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Gina Rinehart demands for National Gallery to remove her portrait

<p>Gina Rinehart has demanded that her portriat be removed from the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra because she doesn't like it. </p> <p>The portrait of Australia's richest woman appears alongside many others, including Queen Elizabeth and former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in an exhibition by acclaimed Archibald Prize-winning Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira.</p> <p>Namatjira's works are known for having cartoon-like qualities, as he often paints famous figures as caricatures. </p> <p><a title="www.smh.com.au" href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/portrait-gina-rinehart-doesn-t-want-you-to-see-mogul-demands-national-gallery-remove-her-image-20240513-p5jd59.html">Nine Newspapers </a>have the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) have been flooded with a dozen complaints about the portrait of Rinehart, including some from athletes she sponsors through her company Hancock Prospecting. </p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has demanded the National Gallery of Australia remove a portrait of her from an exhibition by Archibald Prize-winning Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira. THAT’S A GOOD REASON TO SHARE THE PORTRAIT WIDELY. <a href="https://t.co/pYoMh6vQcW">pic.twitter.com/pYoMh6vQcW</a></p> <p>— Maurie Mulheron (@maurie_mulheron) <a href="https://twitter.com/maurie_mulheron/status/1790621641502036239?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2024</a></p></blockquote> <p>One complaint allegedly accused the NGA of “doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party” with the portrait of Ms Rinehart. </p> <p>On the NGA website, Ms Rinehart is listed as a “friend” of the gallery, as she historically has donated up to $9999.</p> <p>The NGA has refused to take the painting down, and the artwork will be on display until July 21st.</p> <p>“Since 1973, when the National Gallery acquired Jackson Pollack’s Blue Poles, there has been a dynamic discussion on the artistic merits of works in the national collection, and/or on display at the gallery,” the NGA said in a statement. </p> <p>“We present works of art to the Australian public to inspire people to explore, experience and learn about art.”</p> <p>In response to the demand to have the painting removed, Namatjira released a statement saying, “I paint the world as I see it. People don’t have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look and think, ‘why has this Aboriginal bloke painted these powerful people? What is he trying to say?’"</p> <p>"I paint people who are wealthy, powerful, or significant – people who have had an influence on this country, and on me personally, whether directly or indirectly, whether for good or for bad. Some people might not like it, other people might find it funny, but I hope people look beneath the surface and see the serious side too.”</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images / X (Twitter)</em></p>

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National Aboriginal Art Gallery under fire over proposed building site

<p dir="ltr">Indigenous Australian elders in the Northern Territory have called the development of the National Aboriginal Art Gallery (NAAG) a “complete joke” due to its insensitive proposed building site. </p> <p dir="ltr">The $130 million project is set to celebrate 65,000 years of First Nations history and culture, while also ramping up future tourism prospects in the NT. </p> <p dir="ltr">However, the government wants to build it on the town's football oval precinct, which, critically, overlaps a sacred women's site.</p> <p dir="ltr">Doris Stuart Kngwarreye, a proud Arrernte woman,  described the five-year consultation process for the project as a "complete joke" and said she would continue to fight to protect her cultural heritage.  </p> <p dir="ltr">"If you're there and they're consulting with you and you say 'no, end of story' consultation goes on without you there," she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The boxes have been ticked." </p> <p dir="ltr">The main issue for Ms Stuart is that the gallery will layer other First Nations' songlines and stories, expressed through the artworks proposed for the gallery, over an Mparntwe sacred women's area. </p> <p dir="ltr">"If you put a building up there with stories that don't belong there, how do you think the ancestors will feel towards that?" she said. </p> <p dir="ltr">"Where's the respect? We have our boundaries here."</p> <p dir="ltr">Western Arrarnta elder and artist Mervyn Rubuntja has been painting his homeland in vibrant watercolour since he was a teenager, and said he felt uneasy about displaying his artwork on the potential site.</p> <p dir="ltr">"It's a woman's site," he said. "You need to talk to the ladies first if they say yes or no, because it's important for every non-Indigenous person to listen."</p> <p dir="ltr">The fight over the location first began in 2017, when a government-funded steering committee, led by Indigenous art experts, <a href="https://desart.com.au/publication/2786/">said in a report</a> the gallery should be built out of town and should have major input from the local Indigenous custodians. </p> <p dir="ltr">The NT government is still consulting with the community over the designs of the building and that consultation process is expected to be wrapped by late 2023, but there is no clear timeline for when the building will commence.</p> <p dir="ltr">For Ms Stuart, she said she is disappointed that the government is pushing ahead with the project but said she’d continue to speak up for her country no matter the outcome. </p> <p dir="ltr">"All I want is respect for all this land," she said.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

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Male artists dominate galleries. Our research explored if it’s because ‘women don’t paint very well’ – or just discrimination

<p>In the art world, there is a gaping gender imbalance when it comes to male and female artists.</p> <p>In the National Gallery of Australia, <a href="https://nga.gov.au/knowmyname/about/">only 25%</a> of the Australian art collection is work by women. </p> <p>This is far better than the international standard where <a href="https://nmwa.org/support/advocacy/get-facts/">roughly 90%</a> of all artworks exhibited in major collections are by men. The <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/georgia-okeeffe-jimson-weed-slash-white-flower-no-1">most expensive</a> painting by a female artist – Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 – does not even rank among the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings#List_of_highest_prices_paid">100 most expensive paintings</a> ever sold. </p> <p>Why is women’s art valued so much less than art by men?</p> <p>Some economists <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/02/why_do_women_su.html">have suggested</a> the greater burden of child rearing and other domestic duties means women have had fewer opportunities to succeed in the art world.</p> <p>Others have blamed the “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/report-names-laggers-as-women-artists-win-parity-20191029-p534vy.html">quality</a>” of women’s art. In 2013, German painter <a href="https://observer.com/2013/01/georg-baselitz-says-women-dont-paint-very-well/">Georg Baselitz said</a> “Women don’t paint very well. It’s a fact. The market doesn’t lie.”</p> <p>We wanted to know: is work by women generally valued differently to work by men because it is of a lower artistic quality, or is it just discrimination?</p> <h2>Which painting do you like better?</h2> <p>In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122002669?dgcid=author">our new research</a> we showed average Americans pairs of paintings, painted between 1625 and 1979, side by side. Each of the pairs are similar in style, motif and period, but one work was by a male artist and the other by a female artist.</p> <p>Participants were in two groups. One group saw the artists’ names and the other didn’t. We wanted to see whether more people among those who saw artist names preferred the male painting.</p> <p>If seeing the names – and thereby inferring artist gender – causes more people to prefer male paintings, then there is gender discrimination.</p> <p>Before we tell you the results, think about what you would have expected. And <a href="https://rmit.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e4JBs0wxKeftYF0">take a look</a> at our actual painting pairs and see if you can guess which is the male one (hint: you can’t).</p> <p>We were pleasantly surprised to find our participants did not give a hoot about artist gender. In both groups, 54% preferred the painting from a woman.</p> <p>We repeated this experiment, this time rewarding participants if they could accurately guess the preferences of others – the people in the first experiment. </p> <p>Again, 54% of the people in each group picked the female paintings.</p> <h2>Which painting do you think is worth more?</h2> <p>Next we wanted to find out if people picked male paintings for reasons other than personal taste. Art isn’t just bought and sold on aesthetic value: it is a speculative market, where art is treated as an investment.</p> <p>We conducted two more experiments. In one, participants were rewarded if they picked the more expensive painting. In the other, they were rewarded to pick the one painted by the more famous artist.</p> <p>Gender discrimination emerged in both these experiments. When asked to predict the value of and creator fame of paintings, people suddenly swung towards picking male artists. Preference for female paintings fell by 10% and 9% in these two new experiments.</p> <p>Gender discrimination in art comes not from personal aesthetic preference – Baselitz’ argument that women “don’t paint very well” – but people thinking paintings are more valuable and famous when painted by male artists.</p> <h2>A question of fame</h2> <p>In our fifth experiment, we again rewarded participants who could correctly guess which painting would be preferred by others. This time everyone saw the names of the artists. But only one group was told which of the two artists was objectively more famous – the male artist in 90% of cases.</p> <p>The group with that information was 14% more likely to pick male paintings. People used fame information to predict the painting others liked better.</p> <p>If women artists were discriminated against just because of their gender we would have seen a higher premium put on the male artists even in questions of aesthetics.</p> <p>Here, discrimination only occured when our participants were asked to assign a monetary value to the art works, or when they were given information about the level of fame of the painter. </p> <p>This means our art appreciators discriminated not on gender, but on something closely associated with gender: fame.</p> <p>And because male artists have, historically, been given <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1574067606010234">more opportunities</a> to become artists – and therefore become famous – artwork by men is perceived as having a higher value.</p> <p>Policy is slowly starting to recognise and target institutional factors that perpetuate male dominance because of historical notions of fame, like the National Gallery of Australia’s <a href="https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au/">Know my Name</a> initiative. </p> <p>Discrimination in the arts exists, but it often comes from people’s beliefs about what others care to discriminate about. The task ahead is to change perceptions of people and institutions who do not discriminate – but merely conform to others’ discrimination.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/male-artists-dominate-galleries-our-research-explored-if-its-because-women-dont-paint-very-well-or-just-discrimination-189221" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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How to get the most out of your next art gallery visit

