Latest news with #ArtExhibition
Washington Post
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Walters Museum unveils 4,000-year tour of Latin American art
The Walters Art Museum's new Latin American galleries open with a work by Peruvian-born artist Kukuli Velarde: Inspired by the Inca tradition of stacking stones to mark a place as sacred, 'Wak'a del Agua' features five stacked ceramic forms that resemble stones, each painted in a different style or motif — abstract writing that evokes ancient textile patterns; realistic portraits of people; a stylized carved figure in neon colors — reflecting different periods of Peruvian history. The work, made in 2022 and 2023, is so fitting, it looks like it could have been created specially for the exhibition.
The Guardian
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jazz, Paris and war's brutality: the radical watercolours of Edward Burra, British art's great unknown
On any objective reading, Edward Burra occupies a distinguished place in the history of 20th-century British art. His work, especially his watercolours of demi-monde life in interwar Paris and New York, is a distinct and vivid record of the times. His paintings are held in major institutions – as is his extensive archive, which is housed at Tate Britain in London. And yet he remains 'one of the great known unknowns of modern British art', according to Thomas Kennedy, the curator of a new retrospective show at Tate Britain. It is being held more than half a century on from Burra's last show at the Tate in 1973, three years before he died aged 71. There are lots of reasons for Burra's 'unknown' status, explains Kennedy. 'He worked alone, and not being part of a defined group doesn't help to place an artist. But probably more important is the fact he absolutely hated talking about his work.' Kennedy cites some excruciating documentary footage (also from the early 1970s) illustrating Burra's painful reluctance to engage with questions about art. 'He just hated that stuff and would call art 'fart' and things like that. Apparently, he walked through that Tate show as if wearing blinkers, not looking at the work and just wanting to get it over with.' The exhibition runs alongside a parallel show of works by Ithell Colquhoun, another radical British artist who, like Burra, challenged artistic conventions and explored parallel ideas of identity and sexuality in surrealist work that often reflected her occult beliefs. The two defining features of Burra's early life – he was born in 1905 – were the wealth of his family (prominent in banking) and the fact he suffered from extremely poor health. This combination resulted in him later being able to travel – to France and Spain, the United States and Mexico – then return home to Rye in East Sussex, where he spent most of his life, to recuperate after his exertions and paint the things he had seen. His illnesses – rheumatoid arthritis and the blood disease spherocytosis among other conditions – also helped dictate the nature of his art in that it was physically easier for him to work with watercolours flat on a table than with oils at an easel. 'As a watercolourist he pushed the boundaries of a traditionally delicate medium to create bold graphic works, rich in detail,' says Kennedy. His illness also informed his empathy for those on the fringes of society and in his subject matter he engaged with some of the 20th century's most significant social, political and cultural events. 'After Paris in the roaring 20s and the Harlem Renaissance, he sort of pivoted to depict the violence of the Spanish civil war and then the second world war, before taking on British landscapes and reflections on postwar industrialisation and environmental degradation.' While Burra was publicly reticent about his art, the Tate show's exploration of his archives serves to deepen understanding of the man. As well as letters there are his gramophone records – mostly jazz – books and calendars he kept that show his obsessive cinema-going, sometimes seeing several films a day in French and German as well as English. 'Bringing these sources together is quite revealing,' says Kennedy. 'It all adds to the tapestry of his influences and what emerges is a socially conscious art that is warmly satirical while also being willing to confront the darker side of life.' Three Sailors at a Bar, 1930Burra's sexuality is ambiguous, but his work in the 20s and 30s often reflected queer culture and sensibility. While this image of a bar in the south of France is among his more explicitly queer work, it also reflected a general sense of sexual liberation among Burra's circle in the roaring 20s. Minuit Chanson, 1931 (main image above)In this Parisian music shop where you could pay to listen to a gramophone record, Burra's vibrant street scene celebrates its diverse clientele. In characteristic fashion, he deploys a satirical eye to heighten his subject matter rather than to cruelly caricature it. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Beelzebub, c 1937Burra loved Spain and was devastated by the outbreak of the civil war, as he was to be again by the second world war a few years later. In this painting, he transforms historical Spanish conquistador imagery into a grotesque tableau accompanied by an unnerving sexual charge. Cornish Clay Mines, 1970In his later years, Burra's travel was restricted to motoring around Britain, and here he presents a commentary on postwar car culture, featuring ghost-like figures and advertising icons, such as the Michelin Man, all the while acknowledging his own participation in modernity's environmental depredations. Near Whitby, Yorkshire, 1972 One of Burra's final works shows an empty road disappearing into the fog. With lighter applications of watercolour than his earlier graphic style, possibly due to his declining health, the painting's suggestion of moving into the unknown is typical of his later works in which he seems to be searching for moments of quiet reflection. Edward Burra – Ithell Colquhoun is at Tate Britain, London, 13 June to 19 October.
