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8 Recovered Artworks from WWII — Sponsored by "The Monuments Men," in Theaters Feb. 7


Fort Worth

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Where the West Rides Again
One of the finest and most focused collections of Western art in America, this Fort Worth Museumfeatures paintings of the 19th Century American West by Frederic RemingtonCharles M. Russelland other artists. The works, reflecting both the art and reality of the American West, are from the collection of the legendary Texas oilman and philanthropist, Sid W. Richardson (1891-1959). Since opening in 1982, the Museum has been one of historic Sundance Square’s top attractions, drawing more than 50,000 visitors a year from all over the world.

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Suzhou Cobblers

New York City Ballet's Art Series With French Street Artist JR

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New York City Ballet's Art Series With French Street Artist JR

If you were wondering why ballet audience members were rolling around the floor of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center last week, they were celebrating the second annual New York City Ballet Art Series.

The Art Series, this year in collaboration with French Street Artist JR, was created in 2013 as a way to help attract young audiences to the ballet, a goal recently published statistics prove it achieved. Reportedly, last year’s “Les Ballets de Faile,” brought in over 3,000 newcomers over two performances. Seventy-five percent of the audience said they would return, and if the hundreds of people interacting with artwork in the lobby before filling nearly every seat in the theater was any indication, they did.

Last year, the art duo known as Failecreated a floor-to-ceiling tower of colorful pop imagery that looked like a skyscraper of comic books, inspired by the artist’s signature style and exploration of the ballet’s archives. In the Faile tower, we saw images of ballerinas being taken away by octopi on space ships, vintage advertisements, growling wolf-men, and pin-up style ladies clutching guns and lounging on rocket ships. Following suit, the performances involved jazz music, an 80’s electronic composition, discordant piano sounds, and even a piece that incorporated the sound of a door slamming shut.

This year, the artist JR created an enormous vinyl piece installed on the floor of the lobby of the theater. Upon entry, viewers were encouraged to head to the fourth rung of the lobby and to look down. From there, what is less visible from ground level becomes clear. A glossy photo of a giant paper eyeball looks up at you, with lifesize images of 80 dancers lying on the floor in beautiful stretched out poses, full of movement captured in time. Additionally, ink transfers on wood of close ups of individual dancers, their feet, and their costumes stand around the theater.

When looking at the series this year in comparison to last, it became very apparent that this is not a case of the establishment slapping the name of a popular artist on its program and hoping people will attend. The dances that follow, as they did last year, mirror the themes of elegance, interaction, collaboration, and natural beauty and appreciation for the body. In “Kammermusik No. 2,” for example, we see a dance performed by an ensemble of eight men and two women — a rare and unusual ballet ensemble according to an introduction by one of the dancers before the performance. While the men dance to the music of the orchestra, the women soloists dance to the piano, and evoke the thrill of the chase. The men band together and make dramatic gestures and formations as if on the playground beckoning red rover to come on over. The women tease the stage, sometimes finding themselves caught up in the arms of their male pursuant, other times performing their own dances center stage with the men in the background.

The second dance, “After the Rain,” was by far the most traditionally beautiful. The stage was bathed in a peach light, and the dancers’ costumes appeared almost invisible, emphasizing their natural movements. The pas de deux, or dance between a man and a woman often with identical steps, was set to Arvo Pårt’s “Spiegel im Spiegal.” The haunting and melodic piece lends itself to the beauty that is this couple’s dance. When he spun left, she spun right to meet him. If he leaned back tall, she collapsed into his trusting body. When his body lay on the floor, hers became his blanket. At times it seemed like they were one entity, her feet hardly ever touching the ground.

In another pas de deux called “The Infernal Machine,” we are entertained by a dance that illustrates the exact opposite emotions and movement of “After the Rain.” The set is black, along with the dancers costumes. The music is heavy, with fast and staccato percussion, and crescendos in a way that could only be described as suspenseful. The two dance mechanically and in a combative manner, as if cogs in this sinister machine. They often end up in a pose that resembles a scorpion or spider’s stance. The two work both collaboratively and against each other, and showcasing the beauty of the body in combat.

The last performance was certainly the most eye catching and energetic. “Rubies,” set to a score of the same name by composer Igor Stravinsky, is a dance of great sassiness, flirtation, and athletic fetes. Female solo dancers smile, sway, and dip their hips in coquettish manner as the corps de ballet move together to showcase them. “Rubies” is one part of George Balanchine’s series “Jewels.” The dancers are clad in red sparkly costumes, which match the set behind them — just as the green and white sets and costumes in “Emeralds” and “Diamonds,” the other dances in the series that were not on view that night. While this dance definitely ended the night of performances with a spectacle, it felt contrived, as if to say, this “new” audience would not understand a ballet without being entertained by shiny costumes and impressive acrobatic movements. While it’s appreciated that the NYC Ballet is attempting to make their work more accessible to contemporary audiences, it was a bit presumptuous to put dancers in flashy red body suits with a sequined red set to woo us.

JR is known for putting personalities on display in his work. Whether it be through his “Inside Out” project, where he and his team take photos from people who have “something to say” and mail them back posters, or his “Face 2 Face” project, comprised of images of Israeli and Palestinian people in his signature large scale black and white photographs placed next to each other on walls in both cities, JR is always giving a voice to the unrecognized. With his piece for the ballet, he finds success in this again, giving seemingly inaccessible dancers a chance to interact with audiences and express their personalities up close.