<p dir="ltr">Art galleries and museums are places of splendour and inspiration that can open doors to other worlds, cultures and historic secrets. </p> <p dir="ltr">Despite the joy many experience within the walls of an exhibition, others can find it dull, exhausting and even in some cases, boring. </p> <p dir="ltr">With all this in mind, there are a few ways you can capitalise on your next gallery experience to get the most out of it without being left feeling exhausted by the end of the day. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Don’t try to see everything in one visit</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">When you step inside a gallery, the first impulse many feel is to soak in as much art and culture as you can. </p> <p dir="ltr">Justin Paton, the head curator of international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, says there's no shame in only looking at the things that really grab your attention. </p> <p dir="ltr">"I think you walk through openly, you walk through curiously, you walk through with your antennae up," he <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-art-show/how-to-look-at-a-painting/10826778">told ABC RN's The Art Show</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Look for that physical response — it might be adoration, it might be arousal, it might be revulsion.”</p> <p dir="ltr">"Those bodily cues, those ungovernable responses, are exactly what should make us look twice, make us look a third time.”</p> <p dir="ltr">"See what the wall label says about it, and if that doesn't correspond with the way you're feeling about it, look again, go and find out more."</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Slow down</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Studies have shown that many people tend to zoom their way through galleries, with research finding many people move on after <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-10247-001">less than 30 seconds</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">When you're not rushing through trying to see everything, you can afford to slow down and appreciate the things that speak to you. </p> <p dir="ltr">"If you spend good time with one work it is infinitely more valuable than doing a grainy tour of a museum and coming out exhausted," Paton says.</p> <p dir="ltr">"A great painting will flip switches and unlatch thoughts."</p> <p dir="ltr">This helps when you’re looking at what you’re connecting with, rather than what art or exhibitions you feel like you should be seeing. </p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Get to know the art</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">When first observing art, we all have the instinct to judge a piece on its immediate appearance, prompting comments such as “I love it” or “I hate it” or “Surely a child could’ve done this”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Resisting this urge will let you connect with the artist and their intentions on a deeper level, and reading more about a certain work will give you a more elaborate insight into an artists’ inspiration. </p> <p dir="ltr">"It's nice to think about artworks as you would think about people: not rushing into a judgement too fast," says Paton.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Lighten up! Don’t take it too seriously </strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Alongside the reverence and reflection that comes into art, there is also plenty of room for humour and silliness. </p> <p dir="ltr">"People in the past, they had a sense of humour, they liked to have a joke. They weren't a stuffy, serious culture," says Art historian Mary McGillivray.</p> <p dir="ltr">"When you're looking at a painting and you think, 'That's a bit suspect,' it almost certainly will be.”</p> <p dir="ltr">"There's a lot of penis jokes in art history, let me tell you."</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Do your homework</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">A little planning can go a long way when it comes to your next art gallery visit. </p> <p dir="ltr">Looking at what exhibitions are currently on, utilising digital maps, or even booking in a guided tour will help you get the most out of any museum. </p> <p dir="ltr">"Those tours will give you so much more insight into what you're looking at, and it's way more engaging to hear someone talk about art in a collection that they're interested in," says McGillivray.</p> <p dir="ltr">Public programming can also include art and dementia programs, tactile tours for kids, student learning initiatives, and programs created for, and facilitated by, First Nations people.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Don’t feel like you don’t belong</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">You absolutely do!</p> <p dir="ltr">Public art galleries and museums are open to everyone for a reason: to share a love and appreciation of art, history and culture with as many people as possible. </p> <p dir="ltr">"Galleries are not meant to be elitist, they're not meant to be just for some people to understand and everyone else to stay away from. Everyone deserves to have a go at enjoying those collections," McGillivray says.</p> <p dir="ltr">"You're allowed to talk, you're allowed to laugh, you're allowed to joke, you can walk through really quickly or you can slow down or sit down. There's no right or wrong way."</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

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Galleries continue to erase women artists in their blockbuster exhibitions

