Inspiration

Did you know that one Icelandic witchcraft ritual dating back to the 16th century involved the careful de-gloving of skin off the bottom half of human corpses for the living to wear as a pair of magical breeches called nábrók? Or that tight-laced corsets were historically blamed for tuberculosis, epilepsy, and ugly children? These tidbits of fashion history are among hundreds woven seamlessly into British writer Nina Edwards’s newest book, The Virtues of Underwear: Modesty, Flamboyance, and Filth (2024). Serving as a sweeping introduction into the world of underwear, Edwards’s text is organized into eight chapters examining the purpose and origins, social and economic connotations, material history, marketing, and maintenance of primarily Western intimate apparel — from corsets and codpieces, lingerie, swim, and athletic wear to infant nappies and menstrual hygiene garments. She underscores early in the book that “a problem for the clothing historian is that it tends to be only the least worn, most formal, sometimes least loved clothing that is preserved for the future,” which inevitably leaves gaps in undergarment history. Get the latest art news, reviews and opinions from Hyperal

Los Angeles, a city that always has one foot in the world of unreality, or, from another perspective, bespoke realities, is particularly fertile ground for a show that treads into extraterrestrial and supernatural territory. Visually, the show is enthralling. Across the Fisher’s multiple rooms, with walls painted colors to match the mood of the works on view, are paintings, films, books and magazines, records with psychedelic cover art, costumes, and ephemera that collapse the boundaries between art and theater, and theater and life. The latter is what makes the show so conceptually compelling, and so rooted in the soil of LA. The late artist Cameron’s paintings of commanding nocturnal figures come closest to classical artworks, in the vein of Surrealism, but the formal strangeness here is just a route to a gray area between Hollywood-esque dramatic affect and occult powers summoned in secret spaces. Costumes from the First World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 seem quaint compared to the contemporary cosplay industry, but they also serve as a reminder of one of the exhibition’s key ideas: that within these subcultures, costumes allowed people to be themselves at a time when fre

Trophy paintings by René Magritte and Ed Ruscha propelled Christie’s back-to-back auctions of 20th-century art to $486 million on Tuesday night in New York. It was a shot of adrenaline that the art industry desperately needed after a two-year slump. The two paintings accounted for $189.5 million of the total, a reminder of just what a powerful elixir masterpieces are for the psychology of the market. During the bidding for the two paintings, those who congregated in the James Christie salesroom of Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters (whose lease the company recently renewed until 2050) sat in nearly complete silence. You could hear a pin drop. And the house delivered. It was quite a piece of auction theater, with dramatic music and a light show to match the palette of each painting to introduce them. As the hammer fell, the packed room erupted in applause. Magritte’s L’empire des Lumières (1954) fetched $121.2 million after a bidding war that lasted just short of 10 minutes and surpassed the work’s presale target of $95 million. It was a new record for the Belgian artist as well as for any Surrealist painting at auction. “Excellent sale,” investor Max Dolgicer said, leaving

Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW) has awarded $25,000 annually to at least ten artists since its founding by artist Susan Utenberg in 1996. This cycle, however, marks a milestone—one of several—for the organization. The cash prize has been doubled, with $50,000 now awarded each year to 15 artists. The 2024 artists include Liliana Porter, 83, an Argentine artist whose wide-ranging oeuvre explores, and disrupts, notions of time and illusion; Erica Baum, 63, an America artist at the boundary of photography and poetry; 72-year-old Los Angeles–based, Japanese-born artist Takako Yamaguchi, whose paintings have experienced a recent market ascendance; and Mary Lee Bendolph, 62, a quilter of the vaunted Gee’s Bend. The grant is not need-based, but rather awarded at “critical junctions in the artists’ careers.” The award, titled after a line in Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay A Room of One’s Own (1929), which expounds on the financial independence underpinning artistic accomplishment, has grown tremendously since its founding. It has distributed more than $5 million and now includes a dedicated grant to environmental art. Its past winners, too, have raised the profile of the program with their ow

Abrams comes to the ICA after a 15-year tenure at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, where she successfully rose through the curatorial ranks, starting as an adjunct curator in 2009 and rising to the museum’s directorship in 2019. During her tenure there, she increased the museum’s endowment by 30 percent and led its expansion to a second location in the city’s Northside neighborhood. She also led the MCA Denver’s creation of a Racial Equity Plan to further the institution’s commitment to inclusivity. As a curator, she organized more than 40 exhibitions at the museum, including “Basquiat Before Basquiat” (in 2017), a survey of Senga Nengudi’s “R.S.V.P.” sculptures (2014), a Tara Donovan retrospective (2018), and “Cowboy” (2023–24), with Miranda Lash, about the mythology of the American West. During her tenure, she also helped raise the MCA’s attendance by more than 200 percent. “In Denver, Nora has elevated expectations for how a museum can embed its work in its community and engage audiences. She has an ambitious vision for programmatic excellence combined with cultural and civic relevance, and we look forward to bringing that vision to Boston,” Bridgitt Evans, the ICA Boston