The New York City Ballet Art Series will have additional performances of different dances on Friday February 7, and Thursday February 13. The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center will also hold one week of open hours for the general public to view the exhibition free of charge on the following dates: Sunday, February 2 through Sunday, February 9, with hours on Sundays from 10 AM to 1 PM; Monday to Friday from 10 AM to 5 PM; and Saturday from 10 AM to noon.

 

The New York City Ballet's collaboration with French artist JR.

A Story Grows in Brooklyn: Kambui Olujimi's "A Life in Pictures"

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A Story Grows in Brooklyn: Kambui Olujimi's "A Life in Pictures"

“It starts with biography.”
Kambui Olujimi is sitting in a front-row pew of an otherwise empty church in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, across the street from the house where he was born and raised. Currently between studios, he thought this would be an appropriate location to show me some new pieces: “Most of the work comes from a world outside of the art market,” he says. “I grew up on this block. I thought it was fitting to have studio visits around where the work comes from.”

Olujimi has neatly arranged a selection of around 200 photos—primarily 4-by-6-inch prints of the kind one has developed at a drugstore photo lab—in stacks on
a small table. This represents a sampling of the evolving collection that recently went on view at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center as part of his installation A Life in Pictures. The premise of the project, previously staged in 2012 at New York’s Apexart, is this: Olujimi brings 1,200 photos from his own life to the gallery, which has been converted into a sort of homey communal space (at Apexart, he built shelves, wallpapered the room, and added tables decorated with printed tablecloths). Visitors are asked to bring a photo of their own, which they then trade for one of his. “As it moves, there’s a kind of genetic or biographical splicing that happens,” he explains. In the end, “some of them are my photos, some of them aren’t. The authorship is blurred, which is interesting to me.”

What begins as Olujimi’s own life in pictures, so to speak, gives way to any number of new stories, the exchange of which is fostered by the installation’s setup. As we thumb through photos—a plaza in Cuba, a close-up of a very broken toenail, innumerable pet portraits—he plays archival interviews culled from the project’s Apexart staging, which he describes with a list of ad-hoc titles: “Dead birds, Carlos tattoos, polish beach, rich people table”; he’s as amused by the irreverence of what he’s collected as he is genuinely curious about how these photos came to be.

Many of Olujimi’s projects seem to begin with stories, though their grounding in personal or political histories is almost always swiftly upended by his interest in their intersection with myth and magic— “exposing incongruities and spaces where third things happen,” he says. He tells
me about blackouts and riots in 1977 on nearby Broadway and the Larry Davis manhunt in 1986, both referenced in his collage series The Clouds Are After Me (2007–09); the dance-a-thons of the 1920s and ’30s, which he builds on in various iterations of his performance Finding and Forgetting (2011–12); the numerology-driven dream books with titles like Blackjack, Lady Luck, and Lucky 7 that are sold in Brooklyn corner stores, of which he created his own version in 2007. His two-channel video installation We Became Statues, 2013, revisits the Willowbrook State School—an over-crowded New York institution for disabled children that was the scene of scandal after whistle-blowing visits from Robert F. Kennedy and Geraldo Rivera in 1965 and ’72, respectively—through a juxtaposition of images of the city and the now-closed school, a mix of abstract and figurative, contemporary and historical, narrated by his “guardian angel,” Catherine Arline, a city employee who worked at the institution. School chairs are stacked in towering clusters in front of the projected videos, disrupting the images. Emphasizing site, a recurring method in Olujimi’s practice, the piece causes viewers to negotiate the space of the room and their own presence in it. And, he adds, in the installation “the image is like a sunset happening behind the shadow. You start to see it as an object.” The abstraction deployed here as
a formal tool mirrors the process of human abstraction that Arline describes in her retelling of her time at Willowbrook.

Something emerges as well from the tension between historical and contemporary in the overall narrative Olujimi
has woven. “We live in this mud-muck of time, where I’m sitting in a chair that’s
a hundred years old, with somebody I
just met today, with things that I’m going to make in the future,” he says of our encounter. “I want to collapse time. I want there to be a simultaneity of time in the things that I make.”

Most recently, he has taken an interest in the notion of self-immolation, looking to the Arab Spring and 13th-century monks’ affirmations, as well as an incident during the recent government shutdown in which a man lit himself on fire on the National Mall. “In the few photos taken, he looks like an African-American man, which
is so counterintuitive in some respects,” he explains. “Traditionally, that sacrifice is predicated on a valuing, and historically, there has been a devaluing of African-American bodies, and therefore you don’t have those kinds of sacrificial gestures.” New works in progress exploring this
idea include figurative ink drawings that show torsos turning to plumes of smoke or the near absence of a body dissolving into blackness; smaller sculptural experiments take the form of charred photographs, faces carved out by flame—the so-called third space, perhaps the ideas that fill
in the absence of a body: “Right now I’m interested in this idea of transforming a body into just energy. What is that space? What’s this sort of place of sacrificing?”


A Polaroid traded by Stan Shallabarger for Olujimi’s rainbow snapshot
at "A Life in Pictures," Apexart, May 2012.

Taking its place within “a tradition,
a legacy, an economy, that’s outside of the art market,” Olujimi’s work possesses a warmth, even an empathy, for the viewer. The open invitation to become a part
of his Life in Pictures extends outward, offering, in varied forms, a nuanced worldview that’s dense with stories.