<p>The National Gallery recently <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/press-and-media/press-releases/after-impressionism">announced</a> its summer 2023 exhibition, After Impressionism, claiming the show will celebrate the “towering achievements of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin and Rodin” among others. The <a href="https://twitter.com/NationalGallery/status/1528729976542986242">response on social media</a> to this announcement was largely, “where are the women?”</p> <p>Some on Twitter offered suggestions of women who should be included in the exhibition, including Suzanne Valadon, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter and Sonia Delaunay, to name just a few. The National Gallery <a href="https://twitter.com/NationalGallery/status/1529758889150930944">tweeted</a> the same text to several of these replies: “We have announced a small number of confirmed loans to the exhibition. This includes Camille Claudel’s Imploration. We will share more loans, including major works by women artists, closer to the opening.” </p> <p>While it remains to be seen what these works will be, it is clear they are not considered integral to the show, or a significant draw for the public, by the gallery. If they were, they would have been mentioned front and centre in the press release. </p> <p>That was accompanied by an image of Cezanne’s <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paul-cezanne-bathers-les-grandes-baigneuses">Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses)</a>, which depicts a group of nude women. Clearly in 2022, the easiest way for a woman to get on to the walls of the National Gallery is <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-do-women-have-to-be-naked-to-get-into-the-met-museum-p78793">still</a> by being nude.</p> <p>The National Gallery is somewhat of an outlier among global museums in its continued failure to broaden the narratives it tells through its collection and exhibitions. But its focus on extremely well-known white male artists demonstrates what it considers to be innovative and important – and therefore what it does not. </p> <h2>When women have been blockbusters</h2> <p>The expectation that “blockbuster” shows be about household-name artists is a vicious cycle – artists cannot become household names if they’re not included in big exhibitions. The lack of women in traditional art historical scholarship has led to the belief that there simply weren’t many, or indeed any, important women artists working in Europe in this period, which is entirely false – as the backlash on Twitter highlighted. Yet museums still seem unable to recover them into the canon.</p> <p>The idea that only household names sell tickets has also been repeatedly debunked over the past decade. The best example is New York’s Guggenheim Museum’s 2018 <a href="https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/hilma-af-klint">exhibition</a> of the works of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, the first major retrospective of the artist’s works in the US – and the first time most people attending the show had seen or heard of her. The exhibition became the museum’s <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hilma-af-klint-breaks-records-guggenheim-1522192?utm_content=buffer3ce14&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=facebook.com&amp;utm_campaign=news">best-attended show ever</a>.</p> <p>The National Portrait Gallery’s 2019-20 show <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/pre-raphaelite-sisters/exhibition/">Pre-Raphelite Sisters</a> and Madrid’s Museo del Prado’s 2020-21 show <a href="https://www.museodelprado.es/en/whats-on/exhibition/uninvited-guests-episodes-on-women-ideology-and/197d4831-41f1-414d-dbdf-5ffd7be4cc3f">Uninvited Guests: Episodes on Women, Ideology and the Visual Arts in Spain (1833-1931)</a> both foregrounded women in traditionally male art movements and periods. </p> <p>Both were the recipients of <a href="https://www.frieze.com/article/pre-raphaelite-sisters-national-portrait-gallery-review-ode-sisterly-solidarity">some</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/19/prados-first-post-lockdown-show-reignites-debate-over-misogyny">criticism</a>, largely arguing that the curators had not gone far enough in centring work actually made by women, rather than simply depicting them. Both shows, however, represent steps towards imagining new methods of disrupting traditional art history narratives. </p> <h2>Still woefully underrepresented in permanent collections</h2> <p>In the autumn and winter of 2020, the National Gallery hosted its first exhibition headlining a female artist. It was a retrospective of the works of the remarkable Renaissance artist <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/past/artemisia">Artemisia Gentileschi</a>, one of the few women whose work is held in the gallery’s permanent collection. </p> <p>Women artists are woefully underrepresented in the permanent collections of major museums around the world – these are the works of art that are owned by museums and hung on the walls year-round, not just during special exhibitions.</p> <p>The National Gallery, which boasts a collection of more than 2,000 works, owns only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jan/31/female-artists-are-finally-in-our-galleries-lets-keep-them-there">24 works</a> by women, representing just <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-eight-women-artists-of-the-national-gallery">eight</a> women artists. While this ratio is remarkably bad, the National Gallery is not alone in having a profound imbalance. </p> <p>The arts publications Artnet and arts podcast In Other Words partnered in 2019 to <a href="https://news.artnet.com/womens-place-in-the-art-world/visualizing-the-numbers-see-infographics-1654084">analyse</a> the representation of women in the collections of American museums. They found that between 2008 and 2018, just 14% of work in museum exhibitions was by women and just 11% of museum acquisitions were works by women. These acquisitions and exhibitions are heavily skewed towards modern and contemporary art. </p> <p>Women artists working before 1900 are far less represented in museum collections. In some cases, their works are in smaller museums or in private collections and, in others, they are untraced or lost. This makes including their work in exhibitions more difficult because it can be harder to find.</p> <p>Yet despite the fact that women’s work has been less reliably preserved throughout history, a great deal of it still exists. Museums that hide behind the excuse of a “lack” of work by women are perpetuating a lie that has been debunked by innumerable feminist art historians since Linda Nochlin’s famous 1971 essay, <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists-4201/">Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?</a></p> <p>Writing in 2015, art historian Griselda Pollock <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-national-gallery-is-erasing-women-from-the-history-of-art-42505">explained</a> evidence of women artists is “there in black and white” in exhibition and sales records in the 19th century. “This is the primary evidence. It cannot be contradicted. But it has been consistently ignored by 20th-century art historians and 21st-century museum curators.”</p> <p>The National Gallery’s continued reliance on outdated art history is a failure of its duty as a steward of the British public’s art collection. Museums, particularly those like the National Gallery which receive significant public funds, have the responsibility to accurately communicate the history and relevance of the objects they own. They should also continue to innovate and respond to cultural changes. </p> <p>A museum whose collection is less than 1% female is hardly representative of a country whose population is 50% female. Nor is it representative of a history of art which, while still not offering equal opportunities for men and women, certainly fostered an abundance of pioneering women artists.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/galleries-continue-to-erase-women-artists-in-their-blockbuster-exhibitions-184988" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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Art gallery investigates links to Holocaust

<p dir="ltr">The Wollongong Art Gallery in New South Wales is grappling with shocking new revelations that a major donor with a gallery named after him may have been a Nazi collaborator before emigrating to Australia from Lithuania. </p> <p dir="ltr">Bronius "Bob" Sredersas donated approximately 100 works by revered Australian artists to the gallery in 1976, just six years before he died. </p> <p dir="ltr">Despite working as a steelworker at Port Kembla, he saved his money to meticulously collect valuable paintings. </p> <p dir="ltr">However, after the gallery’s 40th birthday celebrations in 2018, which also celebrated the central role Sredersas played in its establishment, former councillor Michael Samaras noticed he was described as a policeman for the Lithuanian government's Department of Security.</p> <p dir="ltr">The councillor found the findings suspicious and decided to investigate further. </p> <p dir="ltr">"When all the publicity happened for the 40th anniversary of the gallery there was media, including on the ABC Illawarra webpage, about the fact that he was a policeman in Lithuania before the war," he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"And I just knew from general knowledge that a lot of the police from Lithuania ended up in what was called the Auxiliary Police Battalion, which actually did much of the killing in the Holocaust.”</p> <p dir="ltr">"The Wollongong City Library local studies section has a whole three boxes of material on him so I got his birth certificate."</p> <p dir="ltr">In uncovering these devastating claims, the Wollongong council, who owns the gallery, has been put on the back foot, with Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery receiving letters from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies who have offered to help work with the council to investigate. </p> <p dir="ltr">"That has to be dealt with in a way that does not hide the past, recognises the allegations if they are proven and how we deal with the Sredersas Collection and how that's represented or interpreted," Mr Bradbery said.</p> <p dir="ltr">While the investigation is ongoing, Dr Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, has suggested council remove the name of Bob Sredersas from the gallery in the meantime. </p> <p dir="ltr">He said, "I think it's important that a decision is made to remove his name as it's basically a statement that we do not want to honour people who participate in the crimes of the Holocaust."</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Wollongong City Council </em></p>

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London gallery returns stolen works to Nepalese owners

