Art

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Petra Mathers, Author Whose Children’s Stories Soared, Dies at 78

      by

      Her winsome animal characters and their comic adventures expressed universal truths and feelings, rendered in a naïve and often surrealistic style.Petra Mathers, a German-born children’s book illustrator and author whose kindly, often bumbling animal characters were nonetheless quietly heroic and often risked much for love, died on Feb. 6 at her home in Astoria, Ore. She was 78.Patty Flynn, her executor, said that Ms. Mathers and her husband, Michael Mathers, a photographer, who was 79, took their own lives. There did not appear to be an obvious health concern that precipitated their act, though they had often told friends that they could not live without each other. They were a private, devoted couple, and the timing of their deaths remains a mystery.With spare, naïve images rendered in ink, pencil and watercolor, Ms. Mathers’s stories — whose subjects included a soulful museum guard (an alligator) who falls in love with the subject in a painting (another alligator) and a warmhearted chicken named Lottie and her best friend, Herbie, a duck — were just as sparely written, but imbued with sly humor and wit, captivating both her 8-and-under audience and their parents.The first book Ms. Mathers wrote, “Maria Theresa,” was the story of a dreamy fowl who has all sorts of adventures.HarperCollins“Here is the story of a chicken who flees the coop,” Carol Brightman wrote in 1985 in a New York Times review of Ms. Mathers’s first book, “Maria Theresa,” the tale of a dreamy fowl who has all sorts of adventures. “You know the type. No ordinary laying hen, this one sometimes stops ‘in mid-peck as if listening to faraway voices.’”Ms. Mathers’ prose and her “flat, old-fashioned cutout Surrealism” combined “an attention to both the commonplace and the arcane which marks the best of children’s literature,” Ms. Brightman wrote. “The book’s final tableau of circus folk (and fowl) dancing the Tango Argentine outside Miss Lola’s Airstream is a triumph of this vision. What else but a hopelessly romantic chicken, one that never forgets to lay the morning egg, could bring us such a show.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      A Mercer Labs Exhibit Uses Braille. Is It Accessible to All?

      by

      Roy Nachum designed the spectacle-filled Mercer Labs, which he touts as inclusive. But some advocates for blind people say his use of Braille can feel exploitative.While he was settling into Manhattan after moving from Israel in 2004, the 24-year-old artist Roy Nachum decided to contend with a second challenge: Inspired by his grandmother who had lost her sight, and in search of new inspiration for his artwork, he blindfolded himself. For the next 168 hours, he felt his way around his apartment in the East Village and used a cane to navigate to and from the nearby grocery store.That experience of being engulfed in the sounds and the chaos of a new city helped inspire the exhibits in his new immersive installation, Mercer Labs. It opened for previews in January at a 36,000-square-foot space in a sleek, Brutalist-style building at 21 Dey Street — the site of the former Century 21 department store.Nachum, whose artwork often incorporates Braille, became renowned for designing the Grammy-nominated cover for Rihanna’s album “Anti,” featuring a photo of Rihanna as a child wearing a gold crown embossed with Braille. He and the real estate developer Michael Cayre founded Mercer Labs with an ambitious mandate: to be a “place where the traditional hierarchies between art, architecture, design, technology and culture are dissolved,” and where “diversity and inclusion are celebrated,” according to a news release. The site is expected to open officially on March 28.One of Roy Nachum’s signature designs is this cover image for Rihanna’s 2016 album, “Anti,” which features a photo of her as a child wearing a gold crown embossed with Braille.The founders advertise Mercer Labs as a “museum of art and technology.” At the moment, it contains 14 exhibition spaces that use high-tech projectors, digital screens, LED lights and sound systems to display Nachum’s perception-teasing creations. Some exhibits feature Braille, tactile displays and immersive sounds intended for blind and low-vision visitors as well as sighted ones. In one of the rooms, attendees with vision can don sleeping masks and listen to a set of immersive sounds, the better to understand Nachum’s experiences from 2004 with touch and navigation. In still another space, guests stroll through a cave covered with pink hydrangeas that can be explored through touch.Nachum’s installations are on view at the moment, but when Mercer Labs officially opens in March, Nachum and Cayre intend for it to become a multipurpose site, with exhibitions by other artists, musicians and even actors; event spaces that can be rented for private use; and displays spotlighting fashion brands as well as up-and-coming New York companies. They would not elaborate on which specific brands or artists they have partnered with, citing nondisclosure agreements.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Chelsea Hotel’s Cast of Characters, Captured by Its Resident Photographer