 

Installation view of "We Became Statues" (2013)

Marcel Wanders: Pinned Up at the Stedelijk

DIA Fund Gets Additional $40M, Cleveland Museum Denies Fakes Claim, and More

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DIA Fund Gets Additional $40M, Cleveland Museum Denies Fakes Claim, and More

— DIA Fund Gets $40M More: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has promised an additional $40 million to the growing fund that would protect the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection as well the city’s retirees. Just last week Governor Rick Snyder pledged $350 million in state funds bringing the grand total to $720 million. “I think this is [an] incredibly generous gift on the part of the Kellogg Foundation,” said DIA’s chief operating officer, Annmarie Erickson. “We are continuing to negotiate and we feel very optimistic about the direction the negotiations are taking.” [Detroit News]

— Good News and Bad News in Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum has denied a claim that there are eight fakes in the museum’s unfortunately titled upcoming show “Van Gogh: Repetitions.” In a recently published eBook, writers Benoit Landais and Hanspeter Born assert that the paintings in question are actually the work of Claude-Emile Schuffenecker, a contemporary who ran in Van Gogh’s circle. But the good news is that the museum’s recent $350 million renovation cost $30 million less than expected. [ClevelandCleveland]

— Gurlitt Task Force Complete: Thirteen more art history, provenance, and restitution experts have been appointed to the group assigned with investigating the Cornelius Gurlitt trove, completing the assemblage of the task force. The appointees will first tackle the ownership histories of 590 works before moving on to the 380 pieces that are thought to have been taken by the Nazis. “I am grateful for the broad-based, international support for our work,” Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, a former deputy culture minister, said in a statement. “Having nationally and internationally recognized experts on the task force will guarantee that our work is objective and of high quality.” [NYT]

— Gates Taps Golden for Performance: Studio Museum director Thelma Golden will critique 12 local artist’s portfolios for one day on February 9 as part of a Theaster Gates performance at the museum. [DNAinfo]

— Queens Museum Gives Nod to Spacey: The Museum of Moving Image in Queens will honor actor Kevin Spacey for its 28th annual Salute in April. [Reuters]

— “Super Pope” Street Art: The Vatican tweeted a photo of a Pope Francis-themed “Super Pope” street art piece that turned up in Rome. [HuffPo]

— Sotheby’s is predicting that the value of red paintings is going to increase dramatically, because the color is considered lucky in China. [Telegraph]

— Jerry Saltz penned a cute piece about his standing Friday night date with Roberta Smith at the Met Museum. [NY Mag]

— Hayward Gallery director Ralph Ruggoff has been tapped to curate the 2015 Biennale de Lyon. [Art Forum]

ALSO ON ARTINFO

A Story Grows in Brooklyn: Kambui Olujimi’s “A Life in Pictures”

Last Chance: Rob Wynne at Locks Gallery in Philadelphia

VIDEO: Christie’s Hopes to Fetch $75M with Old Masters Week

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Koons Balloon Bunny Hops Up in Manhattan

Check our blog IN THE AIR for breaking news throughout the day.

Detroit Institute for the Arts

The Eggs You'll Be Hunting For in the Fabergé Big Egg Hunt


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Fabergé’s Artsy Eggstravaganza

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Who doesn’t love a good egg hunt — especially when it is presented by jeweled egg maker Fabergé?

Not that they’ll be hard to find. Come April 1, more than 250 egg sculptures — each one uniquely designed by a designer, artist or architect, constructed of fiberglass, and standing 30 inches tall and 22 inches wide — will be placed around New York’s five boroughs for the finding. 

Among those already commissioned are artists like Enoch Perez— whose sketch of a half-open egg sculpture resembles a champagne fountain — and Curtis Kulig, ceramicist Emma Clegg— who translated her signature porcelain floral designs onto her gorgeous egg — and architect Zaha Hadid.

Meanwhile, representing the fashion community so far are designers such as Marchesa— proffering a silver floral motif named ‘The Rose Palace’, after the Paris residence of the brand’s muse, Marchesa Luisa Casati, Carolina Herrera, Cynthia Rowley, DKNY, Diane von Furstenberg, Olivier Theyskens, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.

Jessica Lowe, creative director of The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt, told Blouin Artinfo that bringing the broadest range of creative talent to the initiative was paramount. “A key priority in our curation is diversity. We invite artists from across the spectrum to submit a design, and we work with those that are the most original in their thinking,” she said.

It was philanthropist Mark Shand who hatched the idea for the inaugural egg hunt in London in 2012, as a fund-raising campaign for his charity Elephant Family, which raises funds for the conservation of the Asian elephant’s environment, as well as Action for Children, which supports neglected children. Fabergé signed on for sponsorship of the initiative, which over the course of 40 days raised more than $1.5 million for the charities, as well as broke two Guinness World Records: most entrants in an egg hunt competition (12,773 participants in total) and most expensive chocolate egg.

This year, egg hunters each stand to win an original Fabergé egg. Select eggs sculptures will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s following the event’s conclusion on April 26. Proceeds will once again benefit Elephant Family, as well as Studio in a School, a New York-based charity that brings professional artists into schools and community organizations.

“Philanthropy is at the heart of the ethos of Fabergé. Our aim to nurture creative talent and support innovative projects,” said the brand’s creative and managing director, Katharina Flohr.

A number of completed eggs were unveiled during a private event in New York on January 28, including those by Bellerby Globes, Jane Morgan, Nathalie Priem, Trystan Bates, Frank Hyder, Eric Cahan, Franck, Paul Wirhun, Jason Woodside as well as artist Shantell Martin, who created her egg live throughout the evening.

To preview some of these egg-cellent designs, click on the slideshow.

