Ursula von Rydingsvard is a master of translating the complex emotional world of the human condition into physical, sculptural form. Her most ambitious solo exhibition to date, The Contour of Feeling, now at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), showcases this talent.
Art News
500 years after his death on May 2, 1519, the accomplishments of Leonardo da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance man, are still astounding. In a year marked by exhibitions and celebrations around the world, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is commemorating the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death with the most comprehensive exhibition ever presented on his life's work.
The rising curves of the Adirondack Mountains become a repeated motif in the early 20th century landscape paintings of Harold Weston (1894-1974), now featured in a career spanning solo exhibition at Vermont’s Shelburne Museum.
Such transformative moments, big and small, make up the core of the new show, Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite, at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles through Sept. 1, curated by his son, Kwame Jr. On display are over 40 black-and-white images of everyday people as well as jazz legends like Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Dizzy Gillespie or Art Blakey taking five with a smoke and a drink.
Since March 2, the Driehaus Museum has been imbued with new, electric energy courtesy of British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare CBE, whose ongoing solo show marks the first time contemporary art has filled its spaces. It’s also the first in a new series of exhibitions at the Driehaus collectively titled A Tale of Today, a name that nods to Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s eponymous novel that critiques the corrupted politics of the Gilded Age.
This week, the Met debuts a large new exhibition sure to please the summer the crowds. Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll is the first exhibition at a major museum to tell the history of rock and roll through its instruments.
Several connecting threads run through the show, promised to contain both regional and larger world themes. Many artists explore the variegation of human condition, ranging from politics and racial identity to grief and humor. Yet some so embrace or distance themselves from their source material that they create cerebral, technical works.
Upon seeing the first daguerreotype around 1840, the French painter Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), declared: “From today, painting is dead.” Painting did not die that day, but photography was born, disrupting the world and its social order through the creation of new ways to see, understand, and explore.
For nearly four decades, Chippewa aritst David Bradley has been a major participant in and critic of the Santa Fe art scene. Luckily, Bradley has a biting sense of humor, and he brings this and a vibrant palate to his paintings that honor his Native heritage, stand up for it in the face of commodification, and poke fun at the community he calls home.
This month the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, presents a comprehensive study of one of the greatest painters of the 16th century. Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1519–1594) was one of the most prominent painters of Venice during his lifetime.
