Spike Lee’s art collection goes on view at the Brooklyn Museum. https://ift.tt/LTx7uzj

A new exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, “Spike Lee: Creative Sources” opens on October 7th, showcasing the acclaimed filmmaker’s expansive collection of visual culture. Though it ranges from sports and music memorabilia to political and movie posters, interwoven throughout is Lee’s remarkable art collection. The show draws from Lee’s trove of photography and features choice works by well known 20th-century and contemporary artists, as well as pieces by unknown and lesser-known names.

Perhaps the star of the show—at least in terms of the art—is a massive painting by Kehinde Wiley, Investiture of Bishop Harold as the Duke of Franconia (2005). Lee commissioned this work, which features a Black man wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey with the number 42—Jackie Robinson’s number. True to Wiley’s practice the work resonates with art history (its title nods to an 18th-century Giambattista Tiepolo painting), though the work is an homage to Robinson, and it resonates with Lee’s iconic 1989 film Do The Right Thing, in which the protagonist, Mookie, wears the same jersey. Another notable work hung nearby in a room dedicated to Lee’s love of sports, is a Jean-Michel Basquiat drawing of baseball player Satchel Paige.

Various other works on view also come from major artists and have deep ties to Black history and culture. These include: a 2022 collage by Deborah Roberts that depicts Trayvon Martin and was commissioned for the cover of New York magazine to mark 10 years since Martin’s killing; a portrait of Toni Morrison by Tim Okamura that was commissioned by Time magazine in 2020 for a reimagining of its 1993 cover when Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature; a drawing of Frederick Douglass by Charles White; and a 1960 canvas by Norman Lewis, titled America the Beautiful, which portrays a night raid by the Ku Klux Klan.

Photography holds a major place in Lee’s collection, so much so that the exhibition has a section dedicated to his passion for the medium. Featured works come from major photographers including Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, James Van Der Zee, and LaToya Ruby Frazier, among others. In a room dedicated to personal effects, there’s also a photograph by Carrie Mae Weems of Lee and his wife Tonya, with the inscription “From Carrie to Tonya and Spike with Love.”

Other artists whose works from Lee’s collection are on view in the show include Patrick Martinez, Jacob Lawrence, Radcliffe Bailey, Augusta Savage, Elizabeth Catlett, Michael Ray Charles, Terry Adkins, and LeRoy Neiman, among others.

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Victor Ekpuk Turns Ancient African Communication Systems into Captivating Contemporary Abstraction https://ift.tt/2FJ4P3i

When Victor Ekpuk’s new body of work opened in late September at Efiɛ Gallery in Dubai, it marked the Nigerian American artist’s first solo show in the Middle East in his 30 years of practice.

Speaking to Artsy, Ekpuk suggested that the growing interest in his work from the region could be due to the “nature of the abstraction of my work that has to do with writing and touches on calligraphy,” adding that he believes the work “resonates with the aesthetics of the Middle East.”

Indeed, when he was commissioned to work on a 17-foot steel sculpture in front of the international headquarters of the Arab Bank Corporation in the Kingdom of Bahrain in 2019, he was told that his work was “different but familiar” by Dr. Khaled Kawan, the bank’s CEO.

Over the decades, Ekpuk has gained recognition for reimagining Nsibidi, an ancient and secret visual communication system used by communities in southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon that experts date back to the 5th century.

Through paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Ekpuk explores issues of historical narratives and the contemporary African diaspora, which has earned him global recognition and admiration. His work has been exhibited at spaces including the Dakar Biennial (Senegal), Institut du Monde Arabe (France), Somerset House (London), Havana Biennial (Cuba), and the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, both in the United States. His work has also been exhibited and collected by institutions including the World Bank, the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History & Culture, the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art, and the Philips Collection.