<p dir="ltr">Two artefacts that were stolen 30 years ago from a temple in Nepal have been repatriated in a ceremony at the Nepalese embassy in London.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 16th-century carved wooden Torana, a ceremonial gateway, and the 17th-century stone statue of a kneeling devotee were both taken from a sacred site near Kathmandu, according to detective superintendent John Roch of the London Metropolitan police at the handover, which was attended by the Nepalese ambassador Gyan Chandra Acharya.</p> <p dir="ltr">In a statement, both parties expressed “their willingness to work closely and promote the collaborative efforts for the preservation of cultural heritage.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Both artefacts were found in the holdings of Barakat Gallery’s London branch, with the London Metropolitan police claiming that the pieces had been inherited from a deceased relative, and had been in the family’s possession for 20 years. </p> <p dir="ltr">Barakat voluntarily relinquished the artefacts after they were determined to be the looted cultural property of Nepal.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I am deeply committed to [supporting] Nepali efforts in protecting and repatriating its rich cultural heritage, and hope we can all continue to fight to reinstate access, agency and power over their living heritage to the Nepali people,” Emiline Smith, a professor of criminology at the University of Glasgow, wrote on Twitter. </p> <p dir="ltr">Emiline specialises in the global illegal trade in cultural objects originating from Asia, and brought the issue to the attention of the authorities in Nepal and Interpol, which then connected with London’s police.</p> <p dir="ltr">Nepal’s acting consul general Bishnu Prasad Gautam received the artefacts on behalf of the Nepalese government in a ceremony organised by the museum.</p> <p dir="ltr">In a statement, Gautam called the repatriation “proactive,” adding that gallery’s cooperation has “positively contributed to Nepal’s national efforts” to recover its stolen cultural property from foreign collections.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: The Nepalese Embassy in London</em></p>

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Arthur Boyd's new Bundanon art gallery opens

<p><span style="font-size: 16px">After bushfires came within a kilometre of destroying one of the nation's most important collections of a single artist's work, plans to build a more secure gallery were expedited.</span></p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">The result is the stunning new fire-and-flood-resistant Bundanon gallery near Nowra on the NSW South Coast. This gallery will host the $46 million collection of renowned artist Arthur Boyd. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">While planning for the site had been underway since 2015, the build became even more important when the Black Summer fires almost destroyed the collection. Bundanon Trust chief executive Rachel Kent said staff managed to have the work trucked out, just in time.</p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">Architect Kerstin Thompson said the gallery buildings were now as disaster-proof as buildings could be. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">The new buildings include a trestle bridge, which will allow floodwater to flow freely away from the property towards the Shoalhaven River, as well as an underground gallery museum.</p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">"There are two important principles that drive the whole project.</p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">"One is about fire resistance, and the gallery is founded on that idea, and the second part is about resilience and about being able to go with the flow with things like flood." </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/02/Gallery-2.jpg" alt="" width="452" height="254" /></p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">The new gallery is built into the ground, and can hardly be seen on the surface.</p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">The $33 million facility, jointly funded by the state and federal governments, is designed to keep the artworks safe and thermally stable, as well as provide a fire shelter for staff at the site. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">The work of Arthur Boyd is internationally loved, from flamboyant costume designs, to Shoalhaven-inspired landscapes painted at the Bundanon property.</p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">The new museum will showcase not just Boyd's work, but the work of modern artists who spend time in residence at Bundanon or are inspired by his work.</p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">Head of curatorial and learning Sophie O'Brien said this was exactly what Arthur, who died in 1999, and his wife, artist Yvonne who died in 2013, intended for the site. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">"The vision of Bundanon from Arthur and Yvonne Boyd was always to have a place to show the work of new artists," Ms O'Brien said. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">Ms Kent said the pandemic presented challenges in being able to officially open the gallery, but she expected that, ultimately, international visitors and locals alike would want to visit Bundanon. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px">"I imagine it will draw people from right across the region, immediate family and community, as well as NSW, eventually Australia and, of course, an international audience as well," she said. </p><p class="_1HzXw" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;font-size: 16px"><em>Images: ABC</em></p>

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Can new lighting save the Mona Lisa?

<div class="copy"> <p>Next time you’re in a museum or art gallery, observe each painting a little more closely. You may notice cracks on the surface of the canvas, especially if the painting is very old.</p> <p>The damage you see is caused by radiant energy striking the painting’s surface – and light (visible radiation) causes irreversible damage to artwork.</p> <p>However, all is not lost. <a rel="noopener" href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15502724.2018.1533852" target="_blank">Our new research</a> shows that optimised smart lighting systems can reduce damage to paintings while preserving their colour appearance.</p> <h2>The dilemma</h2> <p>Damage to artwork by infrared, ultraviolet and visible radiation is <a rel="noopener" href="http://www.cie.co.at/publications/control-damage-museum-objects-optical-radiation" target="_blank">well documented</a>. When a photon (an elementary light particle) is absorbed by a pigment in paint, the pigment molecule elevates to a higher energy state. In this excited state, the molecule’s chemical composition changes. This is called a photochemical action.</p> <p>Viewed from the human perspective, the photochemical action manifests itself as cracks, discolouration, or surface hardening.</p> Not surprisingly, daylight, which includes infrared and ultraviolet radiation, is highly damaging to paintings. In museums, it is common practice to use incandescent, and more recently, light emitting diodes (LEDs), to reduce damage. <p>However, a group of researchers <a rel="noopener" href="http://www.vangogh.ua.ac.be/" target="_blank">showed</a> that light can cause colour degradation regardless of the lighting technology. Bright yellow colours in Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers are turning dark brown due to absorption of blue and green light from LEDs. Research on the conservation of artwork makes it look like this is a losing battle.</p> <p>Of course, you will be right in thinking that the best conservation method would be the complete absence of light. But we need light for visibility and to appreciate the beauty of a painting.</p> <p>This leaves us with a dilemma of two conflicting parameters: visibility and damage.</p> <h2>Light optimisation</h2> <p>Lighting technology in itself may not be enough to tackle this dilemma. However, the way we use technology can make a difference.</p> <p>Our approach to address this problem is based on three key facts:  </p> <ol> <li>light triggers photochemical actions only when it is absorbed by a pigment</li> <li>the reflectance factor of a pigment (its effectiveness in reflecting light) determines the amount of light absorption</li> <li>light output (composition of the light spectrum, and the intensity of the light) of lighting devices, such as LEDs, can be fine-tuned.</li> </ol> <p>It is possible to measure the reflectance factor of a painting and optimise lighting to reduce absorption. Previous research <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-23-11-A456" target="_blank">shows</a> that optimising light to lessen absorption can reduce energy consumption significantly, and with <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-25-11-12839" target="_blank">no loss</a> in visual experience. Objects look equally natural and attractive under optimised light sources compared to regular white light sources.{%recommended 8046%}</p> <p>In this new study, we optimised LEDs for five paintings to reduce light absorption. Using a <a rel="noopener" href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/996017" target="_blank">genetic algorithm</a> (an artificial intelligence technique), we reduced light absorption between 19% and 47%. Besides the benefits for the painting, this method almost halved the energy consumed by lighting.</p> <p>In addition to increased sustainability and art conservation, the colour quality of the paintings was another parameter in our optimisation process. Colour appearance and brightness of paintings were held constant not to lower the appreciation of the artwork.</p> <p>This is possible due to a quirk in our visual system. Photoreceptor cone cells, the cells in our retinas which enable human colour vision, are not equally sensitive to the whole visible spectrum.</p> <p>Different combinations of wavelength and intensity can result in identical signals in our brain. <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1331666/?page=1" target="_blank">This understanding</a> gives us the flexibility of using different light sources to facilitate identical colour appearances.</p> <p>This smart lighting system requires scanning of the artwork to obtain colour information. Then, a <a rel="noopener" href="https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2281482" target="_blank">precise projection system</a> emits optimised lighting to the painting.</p> <p>This method offers a solution to extend the lifetime of works of art, such as the world-famous Mona Lisa, without leaving them in the dark.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> </div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/can-new-lighting-save-the-mona-lisa/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by The Conversation. </em></p> </div>

