The Benin Bronzes of Nigeria, their provenance, and the possibility of restitution have been making headlines of late. Currently scattered across the world, this collection of a thousand plus statues and plaques was stolen in 1897 from the African Kingdom of Benin, modern-day Nigeria, by British troops.
Art News
Fresh off its survey of Faith Ringgold, the New Museum presents a retrospective of another veteran African American painter whose aesthetic DNA courses through subsequent generations of black artists. “Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott” is the artist’s first museum outing since 1989.
Many countries decided to impose very strict regulations on the press in order to limit, or completely prevent, the circulation of negative accounts. Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of War, made sure that the control on correspondents was so watertight that the photojournalist Jimmy Hare reported that “to so much as make a snapshot without official permission in writing means arrest.”
Along with the exhibition, Hendricks’s art and its impact will be further explored through a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue with contributions by artists and creative figures including Derrick Adams, Nick Cave, Awol Erizku, Jeremy O. Harris, Rashid Johnson, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Fahamu Pecou, and Kehinde Wiley.
Medusa, like many other classic Greek myths, has become a cultural icon. She was one of the three Gorgons, meaning creatures who resembled human females save for their heads, from which snakes sprouted instead of hair. The eyes of Gorgons could also turn humans to stone.
Daniel Sprick, an acclaimed master of realism, is arguably the most widely respected artist working in Denver today. Sprick’s representational oil paintings are so impressive that when the Denver Art Museum (DAM) opened its Hamilton Building in 2006, the museum devoted a gallery to Sprick and his artistic process. The DAM left the homage to Sprick still-life installation up for 10 years and gave Sprick a show of portraits, too. In Denver, Gallery 1261 represents the prominent painter and is unveiling a new Sprick landscape, Sanderson Gulch, in the Denver Art Showcase.
Rachel Smythe’s insanely popular webcomic now turned graphic novel (and future Netflix animated series), Lore Olympus, is a recent iteration of this trend – one that combines both the art of storytelling and digital illustration.
Summertime’s gardens have long inspired artists and botanists. Botanical illustration emerged around the time of Plato, more than 2,000 years ago. The medium launched not as a fine art, but as a record-keeping device and a teaching tool. At the time, botany and medicine essentially were one and the same.
The Gordon Parks Foundation is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Nina Chanel Abney. Through her use of vivid color, grand scale, and a combination of representation and abstraction, Abney proposes a new type of history painting.
Sightings of Barbara Kruger’s work in New York City have been somewhat scarce since her last exhibition in 2018 at Mary Boone Gallery (which permanently closed after its namesake owner went to jail for tax evasion), but now, Kruger is back in a big way with concurrent offerings at David Zwirner and MoMA.