Fabergé’s Artsy Eggstravaganza
Faberge Egg Hunt

Mexico City’s Material Art Fair Takes Its Cue From NADA

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Mexico City’s Material Art Fair Takes Its Cue From NADA

Some may say that what the world needs now is not another art fair. But with Mexico’s premiere fair, Zona Maco, roaring into Mexico City next week, two young gallerists from the country’s capital decided that the fecund art town needed a new fair experience. Thus Material Art Fair was born. Taking place from February 6 through 9, Materials arose from Brett Schultz and Daniela Elbahara, who lead Yuatepec gallery in the San Rafael neighborhood in Districto Federal, after years of participating in the emerging market art fair landscape. It’s no secret by now that Mexico City is a hotbed of native and international artistic talent, so ARTINFO sat down with the duo to talk about the nitty gritty of this new effort and the scene in general.

How did you decide to start this fair? What was the idea behind it?

Brett Schultz: We felt for a long time that Mexico City could use another fair. Zona Maco has been running now for a while — this will be the 11th edition coming up in February. It’s a huge fair with over 100 galleries participating every year, but it’s never really had any satellite fairs. And we felt like we wanted to see a different profile of galleries coming to Mexico City — we wanted to start a new, smaller fair with a focus on emerging practices that are accessibly priced but with a high bar of quality.

For the sake of comparison, could one say it’s like NADA?

BS: Yeah, it’s kind of our influence. The benchmarks we have are NADA in Miami, Texas Contemporary in Houston, Sunday in London, fairs such as those.

And how did you both come to this project?

Daniela Elbahara: Well, Brett and I met in New York when we were studying for our master’s degrees. We came back here to Mexico City and we started Yautepec Gallery, which has been around for six years. All along we’ve been business partners and we decided after doing all these global fairs that it was time to make this one. But it started like, “Why don’t we have our own fair that addresses our needs as a young gallery?” And then we started talking about names and then we started thinking where it should be and then we said: “Let’s do it!”

When did you start organizing it? 

DE: A year and half ago.

BS: That would be generous to say. Really, we were looking for a venue for awhile. And we butt up on a lot of things until we found a venue but now we got the perfect space: the Hilton Mexico City Reforma, right next to the center of the city by Parque Alemeda.

How many galleries did you want to have?

BS: It’s going to be a smaller fair. The idea is that we really wanted it to be manageably sized, so people don’t feel lost or overwhelmed. We want an open space in the layout. So we targeted the number to be, say, between 30 and 40 galleries, and it’s going to be a mix of sellers, project spaces, commercial galleries — some super-new, others more established. The idea is that each is bringing new proposals.

What is its international scope like?

BS: It’s going to be more international than Mexican, because it was an important point for us not to compete with Zona Maco. And you know, we are friends with other gallerists participating in Maco and we did not want to create that tension. Our focus for Mexican galleries will be on the best national project spaces nationally, and a lot of what you’re going to see are young, great international galleries from the United States and Europe. 

Are there going to be curated sections as well?

BS: You could say the entire fair is curated because our selection committee is advised by the curators. It’s Michel Blancsube from the Fundación Jumex Collection, Guillermo Santamarina, who is the chief curator at Carrilo Gil Art Museum, Dorothée Dupuis, an independent curator from France who is living in Mexico City, and Paola Santoscoy, who is the director of El Eco Experimental and SITAC XI.

How would you describe the emerging scene in Mexico City right now?

BS: In the last two years, you’ve seen a huge rise in the number of apartment galleries popping up — in the last six months, four or five new spaces have opened up. I feel like a lot more young foreigners are coming to Mexico City and bringing these ideas in public galleries and form more casual and informal project spaces with them. And it has been exciting to see that happening because you also see them develop here and the Mexicans getting really into these ideas too and starting spaces. Spaces like No Space, which is run by two artists, and LuLu, run by Chris Sharp, the critic/curator, signal a very international and project-based scene in Mexico City right now.

Do you think the Mexico City scene is a more commercial scene or more creative?

BS: I think there is a market for it. It’s more open with material. Really we’ve seen, as a gallery that represents artists, the local market has grown here a lot in the six years of its existence. People are more willing to take chances. The rise of the project space is indicative of a growing number of serious young artists who want places to exhibit. I think that it’s a good sign and usually the market follows.

What is the sort of price point or what is the price range that you think things will sell for?

BS: I would say we have works from $1000 up.

DE: Like $50,000 at the most. Maybe $20,000. I think a lot of $5,000 to $12,000. So it is still affordable, like our gallery. Many of these galleries have never come to Mexico. That’s really important because sometimes not everyone gets to travel to these places where these galleries are. For example, not too many people go to Berlin, just art people go to Berlin. Or there are two galleries from Milwaukee… like when are you going to Milwaukee? So for them to come here is also very important for culture in general.

Installation view of "Splash, Can And Cock: Jakup Auce & Carl Palm"

Champagne Gift Boxes for Valentine's Day 2014

When In New Delhi: Where to Eat, Shop, and Stay

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The India Art Fair 2014 is round the corner, and it’s time when scores will descend on Delhi. It’s a city that’s an amalgamation of sounds, smells and sights. BLOUIN ARTINFO has put together a curated guide of things do in the Capital; from eating at a canteen to going on a special walk, from the city's best hotels, to find a fashion bargain. It's all here. 

Bon voyage!

