Art News. Vasari Codex

rate_review review schedule May 19, 2026 visibility 25 link 14 artists, 1 gallery

What ‘Costume Art’ Gets Wrong About the Body

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition, featuring nearly 400 objects, pairs garments and ensembles with Western figurative artworks from the museum's permanent collection in dyadic, associative displays. The show eschews traditional art-historical timelines and context in favor of visual and thematic parallels—comparing, for example, Rudi Gernreich's Pubikini with an Egyptian statuette, or Ying Gao's sound-responsive dress with a David Hockney drawing. The exhibition is sponsored by Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.

newspaper ArtReview open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 20, 2026 visibility 7 link 4 artists

Fantastic visions and cosmic rhythms: how Whistler is making me see – and hear – differently

The article explores how the James McNeill Whistler exhibition at Tate in London prompts a reconsideration of the relationship between music and visual art. Whistler titled his works using musical terms like "Arrangement," "Symphony," and "Nocturne," arguing that painting should be abstract and independent of narrative, much like instrumental music. The exhibition, reviewed by Jonathan Jones, highlights Whistler's radical art-for-art's-sake philosophy, which influenced composer Claude Debussy, whose orchestral Nocturnes were directly inspired by Whistler's paintings of light and atmosphere.

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 19, 2026 visibility 7 link 9 artists

James McNeill Whistler review – a luscious, seductive blockbuster for the painter who scandalised Britain

Tate Britain has opened a major retrospective dedicated to James McNeill Whistler, the American painter who scandalized Victorian Britain. The exhibition centers on his iconic work *Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1* (commonly known as *Whistler's Mother*), lent by the Musée d'Orsay, and traces his evolution from raw realist scenes of London's docks to radical, abstract celebrations of color and pattern. It includes a reconstruction of *The Peacock Room* and highlights his rivalry with critic John Ruskin, who accused him of 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.'

newspaper The Guardian open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 21, 2026 visibility 4 link 6 artists

« Caïn » de Fernand Cormon : aux origines de la conscience humaine ?

Beaux Arts Magazine analyzes Fernand Cormon's monumental 1880 painting "Caïn," currently held at the Musée d'Orsay. The article describes the scene: a prehistoric, weary clan trudges through a desert, led by a haggard patriarch, with a tired mother on a litter and hunters carrying game. Cormon's work is presented as the antithesis of classical triumph, evoking a melancholic, post-traumatic atmosphere. The painting is linked to the biblical story of Cain, who killed his brother Abel and was condemned to exile, and is accompanied by verses from Victor Hugo's poem "Conscience."

newspaper Beaux Arts Magazine open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 21, 2026 visibility 6 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

How Former Fashion Designer Emma Safir Turns Fabric into Beguiling Paintings

Emma Safir, a former fashion designer and printmaker, creates beguiling paintings and tapestries that blend textiles, digital printing, and traditional embroidery techniques. Her works, such as "APRICOT SILK" (2025) and "BABY DARLING" (2025), use smocking, glass beads, and shells to produce organic, jewel-toned surfaces that resist easy reflection or entry, challenging viewers to engage with layered material hierarchies.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 22, 2026 visibility 4 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

Karla Knight’s Cosmic Conspiracies

Karla Knight's exhibition "Orbit" at Andrew Edlin Gallery presents her game-like paintings and tapestries filled with cryptic symbols, cosmic diagrams, and celestial imagery. Works such as "Orbiter 2" (2024–25) and "Feelers" (2025–26) feature irregular black devices, floating spheres, and rows of arcane script, inviting viewers to decode what appear to be blueprints for extraterrestrial systems or maps of hidden dimensions. Knight employs meticulous grids, bold primary colors, and textile techniques to render the paranormal as strangely normal.

newspaper Hyperallergic open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 18, 2026 visibility 5 link 8 artists, 1 gallery

Gabrielle Goliath Sounds a Call to Action in Venice

Gabrielle Goliath’s exhibition "Elegy" is presented as South Africa’s unofficial pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, after the country’s Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie overrode an independent committee’s selection of Goliath, citing her proposed inclusion of a memorial for Palestinians killed in Gaza. The installation features three video works in which singers sound a single note in tribute to victims of violence: a South African femicide victim, two women killed in Germany’s colonial genocide in Namibia, and Palestinian poet Heba Abunada. The show occupies the Chiesa di Sant'Antonin in Venice, curated with Ingrid Masondo, after a legal challenge against McKenzie was dismissed.

newspaper Hyperallergic open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule May 21, 2026 visibility 6 link 2 artists

Joan Semmel Roars at The Jewish Museum

The article reviews Joan Semmel: In the Flesh, a retrospective exhibition at The Jewish Museum in New York (December 2025 – May 2026). The author describes an initial discomfort with Semmel's graphic nude paintings of aging female bodies, but after researching the artist's significance in feminist art, comes to appreciate her unapologetic honesty. The show is arranged chronologically, tracing Semmel's evolution from works like Erotic Yellow (1973) to later paintings that grow in confidence and freedom, all while maintaining a focus on female embodiment and pleasure from a female perspective.

newspaper Fine Art Globe open_in_new Read original