      by

      Plus: a chef’s guesthouse in Bali, art that explores girlhood — and more recommendations from T Magazine.Step by StepThe Fashion Executive Alison Loehnis Shares Her Beauty RegimenLeft: Alison Loehnis, the President of Yoox Net-a-Porter. Right, clockwise from top left: Jennifer Behr Velvet Bow Barrette, $128, jenniferbehr.com; NARS Laguna Bronzing Powder, $40, narscosmetics.com; Augustinus Bader the Cream, $300, net-a-porter.com; Sisley Paris Black Rose Cream Mask, $200, net-a-porter.com; Macrene Actives High Performance Tinted Moisturizer, $165, net-a-porter.com; Oribe Intense Conditioner for Moisture & Control, $52, oribe.com; Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower Eau de Parfum, $380, net-a-porter.com; and Sisley Paris Nutritive Lip Balm, $100, sisley-paris.com.Left: courtesy of Net-a-Porter. Right: courtesy of the brandsIn the morning I tend to wash my face before I get in the shower. I usually use the Dr. Barbara Sturm Enzyme Cleanser; it’s lightweight so is great for travel and comes in a powder form you mix with water. I’m a longtime user of Biologique Recherche and swear by Lotion P50. On my eyes I use the Tata Harper Elixir Vitae Eye Serum, which is firming and lifting. My moisturizer depends on the season: When it’s cold I’ll use Augustinus Bader the Cream. If it’s humid I’ll use the Light Cream. About a year ago, I discovered this desert island product, which is Natura Bissé Diamond Cocoon Sheer Eye cream — it’s a tinted eye cream that makes you look rested. After the shower, I use the Augustinus Bader Body Lotion. When I need it, I’ll use either Biologique Recherche Masque Vernix, which is a bit rich, or Auteur’s retinol serum. For flights, I always take the Omorovicza Queen of Hungary Evening Mist with me — the flight attendants will usually ask for a spray. Sisley has this Black Rose Cream Mask that’s always in my travel bag, too.For makeup, I love Hourglass Veil Hydrating Skin Tint or Macrene Actives Tinted Moisturizer. If it’s humid, I use the Westman Atelier Vital Pressed Skincare setting powder. It leaves no chalky finish whatsoever. I’m an eye person — I love the Hourglass Voyeur Waterproof Liquid Liner for the top lid and, on the bottom, I’ll use Sisley Phyto-Kohl Perfect pencils. For mascara I use Tom Ford Extreme Mascara. NARS Laguna Bronzing Powder, to me, is just perfect. Sisley also has two products that I’m obsessed with, one is the Nutritive Lip Balm and the other is their Phyto-Lip Twist in nude. At night, I’ll go more pronounced on the eyeliner and apply much more mascara. I might use a Charlotte Tilbury Lip Cheat pencil.Hair-wise, I use Olaplex No. 4P Blonde Enhancer Toning Shampoo. If you have dark hair with highlights, it’s the one thing that counters warmth supersuccessfully. For conditioner, I’ll either use Oribe Intense Conditioner for Moisture & Control or Davines Love Smoothing Conditioner, which is a brand I adore. I use a GHD dryer and a Mason Pearson hairbrush. I also have a Dyson Airwrap that I use just to make sure that I don’t have so much heat on my hair. Oribe has this great product called Imperial Blowout, and I use K18 to repair damage. My style tends to be very pared back, but I absolutely love Jennifer Behr hair accessories — I have her bows in a whole bunch of colors, and I’ll wear one in a low ponytail or a little tortoiseshell clip.I’ve been a Diptyque customer for a long time. The one that I came upon a few years ago and haven’t left is Eucalyptus. You don’t smell it everywhere, and I adore it. I have a really strong sense of smell. My dad worked in the fragrance business and I remember reading about Carnal Flower from Frédéric Malle when it launched, and they described it as this tuberose with a hint of eucalyptus. I bought it without smelling it and I’ve worn it ever since.This interview has been edited and condensed.Stay HereA Guesthouse in Bali With a Seven-Course Tasting MenuLeft: the pool at Shelter Island, a new eight-room guesthouse in Bali from the American chef Will Goldfarb and his wife, Maria. Right: bunk beds in the family room at Shelter Island.Martin WestlakeThe pastry chef Will Goldfarb studied with Ferran Adrià, the chef of El Bulli in Spain, before opening his own restaurant, Room4Dessert, in New York’s NoLIta in the mid-aughts. It was well- known for its eight-course dessert menus (the New Yorker writer Bill Buford described it as “dessert as performance art”). But two years into the project, Goldfarb closed his pioneering restaurant and eventually relocated to the island of Bali. In 2014, he reopened Room4Dessert just outside of Ubud. Its dining experience has always been immersive — during a meal, guests move between the property’s orchard, medicinal herb gardens and a multiroom restaurant with a terrace — but as of this month, visitors can spend the night at Goldfarb’s new eight-room guesthouse, Shelter Island, which he and his wife, Maria, transformed from an abandoned Balinese homestay, upcycling as many materials as they could. Rooms are decorated with locally made paintings, and an umbrella-lined pool is bordered by gardens with fragrant frangipani trees and a traditional shrine. The restaurant, which is next to the guesthouse, serves a seven-course meal preceded by seven snacks — which might include a creamy ricotta-stuffed squash blossom drizzled with a black shallot sauce — and followed by seven petits fours. Once you’ve had your fill of food, there are trails to follow through the nearby rice fields, and cooking, permaculture and ceramics workshops at Goldfarb’s academy. Rooms from $75 a night (including breakfast); room4dessert.com.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Guy Wildenstein, Art Family Patriarch, Found Guilty in Tax Trial

