Christie\’s puts feminist twist on NFT + IRL art, LA-based billionaire art philanthropist dies, and more news

A SUMMARY OF THE MOST EXCITING ART NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

While we focus on Indian art, we can’t obviously function in a vacuum. It’s a small world and everything is connected, especially on the web. So, let’s train our spotlight across the world map to see what’s going on — from art trends to socio-political issues to everything that affects the great aesthetic global consciousness. Or, let’s just travel the world and have some fun!

 

Christie’s has feminist twist on marrying NFT and IRL art

Later this month, auction house Christie’s is all set to offer traditional paintings accompanied by original NFT artworks by anonymous digital feminist collective Rewind. This is an auction history first, and slated to take place on May 14, 2021. Anonymous collective Rewind has blazed a trail in digital art, reinterpreting existing paintings to confront gender and minority imbalances in art world structures. In this auction, collectors who successfully bid on five paintings by pioneering women of Abstract Expressionism — Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Yvonne Thomas, and Lynne Mapp Drexler — will receive an accompanying original NFT created by the collective. Wallpaper has more details.

 

Billionaire LA art philanthropist dies

An entrepreneur-turned-art collector who financed the Broad museum in Los Angeles and made huge donations to Yale, Harvard and MIT has died at the age of 87. Billionaire Eli Broad, who played a huge role in shaping the art and cultural scene of LA, passed away at Cedars-Sinai medical centre following a long illness. The Broad museum of contemporary art, which opened in 2015, was championed and financed by him in part. He also helped open the Broad Center at Yale School of Management, and the Broad Institute, a genomic medicine research center created in partnership with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Guardian condoles.

 

‘Going to the Match’ expected to rake up $4 million

British artist LS Lowry is renowned for his images of crowds at football matches, using his celebrated style of “matchstick” people against a monochrome palette backdrop to illustrate cold and grey northern England. According to Sotheby’s auction house, now, his ‘Going to the Match’ painting is expected to sell at auction for up to $4 million in June. It is among the earliest known, if not the earliest, depiction of his iconic and timeless subjects — that of spectators thronging to a sporting occasion. In 2011, Lowry\’s 1949 painting ‘The Football Match’ sold for £5.6 million ($9 million). CNN checks out the development.

 

‘Mini masterpieces’ hidden around Brooklyn

Tiny Impressionist-style street scenes of Greenpoint, the New York neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn, are being hidden around the locality for delighted residents to find. Local artist Steve Wasterval, 40, started this weekend art treasure hunt some three years ago. He had halted it in recent months thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but in recent times, as things get better, he decided to hide the ‘mini masterpieces’ around again. “It’s like the pause made everybody appreciate it more,” he says. Reuters chronicles the story.

 

Oldest family-run stained glass studio in USA

Nearly 125 years since its founding, Judson Studios in Los Angeles is teaming up with another century-old California institution, the Forest Lawn Museum in Glendale, to present a one-of-a-kind exhibition. Judson Studios has for decades been creating striking artworks made of stained glass. It was founded in 1897 and holds the title of the oldest family-run stained glass studio in the United States. The upcoming show, ‘Judson Studios: Stained Glass from Gothic to Street Style’, features nearly 100 original stained glass artworks, drawings, watercolors and archival photographs, as well as a number of collaborations with contemporary artists. Smithsonian Magazine looks into it.