Associated Press
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Asian Emerging Artist List Exhibition Wraps Up in Hong Kong, Spotlights Rising Talent Across Asia
06/02/2025, Toronto Ontario // KISS PR Brand Story PressWire // Hong Kong, June 1, – Younes Bensebaa, International Arts News —The Asian Emerging Artist List Exhibition concluded on Sunday after a four-day run at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong, drawing international acclaim for its showcase of promising new voices in contemporary Asian art. Curated by Tingting Fang, Dean of the Asian Academy of Arts, the exhibition has become a cornerstone of Hong Kong's annual art season. Held from May 30 to June 2, the exhibition featured works from artists across Asia and beyond, including participants from Singapore, London, Shanghai, and New York. Mediums ranged from traditional painting and sculpture to digital works, immersive installations, and virtual reality experiences. The show attracted collectors, curators, and art professionals from Europe, North America, and across Asia, underscoring its growing global relevance. A Platform for Emerging Talent The Asian Academy of Arts announced the successful conclusion of the exhibition, which was curated and led by Tingting Fang — a prominent figure in contemporary Asian art and a champion of emerging artists. Held at AsiaWorld-Expo, one of Asia's premier venues for cultural events, the exhibition earned wide recognition and high attendance, further solidifying its position on the international art calendar. Timed to coincide with Hong Kong's vibrant art season, the exhibition drew significant attention from collectors, critics, and global institutions. Tingting Fang: Visionary Curator and Mentor Central to the exhibition's success is Tingting Fang's inspired curatorial leadership. For over a decade, Fang has devoted herself to identifying and nurturing emerging talent across Asia, building platforms for new voices to connect with global audiences. Her ability to elevate raw artistic talent into internationally recognized names has made her one of the region's most respected mentors and curators.. Combining a deep knowledge of traditional Asian aesthetics with a sharp eye for contemporary trends, Fang has helped bridge generations of artistic practice. Under her leadership, the Asian Academy of Arts has offered young artists valuable grants, exhibition opportunities, and access to galleries, biennales, and collectors worldwide. 'The Asian Emerging Artist List is more than an exhibition — it's a movement,' said Tingting Fang. 'These artists represent the future of Asian art, and our role is to ensure their voices are heard on the global stage. This exhibition is about giving them the visibility and confidence they need to thrive.' Asian Art on the World Stage Now in its latest edition, the Asian Emerging Artist List Exhibition has become one of the most important platforms for discovering new talent in the region. Artists are selected through a rigorous vetting process by the Academy's curatorial team, who review thousands of submissions based on originality, technical skill, and conceptual depth. Many artists featured in the exhibition have gone on to show at major global institutions. As a result, the List is increasingly regarded as a barometer for future success, attracting close attention from collectors, galleries, and art foundations worldwide. This year's exhibition stood out for its diversity of media — from traditional fine art to cutting-edge technology — reflecting the breadth of contemporary artistic innovation in Asia. Participating artists came from global cities such as Singapore, London, Shanghai, and New York, underscoring the international scope of the event. Through her curation, Fang ensured that forward-thinking, boundary-pushing work was at the forefront of the visitor experience. Championing the Next Generation Beyond its visual impact, the exhibition plays a pivotal role in promoting younger Asian artists who often face challenges entering the global art scene. By featuring their work on a high-profile platform, the exhibition creates valuable exposure and facilitates connections with key players in the art world. Strategically positioned during Hong Kong's peak art season, the event receives maximum visibility and media coverage, helping to propel participating artists toward international recognition. In doing so, the exhibition contributes to a broader conversation about the evolving identity of Asian contemporary art. Global Interest and Cultural Impact Interest in the exhibition circulated well before its official opening, with collectors, journalists, and art world insiders from Asia, Europe, and North America expressing strong anticipation. Many traveled to Hong Kong specifically to attend, driven by Tingting Fang's reputation for discovering exceptional talent. Several artists she has championed in previous exhibitions have since emerged as leading figures in the global art world. Join the Movement The Asian Emerging Artist List Exhibition is more than a display of talent — it is a cultural movement redefining the future of contemporary art in Asia. It not only showcases the region's brightest new artists but also fosters the next generation of artistic leadership. For collectors, it offers rare opportunities to acquire early works from rising stars. For curators, it introduces fresh perspectives and emerging themes. And for art lovers, it is a chance to witness the shaping of tomorrow's visual culture. The exhibition fosters global connections, sparks cross-cultural dialogue, and supports the professional growth of artists poised to define the next era of contemporary art. Through acquisitions, partnerships, and increased visibility, the global art community can help elevate these voices — amplifying Asia's dynamic creative presence on the world stage. Original Source of the original story >> Asian Emerging Artist List Exhibition Wraps Up in Hong Kong, Spotlights Rising Talent Across Asia
