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!
MoMA alters wall text for video after tweet about ‘Garbage Putinist Discourse’
Courtesy- Art News
New York’s Museum of Modern Art changed the wall text for a work in a sizable survey of video art after some social media users accused the caption of putting forward a conspiracy theory by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The work, U.S. Greatest Hits Mixtape Volume 1 (2019), is by Frances Stark and features six screens, each of which display images shot on Stark’s iPhone that comment on US intervention in conflicts abroad. Those images, which display screens playing YouTube clips, are paired with popular music dating to the years of the wars referenced. Stark has said the work is about “the paradoxes we face, the difficulty of dealing with being complicit, and the discomfort about where power lies.” The piece currently figures in “Signals: How Video Transformed the World,” one of the biggest exhibitions devoted to art made in the medium in decades. Details on Art News.
Met to return 15 sculptures to India sold by trafficker Subhash Kapoor
Courtesy- Art Newspaper
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will return a group of 15 antiquities to India, the New York institution announced on Thursday. The group of terracotta and stone sculptures leaving the Met’s collection depict ancient Indian deities and date from the 1st century BCE to the 11th century CE. Each object passed through the hands of former art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who was charged with illegally exporting religious artifacts by New York authorities in 2019. US authorities began their probe into Kapoor in 2011. The septuagenarian dealer, whose business dealings ranged between various locations from the US to Germany, was sentenced on antiquities trafficking charges related to $140 million worth of illicitly sourced property in November 2022. The charges were brought by a court in Kumbakonam, India. Details on Art Newspaper.
500-year old Brueghel painting discovered in family’s TV room
Courtesy- Artnet News
A 500-year-old painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger was discovered in the TV room of a family’s new home in Northern France after they invited an appraiser in to judge the value of some items in the house. The piece was sold at auction for $850,000 at the Daguerre auction house in Paris. “I came to a small TV room that was not very well lit. I started doing my estimates in the room and looking behind the door there were two-thirds of the painting visible,” said Malo de Lussac, an appraiser with Daguerre. “And that’s how I discovered the painting. It was a surprise”. The painting, The People’s Lawyer, is thought to have been made between 1615 and 1617 and represents one of Brueghel the Younger’s most successful designs. During his lifetime, he made 20 copies of the painting in different formats. The painting depicts villagers lining up to see the lawyer, bearing gifts of eggs and fowl in hopes of getting into his good graces. The painting has also been called The Tax Collector’s Office, as some have interpreted the painting to be a scene in which villagers are paying the yearly tax. Read more on Artnet News.
