Ukrainian Journalist Mstyslav Chernov Awarded IBC2024 International Honour for Excellence

IBC2024 Awards International Honour for Excellence to Ukrainian Journalist Mstyslav Chernov

IBC today announces that the IBC2024 International Honour for Excellence (IHFE), its most prestigious award, will be conferred on Ukraine’s MSTYSLAV CHERNOV for his work as a video journalist and his groundbreaking film 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL. The award recognises the resolve and skill as filmmaker demonstrated by Chernov in uncovering the unvarnished truth that he and his Associated Press (AP) team witnessed on the ground as they covered the siege of the Ukrainian city by Russian forces in early 2022. The award will be presented at the IBC Innovation Awards ceremony at 18.30 CEST on Sunday, 15 September at the RAI Amsterdam.

A multi-award-winning journalist and President of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPF), Mstyslav Chernov documented the siege in Mariupol as one of the last remaining international media representatives in the city. Video materials from his work became the basis of 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL, Mstyslav Chernov’s first feature film. Produced with the support of AP and the PBS investigative documentary series Frontline, the film offers a harrowing example of the importance of video in fighting back against news disinformation in an era of false reports and deep fakes.

Michael Crimp, IBC’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “People are at the heart of our industry, which exists to support those who want to speak to the world. In honouring Mstyslav Chernov with this year’s IHFE for his work as a war correspondent, video journalist and filmmaker, we are recognising the courage, creativity, skill and determination he has shown in capturing some of the most affecting stories we have seen in the last few years. At a time when it is critical to produce video that reveals the reality of conflicts around the world and challenges the fake news and disinformation being disseminated, Mstyslav and the teams he works with exemplify integrity and the best in our industry.”

Mstyslav Chernov has covered the Russian invasion in Ukraine, conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and Afghanistan during the return of Taliban rule after US withdrawal. In covering the siege of Mariupol, video of the conflict was periodically sent to the AP editorial office from the only place there was still an online connection – under the stairs near the crushed grocery store – but much of the footage Mstyslav Chernov shot could not be sent online and was carried out by the AP team though the humanitarian corridor. 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL draws on Chernov’s daily news dispatches and additional footage he shot to provide a vivid account of civilians caught in the siege and a window into what it’s like to report from a conflict zone.

Mstyslav Chernov and the team of journalists working with him – Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko, and Lori Hinnant – were awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for their courageous reporting from the besieged city. The film itself – written, directed and narrated by Chernov – has received more than 20 awards, including the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, Best Documentary at the British Film and Television Academy (BAFTA) Awards, and the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023.

IBC

www.ibc.org

Loay Ayyoub @ Visa pour l’Image 2024 – Perpignan – Pour The Washington Post : La tragédie de Gaza

Loay Ayyoub / pour The Washington Post 

La tragédie de Gaza 

Visa pour l’Image 2024 – Perpignan

Festival International du Photojournalisme 

31 août - 15 septembre 2024 

Loay Ayyoub pour The Washington Post

Après une frappe israélienne sur une maison

du quartier d’Al-Sabra, dans le centre de la ville,

des blessés sont transportés à l’hôpital Al-Shifa.

Gaza, 11 octobre 2023.

© Loay Ayyoub pour The Washington Post

Loay Ayyoub pour The Washington Post

Des personnes face aux ruines de la tour

résidentielle Al-Aklouk après une frappe

israélienne. Gaza City, 8 octobre 2023.

© Loay Ayyoub pour The Washington Post

Loay Ayyoub pour The Washington Post

Un enfant devant la morgue de l’hôpital Nasser.

Khan Younès, sud de la bande de Gaza,

25 octobre 2023.

© Loay Ayyoub pour The Washington Post

Le 7 octobre 2023, des militants du Hamas traversaient la frontière pour lancer une offensive sans précédent contre Israël, tuant plus de 1200 personnes et prenant près de 250 otages. En réaction, Israël a déclaré la guerre au Hamas et déclenché l’un des conflits les plus dévastateurs du XXIe siècle, causant la mort de plusieurs dizaines de milliers de personnes, provoquant le plus grand déplacement dans la région depuis la création d’Israël en 1948, et faisant sombrer plus de la moitié de la population dans la famine. 

Durant cinq mois, du premier jour de la guerre jusqu’à ce qu’il trouve refuge en Egypte fin février 2024, le photographe Loay Ayyoub a couvert la crise humanitaire à Gaza pour The Washington Post. Dans la ville de Gaza, où ses parents et grands-parents se trouvent encore aujourd’hui, il a commencé à prendre des photos alors qu’Israël détruisait une grande partie de la ville à coups de frappes aériennes. Comme des centaines de milliers de Gazaouis, Loay Ayyoub a été forcé de fuir, d’abord à Khan Younès où il a trouvé refuge avec une dizaine d’autres journalistes et photographes dans la cour de l’hôpital Nasser. Ils y ont partagé des tentes, la nourriture et les précieuses connexions Internet qui leur permettaient d’envoyer leurs images et dépêches au reste du monde. Loay Ayyoub et ses confrères ont passé des semaines à se précipiter vers les sites pilonnés par les frappes aériennes, escaladant des montagnes de débris tandis que les secours cherchaient des survivants et les corps des victimes, dont de nombreux enfants. Ils ont documenté le chaos devant les hôpitaux de Gaza où les pères et mères, les oncles et tantes, les frères et soeurs et d’autres parents portant leurs proches dans les bras venaient chercher de l’aide auprès d’infirmiers et de médecins exténués et à court de ressources.

Alors qu’Israël étendait sa campagne militaire dans tout Gaza, Loay Ayyoub n’a eu d’autre choix que de rejoindre les masses de réfugiés forcés de fuir les combats à Khan Younès, et de se rendre à Rafah où plus de 1,5 million de personnes étaient entassées dans des camps de réfugiés dans une ville de la taille de Perpignan (qui compte seulement 120 000 habitants). Israël a continué de restreindre l’aide apportée à la bande de Gaza, et le Programme alimentaire mondial a estimé que les deux tiers des habitants de Gaza étaient frappés par une « véritable famine » et que des centaines de milliers d’enfants souffraient de malnutrition et de déshydratation.

Lorsque les conditions de sécurité n’ont plus permis à Loay Ayyoub de faire son travail de journaliste, il a pu quitter Gaza et entrer en Égypte fin février 2024. Depuis le 7 octobre 2023, plus de cent journalistes ont été tués à Gaza. Loay Ayyoub a trouvé refuge en Égypte, et si son travail de documentation sur le conflit à Gaza et ses répercussions a pris fin, la situation à Rafah et dans toute la bande de Gaza n’a fait que s’aggraver. 

