Coffee shop removes Muck Rock mural, citing artist’s ‘racially insensitive’ past work
An Indianapolis coffee shop painted over a Jules Muck mural Friday because the store’s owner objects to one of the artist’s past paintings that has been called racist. Rabble owner Josie Hunckler said she learned Thursday evening of a 2018 mural by Muck that depicts a chimpanzee sporting a gold tooth and a thought bubble filled by a marijuana leaf. Muck painted the chimpanzee near New Orleans’ Lincoln Beach — a waterfront amusement park designated as an African American gathering place during the segregated 1950s. Hunckler said she no longer wanted Muck’s depiction of jazz singer Nina Simone on an exterior wall of Rabble, 2119 E. 10th St. “I painted over the Nina Simone portrait I commissioned and paid for because some of the artist’s other work was racially insensitive to the point of bothering me and many of my friends and customers,” Hunckler said. Jules Muck painted a mural of singer Nina Simone at Rabble Coffee, 2119 E 10th St.David Lindquist/IndyStar Full article at source:...
How Ashley Longshore Sold $1.3 Million Of Art In Under 2 Hours
Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a software business or an eccentric artist, everyone can learn something from Ashley Longshore’s advice. The self-taught artist from Montgomery, Alabama has become something of a legend in pop feminism culture with her colorful, often bizarre paintings of high-powered celebrity women, consumerism and Lil Wayne. Thanks to her beauty-queen-meets-bawdy-businesswoman appeal, her career now includes the first-ever female solo show for Bergdorf Goodman, selling $1.3 million of paintings on Instagram in under two hours, and, most recently, collaborating with Gucci on the label’s “Do It Yourself” project. She also wrote a book, You Don’t Look Fat, You Look Crazy: An Unapologetic Guide to Being Ambitchous. But her brash take on life and art wasn’t always so widely accepted, and it’s taken time, a lot of hard work, and even more optimism to go from misfit to someone whose work has young women practically clawing each other to get their hands on. “How can I be the ultimate version of myself?” is something she asks herself frequently. And over the phone not long ago, Longshore explained to me how she goes about doing that, and how — regardless of your career — you can exercise the same optimism and “ambitchon.” Source:...
Did Leonardo da Vinci have help?
Matthew Landrus believes the painting, which Louvre Abu Dhabi bought at auction for $450.3 million in 2017, better resembles the work of Bernardino Luini, an assistant in Da Vinci’s studio. Money has predominantly led most of the discussions surrounding attribution for “Salvator Mundi” (c. 1500), the Renaissance painting from Milan whose connection to Leonardo da Vinci’s studio is certain if also vague. The question of how this painting (sold for $127.5 million in 2014) could nearly quadruple in price to $450.3 million in 2017 was inextricably linked to Christie’s ability to build consensus on what it billed as “one of fewer than 20 known paintings by Leonardo.” Assembling a team of experts, the auction house created a whirlwind of scholarship and publicity that silenced the majority of its critics until the final hours of the sale when a variety of academics and journalists spoke against the attribution. One Leonardo expert who stayed quiet during the stormy debate was Oxford art historian Matthew Landrus, whose upcoming book, Leonardo da Vinci, is an update to his earlier 2006 edition that has sold over 200,000 copies in fifteen languages. Landrus made headlines this week for his controversial appraisal of “Salvator Mundi,” which he says is probably between only 5% and 20% painted by Leonardo. He notes that the rest of the painting is likely the work of Bernardino Luini, a studio assistant of Da Vinci. Hyperallergic spoke with Landrus about his shocking assertion. Read the full story at source: ...
Joys and challenges of painting outdoors reflected in Plein Air exhibit
Plein Air painting, which is simply the act of painting outdoors, is an artistic practice that goes back centuries. Pushing beyond the traditional walls of a studio, artists take their chosen media and travel out into the community or countryside and paint what they see. The result can take the shape of a landscape or cityscape, but also can be a vignette or moment of life captured and expressed through what the artist is confronting. The challenge is that this practice is all done out in the elements, and weather and time often conspire to put limits on what the artist is trying to investigate or convey. Artists who often work in this way almost universally have stories of being caught in some type of weather; they also often have stories of having to deal with curious onlookers who want to watch, talk about how they love painting and/or relate a story about their own experiences. There is an exuberance and passion conveyed through this type of painting that is palpable when you look at the work, regardless of whether the artist has been particularly successful. The act of trying to get all the information on paper or canvas before the weather changes or the medium gets too dry comes through in the visual energy and makes the works interesting and enjoyable. Source: Akron Beacon...
Nu couché by Amedeo Modigliani sold for $157m
When even the experts are warning that prices for works of art have become obscene, it is probably time to run a dispassionate eye over the multimillion-dollar frenzy for certain works. Last week, Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) by Amedeo Modigliani sold to an unnamed buyer for $157m, and a new record was set for a David Hockney painting when Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica was bought for $28.5m. Clare McAndrew of consultancy Art Economics says: “It’s slightly obscene, isn’t it? When you think of the other artists who could be supported by that money.” She adds that the Modigliani transaction is an illustration of the wealthy elite’s predilection for untamed spending: “To spend money on one thing like that shows ultra wealth gone wild.” The price reached at the Modigliani auction reflects the state of the world economy, says McAndrew, who also compiles an annual study of the global art market with Swiss bank UBS. Stronger growth is fuelling the market, spiralling prices reflect rising rampant and rising inequality across advanced economies. The art market broadly matched the growth rate of the global economy between 2000 and 2017, according to the latest UBS report, with world GDP and wealth both rising last year. Even so, some paintings are so famous they can fetch dizzyingly high prices when the economy is in a downturn. Source: The...