More than 200 artworks of Philip Guston move to Met as a gift from his daughter

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!

Ireland to return Mummified remains and a painted Sarcophagus to Egypt

Mummified remains and a painted wooden sarcophagus are among a group of artifacts that an Irish university plans to return to Egypt. The items are owned by University College Cork (UCC) and date from between 975 BCE and 100 CE. The sarcophagus was donated to UCC in 1928 and, based on an inscription on its surface, likely holds the remains of a man named Hor. The university said it will return its collection of Egyptian artifacts in 2023. The group includes a set of four canopic jars, containers in which the individually mummified organs would be placed during the mummification process. The jars are recognized by their lids, which were commonly shaped in the likeness of four animal-headed guardian deities. A funerary mask and body coverings known as cartonnage will also be returned to Egypt. Details on The National News.

A gift from Philip Guston\’s daughter to the MET

Musa Mayer, Philip Guston’s daughter, has said she will donate 220 works by her father to the Metropolitan Museum of New York, a potentially transformative gift that will make that institution the one with the deepest Guston holdings in the world. Guston, who is currently the subject of a traveling retrospective, is regarded as one of the most important American artists of the past century. He worked in a number of modes, painting sharp, unclassifiable figurations during the first part of his career before transitioning to a modish kind of abstraction in the postwar years. Then he shocked critics in the ’60s by returning to figuration. The paintings he made during that time, a series of images showing Ku Klux Klan members in absurdist situations, became a flashpoint in 2020 as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. prepared to open the current retrospective. Fearing that some viewers would not understand Guston’s messaging, the museum, along with the other three co-organizing institutions, delayed the show and promised that it would revise the show, a move that provoked bitter controversy in and beyond the art world. Read more at New York Times.

Museum of sex will expand to Miami

The Museum of Sex, the racy New York institution exploring the fabric of human sexuality, revealed today that it will open a second location in Miami, in the spring of 2023. According to a press release, the new outpost will strengthen the museum’s “mission of advocating open discourse and engagement” as it celebrates its 20th year. It is expanding into the Allapattah district, which in recent years has drawn contemporary arts spaces including Superblue, the Rubell Museum Miami and collector Jorge Pérez’s El Espacio 23. Like its future neighbours, the Museum of Sex will repurpose a warehouse for its programming, and it has hired the influential and internationally renowned architectural firm Snøhetta to lead the design. Details on The Art Newspaper.