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Travel bans and event cancellations: how the art market is suffering from coronavirus

<p>The recently released <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/about/initiatives/the-art-market">The Art Market 2020</a> report provides a timely insight into how COVID-19-related disruptions are likely to impact growth and sales in the global art market.</p> <p>The report estimates global art market sales in 2019 were worth US$64.1 billion (A$97 billion), down 5% on 2018.</p> <p>This drop reflects the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/world-economic-situation-and-prospects-september-2019-briefing-no-130/">decline in global economic growth</a> driven by increasing geopolitical tensions and the trend toward trade protectionism led by the United States.</p> <p>In 2020, measures to control the spread of coronavirus through government restrictions on travel and large social events are already having a dramatic impact on the international art market.</p> <p>In the last six weeks, multiple art fairs have announced either <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/miart-2020-1795875">postponement or cancellation</a>, including Jingart Beijing, Art Basel Hong Kong, Miaart Milan, Art Paris, Art Berlin and Art Dubai.</p> <p>The European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht went ahead, but reported <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/tefaf-fair-quiet-coronavirus-fears-1795797">a 27% drop</a> in attendance of VIPs at the opening, when many major sales are traditionally made.</p> <h2>The growing art fair market</h2> <p>As in previous years, 2019 art market sales were highly concentrated in three major hubs. The United States, the United Kingdom and China collectively accounted for 82% of the total value of sales.</p> <p>The Art Market report identified a growing shift away from public auctions toward private sales. The overall auction sector (including public auctions and private sales by auction houses, online and offline) represented 42% of total market sales in 2019.</p> <p>The overall dealer sector (including dealer, gallery and online retail sales) represented 58% of total art market sales in 2019, with the value of sales increasing by 2%.</p> <p>Within this sector, dealers with turnover of more than US$1 million (A$1.5 million) experienced a much larger growth of 20%. These dealers are the fastest-growing sector and the most reliant on art fair sales.</p> <p>Almost half of all sales in the dealer sector were made at art fairs in 2019, amounting to US$16.5 billion (A$25 billion) – 26% of all sales made in the global art market.</p> <p>This concentration of sales at the top end of the dealer market is perhaps the art market’s Achilles heel when considering potential fallout from the impending COVID-19 pandemic.</p> <p>Dealers in this turnover bracket attended twice as many art fairs as smaller dealers, with international fairs (as opposed to local fairs) contributing to more than half their total art fair sales.</p> <p>For dealers with turnover of more than US$10 million (A$15.1 million), international art fairs represented a staggering 70% of their art fair sales.</p> <h2>An unwelcome ‘distraction’</h2> <p>Besides the sales generated at art fairs, dealers have become increasingly dependent on fairs for expanding client lists and developing their businesses.</p> <p>The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic represents an immediate threat to this business model. One dealer quoted in The Art Market report noted the undesirable impact disruptions from outside the art world can have on art market demand:</p> <p>"2020 will be a challenging year, but rather than major political dramas having a direct financial impact, their main danger for us is to distract people’s attention. Distractions and anxieties can take people away from buying art, even if the economy is booming and they’re still in a position to spend."</p> <p>While this dealer was more likely referring to topical political issues, such as Brexit or trade sanctions, the COVID-19 outbreak has the potential to provide a far greater “distraction” for art buyers.</p> <p>The impact of COVID-19 on the long-term health of the art market remains to be seen.</p> <p>Art fairs <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/art-fair-saturation-1484986">had already been struggling</a> due to multiple economic headwinds in the latter part of 2019, with increasing numbers of retractions and cancellations worldwide.</p> <p>In 2019, Art Basel Hong Kong featured 242 galleries from 35 countries and was attended by 88,000 visitors over five days. This was a pivotal event on the regional calendar and its loss to the 2020 art market will be sorely felt.</p> <p>The global footprints and nimble business structures of international auction houses may help these businesses weather this storm, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/arts/christies-sothebys-auctions.html">they have done in the past</a>. But the picture is worrying for commercial galleries.</p> <p>Artists and galleries <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/australian-galleries-count-cost-as-coronavirus-shutters-hk-art-fair-20200207-p53yts.html">prepare for months</a> in advance of fairs and exhibitions.</p> <p>In a survey of the <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/behind-closed-doors-how-museums-in-china-are-coping-with-coronavirus">impact of the coronavirus</a> on the art market in China, 73.8% of respondents in the visual arts industry reported their businesses will not survive for longer than three months if the current containment situation continues.</p> <p><a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/coronavirus-hong-kong-online-gallery-platform-1794369">Creative initiatives</a> are emerging, such as Art Basel Hong Kong’s online viewing platform. But with uncertainty about how long it will be until this pandemic is under control, the future health of the global art industry is yet to be determined.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article was first published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://theconversation.com/travel-bans-and-event-cancellations-how-the-art-market-is-suffering-from-coronavirus-133161" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em></p>

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London’s National Gallery publishes historical slavery report

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In a detailed research project, London’s National gallery has published a report on the role slavery has played in the 197-year history of the institution’s success. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Focusing on the period between 1824 and 1880, 67 individuals were named with </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">either direct, familial or more tangential connections to slavery.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to the </span><a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">National Gallery’s website</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the project was intended to “find out about what links to slave-ownership can be traced within the museum, and to what extent the profits from plantation slavery impacted our early history.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The research project began in 2018 under the title “Legacies of British Slave-Ownership”, when it was discovered that the first artworks to come into the gallery when it was founded in 1824 belonged to financier and philanthropist John Julius Angerstein.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Researchers concluded that these 38 paintings brought into the gallery by John Julius Angerstein had “an unknown proportion of this was in slave ships and vessels bringing to Britain produce cultivated in the Caribbean by enslaved people. Angerstein acted as a trustee of estates and enslaved people in Grenada and Antigua.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The report also recognised the late 18th century portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough, who has several works in the museum’s collection: three portraits of which depicted people with ties to slavery. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to the museum, a second report is underway which will cover collectors, trustees and donors from 1880 to 1920.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A spokesperson from the gallery acknowledged that its collection “has a particular, historically rooted character” but stressed they “have not, and will not remove any picture from display because of its association with slavery”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She added, “If anything, we want to engender discussion and understanding about these questions. A great deal of work had been undertaken by the curatorial team in this area, and the picture labels in the gallery mark clearly where paintings are associated with slavery.”</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credits: Getty Images</span></em></p>

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With commercial galleries an endangered species, are art fairs a necessary evil?

