officer, accusing them of discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment.
In the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, former HR director Darron Rezell Walker accuses former COO Alysa Gerlach of pressuring him to fire a white employee, Rick Mitchell, 65, based on personal animus — as well as his age and race. Walker alleges in his suit that Gerlach said she did not want “an old white man” in any director-level position and that Mitchell was a “misogynist” who “makes people uncomfortable.”
After Walker interviewed staff and determined that Mitchell should not be terminated, Gerlach not only fired Mitchell but also fired Walker in retaliation, the lawsuit says. Walker also accuses Gerlach in the suit of creating a hostile work environment by asking inappropriate questions about Walker’s sex life and sharing personal information about her own intimate relationships.
Neither the Broad nor Gerlach responded to requests for comment on Friday.
Walker was employed at the Broad for less than two months, and his quick dismissal last April has “devastated” his reputation, says his attorney, Michelle Iarusso.
“This was a very high-profile position for him,” Iarusso says, adding that Walker had connections in the worlds of art and fashion that intersected with his job at the Broad. “He was very excited to get this position, and he let everybody know. So when he was summarily terminated after a very short time, it was a bomb. It was like they obliterated his career.”
In his lawsuit, Walker alleges that Gerlach was “trying to find a way to fire” Mitchell, who served as the Broad’s director of facilities. Walker diplomatically tried to challenge Gerlach’s comments about Mitchell’s age and race, the lawsuit says. “Gerlach thought that because both of them were persons of color, Walker being African American and Defendant Gerlach being Latina, that her comments were an acceptable form of commiseration shared between people of color,” the suit says.
According to the lawsuit, Mitchell had raised questions in a meeting about whether the physical limitations of his staff members, including women and a person with a disability, would prevent them from moving staging equipment used in museum events. Some staff members perceived the comments as discriminatory, the suit says. But over several weeks, Walker conducted interviews with Mitchell’s co-workers and subordinates, who “painted a clear picture of Mitchell being revered as a supportive and well-respected manager,” the suit says. “In particular, women under his supervision expressed appreciation for his fairness and leadership. Not one person corroborated any claims of discriminatory or misogynistic behavior.”
Gerlach was not pleased with the results of Walker’s investigation, the lawsuit alleges, and moved forward with plans to terminate Mitchell. As the HR director, Walker worried that the action would be “exposing the museum to significant legal and reputational risks, all occurring on Walker’s watch, to somehow be unfairly attributed to him.”
During this time, the lawsuit alleges, Gerlach forbade Mitchell from talking with her superior, Broad founding director Joanne Heyler, unless Gerlach was present.
When Walker submitted his report rejecting Gerlach’s accusations against Mitchell, the lawsuit says, Walker faced “immediate and escalating hostility.”
Eleven days after Mitchell was fired, Gerlach fired Walker on speakerphone while other staff members were present in Walker’s office, the lawsuit says, causing “substantial humiliation and embarrassment.”
The lawsuit accuses the Broad of failing to take “reasonable steps to prevent retaliation and wrongful termination against Walker who opposed discrimination in the workplace.” It also alleges a hostile work environment created by Gerlach, whom Walker accuses of asking about romantic and sexual partners.
Walker, who is gay, alleges that Gerlach “frequently expressed curiosity about topics related to gay sexual activity.”
Gerlach’s LinkedIn profile indicates she left the Broad in September. Neither she nor the museum could be reached for comment on the circumstances of her departure.. _Jessica Gelt_LATimes

>>>

L.A.’S GALLERIES AND FAIRS PUSH FOR A RETURN TO BUSINESS
_artnet

>>>

FRIEZE WILL PROCEED WITH LOS ANGELES FAIR
<https://tinyurl.com/2bhba6jz>
The organisers of the Frieze art fair said on Friday (17 January) that they will proceed with the 2025 edition of their Los Angeles fair (20-23 February), set to take place at Santa Monica Airport six weeks after deadly wildfires swept through the city.
“Our hearts are with everyone affected by the devastating fires in Los Angeles,” a Frieze spokesperson said. “Since the fair's founding six years ago, Frieze has been proud to support and be part of this vibrant community. The challenges the city is currently facing only strengthen our commitment to work alongside the community to rebuild and recover together.” _ArtNewspaper

>>>

GALLERY ASSOCIATION LOS ANGELES CALLS FOR A RETURN TO BUSINESS AMID FIRE RECOVERY
_ARTnews

>>>

PALISADES FIRE CONTAINMENT:
The fire remained 59% contained as of 7 a.m. Monday morning
It has burned more than 23,713 acres
10 people are dead from the Palisades fire.
EATON FIRE CONTAINMENT:
The fire was 87% contained as of 7 a.m. Monday morning.
It has burned 14,021 acres
17 are dead from the Eaton fire.
Southern California braces for latest threat of extreme fire weather _LATimes