« Montrer la crise humanitaire à laquelle sont confrontées les populations civiles de Gaza, témoigner de leurs difficultés à accéder aux soins et à la protection était mon objectif au quotidien et mon devoir en tant que photographe. »

Loay Ayyoub

Loay Ayyoub est lauréat du Visa d'Or de la Ville de Perpignan Rémi Ochlik 2024.

Exposition au COUVENT DES MINIMES

Rue François Rabelais, 66000 Perpignan

A voir également au Couvent des Minimes :

Paula Bronstein, Un monde dans la tourmente

Cinzia Canneri, Le corps des femmes comme champs de bataille 

 

Ad Van Denderen, En route 

Miquel Dewever-Plana, Mayotte : Sous le drapeau, le parcours de la deuxième chance 

Jean-Louis Fernandez, Comédie - Française : histoires de théâtres 

Afshin Ismaeli, La vie sous les talibans 2.0 

Brenda Ann Kenneally, Grown Upstate : l’héritage de l’amour à Collar City, 2013-2023 

John Moore, Équateur : conflit armé interne 

Sergey Ponomarev, Cisjordanie 

Ivor Prickett, Guerre sur le Nil : Le Soudan fragmenté 

Fransisco Proner, Minerais de sang 

Anastasia Taylor-Lind, À 5 km du front 

Mugur Varzariu, Des voix s’élèvent derrière le mur 

Alfred Yaghobzadeh, Alfred’s Journey

VISA POUR L'IMAGE 2024

www.visapourlimage.com

#visapourlimage2024

Artist Mary Corse Exhibition @ Pace Gallery, NYC - "Presence in Light"

Mary Corse: Presence in Light

Pace Gallery, New York

September 13 - October 26, 2024 

MARY CORSE

Untitled (White Diamond), 2024

© Mary Corse, courtesy Pace Gallery

Pace presents an exhibition of new work by MARY CORSE, at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York.

This presentation marks Mary Corse’s first solo show in New York City since 2019 and follows several recent institutional exhibitions by the artist at the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai and the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul, as well as her 2018 traveling retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Corse’s upcoming exhibition at Pace will coincide with her participation in Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945–1990—a group exhibition organized as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative—at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California

Over the course of her six-decade career, Mary Corse has explored phenomena of light, space, and perception in sublime and boundary-crossing abstractions across mediums. A key member of the Los Angeles artist community from the 1960s to the present, she is often associated with the Light and Space movement but has always been committed to the possibilities of painting, which remains her primary concern. As part of her empirical and highly tactile approach to art making, Corse has continually investigated the ways in which light can be both subject and material. In the late 1960s, while searching for a way to embed light inside her paintings, Mary Corse experienced an epiphany. Driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu at sunset, she noticed the road markings were progressively illuminated by headlights as she drove along. Investigating the industrial applications that make this effect possible, she discovered glass microspheres—a material used to enhance visibility of road signage. In 1968, Mary Corse began applying these refractive microspheres onto the surfaces of her White Light paintings, endowing these works with a sense of illumination projected from within the picture plane itself.

The body of work that Mary Corse debuts in her presentation at Pace in New York centers on a new series of diamond-shaped paintings, which continue her longstanding practice of incorporating glass microspheres into the painted surface. Mary Corse has experimented with the physical structure of her canvases since her time as a student at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles between 1964 and 1968. Although she created her first diamond-shaped paintings while still in her 20s, this body of work marks the first diamond-shaped canvases she has made since the 1960s. Corse’s return to the format of the diamond underscores one of the hallmarks of her practice: an interest in recursion and return to early ideas. With her new Diamond paintings, the artist delves ever deeper into the fundamental concepts that animated her practice at its outset. She expands the scope of her inquiry into the metaphysical dimensions of her oeuvre through these new iterations of ideas that have long been essential to the work.

The works in the presentation at Pace, all of which have never before been exhibited, include Mary Corse’s Halo Room, a new architectural installation that she has been developing over the last several years. This work, which is installed in the center of the gallery space but can also be placed outdoors, offers a participatory, intimate experience of scale, space, and light. When a viewer enters the room, a single interior light projects their shadow onto a White Light painting. The resulting effect produces a glowing halo around the viewer’s shadow, registering their presence but also incorporating it into the painting itself. The installation hinges on the energetic relationship between individual and object, producing a moment of intersubjective collision that facilitates a spiritual manifestation of bodies within space. Up to two participants are allowed inside the installation at a time, and each viewer is only be able to see their own halo—a phenomenon that speaks to the personal nature of experiencing Mary Corse’s art.

Mary Corse’s Halo Room continues and deepens a long tradition of grappling with questions of presence in post-1960s art. In his 1967 essay “Art and Objecthood,” the critic Michael Fried famously condemned Minimal aesthetics for their perceived “theatricality.” Fried contrasted this with an all-over painting, in which the entire composition could be perceived by the viewer all at once, in a single instant. Fried called this quality “presentness,” and in the essay, he famously declared: “Presentness is grace.” Although not a minimalist, Corse is associated with many of the post- 1960s practices to which Fried was referring, having shown with Dick Bellamy’s Green Gallery in New York in the late 1960s. Her new work is equally concerned with questions of presence and presentness. The Halo Room serves as a counterpoint to Fried’s argument, in which the presence and presentness of the viewer within the work itself—both literally and pictorially—becomes a pure expression of grace, a reflection of the ethos that has animated Corse’s practice for decades: the work of art is, as she puts it, “not on the wall, it’s in your perception.”

MARY CORSE - BIOGRAPHY

Mary Corse (b. 1945, Berkeley, California) investigates materiality, abstraction, and perception through the subtly gestural and precisely geometric paintings that she has made over her sixty-year career. Earning a BFA in 1968 from Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, Mary Corse developed her initial work during the emergence of the Light and Space movement in Southern California. Throughout the 1960s, she experimented with unconventional media and supports, producing shaped canvases, works with plexiglass, and illuminated boxes. In 1968, Mary Corse discovered glass microspheres, an industrial material used in street signs and dividing lines on highways. Combining these tiny refractive beads with acrylic paint, she began to create paintings that appear to radiate light from within and produce shifts in appearance contingent on their surroundings and the viewer’s position. She first developed her White Light paintings, and by the 70s she transitioned to making her Black Light series with black acrylic and microspheres. The Black Earth works followed: large ceramic slabs that she fired in a custom-built kiln and glazed black. After thirty years of working monochromatically, she reintroduced primary colors into her paintings based on her understanding of color as constitutive of white light. Corse’s art emphasizes the abstract nature of human perception, expanding beyond the visual to include subtleties of feeling and awareness.

In 2021, Mary Corse was the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Long Museum, Shanghai which traveled to the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul in 2022. Mary Corse: A Survey in Light, the artist’s first solo museum survey, was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Comprehensive catalogs were published with both surveys. A focused presentation of Mary Corse’s work was on view at Dia: Beacon in New York for four years highlighting historical works from the collection.