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Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan
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The Lodhi

The Aman New Delhi may have changed its name and management last February, but its maharaja-level service and sublime sub-continental interiors — lattice, sandstone, and rich fabrics, besides colorful artworks from Apparao Galleries in Chennai — remain. After a day in the bustle of India Art Fair, the dramatically lit pool is a lovely respite, as are the private plunge pools in each of the 40 rooms and suites.

Lodhi Road
+91 11 4363 3333
thelodhi.com

The Imperial

The scent of lemongrass lingers in this old-guard hotel that has been in Sardar Bahadur Ranjit Singh’s family since it opened in 1936. Mixing Victorian and colonial architecture in marble and dark woods with a dash of Art Deco, the 235 rooms and suites exude stately heritage, as does the vast museum-quality art collection: bucolic landscapes and life-size oil paintings of Indian princes, military awards, and historical artifacts.

Janpath
+ 91 11 2334 1234
theimperialindia.com

Bloomrooms

Paring back lodging to its essentials — a plush custom-built bed, Grohe rain shower, and free WiFi — this fun, budget-conscious property draws young urban professionals to its no-frills, yellow-and-white rooms, from compact singles to queens and triples with bunk beds. There’s a lobby branch of popular Italian eatery Amici, in case you’re feeling peckish, and South Delhi’s hub of bars and restaurants just outside the door.

7 Link Road, Jangpura Extension

+91 11 4122 5666

bloomroomshotel.com

 
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Courtesy The Imperial India on Flickr
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Lobby at the Imperial Hotel
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Giant naan at Bukhara/Image courtesy Plus Good on Flickr
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Bukhara

Chef J.P. Singh is a master of the twin arts
of marinating meats
and slow cooking using the tandoor clay oven. The Dal Bukhara (black lentils stewed with spices for upto 24 hours) and Sikandari Raan (cinnamon and cumin–marinated leg of spring lamb) are nothing short of an indulgence, served family style to guests seated on camel-hair stools. Keep your eyes peeled for royalty and heads of state; Bill Clinton famously calls their dal his favorite.

ITC Maurya, Diplomatic Enclave, Sardar Patel Marg, Chanakyapuri

+91 11 2611 2233
itchotels.in

Chez Nini

A requisite stop for local chefs and visiting epicures, French Canadian–Indian chef Nira Singh’s two-floor brasserie turns out star dishes that prioritize local organic produce such as sous-vide pork belly and duck burgers. Singh’s aesthetic flourishes are evident on the plate — daubed with colorful purees — and in the decor, with the charcoal-on-paper Heads” by Julien Segard and photographs by Madan Mahatta softly lit by a glowing tree sculpture overhead.

79 & 80 Mehar Chand Market, Fourth Avenue Road, Lodhi Colony
+91 11 4905 0665
facebook.com/chezninibrasserie

Andhra Bhavan Canteen

The sheer volume of salivating souls eating cheap, but fantastic fare at this ever-busy state-run canteen makes for an exciting experiment in culinary democracy. Two dollars gets you superlative thali and the so-called son-in-law treatment, with waiters replenishing your spicy sabjis until you cannot eat another morsel. Meat eaters can add a helping of curry prawns and mutton fry or, during Sunday lunch, Hyderabadi chicken biryani.

1 Ashoka Road
+91 11 2338 7499

aponline.gov.in

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Image courtesy Plus Good on Flickr
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Giant naan at Bukhara
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Old Delhi cloth market/Courtesy Alan Morgan on Flickr
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1100 Walks

Run by designer and curator Himanshu Verma, 1100 Walks offers a range of expertly conceived and customizable high-end tours, such as the Chandni Chowk Night Walk (a must-do) and the Sufi Basant Walk to Nizammudin Dargah, bringing one of the world’s most historic living cities to life through its buzzing streets and legendary bazaars — not to mention food and shopping.

+91 11 4167 1100

1100walks.com

Vintage Photographs at MoonRiver

“Subjects & Spaces, Women in Indian Photography,” which is showing at design concept store MoonRiver through February 5, is a rare exhibition that unearths vintage portraits from the 1850s to the 1950s from Tasveer’s illustrious photography archives. “These various photographic mediums take us on a journey from colonial studies of Indian women in the 19th century, to private studio portraits from the early 20th century, and then to iconic and glamorous photographs of Bollywood actresses from the 1940s to the ’50s,” says the concept note.

D-16 Defence Colony

+91 11 4161 7103

moonriverstore.com 

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Courtesy Alan Morgan on Flickr
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Old Delhi cloth market
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Bangle seller at Sarojini Nagar Market/Courtesy Eileen Delhi on Flickr
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Mehar Chand Market

Skip the expat-centric Khan Market for its second cousin down the road, where more than 30 independent boutiques have set up shop, offering everything from design tomes (CMYK Bookstore) to bespoke luggage and leather goods (Nappa Dori), handcrafted ballet flats (Taramay), and boldly printed women’s wear (Masaba Gupta, one of India’s most vibrant young designers). There’s no lack of pretty cafés for a restorative bite, but Chez Nini’s duck burger and Elma Brasserie’s generously frosted red velvet cake are standouts.

Lodhi Colony

facebook.com/MeharChandMarket

Crescent At The Qutub
A one-stop shop for
top Indian fashion, with nary a hint of Muzak or children running amok. Delhi’s toniest mall offers a bevy of upscale designers — from Tarun Tahiliani to Ritu Kumar, plus up-and-comers
like Jenjum Gadi, known for his monochrome embroidered dresses — often with in-house teams ready to customize the fit of a new
piece or toss in a
blouse to go with your sari. Another bonus: The historic Qutub Minar monument is
a stone’s throw away.
 