Ekpuk’s new body of work at the Efiɛ Gallery, which runs through November 21st, is titled “INTERwoven TEXTures,” a nod to his unique style of blending ideas of writing systems and traditions built on the foundation of Nsibidi symbols. The show opened as part of the inaugural Dubai Calligraphy Biennale, which brings together more than 200 artists across 20 venues throughout the city.

The exhibition “is a celebration of storytelling and the richness of cultural intersections,” said Ekpuk, adding that the works invite the world “to explore the multifaceted layers of meaning that merge when diverse narratives and textures intertwine.”

Ekpuk returns to the use of wood, a prominent feature in his work in the 1990s and 2000s when he lived in Lagos. It is a revival of an idea he started during a previous residency in the city, where he worked on a body of work he called “Heads,” which investigated the human head as a piece of consciousness, creating stylized heads out of wood. He viewed the residency as a good way to experiment and decided to revisit the unfinished concept for this exhibition.

There are also new metal sculptures and previously unseen works on canvas. Ekpuk’s signature abstraction inspired by Nsibidi symbols is painted throughout these works. He also draws from the tapestries of Middle Eastern heritage, African graphic systems, and the global fabric of contemporary art.

“The theme in my current works is investigating an African belief [in] the human condition as predisposed by the condition of the metaphysical ‘head.’ I am exploring the literal and metaphorical heads in these works,” Ekpuk told Artsy. “Heads carrying fashion and cultural identity (fashionable women in African high society with their wigs, weaves, and elaborate head ties). Heads carrying ideas, heads where [their] fortune has already been encoded.”

Coinciding with the exhibition, Ekpuk will also unveil a commissioned interactive aluminum installation “Passage to Promise,” measuring three meters high and three meters wide and covered in Nsibidi-inspired symbols in the Dubai Design District for the Biennale, becoming the first African artist to display a public sculpture in the city. On October 14th, he will be part of a panel discussion about calligraphy across different cultures globally at the Museum of the Future in Dubai. His work is also currently on view at the Princeton Art Museum in the United States.

Through it all, Ekpuk wants to be remembered as someone who “contributed something worthy to culture.”

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Sotheby’s to offer $25 million “secret” Picasso portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter in November. https://ift.tt/LYyB3No

A “secret” portrait by Pablo Picasso of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter is to be offered by Sotheby’s next month with an estimated price of around $25 million. Painted in 1932, one of the most consequential years of Picasso’s career, Compotier et guitare is described by the auction house as “among the most valuable still life works by the artist to be offered at auction” and will be featured in the “Modern Evening” sale in New York on November 13th.

The work contains hidden allusions to Marie-Thérèse Walter, a model with whom he had an affair in the 1920s and ’30s, and the mother of his daughter Maya. The affair became public in 1932, when Picasso’s much-anticipated retrospective exhibition opened at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris—the first and only occasion when Picasso himself curated a display of his works, which included Compotier et guitare.

“As the world celebrates and commemorates Picasso’s legacy, marking 50 years since his passing, Compotier et guitare stands out as one of his most significant expressions in still life painting,” said Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s’ head of impressionist and modern art, New York.

Compotier et guitare was unveiled at Sotheby’s galleries in Hong Kong this week, where it will be on view in Asia for the first time and make its first exhibition appearance in more than 30 years. It is one of two major Picasso works to be offered by the auction house next month: Femme à la montre, also from 1932 and estimated to fetch $120 million, will be included in the sale of the collection of Emily Fisher Landau on November 8th.

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Hauser & Wirth now represents French artist Hélène Delprat. https://ift.tt/j8qc6dk

Mega gallery Hauser & Wirth has announced representation of Hélène Delprat and will hold a solo show of the French artist at its new Paris space in January 2024. Representation will be shared with Parisian Galerie Christophe Gaillard. Hauser & Wirth will also show the artist’s work later this month at Paris+ par Art Basel. Delprat is the third artist to be added to the gallery’s roster since September, following Sonia Boyce and Firelei Báez.

