Art News. Vasari Codex

candle obituary schedule Jun 11, 2025 visibility 12 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

gunther uecker zero artist dead 1234744874

Günther Uecker, the German postwar artist known for hammering nails into canvases to create abstract works, died at age 95. His death was announced by his New York gallery, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, after he had been hospitalized in Düsseldorf. Uecker was a core member of the avant-garde ZERO group, founded in 1957 by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, and his nail-based abstractions—applied to surfaces from canvases to lightboxes and TV sets—defined his practice from the 1950s onward. He participated in major exhibitions including Documenta and MoMA's 1965 "The Responsive Eye," and continued working daily in his Düsseldorf studio into his 90s.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 10 link 6 artists, 2 galleries

seyni awa camara sculptor dead 1234770913

Seyni Awa Camara, a Diola sculptor from Bignona, Senegal, known for her totemic clay sculptures of stacked human bodies, has died. Her work, steeped in spirituality and inspired by a ram's horn she called a 'genie,' gained international recognition after being discovered by anthropologist Michèle Odeyé-Finzi and introduced to Europe by gallerist André Magnin. Despite her global following—including fans like Pharrell Williams and Louise Bourgeois—Camara remained largely unknown in her home country, relying on foreign buyers to sustain her practice.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 13 link 9 artists, 3 galleries

david lynch obituary 2472413

David Lynch, the acclaimed artist, filmmaker, and musician known for his surreal and unsettling aesthetic, has died at age 78. His family announced his passing on Facebook, noting he had been battling emphysema after a lifetime of smoking. Lynch's career spanned over four decades, producing iconic films like *Blue Velvet* (1986) and *Inland Empire* (2006), as well as the hit TV series *Twin Peaks* (1990–91). Beyond cinema, he maintained a rich visual art practice, creating figurative paintings, assemblages, and photographs that echoed his cinematic themes of home, light, and dream logic.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 31, 2026 visibility 20 link 7 artists, 2 galleries

melvin edwards sculptor dead 1234779467

Melvin Edwards, the pioneering sculptor known for his powerful steel assemblages and "Lynch Fragments" series, has died at the age of 88 in Baltimore. Edwards was a trailblazer who reframed Minimalism by infusing it with political and cultural weight, becoming the first Black sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1970. His work utilized industrial materials like chains and barbed wire to address histories of enslavement, anti-Black violence, and global conflict while maintaining a sophisticated abstract language.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 21, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

arnulf rainer dead 1234767718

Arnulf Rainer, the Austrian artist known for his relentless experimentation and his signature "overpaintings" (Übermalungen), died on December 18 at age 96 at his home in Austria. His death was confirmed by his gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac. Over seven decades, Rainer produced abstract works tied to the Art Informel movement, layering dense pigment over existing images—first his own, then works by artists like Emilio Vedova. He also created "blind drawings" and overpainted photographic self-portraits in series such as "Face Farces" and "Body Poses." His career included major exhibitions at Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Centre Pompidou, and he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1981 to 1995.

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candle obituary schedule May 5, 2026 visibility 12 link 6 artists, 1 gallery

Nicholas Pope, sculptor whose career came in two acts, 1949–2026

Nicholas Pope, a British sculptor known for his organic, post-minimalist works, has died at age 76. His career unfolded in two distinct acts: an early phase in the 1970s producing roughly-hewn wooden columns like *Oak Tree Column* (1973) and *Drooping Column* (1975), which earned him a spot in the British Pavilion at the 1980 Venice Biennale, followed by a decades-long hiatus after contracting viral encephalitis in Tanzania. He later returned to sculpture with brighter, brasher works in ceramic, glass, and felt, including *The Apostles Speaking in Tongues Lit By Their Own Lamps* (1993–96) and collaborations like *The Conundrum of the Chalices of the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues* (2015) with James Maskrey.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

gunther uecker german artist died 2655707

German artist Günther Uecker, renowned for his spiritual approach to art and innovative use of nails as a sculptural material, died on Tuesday at age 95 in a Düsseldorf hospital. His family confirmed the death to German news agency dpa, though no cause was given. Uecker was a key member of the Zero Group, which sought to reset art to a "zero base," and his work ranged from nail-covered surfaces to pianos, chairs, and television sets. He also designed a prayer room for Berlin's Reichstag and participated in major exhibitions including Documenta 4 and the Venice Biennale.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 13 link 6 artists, 1 gallery

Arnulf Rainer, a revolutionary figure in postwar Austrian art, has died aged 96

Arnulf Rainer, a revolutionary figure in postwar Austrian art, has died at age 96. His death on 18 December was confirmed by his gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, which described him as one of the most influential artists of the post-war period. Born in 1929 in Baden, Austria, Rainer emerged as a leading figure of the Austrian avant-garde, known for his gestural paintings confronting the atrocities of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, and for his experimental self-portraiture. He was a founding member of Galerie nächst St Stephan in postwar Vienna, a vital hub for artists seeking alternatives to the conservative art world. His signature Übermalungen (overpaintings) involved painting over photographs and self-portraits with aggressive gestures, dense black strokes, and erasures, creating charged works where violence and vulnerability coexist.

