Titian painting breaks artist record at Christie’s https://ift.tt/2u9FmSw

Titian’s early masterpiece Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1508) sold for £17.56 million ($22.17 million) at Christie’s London last night. The sale marks a new auction record for a work by the Renaissance artist, exceeding the $16.9 million paid for A Sacra Conversazione (c. 1560) at Sotheby’s in 2011.

The work—which sold within its presale estimate of £15 million–£25 million ($18.75 million–$31.25 million)—was the top lot of Christie’s Old Masters I sale, which achieved an overall total of £43.59 million ($55.1 million). Also taking place last night at the auction house as part of its Classic Week series was The Exceptional Sale, which totaled £7.2 million ($9.1 million). All prices include fees.

“This result is a tribute to the impeccable provenance and quiet beauty of this sublime early masterpiece by Titian, which is one of the most poetic products of the artist’s youth,” said Christie’s UK chairman Orlando Rock of the Titian work. “This picture has captured the imaginations of audiences for more than half a millennia and will no doubt continue to do so.”

Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a wooden panel painting measuring 18 by 25 inches, illustrates Mary cradling baby Jesus under Joseph’s watchful gaze. The painting boasts remarkable provenance, having been at points owned by dukes, archdukes, and Holy Roman Emperors. The painting was stolen once by Napoleon in 1809 and then again in 1995 from the Longleat estate in Wilshire. It was recovered in 2002 in London, found without a frame in a plastic bag. The Longleat Trustees and Lord Bath, who inherited the Longleat estate from his father, offered the painting up for auction as part of their long-running investment strategy, according to Christie’s.

Aside from the Titian work, other notable results from the evening included Quentin Metsys’s The Madonna of the Cherries, which fetched £10.66 million ($13.46 million), breaking the artist’s previous auction record of $1.9 million for Mary in Prayer (c. 1500) set at Cologne’s Kunsthaus Lempertz in 2020. Another key sale included Frans Hals’s Portrait of a gentleman of the de Wolff family, possibly Joost de Wolff (1582/3–1666), which reached £5.71 million ($7.21 million).

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Taylor Swift exhibition to be presented at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum https://ift.tt/sYJvGwy

Taylor Swift will be the focus of a new “trail” across London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) titled “Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail.” The display, which will be on view from July 27th to September 8th, is inspired by the 34-year-old singer-songwriter’s storied career, from when she first moved to Nashville at 14 to her rise to global fame.

In the wake of the U.K. leg of Swift’s “Eras” tour, “Taylor Swift: Songbook Trail” will take visitors through the life of the pop icon via visual culture, organized into 13 thematic “stops” placed throughout the museum. Swift’s costumes, awards, instruments, and other objects will be placed in dialogue with the V&A’s architecture and collection. Memorable clothing from Swift’s career will be featured, ranging from the cowboy boots worn during her country music days to the black ruffled dress featured in her music video for “Fortnight,” the lead single from her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.

“We are delighted to be able to display a range of iconic looks worn by Taylor Swift at the V&A this summer,” said Kate Bailey, senior curator of theater and performance, in a press release. “Taylor Swift’s songs, like objects, tell stories, often drawing from art, history, and literature. We hope this theatrical trail across the museum will inspire curious visitors to discover more about the performer, her creativity, and V&A objects.”

In addition to Swift’s famed outfits, the V&A will feature a collection of storyboards and archival material from Swift’s childhood.

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Interior Designers George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg Take a Heartfelt Approach to Collecting Art https://ift.tt/51g8Iru

One afternoon last fall, while en route to their Tribeca office, George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg stopped by the gallery 125 Newbury. The life partners were drawn by the gallery’s Peter Hujar exhibition “Echoes,” featuring images of queer life in New York City spanning from the Stonewall riots in the 1970s and through the AIDS crisis in the ’80s. At first unfamiliar with the artist, the two quickly became avid collectors and advocates of his work.