Lado Sarai

Sarojini Nagar Market           

Steel yourself for India’s version of the factory outlet — hundreds of open-air stalls selling piles of “export surplus,” extra or damaged stock from Delhi’s sewing houses — and you just may find the perfect Oscar de la Renta frock or Monsoon tunic lurking amid all manner of mass labels. Carry a big bag for your haul and don’t be afraid to bargain.

Block H, Sarojini Nagar

Credit: 
Courtesy Eileen Delhi on Flickr
Caption: 
Bangle seller at Sarojini Nagar Market
Cover image: 
Short title: 
When In New Delhi: Where to Eat, Shop, and Stay
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Jewelry by Shu-Lin Wu


Artists Envision “Dissident Futures” at SF’s Yerba Buena Center

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When it comes to envisioning and creating the future, the techno-centric innovation of Silicon Valley is widely considered ground zero for futurist thought. As our culture turns to techies and serial start-upers for a glimpse at what the future may look like, curator Betti-Sue Hertz proposes a different set of goggles through which to glimpse the years ahead. “Dissident Futures,” a 19-artist show up through February 2 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, challenges the at times hegemonic and oppressive presence of Silicon Valley in both the Bay Area and contemporary futurist discourse. In place of technocratic visions of years to come, the exhibition presents artistic propositions for alternative futures and what the world might look like decades from now.

For the organizational structure of the nearly 90 works in the show, Hertz used three conceptual categories for ideas about the future: the speculative, the utopian, and the pragmatic. In an introductory essay in the forthcoming exhibition catalogue, Hertz defines the speculative as “highly imaginary” ideas that push “beyond the known, and beyond reason”; says that the utopian, “at its best, shapes ideas toward the best possible future for the greatest number of people”; and notes that the pragmatic “works within a scope of probability” and is “what the future will look like in the real world.” Despite the exhibition’s theoretical backdrop, it is in part successful (and enjoyable) because visitors could easily think through the artworks against Hertz’s proposed categories as easily as they could not give them consideration at all.

Conceived in the era of both widespread and invasive NSA surveillance and the dystopian mega-hit “The Hunger Games,” this show pushes viewers to think beyond widely distributed images of what our future world might resemble. Whether fictional (Afro-Futurist David Huffman’s “traumanauts”) or entirely real (Trevor Paglen’s images of surveillance satellites), the best future-thinking work in the show encourages us to consider the present as the cornerstone of building the decades ahead. This show is crucial and original because it foregrounds artistic discourse about the future and brings together myriad artists’ practices that challenge us to upend how we might conceive of it entirely.

In the video piece “Kempinski” (2007) by Paris-based “ethnological sci-fi” documentarian Neïl Beloufa, the artist asked people living outside of Mali’s capital, Bamako, to describe how they envision the future, but to speak of it in the present tense as if it were already reality. Filmed in a rural, tropical setting and lit with a sort of glaring night vision, the unexpected answers of the interviewees take on a surreal quality — responses included talking cars and the ability to converse with animals. The animistic nature of the interviewees’ ideas challenge the Western assumption that the future will be ever more technological.

In another project that traverses the space between fiction and documentary, Connie Samaras photographed the first commercial space shuttle airport in New Mexico, abandoned structures in the Antarctic tundra, and artificial lakes in Dubai. Samaras captures the unfinished spaceport while it is still under construction, creating images that could either be a building being erected or one in decay. Her work invites the viewer to imagine herself in the contemporary moment looking ahead to space travel, but also as a person in the future, looking back at a structure that was once at the forefront of transportation technology.

Several other works in the show also take on the cosmos as their subject. Berlin-based artist Katie Patterson presents four works that visualize unorthodox modes of human interaction with outer space. For her project “Second Moon” (September 2013-September 2014), Patterson has arranged for a fragment of moon rock to “orbit” the earth via airfreight courier for one year. Visitors can track the rock via an app that is on an iPad in the gallery — it will be briefly displayed in a small glass vitrine when its travels bring it to the museum. Another Patterson piece, “History of Darkness” (2010), displays 2,200 hand-labeled slides of images of the darkness of deep space. While telescopes are usually aimed at stars and other notable cosmic occurrences, Patterson’s catalogue of darkness reminds us that the great unknown might not be all that knowable. By reconfiguring our expectations about what images of space look like, she points out the futility of attempting to catalogue the universe.

The garb of outer space is an apt symbol for Oakland-based Afro-Futurist artist David Huffman, who populates his expressionistic, narrative paintings with spacesuit-wearing characters he calls traumanauts. The adventures of these figures take them to a “Black Hole,” the “Promiseland,” and a “Sideshow,” and along the way they interrogate the ways in which African-Americans have, and more likely have not, been included in America’s cultural history.

Another space-oriented work is New York-based artist Peter Coffin’s “Untitled (Flying Fruits)” (2012), a wall-sized projection that immerses the viewer in a cosmic space where pineapples, melons, bananas, and more float toward him. Recalling both the premise of the once popular iPhone game Fruit Ninja and commonplace digital reproductions of outer space, Coffin’s work adds an air of levity and quirkiness to the way we might usually imagine the farthest reaches of the universe.

Playfulness is also a defining component of London-based duo Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen’s video piece “75 Watt” (2013). Staged in an actual factory in China, the film reimagines what a human body working on an assembly line looks like by choreographing a range of fluid, dance-like movements that make workers automatons no more. Examples of the useless, stereo-like products that are created in the video are also displayed in the gallery. While the proposition of bringing dance-like choreography into a factory seems absurd, Cohen and Van Balen push the viewer to imagine a future where it might be so.

