Lydia Csato Gasman (1925–2010)
02.09.10
Lydia Csato Gasman, an art historian known for her groundbreaking scholarship on the work of Picasso, died on January 15 in Charlottesville, Virginia, reports Roberta Smith for the New York Times. Gasman’s death was confirmed by Larry Goedde, chairman of the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she taught for two decades.
Fluent in several languages and equipped with a formidable memory, Gasman redefined Picasso studies. Most scholars had either analyzed Picasso’s art purely in terms of formal innovations and aesthetic progress or offered one-dimensional readings of his work in relation to his life story. Gasman found a middle way. One of her more sensational achievements was to track down Marie-Thérèse Walter, the great love of Picasso’s life, in the south of France in 1972 and, over a period of several days, to conduct the frankest, most detailed interview about their life together.
But Gasman’s most far-reaching accomplishment was to tie the imagery of Picasso’s paintings to the life of his mind: his reading (especially the poetry of the Surrealists), his own writings and notebook jottings, his psychic state and his interests in all forms of mysticism, magic, and ritual.
She introduced her findings in the sprawling four-volume dissertation for her Ph.D., which she earned from Columbia University in 1981. “Mystery, Magic, and Love in Picasso, 1925-1938: Picasso and the Surrealist Poets” delved into arcana like Picasso’s interest in the Masons and their use of ritual objects; the sexual significance of the beach cabana, a frequent motif in his paintings of the 1930s; and his belief in the magical nature of the art and artifacts of so-called primitive cultures, especially African. It devoted seventy-five pages alone to the images of severed rams’ heads in Picasso’s painting and the underlying theme of sacrifice.
Although never published, Gasman’s dissertation, photocopies of which were available for purchase, was required reading in some art history departments and was regularly mined by other scholars and writers on Picasso, who all too frequently failed to credit her discoveries. John Richardson, Picasso’s principal biographer, has said that Gasman did “more to unlock the secrets of the artist’s imagination than anyone else.” Luanne McKinnon, a former graduate student of Dr. Gasman’s at the University of Virginia and now director of the University of New Mexico Art Museum, said, “Lydia’s in-depth reading of Picasso is in the air and water of the field, so to speak.”
Iran Severs Ties With the British Museum
02.09.10
Agence France Presse reports via the Daily Star that Iran cut ties with the British Museum on Sunday in protest at repeated delays in the loan to Tehran of an ancient Persian treasure, the Cyrus Cylinder. Hassan Mohseni, a senior official at Iran’s cultural heritage and tourism organization, said relations were annulled after the London museum failed to transfer the artifact to Tehran.
“We confirm the cutting of ties and we consider it a closed chapter,” said Mohseni, who heads the state organization’s public relations.
Tehran’s decision to break off relations with the museum was revealed earlier by Hamid Baghai, who heads the cultural heritage and tourism organization. “Since the Cyrus Cylinder has not been transferred to Iran, we will lodge a complaint against the British Museum to UNESCO and cut ties,” Baghai was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
The museum, he said, had failed to meet a final deadline of Sunday, leading to the cut, and Iran’s decision to notify the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
Many historians regard the cylinder, discovered in 1879, as the world’s first declaration of human rights. It was written at the order of Persian ruler Cyrus the Great after his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.
Guggenheim Settles with Malevich Heirs
02.08.10
The foundation that runs the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum said today that it has reached an agreement with the heirs of the artist Kazimir Malevich over the ownership of an untitled work by him that the museum plans to include in an exhibition this month, according to the New York Times. In a joint news release, the foundation and the heirs of Malevich said they had reached “an amicable settlement” over an oil painting on canvas made by the artist around 1916, which was acquired by Peggy Guggenheim in 1942 and has been part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. The painting is one of about seventy Malevich works that were presented at an exhibition in Berlin in 1927, during which the artist was called back to the Soviet Union and entrusted the works to several friends. Malevich died in 1935 and his work was subsequently banned by the Nazis, but his paintings, drawings, and other art have since become part of the collections of museums and private owners, setting the stage for efforts by his heirs to reclaim ownership of these works.
The Guggenheim, which will show the untitled painting in an exhibition called “Malevich in Focus: 1912–1922,” said in a statement that the terms of the settlement were confidential. A representative of the Malevich heirs said in a statement that the family “is gratified that this matter has been resolved in a way that acknowledges Malevich’s legacy and his contributions to the history of twentieth-century art and keeps his artwork on public display.”
Chuck Close Joins President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
02.08.10
Mike Boehm reports in the Los Angeles Times that Barack Obama has picked six people to join the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities; two of them, artist Chuck Close and Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist and short-story writer Jhumpa Lahiri, will become the first visual artist and writer on an advisory panel weighted with actors and business people.
The other new appointees are entertainment executives and arts patrons. They are Sheila Johnson, a founder of Black Entertainment Television; Ken Solomon, chairman of the arts-oriented Ovation TV cable network and chief executive of the Santa Monica–based Tennis Channel; Pamela Joyner, a San Francisco arts philanthropist; and Fred Goldring, a Beverly Hills–based music business lawyer and former board chairman of Rock the Vote.