“That period is very interesting,” Yabu told Artsy from their home in Toronto. “I just want to emphasize that the New York life in the West—the piers and the gay [community], the pact with the local police that they don’t touch them if they’re having assignations on the piers—and it was very a dangerous time…it was a very unique time that was documented by the ‘Peters’ of the world.”

The duo’s engagement with the artist mirrors their approach to collecting, which is driven primarily by gut instinct and personal attachment. “When we collect, it’s so personal that there’s no strategy at all,” Yabu said. “You have to go by your gut, and you must be somewhat fearless,” Pushelberg added, speaking from New York, where they maintain an apartment in the West Village.

Yabu and Pushelberg first crossed paths while studying design at Ryerson University in Toronto. Drifting apart only to reunite professionally in the late 1970s, the partners founded their eponymous design firm in 1980, which counts the Four Seasons and Louis Vuitton among its clients. Along the way, they have steadily built a collection that features works by Anish Kapoor, Wolfgang Tillmans, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and a four-foot-high bronze pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama.

As their collection has grown, Yabu and Pushelberg have maintained a penchant for personally evocative work—the heart of the design duo’s impressive collection. “It didn’t start with an intent of collecting, [or] putting a personal collection together, but it became very personal,” Yabu said. Another thread is in works that are tied to memories and stages of their lives. “We started collecting work that reminded us of our youth, so we did that, and that was a trend for a while,” Pushelberg said. Their affinity for the works of photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Diane Arbus, for example, stems from their university days in the 1970s.

A formative moment for the couple came when they were serendipitously hired to design a space for fellow Canadian and seasoned art collector Bruce Bailey, who then introduced Yabu and Pushelberg to the nuances of purchasing art. He pointed the collectors to work by Canadian artists, such as four works from John Massey’s “Modern Waiting Area” series from 1997–99, which they acquired from Olga Korper Gallery in 1999. “When you’re young, and you’re curious about art, but you don’t know anything about it, it’s always good to have a mentor, somebody that can show you things so that you start to get your feet wet and you start to feel what you what responds to you,” said Pushelberg.

This same resonance drew them to Hujar’s work during their visit to 125 Newbury when they purchased Gary Schneider in Contortion I and Gary Schneider in Contortion II (both 1979). The impact of Hujar’s photography, which vividly captures critical social movements—particularly those related to the LGBTQ+ community and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s—inspired the duo to continue working with the artist’s oeuvre. Currently, they are collaborating with the Art Gallery of Ontario to expand their collection of his works.

In fact, Yabu and Pushelberg frequently feel happy to loan out their art—whether to institutions, friends, or their workspaces (which contain gallery spaces)—to increase accessibility to works in their private collection. “Art is for sharing and exposing it, not for hiding it and burying it, because there’s a lot of that on Earth,” said Pushelberg. “We do put our art in all of our studios, in our homes, actually with some of our relatives’ homes just so that it’s on a wall that people can be exposed to it.”

Currently, two Yoshitomo Nara works owned by the couple, Pee and Pee “Dead of Night” (both 2001)—which they purchased from Tokyo’s Tomio Koyama Gallery in 2002—are on loan to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for its retrospective of the artist on view through November. The couple also actively partners with other organizations or institutions to help expand the accessibility of art. For instance, Yabu and Pushelberg are working with the charity RX Art, where they have commissioned Canadian artist Marcel Dzama—whose My Pawn has Become a Queen (2021) lives in the couple’s New York apartment—to do a mural for an AIDS hospice in Canada called Casey House.

One recent artist who has particularly captured Yabu and Pushelberg’s interests is Ooloosie Saila, an emerging Inuit artist whose work was recently featured in the 60th Venice Biennale, “Foreigners Everywhere.” Their connection with Saila’s art began with a chance acquisition of Isolated Iceberg (2018) at the Art with Heart charity auction in Canada in 2019. Intrigued by her compelling story and the struggles of Indigenous artists, as highlighted by a 2019 New York Times article, they purchased more of her works.