      by

      Mr. Wildenstein hid a prized art collection and other assets from French authorities to avoid paying millions in inheritance taxes, a Paris court ruled.Guy Wildenstein, the international art dealer, was found guilty in France on Tuesday of massive tax fraud, the latest twist after years of legal entanglements that have unraveled the secrecy that once surrounded his powerful family dynasty.Mr. Wildenstein, 78, the Franco-American patriarch of the family and president of Wildenstein & Co. in New York, was sentenced by the Paris Appeals Court to a four-year prison sentence, with half of it suspended, and the other half to be served under house arrest with an electronic bracelet. The court also sentenced him to pay a one million euro fine, or about $1.08 million.He stood accused of hiding significant chunks of his family’s art collection and other assets in a maze of trusts and shell companies when his father, Daniel, died in 2001, and after his brother, Alec, died in 2008.Prosecutors had said that he was trying to dodge hundreds of millions of euros in inheritance taxes. At the trial, which was held in the fall, they had requested a slightly more lenient prison sentence for Mr. Wildenstein, but they had also requested a much larger €250 million fine, or about $270 million.The Wildensteins, a family of French art dealers spanning five generations, were historically secretive about the exact details of their collection, which has included works by Caravaggio, Fragonard and many other blue-chip artists.Prosecutors said that the family was responsible for “the longest and most sophisticated tax fraud” in modern French history, by concealing art and other assets under complex foreign trusts and by shielding artworks worth millions of dollars in tax havens. By doing this, prosecutors said, the family grossly underestimated its enormous wealth when the time came to pay inheritance taxes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      A Painter’s Role? Capturing the Sparkle of a Gemstone

      by

      As one artist wrote: “Luxury is not found in the cold pixels of our phone or computer.”There are myriad words to describe how light enters and reflects in diamonds and gemstones. They glisten and sparkle, twinkle and dazzle. Often they are luminescent, sometimes brilliant and certainly eye-catching.But conveying those sentiments artistically, as in a drawing or painting, requires an entirely different kind of articulation. And as times have changed, so have the techniques used to capture jewelry, as well as the reasons for depicting it.“There is a code to always respect so that the eye can read the volume and the jewelers can understand the design,” Estelle Lagarde, 29, a gouache painter and jewelry designer in the Haute-Savoie region of eastern France, wrote in an email. “The light always comes from the top, at 45 degrees to the left. Thanks to this code, we know where to place the shadows and light.”Ms. Lagarde’s use of that code, which guides artisans turning designers’ ideas into reality, can be seen in her meticulously detailed images of jewelry and watches. She begins each project the same way: making a contour drawing using a software program, “in order to have the exact dimensions of the technical drawing and the contours of the piece.” She then prints the sketch on a sheet of gray paper and fills its curves and spaces using paint pigments and a long, thin hair brush, called a rigger brush, that allows her to paint fine lines and intricate details.She has created artworks for watch brands such as Vacheron Constantin, MB&F and Purnell and for jewelry companies including Messika and her own Lagarde Jewelry. And she always sells her jewelry with its matching painting, and also accepts painting commissions. Currently, a ring called Pop Candy (21,000 euros, or $22,630) is her entry level piece.The Pop Candy ring.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      What’s Hidden in Woodlawn’s Mausoleums? Extraordinary Stained Glass.