The committee’s website says its purpose is to “initiate and support” programs of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and to encourage private-public partnerships in the arts and culture.
Plains Art Museum Receives Major Donations and Continues Rosenquist Commission
02.08.10
With the help of an anonymous donor, the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota, has finalized its commission of a $1.2 million James Rosenquist mural, reports John Lamb for the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. The commission had been in the works for years and planned when the renowned artist visited Fargo in 2005.
Funding had been a hurdle in the acquisition. A press release announcing the arrangement said a donor gave $600,000, which was matched by the artist in labor, materials, and lowering his fee. The donor’s name was not revealed, but Plains Art Museum director Colleen Sheehy said the giver was from the community.
“We’re so grateful because this donor was able to fulfill this dream,” said Sheehy. The first version of The North Dakota Mural burned in a fire that destroyed Rosenquist’s Aripeka, Florida, home in January 2009. Sheehy saw the original and after the fire asked the artist to maintain the piece’s spirit. She and curator Mark Ryan will travel to Rosenquist’s home in March to examine the painting.
The mural will be unveiled in early October and will hang above the main floor in the Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium. “I’m ecstatic that we’ve finished one major piece in the capital campaign,” said Sheehy.
This is the second recent announcement about major donations to the museum’s campaign. In December, the Grand Rapids, Michigan–based Kresge Foundation gave $800,000 and the Saint Paul, Minnesota–based Bush Foundation gave $555,000. Sheehy says the goal for all fund-raising is to finish by fall 2011. “We’re charging ahead,” she said. “There’s momentum.”
Hamza Walker and Artur Żmijewski Win $100,000 Ordway Prize
02.05.10
Creative Link for the Arts and the New Museum have announced Hamza Walker, the director of education and associate curator at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and Polish artist Artur Żmijewski, as the recipients of the Ordway Prize. An international panel of nominators and a jury of leading arts-world figures—led by Jennifer McSweeney, director of Creative Link for the Arts, and Richard Flood, chief curator at the New Museum—selected the Ordway Prize recipients from a global pool of nominees. Walker and Żmijewski will each receive an unrestricted cash prize of one hundred thousand dollars.
Artur Zmijewski was born in 1966 in Warsaw, where he currently lives and works. Most recently, Żmijewski presented a selection of works for the Museum of Modern Art’s “Projects 91” series. His latest film, Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009, which premiered as part of “Projects 91,” records one of a series of staged workshops organized and documented by the artist in which the participants are invited to create art.
In 2008, Żmijewski showed Oko za Oko (An Eye for an Eye) in the New Museum’s “After Nature” exhibition. In 2007–2008, he was a DAAD Artist in Residence in Berlin. Żmijewski participated in Documenta 12 in 2007 and Manifesta 4 in 2002. In 2005, his film Repetition was shown in the Polish pavilion at the fiftieth Venice Biennale. In 2000, he was given the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per L'Arte Prize for Oko za Oko.
Hamza Walker was born in 1966 in New York City and lives in Chicago. In addition to his position at the Renaissance Society, he is also on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has written for Trans, New Art Examiner, Parkett, and Artforum and penned catalogue essays on Darren Almond, Rebecca Morris, Giovanni Anselmo, Thomas Hirschhorn, Moshekwa Langa, and Katharina Grosse. He has served on numerous panels locally and internationally and is the recipient of the 1999 Norton Curatorial Grant and the 2005 Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement.
Nominees for the Ordway Prize are midcareer talents between the ages of forty and sixty-five, with a developed body of work extending over a minimum of fifteen years. Past Ordway Prize recipients have included curator/arts writer Ralph Rugoff and artist Doris Salcedo (2006), and curator/arts writer James Elaine and artist Cildo Meireles (2008).
Nelson-Atkins Receives 400 Works from Donors
02.05.10
This week, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City announced that seventy-five of its supporters have either given or promised to give some four hundred works of art to celebrate the museum’s seventy-fifth anniversary and to honor its veteran director, Marc F. Wilson, who is retiring in June.
“This is about the future,” said Sarah Rowland, chairwoman of the Nelson-Atkins board, according to the New York Times. “Kansas City may be small, but it has a deep philanthropic base. And there are a lot of people who care deeply about their community.”
The range of gifts is broad: There’s everything from paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs to textiles, ceramics, silver, furniture, and rare books. Capping it all is the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection of Impressionist and modern art, which includes twenty-nine works by van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin that experts say are worth more than three hundred million dollars alone. In 2007, the museum named a building after the Blochs. (He was a founder of H&R Block.) Designed by the architect Steven Holl, it opened in 2007 with, appropriately enough, an exhibition of the Blochs’ collection.
Michael Cooper (1949–2010)
02.05.10
Artnet reports that Michael Cooper, an artist known for collages made from photographs and all manner of printed ephemera, including stickers, bus tickets and candy wrappers, died at home on January 23, 2010. He was sixty years old. Cooper had his first solo show of found-object collages at OK Harris Gallery in SoHo in 1976, and more recently exhibited with Pavel Zoubok Gallery in Chelsea, New York.