<p>Although record numbers of people are flocking to exhibitions in the major public art galleries, foot traffic into commercial art galleries is dwindling at an alarming rate. Embarrassed gallery directors of well-established and well-known commercial art galleries will quietly confess that frequently they scarcely get more than a dozen visitors a day. Outside the flurry of activity on the day of the opening, very little happens for the duration of the show.</p> <p>This is not a peculiarity of the Australian art scene, I have heard similar accounts in London, Manhattan and Paris. The art public has largely ceased visiting commercial art galleries as a regular social activity and art collectors are frequently buying over the internet or through art fairs. In fact, many galleries admit that most of their sales occur via their websites, through commissions or at art fairs, with a shrinking proportion from exhibitions or their stockroom by actual walk-in customers.</p> <p>The commercial art galleries have become an endangered species and their numbers are shrinking before our eyes. Leaving aside China and its urban arts precincts, such as <a href="http://www.798district.com/">798 Art Zone in Beijing</a>, again this is a trend that can be noted in much of Europe, America and Australasia.</p> <p>At the same time, the art market is relatively buoyant, albeit somewhat differently configured from the traditional one. The art auction market in many quarters is thriving and, as persistent rumours have it, not infrequently auction houses leave their role as purely a secondary market and increasingly source work directly from artists’ studios. This seeps into their lavish catalogues.</p> <p>The other booming part of the art trade is the art fairs. Here I will pause on a case study of the <a href="http://www.artfair.co.nz/">Auckland Art Fair 2019</a>. Started by a charitable trust about a dozen years ago and run as a biennial, in 2016 the fair, with new sponsorship and a new management team of Stephanie Post and Hayley White, was reorientated. As of 2018, it has become an annual art fair with a focus on the Pacific Rim region. It remains the only major art fair in New Zealand.</p> <p>Situated in The Cloud, a scenic setting on Queens Wharf in central Auckland, this location also limits its size to create an intimate, friendly, human-scale fair, unlike the vast expanses of the <a href="http://www.expochicago.com/">Chicago Art Fair</a> or even <a href="http://www.sydneycontemporary.com.au/">Sydney Contemporary</a> in the Carriageworks.</p> <p>The nuts and bolts of the Auckland Art Fair is that galleries from the Pacific Rim region can apply to exhibit and a curatorial committee of four curators, two from public galleries and two from commercial ones, select about 40 galleries for participation. The event, which is held over five days, attracts about 10,000 visitors and generates between $6-7 million in art sales.</p> <p>The fair costs about $1 million to stage with 90% of this sum raised from sponsorship, ticket sales and gallery fees and the rest a grant from Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development. The public pays an admission fee of between $25-30, depending on when they book.</p> <p>Art fairs are popular with local governments as they invariably attract people and businesses into the city. In Auckland Art Fair 2019, held in the first week in May, there were 41 galleries participating, almost 30 from various parts of NZ, the rest from Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Shanghai, Jakarta, Rarotonga (Cook Islands) and Santiago.</p> <p>According to Stephanie Post, a major purpose of the fair is to build a new art audience and, by extension, a new generation of art collectors. The fair is designed to fill the gap between the primary and secondary art markets. For this reason, there is a whole series of “projects” that generally promote new art, frequently by emerging artists, many currently without representation by a commercial art gallery. In 2019 there were ten of these non-commercial projects at the fair.</p> <p>These projects, for the past three art fairs, have been curated by Francis McWhannell, who now plans to step aside to be replaced by a new set of curatorial eyes. There are also various lectures, talks, panel discussions and related exhibitions. This year, most notably, there is “China Import Direct”, a curated cross-section of digital and video art from across China with some stunning and quite edgy material by Yuan Keru, Wang Newone and Lu Yang, amongst others.</p> <h2>A mixed bag</h2> <p>Predictably, art at the Auckland Art Fair 2019 is a mixed bag, but the stronger works do outnumber those that are best passed over in silence. In terms of sales, within the first couple of hours quite a number of the big-ticket items were sold, such as work by the Australians Patricia Piccinini and Dale Frank.</p> <p>Looking around this year’s fair, some of the highlights included Seraphine Pick at Michael Lett; Robert Ellis at Bowerbank Ninow; Max Gimblett at Gow Longsford Gallery; Anne Wallace and Juan Davila at Kalli Rolfe; Christine Webster at Trish Clark; Daniel Unverricht and Richard Lewer at Suite, Toss Woollaston at Page Blackie Gallery, Dame Robin White and Gretchen Albrecht at Two Rooms; Robyn Kahukiwa at Warwick Henderson Gallery; Geoff Thornley at Fox Jensen McCrory; Simon Kaan at Sanderson; James Ormsby at Paulnache and Kai Wasikowski at the Michael Bugelli Gallery.</p> <p>This selective list of names, to which many others can be added, indicates something of the spread and diversity of the artists being presented at the fair – not only in style and medium, but in the whole range of languages of visualisation and conceptualisation. Although there are a few deceased artists included, like Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori and Colin McCahon (neither represented by a particularly strong work), like most art fairs there is a predominance of well-established blue chip artists, a scattering of art market darlings plus a few unexpected newcomers.</p> <p>A criticism of art fairs is that they are an expensive market place with high overhead costs, which discourage too much experimentation with “untested” emerging artists. Despite the welcome initiatives of the “projects”, Auckland in this respect falls into line with the pattern of most fairs.</p> <p>The oft-repeated claim that they create a new art audience is also difficult to quantify. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that many who go to fairs may not have ever entered a commercial art gallery before, this does not appear to be followed up by a conversion of this audience into regular gallery goers.</p> <h2>A spectacle</h2> <p>Art fairs and blockbuster exhibitions in public art galleries have become popular people magnet events. They are a form of entertainment that is becoming more of a surrogate for consuming art than some sort of conduit for a return to more traditional patterns of art appreciation and acquisition. They are noisy, crowded and colourful spectacles – more like a party than a quiet arena for the contemplation of art.</p> <p>Is this such a bad thing? Observing the spectacle in Auckland, I was struck by the youthfulness of the thousands of visitors. For many, it seemed the idea that they could afford to purchase an original artwork came as a revelation. Perhaps this was not a $100,000 painting by a major artist, but something more modest and frequently more to their tastes. Nevertheless, new buyers are being introduced to original art and this in itself has to be a positive development.</p> <p>Art fairs globally are breeding a cult of dependency with some “commercial” art galleries increasingly divesting themselves of a physical existence and living from fair to fair. For a while, this was a complete no-no and fairs insisted that participant galleries had a bricks-and-mortar existence, but in many instances the borders are fudged and to be a gallery you need only be an established art trading entity.</p> <p>Art fairs are here to stay; the future of commercial art galleries is far more problematic.</p> <p><em>Image credit: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article first appeared on <a rel="noopener" href="https://theconversation.com/with-commercial-galleries-an-endangered-species-are-art-fairs-a-necessary-evil-116680" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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AI-system promises better art reproductions – but not yet

