Frieze Editors Discuss What the Art World Has Learned in 2020
COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter were two of the major events that signalled the changes that may – and in many cases must – come next year
Andrew Durbin Let’s start broadly. Has COVID-19 changed the art world forever or just temporarily?
Pablo Larios I see three areas in which COVID-19 has accelerated permanent changes that were already underway in the art world: digitization, relocalization and funding. We’ve become much more comfortable looking at (and reviewing) exhibitions online yet there’s a renewed sense of local attention, too: intuitively, it suddenly matters more what’s going on in your own neighbourhood than an art event opening across the world you won’t see anyway.
Twelve new paintings by Sadie Benning on view at kaufmann repetto
blow ups, 2020, installation view, kaufmann repetto, milan.
MILAN
.- In film and photography, the director uses the camera lens as an eye for the viewer, delivering and withholding information in order to shape a particular narrative. Sadie Benning, who is renown for their early video work of the 1990s, understands the language of the moving image and calls upon the techniques enacted in Michaelangelo Antonionis eponymous 1966 film, Blow Up, a film centered around themes of perception and ambiguity. In this iconic film based on a Julio Cortuzar short story), a photographer unveils curious discoveries while reviewing negatives in the darkroom. The act of looking closely or blowing up the image, reveals clues to a potential crime and ultimately compels the protagonist to question what reality is.
Whitney Museum wins bond-market reprieve from Covid hit
Bloomberg
The Manhattan art museum, founded in 1931 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, completed a debt refinancing this week that will prevent a $50 million principal payment from coming due next year by pushing it to 2031 with newly issued bonds, according to Fitch Ratings.
The refinanced bonds were initially sold in 2011 to help finance its new $422 million facility located in the Meatpacking District, which opened in 2015 and features about 50,000 square feet for indoor galleries, outdoor terraces facing The High Line, and a 170-seat theater.
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The Whitney, which had to close its doors for about six months in 2020 due to Covid-19, is one of the many borrowers that have rushed to the municipal-bond market to seize on low interest rates to cut debt costs or push payments into the future. Even governments, museums and other agencies hit hard by the pandemic have had little trouble selling debt, with cash flowi
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MasterClass Announces Renowned Artist Jeff Koons to Teach Art and Creativity
December 16, 2020 GMT
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ MasterClass, the streaming platform where anyone can learn from the world’s best across a wide range of subjects, today announced that acclaimed contemporary artist Jeff Koons will teach a class on art and creativity. Through deep dives into his own work from the inspiration behind the iconic Balloon Dog to an exclusive look at the production of one of his latest sculptures, Pink Ballerina Koons will share an intimate reflection on his celebrated career, the development of his artistic philosophy and approach to creating boundary-pushing works of art. Koons’ class is now available exclusively on MasterClass, where subscribers get unlimited access to all 100+ instructors with an annual membership.