New York-based artist and geography PhD Trevor Paglen, who in 2012 launched an archival disk micro-etched with 100 images into outer space, has a distinctly darker view of the world to come than many of the other artists. Paglen’s essay “Turnkey Tyranny: Surveillance and the Terror State” (originally written for Creative Time Reports) is included in the exhibition catalogue. “Within the context of current economic, political and environmental trends, the existence of a surveillance state doesn’t just create a theoretical possibility of tyranny with the turn of a key — it virtually guarantees it,” he writes. Paglen’s signature photos of reconnaissance and intelligence satellites then function as small subversions of this surveillance state. By making the invisible observable, Paglen defies tyranny through his own images of counter-surveillance.

If Paglen imagines the chilling future of a totalitarian state, other artists have a more optimistic view. Future Cities Lab, Jason Kelly
Johnson and Nataly Gattegno’s experimental design and architecture firm in San Francisco, contributed revisionary concepts for the San Francisco waterfront and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge that imagine the two sites as “a system of aquatic parks, community gardens, and aquaponic farms” and “a habitable space,” respectively. Their vision points to urban redevelopment schemes that deprivilege commercial interest in favor of creative solutions that benefit the public. While this project is decidedly utopian, the architectural models and mock-ups that Future Cities Lab utilizes to display their proposal makes it look more like a work in progress rather than a lofty, never-to-be-achieved idea.

Of the 19 artists in the show, half of them have a connection to California, something that Hertz believes is no coincidence. In her opinion, there is something about the pioneer mentality of the state that fosters a “delinking with the past.” This futurist mindset defines places like Silicon Valley, but visualizing the future is not only the task of a few techie tastemakers. Artistic future-thinking is an important component of creating the world ahead. The most resonant pieces in the show, such as Paglen’s photographs and Beloufa’s video, upend a Western technologically-focused worldview and challenge us to address the shortcomings of the present at the same time that we look to the years ahead.

Click on the slideshow to see images from “Dissident Futures.” 

Artists Envision “Dissident Futures” at SF’s Yerba Buena Center
Connie Samara's "Terminal Hanger Facility, Facing Mission Control

Helena Christensen's Visual Journey of Peru

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Helena Christensen's Visual Journey of Peru

Known mostly for her poses in front of the camera, supermodel Helena Christensen is showing off her skills on the other side of the lens in an exhibition opening at the Bleecker Street Art Club on January 30.

"Visual Journey: Peru" by Christensen features landscape and portrait photography from a recent trip the Danish-born beauty took with her mother’s native Peru. The exhibition is presented by The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts, which has named Christensen its latest Global Explorer, a role that celebrates the vibrancy of the world’s most enchanting travel destinations through the eyes of the world’s foremost innovators. The prints will be available for purchase from January 30 through February 15, and proceeds will benefit Oxfam International, where Christensen also serves as a Global Ambassador.

It’s not Christensen’s first photography show, as the New York-based multi-hyphenate previously documented dramatic effects of climate change in “Glacial Meltdown”, an exhibit of her work at the United Nations in New York in 2009.

Discovered after winning the title of Miss Denmark in 1986, the 44-year-old former Victoria's Secret Angel has also served as creative director for Nylon magazine, designed clothing, and supported funding for breast cancer organizations and other charities. Most recently in 2012, she created a lingerie collection for UK-based lingerie brand Triumph.


An exhibit from Helena Christensen's "Visual Journey: Peru."

Visual Journey: Peru

VIDEO: Classic Meets Contemporary in the Hill Collection

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J. Tomilson Hill and his wife, Janine, have been outfitting their Upper East Side home with the best of the best that has come to market for decades. The Wall Street financier — the current vice chairman of the Blackstone Group — has an extensive network of dealers and auction-house specialists on the lookout for pieces that might appeal to the couple. But Hill meticulously researches each purchase and is the driving force behind his acquisitions. The Hill’s collecting strategy: choreographing works from different periods and mediums, from Renaissance bronzes to post-war American and European art. Thirty-two of those bronzes are featured, alongside contemporary works by the likes of Cy Twombly and Ed Ruscha, in an exhibition opened this week at the Frick Collection.

Art+Auction’s Judd Tully sat down with the power collectors inside Hill’s art-and book-filled study study ahead of the Frick exhibition. 

“Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection” will be on view at The Frick through June 15.

VIDEO: Classic Meets Contemporary in the Hill Collection
J Tomilson Hill and Janine Hill

VIDEO: Paco Rabanne's Material World

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VIDEO: Paco Rabanne's Material World

PARIS — Of all the designers living in a material world, Paco Rabanne figures among the most enduring legacies. Having started out in the early 1960s as a jewelry designer for a number of leading couturiers, including Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin and Cristobal Balenciaga, Rabanne’s 1966 debut collection of “Twelve Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials” — housing frocks made from unconventional materials like metal, rhodoid sequins, and vinyl plaques — shook up sartorial conventions and paved the way for his iconic metal ring-linked plastic dresses and chainmail creations. A couple of years later the Spanish-born Rabanne, who trained as an architect, was to dress Jane Fonda for her role in "Barbarella."