<div> <div class="copy"> <p>A team from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US is developing a new, deep learning-assisted system to reproduce art with a 3D printer to make more accurate, convincing reproductions. </p> <p>The system combines a process known as halftoning, which uses little dots of ink, and a layering technique that has 10 different colours, rather than the usual cyan, magenta, yellow, and black of 2D printers. This keeps the ink from blotting, which happens when too much is deposited on the printing surface, and it allows the printer to produce a wider range of tones. </p> <p>The technique, combined with a “deep learning model to predict the optimal stack of different inks”, results in “unprecedented spectral accuracy”, the team writes in a new paper, being presented this month at a <a rel="noopener" href="https://sa2018.siggraph.org/en/" target="_blank">computer graphics conference in Tokyo</a>. </p> <p>“If you just reproduce the colour of a painting as it looks in the gallery, it might look different in your home,” says Changil Kim, one of the paper’s authors. “Our system works under any lighting condition, which shows a far greater colour reproduction capability than almost any other previous work.”{%recommended 6743%}</p> <p>The researchers they hope the project will eventually make art more available, since “our reliance on museums to exhibit original paintings and sculpture inherently limits access and leaves those precious originals vulnerable to deterioration and damage”.</p> <p>“The value of fine art has rapidly increased in recent years, so there’s an increased tendency for it to be locked up in warehouses away from the public eye,” notes mechanical engineer Mike Foshey. </p> <p>“We’re building the technology to reverse this trend, and to create inexpensive and accurate reproductions that can be enjoyed by all.”</p> <p>The developers concede that there is still work to be done on the system, which they named RePaint, to truly render a van Gogh simulacrum. For starters, images like Starry Night use a cobalt blue that the ink library isn’t able to “faithfully reproduce”. </p> <p>But paintings – particularly oil paintings – are three-dimensional works. The brush strokes leave ridges and bumps that can reflect light, throwing off the rendering. Right now, the printer reads glossy reflections as white highlights, but the team has plans to incorporate recognition of “the rich spatially-varying gloss and translucency found in many paintings”. The system will learn to use surface reflection, rather than less colour, to reproduce the gloss. </p> <p>One other issue? Those glorious Monet water lilies look more like postage stamps, since the system’s reproductions are only a few centimetres across. The engineers are hoping to bring down the costs and time printing to accommodate larger reproductions. </p> <em>Image credit: Shutterstock            <!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=23508&amp;title=AI-system+promises+better+art+reproductions+%E2%80%93+but+not+yet" alt="" width="1" height="1" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication -->          </em></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/ai-system-promises-better-art-reproductions-but-not-yet/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Samantha Page. </em></p> </div> </div>

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White male artists dominate US galleries

<p>The walls of art galleries in the US are hung, almost to the exclusion of all else, with the works of white men.</p> <p>That’s the conclusion of a team of statisticians and art historians, <a rel="noopener" href="https://doi.org/%2010.1371/journal.pone.0212852" target="_blank">published</a> in the journal PLOS One.</p> <p><span>The researchers, led by Chad Topaz from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Williams College in Massachusetts, US, examined the public online catalogues of 18 major US museums and extracted records for 9000 named artists.</span></p> <p>These were then given over to a crowdsourcing platform, and with the help of the many people thereon the majority of the artists were successfully identified and biographies built.</p> <p>“Overall,” the authors report, “we find that 85% of artists are white and 87% are men.”</p> <p>Topaz and colleagues position their work in the context of previous studies that have examined diversity in museum and gallery staff, as well as visitor profiles.</p> <p><a rel="noopener" href="https://mellon.org/programs/arts-and-cultural-heritage/art-history-conservation-museums/demographic-survey/" target="_blank">One study</a>, for instance, found that 72% of members of the US Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) identified as white. The same study found that while 60% of museum staff are female, women occupy only 43% of senior positions.</p> <p><span>Other studies have looked at visitors, and identified communities to target through outreach programs in attempts to increase diversity.</span></p> <p>The present work, though, is the first to study diversity among the artists represented.</p> <p>“If museums find knowledge of staff and visitor demographics important for programming decisions,” the authors write, “one might ask if demographics of the artists are important for collection decisions.”</p> <p>They cite “anecdotal evidence” that in the field of contemporary American art some collections are being actively augmented to rectify diversity imbalance, with the welcome effect that “it is now not unusual for these museums to compete with each other for major works of African American art”.</p> <p>However, the big picture – no pun intended – remains overwhelmingly coloured by men who are white.</p> <p>“With respect to gender, our overall pool of individual, identifiable artists across all museums consists of 12.6% women,” the authors report.</p> <p>“With respect to ethnicity, the pool is 85.4% white, 9.0% Asian, 2.8% Hispanic/Latinx, 1.2% Black/African American, and 1.5% other ethnicities.”</p> <p>Introducing greater diversity, however, is perhaps not as difficult as some might imagine.</p> <p>“We find that the relationship between museum collection mission and artist diversity is weak, suggesting that a museum wishing to increase diversity might do so without changing its emphases on specific time periods and regions,” the researchers conclude.</p> <p>They also admit that their analysis is constrained by a couple of limitations. First, a small proportion of artists identified could not be satisfactorily identified by gender or ethnicity. Second, artworks made by more than one artist were not included, and, third, many works of art – those from the Graeco-Roman period, for instance – are not assigned to identifiable individuals.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock</em></p> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/society/white-male-artists-dominate-us-gallery-collections/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Andrew Masterson. </em></p>

Art

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AI declares National Gallery’s Samson and Delilah almost certainly a fake

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A painting previously attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Samson and Delilah</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, has long been suspected of not actually being an authentic work by the Baroque artist, and <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/national-gallery-london-rubens-samson-and-delilah-ai-authentication-1234604957/" target="_blank">new research</a> has provided more proof for the claim.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The work, which currently hangs in London’s National Gallery, was recently authenticated using artificial intelligence (AI) by Swiss-based tech company Art Recognition.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The company concluded that the painting has a 91 percent probability of being fake, according to a report in the </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Guardian</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though Rubens did paint a scene of </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Samson and Delilah</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, depicting the moment when Delilah cut Samson’s hair, it disappeared after his death in 1640.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The suspicious painting re-emerged in 1929, when it was attributed to Rubens by Ludwig Bruchard, an expert on the artist.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, following Bruchard’s death it was revealed that he provided certificates of authenticity for money, with 60 works authenticated by him since being identified as fakes.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Since the London gallery purchased the work for a then-record of £2.5 million in 1980, several critics have questioned its authenticity.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Euphrosyne Doxiadis is one of said sceptics, who has claimed in several papers that the National Gallery’s painting differed from studies that Ruben made for the work.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The most recent findings using AI technology adds further doubt to the painting’s authenticity.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Art Recognition used a database of fake and authentic Ruben paintings to teach an AI bot to identify minute details found in authentic Rubens works.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Then, the bot analysed the National Gallery’s </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Samson and Delilah</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by dividing the canvas into a grid and examining it square by square.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We repeated the experiments to be really sure that we were not making a mistake and the result was always the same,” Carina Popovici, the leading scientist behind the analysis, told the </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Guardian</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Every patch, every single square, came out as fake, with more than 90 percent probability.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, it is unclear whether the bot takes into account varieties in style that might result from the help of studio assistants.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: National Gallery of London</span></em></p>

Art

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How art museums are helping to heal their audiences