Mary Corse was also included in the major presentation Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A., Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970 at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2011. In 2023, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented Light, Space, Surface, in which Corse’s work was exhibited. She was also included in Long Story Short at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2023–2024). In 2024, Corse is participating in Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945–1990—a group exhibition organized as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative—at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California. The artist’s work can be found in the permanent collections of Amorepacfic Museum of Art, Seoul; Dia Art Foundation, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Long Museum, Shanghai; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among other institutions.

PACE GALLERY NEW YORK 

540 West 25th Street, New York City

www.pacegallery.com

Lars-Gunnar Nordström: Centenary @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - A pioneer of Finnish post-war abstract art

Lars-Gunnar Nordström: Centenary

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

August 23 – September 22, 2024 

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lars-Gunnar Nordström (1924–2014), a pioneer of Finnish post-war abstract art. To mark the occasion of the centenary, Galerie Forsblom takes pride in presenting an exhibition spanning many decades of his career. Lars-Gunnar Nordström’s paintings and sculptures celebrate the universal properties of form, color and line, fusing these elements in meticulously planned order and carefully orchestrated harmonies. His compositions are distinctive for their dynamism, precision, and perfect command of color. His visual lexicon has the immaculate equilibrium of a mathematical formula. The mathematical character of his compositions also finds expression in their inherent spatiality, which stands as a distinctive hallmark of Lars-Gunnar Nordström’s highly recognizable Concretist painting style.

Lars-Gunnar Nordström achieved acclaim in the Nordic region not only as an artist but also as an influential art world figure, teacher, and writer. Prior to becoming an artist, Lars-Gunnar Nordström studied furniture design and dreamed of becoming an architect. Even after he became a painter and sculptor, he occasionally designed furniture and stage sets and did graphic designs for print.

The exhibition is a collaboration with the L-G Nordström Foundation.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki 

www.galerieforsblom.com

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello Exhibition @ Pace, London - "Entre El Día Y La Noche"

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Entre El Día Y La Noche

Pace Gallery, London

September 4 — 28, 2024

ALEJANDRO PINEIRO BELLO 

El Misterio de La Noche, 2024 

© Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, courtesy Pace Gallery

Pace presents the first solo exhibition in the UK—and largest to date—of works by Cuban artist ALEJANDRO PINEIRO BELLO.

Titled Entre El Día Y La Noche (Between Day and Night), Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s exhibition features new paintings and works on paper that symbolically and formally explore cyclical journeys through time, and within the self. Alejandro Piñeiro Bello paints the sociocultural mystic splendor of Caribbean culture with a focus on Cuba and the surrounding island nations’ identities and histories. Using traditional materials, such as oil on raw linen or burlap, he creates striking dialogues between the deep beige of the canvas and an iridescent palette of jade greens, oranges, purples, and teals. Chromatic interplay in Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s work fortifies essential compositional structures, which often appear to revolve around an unseen center point. In these images, his fluidly handled paint forms endless landscapes that travel from dreamlike figuration to pure abstraction. Drawing inspiration from dreams and memories, Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s paintings describe fleeting, timeless feeling.

Taking their inspiration from the atmospheric and emotional changes throughout a Cuban night and day, the scale of works in Entre El Día Y La Noche represent some of the artist’s most ambitious to date. El Misterio De La Noche (2024), the largest painting featured in the exhibition, spans over six meters. Here, Piñeiro Bello employs the structural qualities of classical Western art history while upending expectations of the landscape through his alchemical use of color and non-linear storytelling.

Spirals, shells, and whorls abound throughout the works in Entre El Día Y La Noche, reflecting Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s interest in Transcendentalist and Buddhist belief systems. The spiral that dominates three-quarters of the painting La Espiral Luminosa (2024) draws viewers into the artist’s unique painterly vision. Sweeping from deep aquatic shades at its outer edge into increasingly flame-like hues toward its center, it is unclear if this depicts the cross-section of a deep ocean or if Alejandro Piñeiro Bello has lifted the surface of the water to reveal the reflection of a blazing midday sun. Like its dappled sea blues—created with an economical use of bright, light brushstrokes—the painting quivers between its marine depiction and a field of colorful abstraction.

Nature is dominant in Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s worlds. Figures, when they appear, are small, loosely rendered, and nestled within the dynamic landscapes that surround them. Formally echoing the arcs of the waves, wind, and flora that shape the compositions, these bodies appear to emerge from—and of—the very brushstrokes that describe their setting. Citing Antonio Gaudi, Piñeiro Bello reminds us that “there are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature.” This impression of interconnectedness is present in Nacimiento (2023-24), whose central figure materializes from a rose-blushed, lotus-like bowl. Recalling Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c.1484-1486), Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s painting is similarly infused with an environmental vitality that raises the natural world to the status of personhood.

Reflecting the island’s rich intercultural heritage, his practice is equally informed by the fiction, poetry, and music of his birthplace. Just as in the literary genre of lo real maravilloso (the marvelous real), these paintings depict the fantastic through an amplification of perceived reality. Inhered in the layers of Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s compositions lie the metamorphic, expressive juxtapositions of Latin America.

In the lower ground floor gallery, Alejandro Piñeiro Bello displays a selection of his works on paper and sketches alongside books and poems that have inspired his practice. Employing watercolor, gouache, and ink, the artist’s works on paper respond to their medium: the ivory paper background, which Piñeiro Bello keeps partially exposed, lends a backdrop of luminosity to the deliberate pen-marked crosshatching. Included reference texts are the 1943 poem “La isla en peso” by Virgilio Piñera, the 1966 novel Paradiso by José Lezama Lima, and Alejo Carpentier’s 1949 novel El reino de este mundo—the text that introduced lo real maravilloso to the world of literature. Amongst these, Alejandro Piñeiro Bello has placed a childhood photograph of himself, taken in Havana. With this gesture, the artist affirms the awareness of selfhood and origin that saturates his paintings.

Through a practice rooted in identity and memory, ALEJANDRO PINEIRO BELLO (b. 1990, Havana, Cyba) paints the enduring spirit of the Caribbean. Alejandro Piñeiro Bello studied at The National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba (2006–2010), later working as a professor in the Creative Painting department (2010–2011). He was awarded grants from The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, New York and The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York in collaboration with Pioneer Works, New York. Alejandro Piñeiro Bello was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center in 2022, and in 2023, he was selected for the artist-in-residence program at the Rubell Museum. Recent exhibitions of his work include Future Past Perfect: Escaping Paradise, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (2023); En El Arco Del Caribe, KDR305, Miami, Florida (2023–2024), and Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Rubell Museum, Miami, Florida (2023–2204). His work is held in important collections such as The Brownstone Foundation, Paris; Chrysler Museum Collection, Norfolk, Virginia; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Marquez Art Projects, Miami; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California; NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Rubell Museum, Miami; and The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation Collection, New York. Alejandro Piñeiro Bello currently lives and works in Miami, Florida.