News24
02-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- News24
John Madu's historical exhibition: Van Gogh Museum hosts first African solo artist
Nigerian artist John Madu marks a historic first as an African artist with a solo exhibition at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. Produced in just three months, Madu's paintings creatively reinterpret Van Gogh's iconic themes. The exhibition aims to enhance inclusivity in Western art spaces and celebrates African representation on an international stage. Expressive brushstrokes depict a man seated at a table, his face hidden behind a book of Japanese prints, a plastic chair in the corner, and a Nigerian passport lying on the table. It is one of 10 new paintings by Nigerian artist John Madu, created for Paint Your Path - the first solo exhibition by an African artist at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, which opened Friday. Madu, 42, produced the 10 works in just three months in his Lagos studio, each responding to one of seven paintings by the Dutch master. 'Before I even knew who Van Gogh was, I knew about his work,' said the artist, recalling how, as a child, he admired his father's calendars filled with Impressionist art. View this post on Instagram A post shared by John MADU Is BLACKMUSE (@johnmadu_art) 'Van Gogh's works actually stuck out to me because of the yellows, the swirls, the strokes,' he told AFP. Madu plays on the global familiarity of Van Gogh's work to build connections between local and universal themes, notably through self-portraiture and the use of symbols. Van Gogh's famous wooden chair is reimagined by Madu as a white plastic seat - sometimes the main subject, sometimes carried on the shoulder of a protagonist resembling the artist entering a cafe in France's Provence region with a yellow facade. 'So I feel the world of Van Gogh plays out for people to relate to you,' he said. 'I really wanted to pay homage to this master I really love... So I thought for it to blend perfectly, the strokes, the brush strokes, the colour theme should connect together.' 'That would make the works actually feel like one.' This is not Madu's first dialogue with Western art - his previous works have drawn inspiration from Gustav Klimt, Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell. These references resonated with the 'Beeldbrekers' ('Image Breakers'), a group of young adults who co-commissioned the exhibition with the goal of making the Van Gogh Museum more inclusive - both in its exhibitions and outreach. 'For me, especially, it's a kind of representation to see an African artist being represented in a museum like this,' said Himaya Ayo, a 22-year-old member of the Beeldbrekers. 'So, when I heard that, I immediately signed up for it, and now I get to take part in this amazing but also very historical moment.' View this post on Instagram A post shared by John MADU Is BLACKMUSE (@johnmadu_art)
ABC News
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Marcia Langton 'delighted' and 'terrified' by new exhibition 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art
The long, woven eel trap in pale native grasses hovers above me. I've stepped through the new mirrored entrance into the redeveloped Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne; the building has become a monumental recognition and celebration of the artistic visions of the oldest continuing culture on earth. The sinuous eel trap, made by Dhauwurd Wurrung Gunditjmara artist Sandra Aitken, is suspended in space, no longer a fishing device but seemingly a container of history, of almost-lost weaving skills and of the memory of connection to land and creativity that not even decades of colonisation could erase. Ten years of painstaking work has culminated in an exhibition that not only brings together the infinite variety and long history of Aboriginal art, but that also recounts the brutal history of dispossession, subjection and scientific racism that is the dark heart of colonial history — and the subject of so many of these works. The exhibition is called 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art. It's a deliberately provocative title. It slices quickly to the point of what is almost certainly the most important exhibition of Australian Aboriginal art and design assembled in this country. Because Indigenous Australians have been making art for as long as they have been here, telling their stories, painting their place and recording their experiences and creative visions