Iconic art moves out of jail, while a mysterious artist gets a night club in his name…

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!

Using AI to colorize a destroyed Klimt

In 1945, Nazis burned a warehouse of paintings in Vienna because they didn\’t want the Russians to get them — among the lost paintings were Gustav Klimt’s Philosphy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence. The only record of these is in black and white photographs. But once color information was sourced, Emil Wallner, a resident at the Google Arts & Culture Lab, developed an algorithm… to restore the Faculty Paintings… an algorithm does a statistical analysis of Klimt\’s existing artworks and learns how to mimic Klimt\’s colorization style. But not everyone is a fan of the idea. Read Boing Boing to know more.

Faith Ringgold mural: From Rikers jail to a museum?

In 1972, artist Faith Ringgold dedicated a painting to the women incarcerated at Rikers Island, the notorious jail complex in New York City. Titled “For the Women’s House,” the work is a message of possibility and perseverance, depicting women of different ages and ethnicities in diverse roles inspired by Ringgold’s interviews with detainees. After five decades at Rikers, the eight-by-eight foot canvas may now be headed to the Brooklyn Museum. The relocation plan was announced by NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray and the Department of Correction (DOC) last week and is subject to review by the NYC Public Design Commission. Hyperallergic has all the details.

Now, a Banksy-themed nightclub in Mexico!

At Banksy Social Club in Mazatlan, Mexico, through a matrix of lasers and strobe lights, you’ll find a framed reproduction of CND Soldiers by Banksy along with other icons by the aritst, like the Palestinian “flower thrower” and the urinating palace guard; built into the wall next to him, the façade of a red telephone box is flanked by a trenchcoat-wearing listener from his Spy Booth mural. Banksy Social Club was opened in March of 2021 by Grupo Marea, a hospitality group that also operates La Marea, a destination restaurant with sweeping views of Mazatlan’s bustling port and its mountaintop lighthouse. The Grupo Marea spokesperson describes the endeavor as “an eclectic homage to rebellious art”. The Art Newspaper tells you all you need to know.

Why are Francis Bacon’s animals so nightmarish?

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast is showing at the Royal Academy, London, from January 29 to April 17 this year. Columnist Jonathan Jones writes, “Bacon is a ruthless student of the human condition, not a sentimental nature artist. His studies of animals are essentially fodder for his art of ideas. By approaching him through his menagerie of symbols, Man and Beast invites us to focus on Bacon’s grand, scary vision of life and death…. Only the greatest artists can get away with such visions. The reason Bacon’s art doesn’t collapse into melodramatic pretension is that he exactly observes details of life, and renders it in richly decadent, bravura paint that is as satisfying as it is disturbing.” Read it all in The Guardian.

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