PACE GALLERY LONDON

5 Hanover Square, London

www.pacegallery.com

Mexican Prints at the Vanguard @ The Met, NYC

Mexican Prints at the Vanguard 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

September 12, 2024 – January 5, 2025 

Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (Mexican, 1900–1983)

Poster advertising an exhibition of work by young Mexican artists held in the Retiro Park, Madrid (detail), 1929 

Woodcut, letterpress 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 

Gift of Gabriel Fernández Ledesma, 1930 (30.88.1)

Mexican Prints at the Vanguard at The Met Fifth Avenue, Galleries 691–93, explores the rich tradition of printmaking in Mexico—from the 18th century to the mid-20th century—through works drawn mainly from the Museum’s collection. Among the early works presented are those by Mexico’s best-known printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada, whose depictions of skeletons engaged in different activities helped establish a global identity for Mexican art. Following the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), printmaking proved to be the ideal medium for artists wanting to address social and political concerns and voice resistance to the rise of fascism around the world. Artists also turned to printmaking to reproduce Mexican murals from the 1920s and to create exhibition posters, prints for the popular press, and portfolios celebrating Mexican dress and customs. 

Featuring over 130 works, including woodcuts, lithographs, and screen prints, by artists such as Posada, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Elizabeth Catlett, and Leopoldo Méndez, the exhibition explores how prints were central to artistic identity and practice in Mexico and highlights their effectiveness in addressing social and political issues, a role of the graphic arts that continues today. The bulk of The Met’s expansive collection came through the French-born artist Jean Charlot, whose association with the Museum began in the late 1920s. Charlot donated many of his own prints and works by other artists to The Met, and in the mid-1940s acted on behalf of the Museum to acquire prints in Mexico. 

“This remarkable exhibition evokes the continued resonance of the graphic arts in Mexico and illuminates treasures of The Met collection—many of which have never been exhibited before,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “Reflecting a vibrant tradition that is deeply imbued with political and social history, these works exemplify the extraordinary power of print as a medium and the importance of creative expression as response to specific cultural moments.”

Mark McDonald, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints at The Met, said, “As a long-preferred medium for artists to challenge and support social and political issues, printmaking provides a rich visual record of Mexican history. This exhibition activates The Met’s unique ability to explore this visual history through its extensive holdings of Mexican prints in addition to highlighting a key moment in the Museum’s collecting practice.”

Among the exhibition’s featured works are prints that survive in unique impressions and have not been published, offering a singular glimpse into the breadth of printmaking in Mexico. These include a group of posters from the late 1920s that address public health, workers’ rights, and education. The collection demonstrates The Met’s early interest in Mexican art and culture at a time when there was growing international interest in the subject.

Mexican Prints at the Vanguard is presented in six chronologically organized sections across three galleries. It begins with an overview of the history of Mexican printmaking, emphasizing how prints were central to artistic and political expression in Mexico especially during the 20th century, and a description of how a large number of works came to be in The Met collection through the French-born artist Jean Charlot, who spent most of the 1920s in Mexico. 

The exhibition then explores early printmaking in Mexico starting in the mid-18th century, tracking its development through the end of the 19th century and demonstrating the range of purposes for which prints were used. The first prints created in Mexico in the mid-16th century were woodcuts and engravings for book illustration and devotional purposes; this continued until the mid-19th century, when lithography became the principal medium. In the second half of the 19th century, printed political caricature developed as a powerful tool to defend freedom of thought.

A section about artist José Guadalupe Posada and his contemporaries broadens the narrative of the growth of printmaking in the early 20th century and its many visual manifestations. Posada has often been described as the progenitor of printmaking in Mexico, with a career that spanned a period of tremendous social and political change. 

Next, the exhibition focuses on the Mexican Revolution as the defining event of modern Mexico that tremendously impacted society and artistic expression. The Revolution became the focus of social and political struggle that is most prominently reflected through prints, and interpretations of the Revolution continued to be refined and reinterpreted long after it ended. This section looks at the conflict from its origins and as memory, as well as how it became a reference point for social and political activism in Mexico that continues to this day.

In the post-Revolutionary period, prints became the essential medium for promoting artistic, social, and political values. Public art was key to a state-sponsored effort to establish a new cultural identity. Mural painting has received the most attention—mainly because it is an ambitious undertaking and because of the fame of the artists involved, such as Diego Rivera—but an equally remarkable revival of printmaking took place. Prints showcase Mexico’s political, social, and artistic depth. Woodcuts in particular represented new ideologies related to democracy, education, and the avant-garde. 

A section dedicated to the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Workshop of Popular Graphic Art), established in Mexico City in 1937, illuminates the workshop’s development into one of the important printmaking collectives of the 20th century, producing striking posters, flyers, and portfolios that address mainly social and political issues. 

The exhibition concludes with a look at printmaking in the 1940s and beyond, as the preoccupations of the artists associated with the Taller de Gráfica Popular slowly shifted to accommodate middle-class consumption. This section highlights materials including portfolios of limited-edition fine art prints that focus on Mexican dress and customs and children’s book illustrations to evoke the paths along which printmaking developed during the 1940s, often targeting an international market.

Printmaking continues to be widely practiced in Mexico. Inspired by earlier traditions and often referencing revolutionary heroes, symbols, and themes, new communities of artists continue to create remarkable posters and flyers for public display. 

Mexican Prints at the Vanguard is curated by Mark McDonald, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Met.

The Met Fifth Avenue

1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028 

www.metmuseum.org

Joel Shapiro Exhibition @ Pace Gallery, NYC

Joel Shapiro

Pace Gallery, New York

September 13 – October 26, 2024

Portrait of Joel Shapiro, 2024 

Photography by Kyle Knodell

Pace presents an exhibition of new large-scale works by Joel Shapiro at its 510 West 25th Street gallery in New York. The artist’s first solo show with Pace in New York since 2014, this presentation, which is accompanied by a new catalogue from Pace Publishing featuring an essay by poet and scholar Vincent Katz, spotlighting three never-before-exhibited painted wood sculptures. 