Motivated by a desire to support and showcase her talents, they are considering a collaboration that could provide Saila with a platform in their Tribeca studio gallery space. It’s typical for both Yabu and Pushelberg to dive into the history of an artist’s life, driven to learn as much as possible. The couple intends to visit Cape Dorset, Intuit land above the Hudson Bay, to learn more about Saila and the region’s Indigenous artists.

With an instinct refined by decades of design experience, Yabu and Pushelberg eschew a formal collecting strategy for a philosophy that art engages, touches, and provokes conversation. This approach, ingrained in their work as designers, ensures that each work they purchase is not only visually captivating, but also a living part of the spaces they occupy. “We’re not investors in art, we just buy what we love; some art has a lot of value, some doesn’t, but that doesn’t matter to us,” said Pushelberg. “Art is so important—it informs our society, tells us where we’re going, and that’s the only thing that gives some people some sense of stability,” Yabu added.

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Audrey Flack, a pioneer of photorealism, has died at 93. https://ift.tt/wdAg6tz

New York artist Audrey Flack, a pioneering figure in the Photorealism movement, passed away on June 28th at 93 in Southhampton, New York. Her death was confirmed by her former dealer, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, and her current representing gallery, Hollis Taggart.

“We mourn the loss of a true artistic legend who left an indelible mark on the history of American art,” said Hollis Taggart, founder of the eponymous gallery. “Audrey’s boundless creativity defined her career, spanning seven decades, constantly innovating and searching for new ways of expression.”

Born in New York City in 1931, Flack pursued her education at Cooper Union before earning a scholarship to the Yale School of Art, where she studied under geometric abstractionist Josef Albers. Immersed in the downtown New York art scene, she associated herself with notable Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. However, Flack’s path took a different direction as she became a key figure in the Photorealism movement during the 1960s.

Flack’s work in Photorealism often involved creating large-scale still-life paintings based on her own photographs and news clippings. Her 1964 painting Kenndy Motorcade is frequently cited as one of her earliest examples of working in a Photorealist style. Throughout her body of work, Flack focused on feminine objects, such as jewelry and makeup, as seen in Leonardo’s Lady (1974), a still-life painting acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Flack also took an interest in mythological and religious iconography. Her focus on myth became particularly prominent in her sculpture practice, which began in the 1980s and aimed to subvert the prevalence of male-centric statues. One key example is her 2006 golden statue The Recording Angel, which stands outside the Nashville Symphony.

In recent years, Flack transitioned from Photorealism to a style she described as “Post-Pop Baroque,” incorporating themes of female empowerment along with religious, political, and pop culture elements. These works, including Self Portrait with Flaming Heart (2022), were recently presented in a show titled “With Darkness Comes Stars” at Hollis Taggart earlier this year Her work is featured in several collections at major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the MET, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others.

This year, Flack released her memoir, With Darkness Came Stars, tracing her career, personal stories of abuse from her first marriage, and her experiences raising a nonverbal daughter with autism. An exhibition of her recent works, “Audrey Flack NOW,” is scheduled to be displayed at the Parrish Museum of Art in Water Mill, New York, from October 13, 2024, to April 6, 2025.

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Dutch artist and activist Jacqueline de Jong dies at 85. https://ift.tt/VQsASeN

Dutch artist Jacqueline de Jong, known for her role in the radical Situationist International movement and her contributions to avant-garde figuration, passed away on June 29th at 85. Her death was confirmed by her New York gallery, Ortuzar Projects, and her Paris gallery, Galerie Allen, which noted that she died among family after a short illness.

Born in Hengelo, Holland, in 1939 to a Jewish family, de Jong had an upbringing marked by the trauma of World War II. Her family was forced into hiding following the German invasion of the Netherlands. Her family managed to flee the German forces and was saved by the French resistance. After the war, she would return with her family to the Netherlands before moving to Paris in 1957, where she worked in a boutique for Christian Dior.