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The COVID-19 pandemic saw a worldwide increase in depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As a response to the global mental health problems, art galleries and museums are responding to the collective trauma with specialised art installations and programmes. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The last 18 months has seen a drastic increase of museum-based healing initiatives, that are available online and in person. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Queens Museum in New York has launched La Ventanita/The Little Window, an online art therapy program for recent immigrants and students at local elementary schools. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In Florida, the Tampa Museum of Art is expanding both in-person and virtual offerings in connections, a community art engagement program geared toward people with depression, memory loss, and PTSD.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the country of Doha, a medical research centre has teamed up with the National Museum of Qatar to design an art therapy program to help alleviate depression and anxiety in children. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Another New York museum has developed an online “care package” with an option to meditate amid chanting monks in a virtual version of its shrine room.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The programmes are not the first time art has been used to heal individuals of traumatic experiences. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Some have previously been influenced by social change, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, to help those in mourning and those dealing with mental turmoil. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Art has long been used to help people heal from trauma, as a means to discuss the relationship between art and health. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 2017, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts hired a full-time art therapist and permitted physicians to formally “prescribe” free access to their galleries, which drew in a lot of global attention. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Art therapy originally arose in the 1940s and ’50s, as specialised exhibitions helped researchers in the mental health field study the brain’s response to art. </span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credit: Shutterstock</span></em></p>

Art

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How Dubai is building an art collection without buying any art

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In recent years, Dubai has established a vibrant and unique local arts scene due to their position between Africa, Asia and Europe. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These global cultural influences have seen a boom in the local artists showcasing their works in private galleries all through the capital of the UAE. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Due to this increase of the art scene, the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dubai government is building its first institutional art collection from scratch with a very unique twist. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead of purchasing art for the collections, Dubai will be borrowing pieces to showcase.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The initiative was </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">developed by Dubai Culture &amp; Arts Authority and Art Dubai and will boast a unique digital museum that can be enjoyed by all, as well as annual physical exhibitions of carefully curated works. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">National art collections and museums were made popular during the 19th century in Europe and are typically built over a long period of time, but Dubai’s initiative aims to fast-track the process. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The idea behind the initiative is to promote a collective culture and create a canon of art history that has not been available in the Middle East.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A spokesperson for Art Dubai said this idea is the first of its kind, and is happy to rely on government funding to boost the arts industry. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Contributors are invited to lend their works to the Dubai Collection for a period of 10 years, while remaining legal owners of their pieces."</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So far, 87 works have been commissioned during the first curation process: most of them by Emirati artists or artists from the wider Arabic world.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Part of the Dubai Collection initiative is a digital museum, which will allow more people to see the art, and will include educational materials.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This easily accessible digital museum will encourage art lovers to engage with a collection of international pieces, with the aim of highlighting emerging artists and their important stories. </span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credit: Shutterstock</span></em></p>

Art

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Parallel worlds: Brilliant photo gallery hailed as "the best we've ever seen"

<p>Turkish graphic designer Uğur Gallenkuş is known for his famously confronting photographs, where he shows the juxtaposition of the East and the West. Using his art to raise awareness about the injustices happening in the present, he creates dramatic collages by combining two photographs from different parts of the world to reveal the stark contrast between those living a life of privilege, and those who are facing extreme poverty.</p> <p>The artist believes that images can speak a thousand words, saying: “The solution to a crisis can be described by many complicated words, but you don’t need to know a language to read and understand a work of art. Art is the master of all languages.”</p> <p>The activist was inspired by the idea of two different worlds, as his home country Turkey is located next door to one of the most dangerous regions in the modern world.</p> <p>The difference between the two, whilst next to each other, was dramatic, with many taking to social media to comment on the profound effect the images had on them.</p> <p>“Poignant and moving. I hope those of us who have the ability and privilege to make a change keep these images in their thoughts every day,” said one user.</p> <p>“I’ve been using Facebook for 10 years and these are the most brilliant, eye opening photos I’ve ever seen. Kudos to the creator,” said another.</p> <p>“Brilliant! These photos speak volumes. Such a unique way of portraying the massive contrasts that exist in our world,” wrote a third.</p> <p>“Wow, this creator has the power to make a bold statement of today’s society. I’m so moved,” said another.</p> <p>Warning: Some of these images may be confronting, but eye-opening nonetheless.</p> <p>Scroll through the gallery above to see Uğur Gallenkuş’ brilliant work of art.</p> <p><em>Photos courtesy of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ugurgallen/?hl=en">Uğur Gallenkuş</a>. </em></p>

Caring

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10 of the best art galleries in Australia

<p>While Australia is still a relatively young nation, it has a rich, cultural history that is explored in a range of galleries around the country. We’re going to take a look at 10 of the best art galleries in Australia you have to visit down under.</p> <p>Scroll through the image gallery above to see each one. As you’ll see, sometimes the exterior is just as fascinating as the works that are featured inside!</p> <p><strong>1. National Gallery of Australia</strong></p> <p>Founded in 1967, the National Gallery of Australia has some of the best local and international are work in the country with over 160,000 works to admire.</p> <p><strong>2. National Gallery of Victoria</strong></p> <p>With a history dating back to 1861, the National Gallery of Victoria is Australia’s oldest public gallery and features some 68,000 artworks to discover and enjoy.</p> <p><strong>3. Museum of New and Old Art (MONA)</strong></p> <p>Australia’s largest privately-owned museum, MONA is home to a range of exhibits spanning everything from Egyptian antiquities to contemporary art.</p> <p><strong>4. Art Gallery of South Australia</strong></p> <p>With an incredible collection of Australian, European, North American and Asian works, the Art Gallery of South Australia truly is a special place to visit.</p> <p><strong>5. The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art</strong></p> <p>Arguably the number one space for contemporary art in Australia, the Australian Centre for Contemporary art has a range of fascinating pieces.</p> <p><strong>6. Art Gallery of New South Wales</strong></p> <p>Sydney’s main art gallery has been around for a while (since 1874) and in that time has been able to build up one of the best collections of art in Australia.</p> <p><strong>7. National Portrait Gallery</strong></p> <p>While still one of Australia’s youngest galleries, Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery features an impressive collection with 400 portraits of influential Aussies.</p> <p><strong>8. The Queensland National Art Gallery</strong></p> <p>With big plans for expansion in the works, the Queensland National art gallery already features an impressive collection including pictures, engravings and busts.</p> <p><strong>9. Centre for Contemporary Photography</strong></p> <p>This Melbourne institution was founded in 1986 and has since grown to become one of Australia’s pre-eminent galleries for exhibitions of contemporary photography.</p> <p><strong>10. Art Gallery of Western Australia</strong></p> <p>With a strong focus on art from Australia and the Indian Ocean Rim, the Art Gallery of Western Australia also features a strong collection of Indigenous art.</p> <p>Have you been to any of the art galleries on our list? Do you agree that they’re some of the best in Australia? Let us know in the comments.</p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/travel/international/2016/06/floating-art-installation-lets-visitors-walk-on-water/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Floating art installation lets visitors walk on water</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/travel/international/2016/06/black-and-white-photographs-show-how-families-holidayed-100-years-ago/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Rare black-and-white photographs show how families holidayed 100 years ago</strong></em></span></a></p> <p><a href="/entertainment/art/2016/06/female-and-male-models-used-for-mona-lisa/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Female and male models used for Mona Lisa</strong></em></span></a></p>

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