Delprat emerged in the 1980s creating figurative work, though her multifaceted practice now includes drawing, photography, film, installation, and sculpture. The artist currently has a solo show on view at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona through November 5th. Her work is held in several esteemed French collections such as the Centre Pompidou, the Collection des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

“Hélène’s work defies easy categorization,” said Marc Payot, the gallery’s president. “It ignores conventional boundaries between visual typologies and expands what it means to be an artist who has inherited centuries of cultural history and received knowledge in a world where such things evaporate too fast and too easily.”

Hauser & Wirth’s new Paris gallery, located in the 8th arrondissement, will open ahead of Paris+ on October 14th with a Henry Taylor solo exhibition.

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5 Artists on Our Radar This October https://ift.tt/hNvrwKJ

“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.

Yuma Radne

B. 2001, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia, Russia. Lives and works in London.

Weight of Water, 2023
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Having grown up as part of a sizable community of Buryat, an indigenous Mongol people, in Siberia, Yuma Radne draws on people, places, and traditions from her life and transmutes them into paintings with a mythical sensibility. In her recent exhibition at Steve Turner in Los Angeles, titled “The Weight of Water,” nude, spritely creatures are depicted within sprawling landscapes and socially nuanced aquatic scenes, often rendered in complementary blue and yellow shades. For Radne, use of color is a formal consideration, but also a symbolic one: Her blues, for example, reference a Mongolian saying (“Under the great blue sky, there are blue Mongol people”). The intense contrasts in her work heighten their surrealistic atmosphere, as in Dance, dance to my song hypnotique (2023), where two prancing elfin figures are shocks of blue against a vivid ochre sky.

Conference, 2022
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Angry Girl 2, 2022
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Sie fragt wieso, 2023
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Meditating, 2023
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Redemption, 2022
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Angry Girl, 2022
Yuma Radne
Steve Turner

Radne, who is only 22, made her U.S. solo debut with “I Am Angry,” also at Steve Turner, earlier this year. She is currently studying at Central Saint Martins in London, having previously been enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Shtiglitz Academy in St. Petersburg. Her work was featured in a solo exhibition at the National Museum of the Republic of Buryatia in 2018.

—Josie Thaddeus-Johns

Masamitsu Shigeta

B. 1992, Tokyo. Lives and works in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Night light, 2023
Masamitsu Shigeta
Gaa Gallery

Walking people 2, 2023
Masamitsu Shigeta
Gaa Gallery

The rising painter Masamitsu Shigeta has an uncanny ability to distill the essence of city life on canvas. Take, for example, the recent show “One Day Trip” at Gaa Gallery in Cologne, which chronicled a day in New York through the eyes of a commuter. The simple concept belies the poetry of each gemlike painting, depicting familiar scenes, like a tree reflected in a puddle at sunset or a throng of people bustling past outdoor diners. These endearing, everyday snapshots are a welcome salve to the jaded New Yorker who is apt to overlook the city’s many charms.

Ship 2, 2023
Masamitsu Shigeta
Gaa Gallery

Moon and building 2, 2022
Masamitsu Shigeta
Cob

Park 2, 2022
Masamitsu Shigeta
Cob

Tree and mirror, 2023
Masamitsu Shigeta
Gaa Gallery

Morning foggy city, 2023
Masamitsu Shigeta
Gaa Gallery

In works for another show, “Reflections,” currently on view at 12.26 in Dallas, Shigeta focused on the Texan city’s landmarks, again turning everyday moments into sweet vignettes. Notably, this recent work emphasizes the artist’s deft handling of light, which elicits a sense of nostalgia or tenderness for his subjects.

Shigeta completed his MFA at New York University in 2022, after earning his BFA from the School of Visual Arts. He has previously shown with various emerging and tastemaking galleries in the U.S. and the U.K., including Tyler Park Presents, Situations, The Hole, and Cob. Institutions including the Dallas Museum of Art have acquired his work.