She moved to London and briefly studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before returning to Amsterdam to work at the Stedelijk Museum in the late 1950s. Shortly after, in 1959, she met Danish painter Asger Jorn, co-founder of the CoBrA movement, who became a long-time romantic partner and a major influence on her work.

By 1960, de Jong had joined the Situationist International movement, a group of artists and writers seeking to disrupt the social status quo. She would contribute to its revolutionary aims until she was ousted, two years later, due to internal disagreements. However, in protest, she founded the leftist publication Situationist International. Throughout the ’60s, she remained active in various leftist movements, notably participating in the May 1968 protests in Paris.

De Jong’s style was noticeably influenced by the CoBrA movement’s emphasis on primitive and expressive forms. Over the decades, her work evolved from narrative figuration to more abstract multi-part paintings. Her paintings, with subjects ranging from French pulp fiction to eroticism to current socio-political crises, often challenge traditional formats, experimenting with unconventional materials and techniques. Often humorous, her figurative works are filled with sharp social, feminist, and anti-war critiques. Her two parallel series, “Accidental Paintings” and “Suicidal Paintings,” are perhaps the best example of the artist’s affinity for balancing violent and humorous subject matter.

For most of her life, de Jong remained almost exclusively known in the Netherlands and Europe. However, her international renown began to grow later in her career, particularly after her 2018 retrospective at Les Abattoirs museum in Toulouse, France, and a 2019 survey at the Stedelijk Museum. Around this time, she began showing at tastemaking galleries, including Chateau Shatto in Los Angeles, Pippy Houldsworth in London, and Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels. She had another traveling institutional solo show in 2021, which opened at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels. In 2024, she has already had solo shows at Ortuzar Projects, Galerie Lelong & Co., and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. Her work will be presented at the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in November 2024.

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Dutch American artist Anton van Dalen has died at 86. https://ift.tt/JfFnrku

Anton van Dalen, a New York-based artist known for his fantastical cityscapes and his depictions of the East Village, passed away on June 25th at 86. His representing gallery, P.P.O.W, confirmed his death in a statement, noting he passed away due to natural causes in his sleep at his East Village Home.

Born to a conservative Calvinist family in Amstelveen, Holland, in 1938, van Dalen witnessed the upheavals of World War II firsthand when the Nazis seized his family’s property. After graduating from Amsterdam’s former Amsterdamse Grafische School in 1954, he emigrated to Canada with his family in 1954 and then to the United States in 1966. Settling in New York’s East Village, he then spent his life documenting the cultural transformations in the area through his surreal cityscapes or his monochrome series “Night Street Drawings” (1975–77), illustrating scenes of car wrecks, sex workers, and dilapidated buildings in the Lower East Side.

Van Dalen is perhaps best known for his performance piece Avenue A Cutout Theatre (1995), in which the artist entered a room with a large cardboard box resembling his apartment building strapped to his back. He then emptied the box's contents—miniatures of dogs, police, and various figures resembling the population of the East Village—to examine the neighborhood’s history and gentrification.

“I try to sort of make art, and thinking and looking at art, something that we all naturally do and can figure out in our own way,” van Dalen once said of his approach, shared in a statement from P.P.O.W. “There is no one interpretation—there are many. And that’s what is wonderful about art. It’s not a biased single place. You can always kind of find yourself within it.”

The 2020 documentary Anton: Circling Home provided an intimate look at van Dalen’s life, emphasizing his profound connection to the East Village and his passion for rearing pigeons. The film, which won the Best Documentary Portrait award at DOC LA, highlighted how van Dalen maintained a pigeon coop on his building’s rooftop. Having first learned to train pigeons at the age of 12 in Holland, these birds are a recurring motif in his body of work.

His last solo exhibition, “Doves: Where They Live and Work,” was presented by P.P.O.W in 2022. In previous years, the artist showcased his paintings at venues such as the University of Massachusetts, Temple Gallery in Philadelphia, and EXIT Art in New York. Additionally, many of his artworks are featured in prominent collections such as the MET and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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5 Artists on Our Radar This July https://ift.tt/f0PoCxd

“Artists on Our Radar” is a monthly series focused on five artists who have our attention. Utilizing our art expertise and Artsy data, we’ve determined which artists made an impact this past month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh works on Artsy.