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candle obituary schedule Apr 29, 2025 visibility 3 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

suki seokyeong kang dead 2637061

Suki Seokyeong Kang, a South Korean artist known for blending traditional Korean heritage with contemporary abstract forms, died on Sunday at age 47 (48 in Korean reckoning) after a battle with cancer. Her New York representative, Tina Kim Gallery, confirmed the cause. Kang's work spanned painting, textiles, sculpture, and installation, often incorporating postminimalist structures, craft techniques, and industrial materials. Notable series include her precarious "Grandmother Tower" sculptures and "Mountain" pieces made from curved steel and thread. She was born in Seoul in 1977, studied at Ewha Womans University and the Royal College of Art in London, and later became a professor of painting.

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candle obituary schedule Apr 30, 2026 visibility 16 link 12 artists

Ulysses Jenkins (1946–2026), A Black Radical Imagination

The article is a personal tribute by curator Erin Christovale to the late artist Ulysses Jenkins (1946–2026), chronicling their decade-long friendship and collaboration. Christovale recounts how she first encountered Jenkins's video work at the William Grant Still Arts Center in Los Angeles, and how a conversation with Otolith Group's Kodwo Eshun led to her curating Jenkins's work. She describes key moments including Jenkins's video "Planet X" (2006) about Hurricane Katrina, his 1979 work "Two-Zone Transfer" featuring Kerry James Marshall in blackface masks, and the 2021 retrospective "Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation" co-curated with Meg Onli at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, which later traveled to the Hammer Museum and Julia Stoschek Foundation.

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candle obituary schedule Sep 2, 2025 visibility 4 link 3 artists

sylvain amic musee d orsay dead 1234750567

Sylvain Amic, an art historian who became director of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris just 16 months ago, died suddenly at age 58 on Sunday in southern France due to heart failure. His death has shocked the French and international art world. Amic previously led the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, oversaw a consortium of 11 museums in Rouen, and served as an adviser to former French culture minister Rima Abdul Malak. He was in the midst of planning a permanent collection rehang and a new research center at the Orsay, and had recently organized a traveling exhibition of masterworks that visited Shanghai's Pudong Art Museum.

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candle obituary schedule Jul 15, 2025 visibility 6 link 4 artists, 2 galleries

lumin wakoa painter dead 1234747006

Lumin Wakoa, a rising painter known for her hazy, memory-based works that blurred abstraction and figuration, has died at 43 after battling brain cancer. Her death was announced by her gallery, Harper’s, on Monday. Wakoa had solo shows last year at Various Small Fires in Seoul and Harper’s in New York, and her work was featured at Frieze art fair. She studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Florida, and earned an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

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candle obituary schedule Dec 31, 2025 visibility 7 link 5 artists

beast jesus artist cecilia gimenez obituary 2734348

Cecilia Giménez Zueco, the amateur painter behind the infamous "Beast Jesus" fresco restoration, has died at age 94. In 2012, at 81, Giménez attempted to restore Elías García Martínez's 1930 fresco *Ecce Homo* at the Santuario de Misericordia church in Borja, Spain. Her unskilled repainting transformed Christ's face into a distorted, ape-like image that went viral under nicknames like "Potato Jesus" and "Monkey Christ," spawning thousands of memes across Reddit, 4chan, and Twitter before mainstream media coverage. Initially devastated by the global ridicule, Giménez later found her work celebrated as a cultural phenomenon and tourist attraction.

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candle obituary schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 5 link 5 artists

koyo kouoh curating venice biennale died 2642963

Curator Koyo Kouoh, the first African woman appointed to curate the Venice Biennale, has died suddenly. Her death was confirmed by the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, where she served as executive director and chief curator. The Venice Biennale issued a statement mourning her loss, noting she had been working on the conception and development of the Biennale Arte 2026. Kouoh, born in Cameroon in 1967, was a prominent figure in contemporary African art, having curated for documenta 12 and 13, co-founded the Raw Material Company art center in Dakar, and organized the landmark exhibition "When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting" at Zeitz MOCAA.

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candle obituary schedule Apr 18, 2026 visibility 9 link 1 artist

Paul Waldman, Creator and Curator of Art Museum for Birds, Dies at 89

Paul Waldman, a multifaceted artist known for his transgressive paintings and unique architectural birdhouses, has died at the age of 89. After overcoming childhood dyslexia and a stint as a competitive bodybuilder, Waldman established a significant career in the New York art scene, characterized by his meticulous technique and a fascination with the human form and avian structures.

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candle obituary schedule Jan 2, 2026 visibility 9 link 1 artist

cecilia gimenez beast jesus restoration dead 1234768356

Cecilia Giménez Zueco, the amateur Spanish painter who became a global sensation after her botched 2012 restoration of a 1930 fresco of Christ, has died at age 94. The mural, Ecce Homo by Elías García Martínez, was housed in a church in Borja, Spain; Giménez’s unsanctioned touch turned Christ’s face into a monkey-like image, spawning the nickname "Beast Jesus" and a wave of online memes.

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candle obituary schedule Aug 13, 2025 visibility 4 link 1 artist

david chichkan ukraine artist dead battle russia 1234749326

David Chichkan, a Ukrainian artist known for his explicitly political and often censored work, has died at age 39. The Ukrainian culture ministry reported that his heart stopped after he was wounded in battle against Russian troops. Chichkan founded the Libertarian Club of Underground Dialectics in 2014 and staged provocative exhibitions, including one about the 2013–14 Maidan revolution that was vandalized by masked intruders. He enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2024 as a mortar operator, after being unable to serve earlier for health reasons, and continued to create art depicting antiauthoritarian soldiers until his death.

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