for millennia — but colonial recognition of that art has been a very long time coming. "I say it's a short history of Australian art,'' co-curator, writer and anthropologist Professor Marcia Langton says, "because Australian art, the art of this country, was not recognised as art until well into the 20th century, so it's both a truthful and an ironic title." The exhibition's curators are formidable women: Professor Langton, who was originally asked to create this show a decade ago; and curator and Arrernte woman Shanysa McConville, with historian and curator of Indigenous art Judith Ryan, who both joined the project in 2021. They are brilliant, insightful and dedicated curators. They hold every aspect of the broad, varied and long histories of Indigenous art in their minds, rapidly recalling fine details and important historical contexts. They are awe-inspiring company: in conversation with them, I work hard to keep up. The curatorial team consulted with communities around the country, sought the display of a major collection of historical Indigenous art and cultural objects, and have invited commissions of new work to establish a powerful timeline over centuries that Professor Langton says had to be done — "because it had never been done before". For the curators, the task of putting together this exhibition was cultural, historic and deeply personal. "I started out thinking that we have to address Australian history because the artists themselves do," Langton says. Not to do so, she says, "would be an act of cowardice". "Getting those chronologies right has been really important," McConville says. "The central and western desert room in particular has been close to my heart … I wanted to get that absolutely right." Brought together, the works are overwhelming. They extend from the very earliest bark paintings and cultural objects — all approved for public viewing — to the first colonial representations of Indigenous Australians. And there is work from every place, region and period of time in which art was created: former missions and settlements, deserts and homelands in and around the battlegrounds of the Australian Wars, and the suburbs and cities of new movements of contemporary Indigenous art. The three curators also include "hero" works from the celebrated art movements of Papunya, the Kimberley and the Spinifex people among others, with major paintings by Emily Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas, Carlene West and the Tjanpi Desert weavers. For Judith Ryan, much of the exhibition is a living tribute. "A lot of the walls are memorial walls — of loss, sorrow and death. You can't see this art separate from dispossession and massacre: it isn't separate from history — it's the intersection of art and history." McConville cites the room of early colonial painting as one of great significance to her, as the names, images and histories of important Aboriginal artists are depicted in the works. "It brings them into the room and into focus. Those works are more about these artists than the colonial painters themselves," she says. At the centre of the exhibition is the returned cultural pinnacle of the university's Indigenous collections: the Donald Thomson collection, which has been on long-term loan to Museums Victoria since 1973. The Melbourne anthropologist's collection is astonishing: Thomson is credited with making the world's most significant ethnographic collection of Aboriginal art and cultural objects, which he started in the 1930s. It comprises work from more than 90 communities in Cape York, Arnhem Land, the Central and Gibson Deserts, and beyond. The room in the Potter Museum that contains many of the Thomson pieces is painted green for the grasslands of their origin, and the precious bark paintings are thrillingly familiar and mysterious. But even in this extraordinary collection, there was something missing. "One of the things I noticed when I started going through the catalogues was that there were no works by women except for the weaving works that Donald Thomson collected," Professor Langton says. "But of course, none of the women are named." The curators specifically commissioned major pieces by contemporary women artists, including the mesmerising five-metre painting, Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country). Betty Muffler and Maringka Burton, respected Aṉangu ngangkari (traditional healers) based at Indulkana in the APY Lands, collaborated on the painting, which focuses on healing the country in the aftermath of British atomic testing at Maralinga and Emu Field during the 1950s. After 10 years' work, the exhibition has left its mark on its curators. "It feels like home," McConville says. "It's the greatest exhibition experience I have had," says Ryan who was senior curator of Indigenous art at the National Gallery of Victoria for more than 40 years. When I tell her that I think it will blow people's minds, she quietly replies, "I hope so." Marcia Langton feels similarly. 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is at the Potter Museum of Art (Naarm/Melbourne) from May 30 to November 23, 2025. Virginia Trioli is presenter of Creative Types and a former co-host of ABC News Breakfast and Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.