—Casey Lesser

Gene A’hern

B. 1993, Katoomba, Australia. Lives and works in Katoomba.

Bathers, 2022
Gene A'hern
Brigade

Sky Painting 37, 2023
Gene A'hern
Brigade

In his first solo show in Europe, presented by Copenhagen-based gallery Brigade, Australian artist Gene A’hern deftly oscillates between figuration and abstraction while maintaining a consistent, recognizable style. Inspired by powerful natural cycles of creation and destruction, A’hern often works en plein air. This environment is felt, even in his abstract works: Looking at the enormous Sky Painting 37 (2023), for example, it’s easy to imagine the wind swirling as the sky darkens to sunset. Rendered in pastel on linen, Sky Painting 37 presents a record of the artist’s energetic movements—sometimes sweeping and broad, other times more contained. The technique is similar to one employed by gestural Abstract Expressionists, such as Willem de Kooning.

Untitled, 2023
Gene A'hern
Brigade

Blackheath Study 2, 2022
Gene A'hern
Brigade

White Gums, 2023
Gene A'hern
Brigade

Sky Painting 34, 2023
Gene A'hern
Brigade

untitled, 2020
Gene A'hern
Tatjana Pieters

Sky Painting 11, 2020
Gene A'hern
Simchowitz Gallery

Other works by A’hern reveal a German Expressionist influence. For example, Bathers (2022) calls to mind the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who produced many outdoor bathing scenes over the course of his career. But A’hern’s work is not mere pastiche; he builds upon his art historical references in part through the emphasis he places on texture, often layering materials such as yarn and monk cloth atop a pastel or acrylic base.

A’hern received his BFA from the National Arts School in Sydney in 2016. He has mounted solo exhibitions internationally, at galleries including Brigade in Copenhagen, Simchowitz in Los Angeles, and Piermarq in Sydney.

—Isabelle Sakelaris

Serena Korda

B. 1979, London. Lives and works in London.

She's a Messy Eater, 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

Put a Ring on it, 2022/23
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

A single hand drapes delicately off the edge of a table, with rich, brocade-like material pooling around its wrist. Crimson strawberries and sliced lemon are tucked into folds in the fabric, adding to the aura of decadence. But something is off: The hand is blue, almost rotten. Look from another angle, and you’ll see a cross section of flesh where the wrist truncates, exposing bare muscle and bone.

This scene, rendered in stoneware in She’s a Messy Eater (2023), is exemplary of Serena Korda’s striking ceramic work, which marries the ornamental with the grotesque. The sculpture was exhibited in Cooke Latham Gallery’s booth at The Armory Show last month—Korda’s first solo appearance in the U.S. With its offerings of dainty, disembodied arms and headless headdresses inspired by historical garments, the presentation expanded on “The Maidens,” Korda’s body of work examining the disempowerment of women in myth and history. Given her chosen themes, the artist’s choice of medium is pointed: Korda willfully complicates ceramics’ association with domestic and decorative objects.

Leaving Eden, 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

Strawberry 1 , 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

Wimple, 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

Apple 1, 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

Gauntlet and Body Beads, 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

Straw Bergére, 2023
Serena Korda
Cooke Latham Gallery

A graduate of the Royal College of Art’s MA program in printmaking, Korda had her first solo exhibition at Cooke Latham Gallery, which represents her, in February. Last year, her work was exhibited at the Hayward Gallery as part of the exhibition “Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art.” In addition to ceramics, she is known for her performance work.

—Olivia Horn

Zana Masombuka

B. 1995, Siyabuswa, South Africa. Lives and works in Johannesburg and Sterkloop, South Africa.

Nges’rhodlweni: eBandla 2, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

Nges’rhodlweni: eBandla 3, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

Zana Masombuka’s evolving practice resonates across a range of mediums, from photography to sculpture to performance. In a recent exhibition at October Gallery—her solo debut in London—the South African artist presented a new body of work that weaves together elements of Ndebele folklore and contemporary perspectives, employing striking color palettes and bold geometric patterns often expressed through the medium of her own body.