One of America's most renowned artists, Joel Shapiro has pushed the boundaries of sculptural form over the course of his 55-year career with a body of work distinguished by its dynamism, complexity, and formal elegance. Over the past two decades, the kinetic, often cantilevered compositions that defined Shapiro’s work throughout the 1980s and 1990s have been torn apart and reassembled into newly rapturous, chromatic combinations. In his upcoming show in New York, Joel Shapiro relinquishes the suspended forms of his 2010 Pace installation—which the late critic Peter Schjeldahl described in The New Yorker as “like a Malevich canvas bursting to life in 3-D”—and returns with renewed vigor to vibrant, precariously joined, free-standing sculptures that, although floor-bound, retain intimations of flight, expansion, and buoyancy. All the works in this exhibition began as studies between 2020 and 2022, and the centerpiece is a multipart sculpture, ARK, which careens across the gallery as it verges on taking off, its brightly colored limbs, volumes, and planks projecting outward as if from a maelstrom.

Since his participation in the landmark Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 1969, JOEL SHAPIRO (b. 1941, New York) has sought to transcend the constraints of minimalism and introduce a more referential and psychologically direct mode of sculpture. Perhaps best known for reshaping the language of contemporary art with cast bronze sculptures that blur the line between abstraction and figuration, Joel Shapiro’s works attest to human resiliency in the face of catastrophe and collapse. The artist has employed various methods and materials throughout his practice and continues to explore sculpture’s ability to alter our sense of space and scale. With more than 30 commissions and public sculptures in Asia, Europe and North America, Joel Shapiro has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions worldwide. His work can be found in important public collections including, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

PACE GALLERY NEW YORK

510 West 25th Street, New York City

www.pacegallery.com

Journées Européennes du Patrimoine 2024 : Les thèmes de la 41e Edition

Cap sur les 41e Journées Européennes du Patrimoine 2024

21 et  22 septembre 2024

Journées Européennes du Patrimoine 2024

© Ministère de la Culture 

European Heritage Days 2024

Routes, Networks, Connections

Le ministère de la Culture organise, sur l’ensemble du territoire, la 41e édition des Journées européennes du patrimoine samedi 21 et dimanche 22 septembre 2024 sur les thèmes du "Patrimoine des itinéraires, des réseaux et des connexions" et du "Patrimoine maritime".

Depuis 1984, les Journées européennes du patrimoine renouvellent chaque année leur promesse: ouvrir à tous les publics plusieurs milliers de bâtiments et d’espaces le plus souvent dérobés aux regards. Pousser des portes habituellement closes, explorer des lieux insolites, investir des coulisses et accéder à des sites d’ordinaire inaccessibles : monuments civils ou religieux, édifices d’art, de spectacle, demeures d’exception, enceintes de pouvoir, bâtiments institutionnels, infrastructures industrielles… Le patrimoine matériel doublé du patrimoine immatériel est des plus éclectiques.

Né en France sous l’appellation de "Journée portes ouvertes dans les monuments historiques", l’événement se déploie aujourd’hui à l’échelle européenne : pour cette 41e  édition, les Journées européennes du patrimoine se dérouleront dans 50 États.

Deux fils conducteurs caractérisent cette édition : le "Patrimoine des itinéraires, des réseaux et des connexions" sur le plan européen et le "Patrimoine maritime" à l’échelon national.

Par son ampleur, le thème européen autorise nombre d’approches. Exploration du patrimoine des transports (gares, aéroports, ports), du patrimoine mobilier (locomotives, avions, voitures, bateaux), de celui des connexions (antennes, paraboles, radars), mise en lumière de pratiques culturelles immatérielles comme la transhumance en sont quelques exemples. Les Journées européennes du patrimoine sont aussi l’opportunité de promouvoir les routes, sentiers et autres voies physiques historiquement empruntées pour des motifs spirituels ou à des fins commerciales. À ce titre, les 47 itinéraires culturels lancés par le Conseil de l’Europe (ICCE) en 1987 seront particulièrement valorisés. Parmi eux, 31 sillonnent la France à l’image des chemins de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, de la route des Vikings, de celle des impressionnismes ou du réseau des grandes villes thermales européennes.

Côté patrimoine maritime, les initiatives permettent d’aborder de multiples facettes : découverte d’installations portuaires, des phares balisant le littoral métropolitain et ultra-marin, de bateaux dont le mythique trois-mâts Belem, de musées maritimes mais aussi de symboles d’architecture balnéaire ou de l’univers de l’archéologie sous-marin. Alors que le domaine maritime français est le deuxième plus vaste au monde, ce thème permettra d’évoquer des pratiques sociales ou culturelles intimement associées aux questions maritimes : des techniques en matière de construction de navires ou d’aquaculture jusqu’aux diverses traditions des fêtes de la mer.

Au carrefour de ces deux thématiques, l’échange, la mobilité et la transmission seront au cœur de ces nouvelles Journées européennes du patrimoine, lesquelles constituent toujours, pour les professionnels du patrimoine, une passerelle unique afin de partager avec le public leurs savoirs et savoir-faire.

Afin de favoriser l’accès du patrimoine aux plus jeunes, le vendredi 20 septembre est plus particulièrement dédié au public scolaire. Avec l’opération ! Levez les yeux ! # en partenariat avec le ministère de l’Education nationale et de la jeunesse, les élèves découvriront le patrimoine de leur région pour en apprendre l’histoire et les particularités et s’éveiller à l’importance de sa protection et de sa valorisation. 

Les Journées européennes du patrimoine sont organisées par le ministère de la Culture et orchestrées au niveau local par les Directions régionales des affaires culturelles (DRAC). Placées sous le patronage du Conseil de l’Europe et de la Commission européenne, elles reçoivent le concours des propriétaires publics et privés de monuments historiques. 

MINISTERE DE LA CULTURE

www.culture.gouv.fr

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart: This is Tomorrow - The 20th / 21st Century Collection: New Presentation

THIS IS TOMORROW

The 20th / 21st Century Collection:

New Presentation 

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

19 July 2024 – 31 December 2025

ULRIKE OTTINGER

Maison clouée du papillon, 1965

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Acquired in 2021 with funds from the

Museumsstiftung Baden-Württemberg

© Ulrike Ottinger

Spreading out in six major rooms devoted to the display of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart collection, the presentation THIS IS TOMORROW features contemporary pieces side by side with prominent examples of twentieth century art. Representing a wide range of mediums, they are works that take a critical look at the body, examine identity issues and social coexistence, explore the relationship between nature and artificial intelligence, process experiences of war and violence, and more. With its abundance of installations, paintings, media artworks, sculptures, and works on paper—more than 100 objects in all—, the new presentation is intended to spark discourse on themes of especial relevance for society today.

Works by such artists as Eleanor Antin, Marcel Duchamp, Katharina Fritsch, Hannah Höch, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeff Koons, Joseph Kosuth, Maria Lassnig, Yoko Ono, and Andy Warhol enter into dialogue with numerous new acquisitions and gifts of the past years, including examples by Nobert Bisky, Burhan Doğançay, Teresa Margolles, Ulrike Ottinger, Cindy Sherman, Hito Steyerl, Haegue Yang, and many others. Works by Clément Cogitore, Simone Leigh, Anys Reimann, Deborah Roberts, and Ben Willikens on loan from the ScharpffStriebich Collection, the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, and the Weishaupt Collection further enhance the selection.