A recent Artcurial sale at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris allowed fans and collectors the chance to get up close to a range of his wacky 1980s creations honed from crinkled paper, strips of aluminum, patchwork leather and the like, with many of them resembling costumes from a Sci-Fi movie. The event marked the second Rabanne sale from the vast private collection of opera directors Jacobo Romano and Jorge Zulueta (of Grupo Accion Instrumental) who since the late 1970s have only used Rabanne’s architectural creations in their productions.

In the mix was an evening dress coated in a “gun barrel” finish with oversized cylindrical fake fur-ringed sleeves worthy of a "Star Wars" character; a Surrealist hot pink dress fitted with a brushed aluminum human silhouette; a structural dress honed from rings of suiting fabric edged with faux leather; and a mini made from plaques of reflectors connected by rings.

Top sellers at the sale, entitled "Paco Rabanne II Fashion Materials," included a jacket and shorts ensemble crafted from orange PVC sequins linked by gold rings, which at 3,005 euros, or about $4,100 at current exchange rates, doubled its estimate; a “Cleopatra” dress made from rows of gold cylindrical beads and wiry coils, ending in a fringed skirt (2,379 euros, or $3,250); a chainmail dress with skirt of swan feathers (2,629 euros, or $3,600); and a long sheath crafted from velvet panels covered in red aluminum and gold plastic (1,878  euros, or $2,600).

In the video above, BLOUIN ARTINFO France presents an overview of the pieces by fashion expert Pénélope Blanckaert and auctioneer Isabelle Boudot de la Motte.

 

Exploring Artcurial's Paco Rabanne sale in Paris

DIA to Buy Its Freedom for $100M, Qatar Grabs Wildenstein HQ, and More

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DIA to Buy Its Freedom for $100M, Qatar Grabs Wildenstein HQ, and More

– DIA Adds $100M to Rescue Fund: The Detroit Institute of Arts’ board of directors has approved a plan to raise $100 million over the next 20 years toward the rescue fund that will safeguard the museum’s collection and bolster the bankrupt City of Detroit’s pension fund. In addition to the fundraising initiative, DIA will also change its status from a city-owned institution to a non-profit. “Clearly this is going to be a challenge,” said DIA COO Annmarie Erickson. “It’s an enormous amount of money, but we’ve proven over and over again that we are good at raising money. We’ll have to balance this effort with our need to raise endowment dollars and operational funding. But given that this will help move the bankruptcy along quickly, that it will help the pensioners (and) ensure that the DIA collection is safeguarded for the public, we have compelling arguments to take to donors.” [Detroit Free Press]

– Qatar to Buy Wildenstein Townhouse: The Wildenstein collecting family is selling their Midtown Manhattan headquarters to Qatar, which plans to put in a consulate. The announcement of the sale comes at the same time that 34-year-old David Wildenstein takes the reins of the company from his father, Guy Wildenstein. The townhouse, on East 64th Street, is thought to be worth more than $90 million. [WSJ]

– Sotheby’s Announces Allocation Plan: Mounting pressure from Sotheby’s activist shareholders has led the auction house to announce a $300 million special dividend, potential property sales, and a $150 million share buyback program. “The message we are delivering is clear — we are returning meaningful capital to our shareholders now and in the future and establishing a framework that puts Sotheby’s in the strongest position to compete and win in this marketplace while delivering value to our clients,” said chief executive Bill Ruprecht. Meanwhile, critics like San Francisco-based investment company Marcato are already saying the proposed plan is not enough and that “Sotheby’s can and should return a total of $1 billion of capital to shareholders within 12 months.” [Sotheby’sAFPYahoo]

– Germany Will Boost Nazi Loot Restitution Efforts: The incoming German minister of state of culture, Monika Gruetters, promised that funding for provenance research of allegedly looted art will be doubled. Meanwhile, a work that once belonged to Hildebrand Gurlitt — whose son Cornelius Gurlitt is now at the center of an enormous Nazi loot case — is in the permanent collection of LACMAMax Beckmann’s “Bar, Braun” (1944). Also on the Nazi loot newswire, a painting whose attributing to Vincent van Gogh remains controversial is the subject of a restitution claim filed by the heirs of Richard Semmel, a Jewish industrialist who fled the Nazis; it currently belongs to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. [AFPTANTAN]

– Critics Cold on “Monuments Men”George Clooney’s star-filled WWII movie, “The Monuments Men,” which follows the exploits of a crack team of art historians trying to track down artworks stolen by the Nazis, is receiving rather tepid reviews ahead of its February 7 release. “These guys are supposedly the best in their respective fields, but they’re lousy soldiers, and try as Clooney might, with soaring musical cues from Alexandre Desplat, inspirational voiceover narration, and shots of a billowing American flag, it’s awfully hard to give a shit about whether they live or die and whether or not they succeed in their mission. Especially since, you know, the Holocaust,” writes Indiewire’s Drew Taylor. [Guardian]

– Queens Museum Autism Program Expands to Spain: A program for parents with autistic children that’s part of the Queens Museum’s ArtAccess initiative will expand to Spain through a partnership with Madrid’s Museo ICO, thereby launching “emPOWER Parents: Fostering Cross Cultural Networks between Families with Autism.” [DNAinfo]

– “Night at the Museum 3” is filming at the British Museum this week. [OLV]

– The recently launched web-based art selling platform Saatchi Online is already relaunching itself as Saatchi Art. [Tech Crunch]

– The Riaci bronzes are back on display although their home, the Museo Archeologico di Reggio Calabria, is still undergoing renovation. [TAN]

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Diego Rivera, "Detroit Industry," 1932-33
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