      by

      On a sunny Bronx morning late last year, an all-star team of stained-glass experts prepared to enter a dank 1894 tomb at Woodlawn Cemetery that had been opened just once in the past century.The mausoleum at hand held the remains of José Maria Muñoz, a Panamanian-born New York merchant and son of a Spanish general. The scholarly tomb raiders were five energetic stained-glass conservators and art historians conducting an unprecedented survey of some 1,200 stained-glass windows that were installed in free-standing Woodlawn mausoleums from 1878 to the present.The 1894 mausoleum of José Maria Muñoz, a Panamanian-born New York merchant and son of a Spanish general.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWoodlawn sits on 400 rolling acres ornamented with 1,300 such private family mausoleums, including extravagant Gilded Age temples erected for captains of industry, robber barons and the merely very wealthy. These titans of affluence and their spouses often spent lavishly on the adornment of their final resting places — even if the interiors of these grand structures weren’t destined to be seen by more than friends and family.As soon as the team entered the mausoleum, shrieks could be heard bouncing off the interior stone walls. The experts had discovered a variety of stained glass none of them had ever encountered before.On the back wall of the sepulcher, behind the stone sarcophagus that filled most of the clammy chamber, a jeweled blue-glass orb protruded from the flat plane of a stained-glass window — breaking through into the third dimension. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      On Covering the Arts in California

      by

      A conversation with Robin Pogrebin, a Los Angeles-based arts writer for The New York Times.The Frieze Art Fair at Paramount Studios in 2019.Graham Walzer for The New York TimesThough New York is often thought of as the center of the art world, there’s plenty going on in California.The New York Times has been covering California’s ambitious museums, top-notch art schools and adventurous galleries for years. Some of my favorite recent articles discussed how the Los Angeles art scene is eclipsing the Bay Area’s, how old San Francisco theaters are rethinking the size of their seats and how San Diego is finally getting its answer to the Hollywood Bowl.Robin Pogrebin, a longtime arts writer for The Times, moved to Los Angeles from New York last fall to bolster the coverage, reporting on art, architecture, music, theater and cultural institutions in California.Just this week, she published an article on the Resnicks, an L.A. couple who have made big donations to cultural organizations but have come under scrutiny for their water use, and another on the increasing recognition of Asian artists at the Frieze Art Fair, which opens today in Santa Monica.I spoke to Robin about her impressions of the West Coast art scene. Here is our conversation, lightly edited:In such a big state, how do you think about what to focus on?I had always considered the West Coast an important part of our cultural coverage, given that many important museums and galleries are here and that Los Angeles has a long tradition of producing artists. Hollywood also has the potential to feed the theater and dance worlds, and classical music as well as opera have their own vibrant followings here.Now that I’m based here, I’m exploring, discovering, learning and responding to what strikes me as newsworthy or interesting. I am out for lunches and dinners every day with people who can help me understand the cultural ecosystem here, attending events almost every night in many different arts disciplines. I’m keeping track of potential trends worth noting and individual stories worth telling.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      How Does a Day Job Affect an Artist’s Work? This Exhibition Has an Idea