STAATSGALERIE STUTTGART

Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 30, 70173 Stuttgart

www.staatsgalerie.de 

Solid Gold Exhibition @ Brooklyn Museum - Commemorating the Museum’s 200th Anniversary

Solid Gold 

Brooklyn Museum 

November 16, 2024 – July 6, 2025 

Wreath (detail), Greek, 3rd–2nd century B.C.E., Gold

Brooklyn Museum

Gift of George D. Pratt, 26.763 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

Wreath, Greek, 3rd–2nd century B.C.E., Gold

Brooklyn Museum

Gift of George D. Pratt, 26.763 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum Announces Solid Gold, an Expansive Exhibition Exploring Gold through Six Thousand Years of History. Commemorating the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th Anniversary, the exhibition features over 400 gold objects ranging from fashion, jewelry, and luxury objects to painting, sculpture, and film.

As a material and a color, gold has symbolized beauty, honor, joy, ritual, spirituality, success, and wealth for all of human history. The alluring metal has been transformed into myriad forms—from millennia-old depictions of an idealized world to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italian altarpieces, from Japanese screens to haute couture fashions, one-of-a-kind jewelry, and contemporary sculptures.  

Lorenzo Monaco 

Madonna of Humility (detail), ca. 1415–20.

Tempera and tooled gold on panel with engaged frame 

Brooklyn Museum 

Gift of Mary Babbott Ladd, Lydia Babbott Stokes, 

and Frank L. Babbott, Jr. 

in memory of their father Frank L. Babbott, 34.842 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

Mummy Cartonnage of a Woman

1st century C.E.

Linen, gesso, gold leaf, glass, faience 

Brooklyn Museum 

Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 69.35.

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

Organized in eight sections, Solid Gold presents historical objects in visual juxtaposition and “collisions” with contemporary works and fashions, sparking dynamic conversations across time and space. The opening galleries present manifestations of ancient gold, pairing antiquities from the Museum’s collection with iconic twentieth- and twenty-first-century objects. Highlights include a large sarcophagus from Dynasty 22 (945–740 B.C.E.), which will be on display to the public for the first time in over a century. The coffin is decorated with images and inscriptions painted with yellow pigments to imitate gold inlays. An extraordinary “horde” of over 170 gold pieces from the Hellenistic period, along with a selection of ancient jewelry and chain mail that span three millennia of creation across Egypt, the Mediterranean coast, and the pre-Hispanic Americas, illustrate the ancient world’s fascination with the metal.  

Coclé artist 

Plaque with Crocodile Deity, ca. 700–900 

Gold (tumbaga) 

Brooklyn Museum 

Museum Expedition 1931, Museum Collection Fund, 33.448.12 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum 

Ebrié artist 

Snake Pendant, 19th century

Gold 

Brooklyn Museum 

Frank L. Babbott Fund, 54.16 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

Contemporary pieces evoke the allure of ancient Egypt, including the prototype of a fly necklace made for legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor for the film Cleopatra (1963); couture gowns by edgy New York–based fashion house The Blonds, drawn from their Egypt Meets Disco collection (2016); and theatrical gowns from Christian Dior (2004; John Galliano, creative director) that blend elements of Egyptian history and Dior’s then-controversial “H-Line” from 1954. A 1989 dress by Azzedine Alaïa for Tina Turner exemplifies modern applications of draped chain mail. Also on view are modern interpretations of gold chains, such as the “dookie rope” and “Cuban links,” whose popularity in hip-hop culture from the 1980s onward is celebrated in the show.

The exhibition also includes a look at golden smiles. Gold disks and facial jewelry made in ancient Panama around the first millennium are presented alongside modern-day grillz (also known as fronts or golds). For practical and aesthetic reasons, such gold smiles have persisted across time and cultures.

“The Real Gold” explores the origins of gold—unearthed from diverse corners of the globe, from Nubia and South Africa to Colombia, Brazil, and beyond—tells a global story of ecological transformation, environmental impact, and the human repercussions that result from the search for this precious metal. A number of artworks, including William Kentridge’s film Mine (1991), expound on the process and impact of gold mining. Another display features an array of gold coins from the American Numismatic Society and takes a closer look at both the minting process and the role of coins in disseminating propaganda images of important figures long before newspapers and social media. Rounding out this gallery is Zadik Zadikian’s Path to Nine (2024), which juxtaposes the material histories of plastic and gold. Unlike plastic, which retains artifacts of its past when reused, gold can be melted down and re-formed without a trace. Zadikian’s monumental sculpture illuminates the invisible histories of gold with the unerasable pasts of plastic.

In the “Working with Gold” section, the exhibition examines the wide array of techniques used by artists, craftspeople, and fashion designers when working with gold as a material and as decoration. With the invention of gold coinage in ancient Lydia (present-day Turkey) in the sixth century B.C.E., gold became an increasingly democratized material. Access to and use of gold was no longer restricted to royalty or for ritual purposes. Following centuries of alchemical experiments to replicate gold and the discovery of finds like pyrite (or “fool’s gold”), the twentieth century saw technological innovations that introduced new forms of golden sparkle. New materials like laminated Lurex thread and plasticized sequins made it possible to add a twinkle to fabrics at an affordable price.

Genuine gold, however, remains coveted in fine art and haute couture fashion for both its aesthetic impact and monetary value. At Dior, Marc Bohan’s celebrated Aladin ensemble from 1962 was made from a fabric woven with 56% gold on a black ground, amplifying its opulence. Conceptual artist Yves Klein and glass artist Howard Ben Tré utilized traditional gold leaf to explore gold’s luminance in their works. Esteemed jewelers and designers such as Suzanne Belperron, Alexander Calder, Charles Loloma, Art Smith, and Elsa Schiaparelli drew on gold for its malleability, color, and shimmering glimmer that amplifies the gemstones it’s set with. The exhibition also showcases the cultural significance and exquisite craftsmanship displayed in South and Southeast Asian bridal fashion. Works on view include elegant accessories such as a Nepalese dowry necklace, crafted by hammering sheets of gold over a lightweight core, and an Indian bridal veil made of gold-wrapped silk.

Jean Dupas 

Panel from the Grand Salon of the Ocean Liner Normandie, ca. 1934

Glass, paint, silver and gold leaf, canvas backing 

Brooklyn Museum 

Gift of Marilynn and Ivan C. Karp, 85.270 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

Other exhibition highlights are gold fashions and artworks from the 1920s and 1930s, such as the 1934 gold- and silver-leaf panel by designer Jean Dupas from the short-lived ocean liner Normandie. Such pieces are set alongside important Art Deco timepieces by French jeweler Cartier. Another highlight is the Museum’s Lunar Moth baby grand piano, restored and on public view for the first time since its creation in 1928. Designed by famed photographer Edward Steichen, this piano is one of only two known to exist. The remarkable instrument is constructed of mahogany inlaid with gilded bands and mirrored tesserae.