Paul Hutchinson

B. 1987, Berlin. Lives and works in Berlin.

affection, 2021
Paul Hutchinson
Sies + Höke

Schmetterlinge, yellow backdrop, 2019
Paul Hutchinson
Sies + Höke

Early summer has ushered in a well-deserved spotlight on the emerging German Irish photographer Paul Hutchinson, whose poetic images explore urban life and questions of social mobility. Last month, Hutchinson’s work appeared in the Art Basel presentations of two galleries: Sies + Höke (whose booth was among Artsy’s 10 favorite booths) and Knust Kunz Gallery Editions. This high-profile moment of recognition came on the heels of a solo show at Galerie Russi Klenner in Berlin and an accompanying sold-out monograph.

Hutchinson’s frequent subjects include strangers, street trash and flotsam, and architectural details from his travels. Serendipitous moments—such as in Schmetterlinge, yellow backdrop (2019), where the artist memorializes a butterfly lingering on his tripod—highlight his keen eye for beauty in uncommon places. Oscillating between solemnity and hopefulness, Hutchinson’s images reflect the influence of German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, for whom Hutchinson worked as an assistant for many years.

relation, 2022
Paul Hutchinson
Sies + Höke

traces, 2018
Paul Hutchinson
Sies + Höke

Gold, 2019
Paul Hutchinson
Sies + Höke

Capri Sonne, autumn leaves, 2020
Paul Hutchinson
Sies + Höke

Hutchinson received an MA in photography from Central Saint Martins, and a BA in communication from the University of the Fine Arts Berlin. He was the recipient of the IBB Prize for Photography in 2015.

—Jordan Huelskamp

Monika Marchewka

B. 1988, Chrzanow, Poland. Lives and works in Gdynia, Poland.

Mirror, 2023
Monika Marchewka
Monti8

Cross Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette with the cover of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream and a dash of Slavic folklore, and you’ll end up somewhere near the enchanted, ultra-feminine aesthetic of Monika Marchewka. The Polish artist’s paintings are filled with cotton-candy clouds, pearlescent seashells, and shimmering bodies of water—the stuff of girlhood daydreams.

But despite their splendid environs, Marchewka’s female subjects seem unsettled, caught in surreal moments of transition or uncertainty. In Mirror (2023), for example, a blue-haired nude gazes at her reflection, only to find a cosmic void where her body should be. Marchewka’s women are often crying, tears adorning their faces like jewels.

Vision, 2024
Monika Marchewka
LAMB

Back to ordinary, 2023
Monika Marchewka
Artistellar

Memories II., 2023
Monika Marchewka
Artistellar

Dream, 2022
Monika Marchewka
Artistellar

Frequently employing the same motifs, Marchewka’s paintings act as storyboards—an unsurprising approach, given the artist’s background in film. A graduate of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, she worked as an animator, including on the 2017 feature film Loving Vincent, before turning to painting full time. This summer, her work has been featured in a solo show, “In Between,” at Monti8 in Latina, Italy, and a group show at LAMB in London. She has previously exhibited at ​​Tchotchke Gallery in New York and Artistellar in London, among other galleries.

—Olivia Horn

Agnes Questionmark

B. 1995, Rome. Lives and works in New York.

Unborn patient II, 2024
Agnes Questionmark
KÖNIG GALERIE

Agnes Questionmark unpacks identity, surveillance, and the boundaries of the body across her varied practice. In a corner of the main exhibition at this year’s Venice Biennale, she pulls spectators into a theatrical operating room where the line between public and private blurs. The installation, titled Cyber-Teratology Operation (2024), features a pregnant trans body adorned with alien-like tentacles and situated under the harsh glare of surgical lights. Its visceral setup foregrounds the invasive nature of medical and digital observation and critiques the scrutiny faced by trans people.

At KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin, Questionmark’s recent solo exhibition “The Unborn Patient” considered similar themes of surveillance and control over non-normative bodies. In performances, silicone sculptures, and paintings of dragon-like beasts, the artist explores models of fluidity in the face of what she calls “a failing biological paradigm.”

Endorphin, 2023
Agnes Questionmark
KÖNIG GALERIE

Drawing of an Unborn Patient I, 2024
Agnes Questionmark
KÖNIG GALERIE

Lower Limb Dissection, 2024
Agnes Questionmark
KÖNIG GALERIE

CyberTeratology, 2023
Agnes Questionmark
KÖNIG GALERIE

A 2024 MFA graduate of Pratt Institute, Questionmark has shown her work at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, the MAXXI museum in Rome, and the Gwangju Biennale. Beyond institutional walls, she has mounted durational performance projects in such locations as a train station in Milan and an abandoned rec center in London.

—Maxwell Rabb

Kora Moya Rojo

B. 1993, Cartagena, Spain. Lives and works in Mexico City.

Pulpame, 2024
Kora Moya Rojo
DANIELA ELBAHARA

Reflejo 2, 2024
Kora Moya Rojo
DANIELA ELBAHARA

Flowers bloom seductively throughout Spanish artist Kora Moya Rojo’s paintings. Portrayed in a bright color palette and an oozing, bulbous aesthetic, the artist’s blossoming subjects morph into strange shapes. Distorted petal configurations bend and twist across her paintings in oil and watercolor, which also feature fleshy tropical fruits.

In her solo show “Ofrenda,” on view at DANIELA ELBAHARA in Mexico City through July 19th, the artist elevates these scenes in large works on canvas, some oval-shaped. Another series of smaller works are presented on mint green, leaf-shaped altar shelves, and turn the ritual of offering (the English translation of the exhibition’s title) into bright, contemporary evocations of the surreal elements of nature.

Guanábana, 2024
Kora Moya Rojo
DANIELA ELBAHARA

La llegada después del sueño, 2024
Kora Moya Rojo
DANIELA ELBAHARA

Nido Incierto, 2022
Kora Moya Rojo
Sens Gallery

Girasol, 2024
Kora Moya Rojo
DANIELA ELBAHARA

Though this is her first solo exhibition in her adopted hometown of Mexico City, Rojo has exhibited internationally, including in her first solo at Be Advisors in London in 2023, and numerous group shows at Sens Gallery in Hong Kong and Annka Kultys in London. She received her MFA from the University of Fine Arts in Murcia, Spain.

—Josie Thaddeus-Johns

Hiroto Tomonaga

B. 1997, Saga Prefecture, Japan. Lives and works in Tokyo.

Steam, 2023
Hiroto Tomonaga
KOSAKU KANECHIKA

Inspired by the moment between sight and recognition, Hiroto Tomonaga invites the viewer into a liminal world where vision and perception are disjointed. Working on large-scale canvases, the artist uses thin layers of oil paint, tempera, and wax to accumulate texture and evoke movement. The results—featured in a recent solo show at Tokyo gallery KOSAKU KANECHIKA—feel untethered from the physical world, as if Tomonaga’s abstract forms exist only behind a shimmering, translucent veil.

Repetition, 2024
Hiroto Tomonaga
KOSAKU KANECHIKA

In the distance, 2024
Hiroto Tomonaga
KOSAKU KANECHIKA

Purple, 2024
Hiroto Tomonaga
KOSAKU KANECHIKA

Waterfront, 2024
Hiroto Tomonaga
KOSAKU KANECHIKA

“In the Distance” was Hiroto Tomonaga’s second solo show at KOSAKU KANECHIKA. He has exhibited elsewhere in Tokyo, including in solo shows at Gallery Binosha and GALLERY WATER, and group shows at Changting Gallery and SOMPO Museum. In 2022, he won a judge’s prize at Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi and earned his MFA from Musashino Art University, where he studied painting.

—Isabelle Sakelaris

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