Titled “Nges’rhodlweni: A Portal for Black Joy,” in reference to a sacred space for gathering and ritual within Ndebele households, the exhibition taps into rich spiritual and ancestral legacies. Each photograph embodies a distinct ceremonial spirit from Masombuka’s heritage. The spellbinding portrait Nges’rhodlweni: eBandla 2 (2023) depicts a headless figure against a spiral backdrop, seemingly transcending the boundaries of the physical world.

Nges’rhodlweni: eBandla 1, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

Nges’rhodlweni: Is’memo 6, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

Nges’rhodlweni: Ukurhuphula 5, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

Nges’rhodlweni: Ukurhuphula 4, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

Nges’rhodlweni: Nges’buyeni 3, 2023
Zana Masombuka
October Gallery

In Nges’rhodlweni: eBandla 3 (2023), meanwhile, Masombuka wears gold rings across her eyes and neck, reminiscent of the Indzila worn by married Ndebele women. Her body is adorned with blue paint while the blanket draping her torso displays the vibrant colors of the South African flag.

Masombuka earned a degree in international studies from Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She has previously exhibited at Cellar Contemporary in Trento, Italy, and at 1-54 in London, among others.

—Adeola Gay

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Christie’s “Post-War to Present” sale nets $28.2 million. https://ift.tt/cx5D4SM

Christie’s concluded its “Post-War to Present” sale on Friday, wrapping up a week of activity at New York’s leading auction houses. The 283-lot sale reached $28.2 million in total, not including buyer’s premiums. The 10 most expensive lots from the sale were as follows:

• Frank Stella’s Abra I (1968) sold for $1.3 million.
• Keith Haring’s Andy Mouse (1986) sold for $1.2 million.
• Helen Frankenthaler’s Barcelona (1987) sold for $831,600.
• Alexander Calder’s Untitled (1965) sold for $819,000.
• Donald Judd’s Untitled (1969) sold for $768,600.
• Alex Katz’s Anne (1978) sold for $693,000.
• Sam Francis’s Untitled (Triptych) (1982) sold for $693,000
• Anish Kapoor’s Halo (2006) sold for $693,000.
• Tom Wesselmann’s Seascape #29 (1967) sold for $630,000.
• On Kawara’s DEC. 11, 1975, from Today, 1966-2013 (1975) sold for $604,800.

The sale also created new auction records for artists, including:

• Joe Overstreet, whose Untitled (1970) sold for $201,600.
• Maysha Mohamedi, whose Birdie on the Back of a Sleeping Tiger (2020) sold for $151,200.

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Magdalena Abakanowicz’s sculptures featured at Paris Fashion Week show. https://ift.tt/DdVLktG

At Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer ’24 show at Paris Fashion Week last week, the runway featured an unusual backdrop: woven fiber sculptures by the late 20th-century artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. The focus on the artist follows the Tate Modern’s recent retrospective on Abakanowicz, which will soon tour to the Henie Onstad Art Center in Oslo.

Spotlit like jewels in the fashion show’s darkened atmosphere were five “Abakans,” woven sculptures that gained notoriety in the 1960s and ’70s for their anatomical references. The installation was overseen by Mary Jane Jacob, co-director of the Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation. Jacob highlighted the historical significance of these works, stating they were “towering, bloated, brooding, gnarly—and magnificently beautiful.”

Among the pieces displayed was Abakan—Situation Variable (1970-71), a 4-meter-high work that was exhibited for the first time in 50 years at the Tate show earlier this year. Also featured was Abakan Violet (1969), a sculpture previously not shown outside the U.S., which has labia-like folds and flaps. Two segments of Monumental Composition (1973-75), each 10 meters long, made their first appearance outside of Poland.

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