Walter van Beirendonck 

Men’s Collection, Look 6, Spring/Summer 2023 

Photo: Walter van Beirendonck

The 1970s would bring about resplendent moments of gold in fashion and culture. Driven by the opulent designs of Halston, Norman Norell, and Yves Saint Laurent, the disco era celebrated abundant sequins, pavé beading, and rhinestones. Dazzling film clips from A Chorus Line (1985), which saw performers donning gold glitter tuxedos, and The Wiz (1974), featuring the parachute designs of Norma Kamali, epitomize the era. This section culminates with the premiere episode of the 1980 television series Solid Gold, featuring Irene Cara and the Solid Gold dancers bedecked in gilded ensembles delivering a rendition of her signature song “Fame.” Fashions continue into the 1980s and 1990s with couture works by Pierre Cardin and Hubert de Givenchy, “luxury sportswear” from Gianfranco Ferré, and more recent “edgy” designs by Garth Pugh, Walter van Bierendonck, and Demna, artistic director of Balenciaga.

Wreath, Greek, 3rd–2nd century B.C.E., Gold

Brooklyn Museum

Gift of George D. Pratt, 26.763 

Photo: Brooklyn Museum

Rashaad Newsome 

KNOT, 2014 

Single-channel video installation, 

custom artist vinyl wallpaper 

Video (color, sound): 3 min., 45 sec. (continuous loop) 

Brooklyn Museum 

Gift of the artist and De Buck Gallery 

teamLab 

Gold Waves, 2017 

Digital work, 4 channels, 6 channels,

8 channels, and 12 channels, continuous loop 

© teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery

The final section celebrates gold as the universal symbol of achievement: a gold crown, a gold medal, a gold record, an Oscar, or a gold star on a report card. An ancient Greek gold laurel wreath dating to the third to second century B.C.E. (one of only four wholly extant wreaths in the world, and a gem from the Museum’s collection) is displayed alongside modern-day crowns, such as a spectacular gold, platinum, and diamond tiara designed by Fulco di Verdura. Some gold awards are more symbolic, such as the gold-star flags given to the mothers of military personnel who did not return from service, as documented by photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris. Many of the most coveted gold awards today are connected to performance, such as the Grammy Awards and other accolades awarded to Brooklyn-born songwriter Paul Jabara for his anthemic “Last Dance” (1978). Near the end of the exhibition, Rashaad Newsome’s KNOT (2014) is a performance-based video shown within a golden-jeweled environment; all the performers vogue in Christian Louboutin heels and would definitely receive “10s.” To close out the exhibition, visitors will walk upon the gleaming animated gold waves by international art collective teamLab, an immersive digital experience that emphasizes the fact that like the inexhaustible waves of our oceans, gold is truly eternal.

The exhibition is curated by Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture, with Catherine Futter, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, and Lisa Small, Senior Curator, European Art.

“Solid Gold will transport visitors through the many worlds of gold, its joyful, though at times heartbreaking, histories, and its innumerable luminous expressions across cultures past and present.” says Matthew Yokobosky. “As a museum dedicated to bridging art and people in shared experiences, audiences will find inspiration, opening them to unexplored realms of beauty in their world.”

BROOKLYN MUSEUM

200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238

www.brooklynmuseum.org

Curators of The Armory Show 2024: Eugenie Tsai, Robyn Farrell, Lauren Cornell + Previous curators

Curators of The Armory Show 2024

Eugenie Tsai, Robyn Farrell, Lauren Cornell

Javit Center, New York

September 6 - 8, 2024

To commemorate the fair’s 30th Anniversary and celebrate New York’s global leadership in the arts, The Armory Show 2024 brings together three curators practicing in New York. As in previous years Platform, Focus, and the CLS will all benefit from a unified thread, with the 2024 curated sections examining an overarching theme of art-historical reverberations and echoes in the present. 

Curated by Eugenie Tsai, Platform will examine the overarching theme through large-scale installations and site-specific works that explore the interplay of memory, material, and spirit.

Introduced in 2017, Platform has previously been curated by Eric Shiner, Director, Andy Warhol Museum (2017); Jen Mergel, former Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2018); Sally Tallant, Director, Liverpool Biennial (2019); Anne Ellegood, Executive Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2020); and Claudia Schmuckli, Curator-in-Charge of Contemporary Art and Programming, de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2021); and Tobias Ostrander, Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator, Latin American Art at Tate, London (2022.); and Eva Respini, Deputy Director and Director of Curatorial Programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2023). 

Eugenie Tsai 

Curator of the Platform section

Photo by Marco Giugliarelli

EUGENIE TSAI is a curator and writer based in New York. After sixteen years, she recently stepped down from her position as the John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, at the Brooklyn Museum. During those years, she shaped the Contemporary collection, and organized around forty loan and collection exhibitions. Before taking up her position at the Brooklyn Museum, Eugenie Tsai worked at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens as Director of Curatorial Affairs, and at the Whitney Museum in various curatorial roles including Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs. 

Curated by Robyn Farrell, Focus considers the experimental spirit of the fair’s founding in 1994 at The Gramercy Hotel and the namesake International Exhibition of Modern Art in 1913 at New York City's 69th Regiment Armory. Works in this section reflect on these avant-garde histories while probing the radical strategies and poetic interventions of interdisciplinary forms and cultural exchange.

Previous curators of Focus have included Jarrett Gregory, Associate Curator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2017); Gabriel Ritter, Curator, Minneapolis Institute of Art (2018); Lauren Haynes, Curator of Contemporary Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2019); Jamillah James, Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2020); and Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Chief Curator, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2021); and Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago (2022); and Candice Hopkins, Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project (2023). 

Robyn Farrell 

Curator of the Focus section

Photo by Claire Britt

ROBYN FARRELL is Senior Curator at The Kitchen in New York where she organizes and oversees exhibitions, publications, live and online programming. Before The Kitchen, Farrell was an Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she served on the curatorial teams for fifty projects including career surveys with Barbara Kruger (2021) and Gregg Bordowitz (2019). Farrell holds an MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has served as a visiting lecturer moderator for the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Lauren Cornell will chair the seventh annual Curatorial Leadership Summit. The curatorial convening will directly examine conversations in and around art historical reverberations and echoes in the present. A public keynote presentation follows the closed-door session. In addition to the on-site summit, Lauren Cornell will be chairing the Virtual CLS event in the 2024 leading up to the fair.