      by

      Plus: an installation in an Indian palace, a farm shop in upstate New York — and more recommendations from T Magazine.Visit ThisSeven Decades of Toshiko Takaezu Ceramics, Together at the Noguchi MuseumLeft: Toshiko Takaezu with closed forms, 1989. Right: Takaezu​’​s “Closed Form​” (2004​).Left: Toshiko Takaezu papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution © Family of Toshiko Takaezu​. Photo: Charlotte Raymond. Right: Private collection, ​courtesy of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum © Family of Toshiko Takaezu. Photo: Nicholas Knight.The Hawaii-born artist Toshiko Takaezu was known for her ceramic works that redefined the genre with their “closed forms,” as she called them — sealed vessels whose hidden interior spaces were meant to activate the imagination. Next month, Takaezu’s life and work will be the focus of a major retrospective at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, Queens. “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within” will present over 150 pieces from private and public collections around the country, co-curated by the art historian Glenn Adamson, the museum curator Kate Wiener and the composer and sound artist Leilehua Lanzilotti. (A 368-page monograph, published in collaboration with Yale University Press, will accompany the exhibition.) Visitors will be able to see a collection that spans seven decades of Takaezu’s career, from her early student work in Hawaii in the 1940s to immersive, monumental ceramic forms she produced in the late 1990s to early 2000s. “Takaezu was also a weaver and painter, and often constructed multimedia installations where her ceramics, textiles and paintings operated together,” says Wiener. To play off this idea, the curators organized the show chronologically, incorporating each of these media into various sections, inspired by Takaezu’s own installations. Sound will also play a role. In her ceramic pieces, Takaezu would often place a dried fragment of clay within her closed form vessels, creating a musical rattle. For this exhibit, Lanzilotti (a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music) has developed a series of videos offering insight into the sonic elements of Takaezu’s work — and visitors can hear those rattles firsthand via an interactive display. From March 20 to July 28; noguchi.org.Browse HereA Chef-Owned Farm Shop Opens in Hudson, N.Y.Located on Warren Street in Hudson, Farm Shoppe carries its own lines of granola and condiments, as well as antique tableware.Courtesy of the Farm ShoppeIn 2015, the chef and cookbook author Emma Hearst and her husband, the chef and farmer John Barker, moved from Manhattan to upstate New York, intent on cultivating the restaurant-quality produce they found difficult to source locally. They founded Forts Ferry Farm, a 100-acre spread in Latham, N.Y., along with Barker’s brother, the artist and photographer Jamie Barker. The farm now grows more than 250 varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers, that go into the prepared foods, honey and condiments that are sold at the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market and online. The next phase in the farm’s development is a physical store, Farm Shoppe, a 50-minute drive south in bustling Hudson. The whimsical space, which opened in early February, has sea foam green walls and handmade wooden treillage. Its shelves are stocked with seasonal produce and flowers, the farm’s popular hot pepper sauces and a tightly edited collection of antique table goods including terrines, serving platters and ceramic pitchers. Later this summer, look out for open-air shopping in the store’s soon-to-be-completed backyard. fortsferryfarm.com.Wander HereIn Jaipur, a Reflective Installation Within the Walls of a Historic Pleasure Palace“Superposition,” an installation by the artist Alicja Kwade, takes over the central courtyard of the Sculpture Park at Madhavendra Palace in Jaipur, India.Courtesy of Alicja Kwade, Saat Saath Foundation and Nature Morte, India. Photo: Jeetin SharmaFrom the jungles of Brazil (Inhotim) to the ranch lands of Montana (Tippet Rise Art Center) and historic estates in France (Château La Coste), art parks are popping up in unexpected places all over the world. In Jaipur, India, the Sculpture Park at the Madhavendra Palace, which opened in 2017, debuted its fourth exhibition at the end of January. Peter Nagy, an American who has run the contemporary gallery Nature Morte in New Delhi for more than two decades, curated the show, bringing together a dozen artists to exhibit their work throughout the apartments of the palace, which itself is set within the 18th-century Nahargarh Fort. In the open air courtyard, the Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade has installed “Superposition,” an arrangement of polished stone spheres, bronze chairs and mirrors. Nagy says Kwade was intrigued by the architecture of the palace, which was completed in 1892 as a pleasure retreat for the Maharajah Sawai Madho Singh II. There is a complex of identical apartments, each meant for one of his multiple wives; wandering through them is like encountering “a maze of architectural doppelgängers,” says Nagy, noting Kwade’s oft-visited themes of reflection and illusion. The Fourth Edition of the Sculpture Park is on view through Dec. 1, instagram.com/thesculptureparkjaipur.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More