Upfest returned to celebrate its 10th anniversary recently with approximately 350 artists from across the globe leaving their mark on the streets of Bristol. A central theme across the whole weekend was the 100 years which have passed since some women first got the right to vote in the UK. For example, Jody Thomas‘ gold-masked figure takes the meek and victimized Little Red Riding Hood from Victorian fairytales and recasts her as someone who is both eminently capable and confidently self-assured. The festival also saw The London Police bring their […]
More stories below from this week (click on bolded words for more information): Sterling Ruby creates new artworks for concurrent exhibitions in Belgium. San Francisco’s new transit center features public art by Jenny Holzer, Julie Chang, and Ned Kahn. NADA cancels its New York City fair to shift focus to supporting member galleries. Here are all the galleries heading to Art Berlin’s new home in Tempelhof Airport. Sotheby’s disappointing earnings highlight risk of art market’s overreliance on trophy lots. Sotheby’s and Steve Lazarides team up […]
More stories below from this week (click on bolded words for more information): How Leo Castelli changed the art market forever. MoMA PS1’s Klaus Biesenbach, a champion of the Avant-Garde will now lead MOCA Los Angeles. Debate ignites in Los Angeles over MOCA hire. How graffiti artists are fighting back against brands that steal their work. Painting in the age of anxiety. Painting: An (incomplete) survey of the state of the art by Roberta Smith. See the first images of Site Santa Fe’s 2018 ‘Casa […]
Commissioned by the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE), El Mac recently completed a mural at the US-Mexico border entitled Abuelita de Presidio (Desert Rose). The piece was painted on a ten-story high water tank in the remote border community of Presidio, Texas, facing its southern neighbor Ojinaga, Chihuahua. Visible from both countries, the portrait featuring his distinct style was based on a 62-year-old Presidio resident who runs a secondhand shop just a stone’s throw from the International Port of Entry who was originally from Mexico. The Los Angeles-based artist further explains – […]
More stories below from this week (click on bolded words for more information): Jonathan Gold, food critic who celebrated L.A.’s cornucopia, dies at 57. The rapid rise of Millennial collectors will change how art is bought and sold. As attendance plummets, New York dealers are scrambling to secure their future. Why one gallerist says Berlin is no longer hospitable to contemporary art dealers. What does gallery foot traffic really look like at Chelsea’s inaugural Art Walk? Ralph Rugoff’s Venice Biennale will respond to the rise […]
Recently at the in Caniçada Dam in Northern Portugal, Vhils (interviewed) completed a striking new mural chiseled directly into the face of the water barrier. Created through EDP’s program of beautifying Portuguese dams with art and architecture, the new piece utilizing the Lisbon-based artist’s unique mark-making abilities features a “face inspired by the workers who gave their body and soul to the building of the dam, surrounded by a group of children and tree elements.” Take a look at more photos below… Photo credit: EDP & Pedro Santasmarinas […]
Sickboy’s red and yellow temples have been adorning Bristol’s dumpsters since the turn of the millennium. Appearing like flowers blooming in the desert, their byzantine and seductive forms stand in stark contrast to the utilitarian and mundane objects on which they appear. The artist’s studio work has previously seen a broad array of cultural details filtered through a deeply surrealist imagination to create works which at one moment appear comforting and reassuring and at the next moment appear unnerving and unsettling. More recently, the canvases have seen […]
More stories below from this week (click on bolded words for more information): UTA Moves Into a New Ai Weiwei-Designed Space in Beverly Hills. Cheim & Read partner Adam Sheffer to join Pace as vice president. From Frida Kahlo in London to Casanova in Boston, here are 29 museum shows worth seeing this summer. 130,000 unseen photos of Andy Warhol will be made public at The Warhol Foundation. Artist SMASH 137 sues GM for unauthorized use of his Detriot mural for a Cadillac ad. Red […]
Ahead of the 18th edition of Nuart Festival in Stavanger, Norway, our friends from the world-renowned street art platform just announced a new addition to their series of curated Street Art Buses. After Ernest Zacharevic (Lithuania), Add Fuel (Portugal), Martin Whatson (Norway), Hama Woods (Norway) in 2016 (covered), and M-City (Poland) in 2017 (covered), the latest artwork comes courtesy of Belgian stencil artist Jaune. Famous for his miniature, hi-vis wearing workers or “mini dudes” as he likes to call them, the mischievous artist composed an entire meaningful scenario around […]
POW! WOW! Long Beach finished up the public art for 2018 at the end of last month with another series of great murals and installations for fans of art in the Southern California city. Along with an associated group exhibition (covered) at the Long Beach Museum of Art held in partnership with Thinkspace Projects where a few of the works were installed, most of the pieces (including one from Andrew Hem) were scattered throughout the beach city. We will take a focused look at the installations from Spenser Little in a […]
More stories below from this week (click on bolded words for more information): Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell was complicated, driven and a genius. Banksy offers to help save Bristol’s under-threat libraries. Banksy’s Hull bridge mural ‘to be moved‘ ahead of removal of the bridge. The untold history of corporations recruiting artists to inspire their employees. Met Museum sets record with 7.35 million visitors in a year. London’s National Gallery acquires painting by Artemisia Gentileschi for £3.6 million. Furrowed brows win at Christie’s patchy Old Master […]
Visible from May to September 2018, Felice Varini’s latest project is a striking installation at the medieval fortress of Carcassonne in Southern France. Spread on the west front of the city fortifications, 15 yellow circles (composed of temporary thin aluminium strips) all come together perfectly in the field of vision when standing facing one of the gates and is characteristic of the Swiss artist’s geometric perspective-localized paintings. The project from the Paris-based Varini celebrates the 20th anniversary of the inscription of the city on the world heritage […]