Previous chairs of the CLS have included Naomi Beckwith, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); Dan Byers, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Director, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University (2019); José Carlos Diaz, Chief Curator, The Andy Warhol Museum (2020); and Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2021), and Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2022); and Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2023). 

Lauren Cornell 

Curatorial Leadership Summit 

Photo by Carrie Schneide

LAUREN CORNELL is Chief Curator at the Hessel Museum and Director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College. At CCS Bard, Cornell has curated multiple monographic exhibitions including surveys of Sky Hopinka, Leidy Churchman, Nil Yalter, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Martine Syms and Dara Birnbaum. Previously, Cornell was the Curator and Associate Director of Technology Initiatives at the New Museum. From 2005–2012, Lauren Cornell served as Executive Director of Rhizome, an organization that commissions, exhibits, and preserves art engaged with technology. She is a coeditor, with Ed Halter, of Mass Effect: Art and the Internet in the Twenty-First Century (New Museum and MIT Press, 2015), and has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs and art magazines. Lauren Cornell is a recipient of ArtTable’s New Leadership Award.

THE ARMORY SHOW

www.thearmoryshow.com

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy @ Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

October 5, 2024 – January 26, 2025

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Martinique, 1970, printed 1972 

Gelatin silver print, 16 5/8 x 20 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2018.206 

André de Dienes

(American, born Hungary, 1913–1985)

Marilyn Monroe, ca. 1949

Gelatin silver print, 30 5/8 x 24 5/8 in.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Adolph D. Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2021.598,

Photograph © Andre De Dienes/MUUS Collection 

László Kondor 

(American, born Hungary, 1940) 

Boys with U.S. Flag, Midway Park, Chicago, 1968, printed 1995 

Gelatin silver print, 13 x 19 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2021.83 

© 2024 Estate of Laszlo Kondor 

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) announces its upcoming exhibition, American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy. The exhibition fills a missing chapter in art history and is slated to be the most comprehensive exhibition to examine the geographical reach and extensive influence that Hungarian American photographers have had on 20th-century photography.

American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy is organized for VMFA and curated by the museum’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. The exhibition, which is co-curated by Károly Kincses, founding director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography, debuted at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.

American, born Hungary features more than 170 works and related ephemera from 33 photographers. “The photography of Americans born in Hungary is an important, but very under-told, story,” Nyerges said. “As one of the country’s top 10 comprehensive art museums, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is positioned, and even called upon, to help lead the way in telling it.”

Hungarian American artists transformed modern photography in the U.S. Some introduced radical, experimental photographic techniques while others brought with them innovative approaches to photojournalism, advertising and fashion photography. Their encounters with different facets of American life further shaped their approaches to the medium, ultimately leading them to contribute in robust ways to modern photography.

The wealth of intellectual and artistic talent that departed Hungary between the end of World War I and the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 is almost unprecedented in size and effect. This historic emigration included legendary symphony conductors George Szell and Eugene Ormandy, composer Béla Bartók, award-winning film directors Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda and world-renowned architects and designers Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, who is also a featured photographer in the exhibition.

Included in American, born Hungary are works by notable photographers such as André Kertész (Kertész Andor), Martin Munkácsi (Mermelstein Márton), Nickolas Muray (Mandl Miklós) and György Kepes, along with less familiar names whose photos are instantly recognizable. Robert Capa (Freidmann Endre Ernö), for example, was a pioneer of modern photojournalism whose photos of Omaha Beach on D-Day are among the most renowned images of World War II.

The exhibition examines Hungarian photographers working during the period of political turmoil in their home country during the early 20th century, before the photographers began their emigration to European capitals such as Paris, where surrealism evolved in the 1930s; Berlin, where modernism flourished; and in Dessau, Germany, where the utopian Bauhaus art school was a haven for the post-World War I avant-garde.

The focus of American, born Hungary, however, is the impact of Hungarian-born artists on photography in the United States, especially in urban centers such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Through stunning images, the exhibition shows the profound impact of this group of photographers who explored their new country with sensitivity, rigor and insight.

Paula Wright (Paula Weisz) 

(American, born Hungary, 1930–2015)

Central Park, New York, Winter Reflections, ca. 1960

Gelatin silver print, 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 1/2 in.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 2020.133

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Lexington Avenue at 44th Street, New York, 1937, printed later

Gelatin silver print, 20 5/8 x 16 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 

Gift of Judy Haselton, 2018.472

André Kertész (Kertész Andor) 

(American, born Hungary, 1894–1985)

Fire Escape, New York, 1949

Gelatin silver print, 24 5/8 x 20 5/8 x 1 1/2 in. 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,

Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2014.174

Highlights include works by tailor and photographer John Albok (Albók János), whose scenes of leisure in Central Park and the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair received critical acclaim; Moholy-Nagy, whose “New Bauhaus” sought to establish the Windy City as a design incubator; André de Dienes, whose portraits of cinema’s icons, including Marilyn Monroe, helped fuel Hollywood’s Golden Age; and photojournalists, such as László Kondor, who documented the Vietnam War and social injustice in America.

Featured Photographers

Photographic works by these artists are featured in the exhibition American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy: Lucien Aigner (Aigner László), John Albok (Albók János), Anna Barna, Ferenc Berko, Cornell Capa (Freidmann Kornell), Robert Capa (Freidmann Endre Ernö), Helene Deutch, Stephen Deutch, André de Dienes, Orshi Drozdik, Arnold Eagle, Jolán Gross-Bettelheim, Francis Haar (Haár Ferenc), Nicholas Ház, Béla Kalman, György Kepes, André Kertész (Kertész Andor), Ylla (Camilla Koffler), László Kondor, Balthazar Korab, György Lőrinczy, László Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi (Mermelstein Márton), Nickolas Muray (Mandl Miklós), Marion Palfi, Sylvia Plachy, Emeri P. Révész-Biró (Révész Imre, Biró Irma), Michael Simon (Simon Mihály, Cornel Somogy, Marcel Sternberger, Max Thorek (Torok Maximilian), László Josef Willinger and Paula Wright (Weisz Paula).

Traveling Exhibition

Organized by VMFA and curated by the museum’s Director and CEO Alex Nyerges, and by founding Director of the Hungarian Museum of Photography Károly Kincses American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy first appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary, from April 5 to August 29, 2024. From Oct. 5, 2024, to Jan. 26, 2025, the exhibition will be on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Following its run at VMFA, the exhibition will travel to the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, where it will be on view from Sept. 26, 2025, to March 1, 2026.

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition catalogue, American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy, is published by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and distributed by Yale University Press. The 360-page catalogue features more than 170 photographic images and includes essays by Alex Nyerges and Karoly Kincses, as well as as an introduction by Robert Gurbo, trustee, Estate of André Kertész and president of The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation. American, born Hungary will be available to purchase in the VMFA Shop and online from Yale University Press.

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