A third Just Stop Oil activist was recently charged in connection with a protest at the Stonehenge monument in June, after orange powder paint was sprayed on the ancient stones. Luke Watson, a 35-year-old resident of Manuden, Bishop’s Stortford, was charged with “one count of aiding, abetting, counselling and/or procuring destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument, and one count of aiding, abetting, counselling and/or procuring causing a public nuisance,” according to a statement from the Wiltshire Police on November 18.Related ArticlesThree Just Stop Oil Activists Banned From Protesting In London After Throwing Soup At Van Gogh PaintingClimate Activists Invite UK Museum Leaders to Meet: 'We'll Leave the Soup at Home' Two other Just Stop Oil protestors—Rajan Naidu, 73, of Gosford Street, Birmingham, and Niamh Lynch, 22, of Norfolk Road, Bedford—were previously charged on November 14. Both Naidu and Lynch were charged with “one count of destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument, and one count of causing a public nuisance.” The charges for Watson, Naidu, and Lynch follow the recent banning of three other Just Stop Oil activists from participating in protests in L

The Etruscan civilization flourished in central Italy, primarily in parts of present-day Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, between the 8th and 3rd centuries BCE, until its ultimate absorption into Rome. Before that, it boasted one of the most sophisticated Iron Age societies, with achievements in metalworking, farming, and visual art. For centuries, scholars wondered where the Etruscans they came from and how their enigmatic language resisted for so long assimilation with migrating Indo-Europeans—which was highly unusual for the period and place. However, the former mystery is being unraveled, to immense implications for the history of European migration.

Among those who were sentenced was former law professor Benny Tai, prominent activist Joshua Wong, and artist and elected official Clarisse Yeung. They are among 47 pro-democracy activists who were arrested and charged in 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under a national security law imposed by the Chinese government. The Hong Kong 47, as they became known, were accused of attempting to paralyze the government with disruptive acts. The charges were made after an unofficial primary election was held in July 2020. The majority of those 47 have been detained as they awaited a trial and sentencing. Yeung was sentenced to 78 months (or 6.5 years) in prison on charges of “subversion”, according to Artnet News. During Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy protests, Yeung helped track down various art installations and photographs linked to the movement for the Umbrella Movement Visual Archive. She won a seat in the district council in Wan Chai against a pro-China candidate in 2016 and later became chair of the Wan Chai District Council in 2019.

On Tuesday night in New York, Phillips hosted its annual November evening sale of modern and contemporary art, selling 25 lots for $54.1 million, just below its estimate of $62.4 million to $92.3 million. That was down from the same evening last year, when it hauled in $154.6 million across 56 lots. (To be fair, that was a two-parter that included a $70 million sale of 30 works from the Triton Collection Foundation.) Nine lots in this year’s sale were guaranteed, and three failed to sell. Though the night’s bidding was not particularly dramatic, events within the house were. Shortly before the sale began, a woman passed out at its entrance—an awkward start. Then, right after a Robert Ryman painting passed, several members of the New York City Fire Department stepped into the house, turning heads. Nevertheless, auctioneer Henry Highley proceeded swiftly to sell a Cy Twombly for $6.1 million. Estimated between $5 million to $7 million, it was the second-most-expensive artwork hammered in the sale. The most expensive work was an untitled Jackson Pollock from around 1948, which went for $15.3 million, just above its $13 million estimate. It was originally purchased from the artist’s st

Sotheby’s held its evening sale of modern art on November 18, immediately following dedicated evening auction of Sydell Miller’s collection. The first one was a success, the second not so much. Top Seller: Alberto Giacometti’s Buste (1953, cast 1954), of the artist’s brother Diego, $13.3 million. Quote of the Night: “There’s nothing chicer right now than these badass, witchy women,” Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s head of Impressionist and Modern art, said about female Surrealists, whose prices continue to rise. Lasting Memory: A five-way bidding war for Leonora Carrington’s La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman), 1951. The 6.5-foot-tall sculpture sold for $11.4 million, blowing past its presale range of $5 million to $7 million. The winner was Eduardo Costantini, a leading collector of Latin American art, who bought Carrington’s record-breaking painting Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s six months ago.

René Magritte’s famous painting L’empire des Lumières (1954) fetched $121.2 million at Christie’s in New York on Tuesday night, setting a new auction record for the Belgian Surrealist painter. The canvas was offered during an auction dedicated to work from the estate of Mica Ertegun, the interior designer and art collector who died last year at 97. Estimated at $95 million, it was guaranteed by the house and backed by a third-party bid, and so the new record was essentially a fait accompli. The price, which includes Christie’s fees, surpassed the $79.8 million that was paid for a 1961 version of L’empire des Lumières at Sotheby’s in 2022. (That is about $86.7 million, adjusted for inflation.) The work is poised to become the top-selling lot of the bellwether auctions in Manhattan this week, giving a shot in the arm to the struggling art market. Between 1949 and 1964, Magritte created 17 versions of the L’empire des lumières in oil, as well as several more variations in gouache. (One example sold later in the evening in Christie’s 20th-century art auction for $18.8 million. Its winner? A client with Li-Cohen.) Each depicts the same scene: A house lit up from inside, surrounded by [.

Like last night’s modern art sale at Sotheby’s, which also included a single owner estate sale—in that case, the collection of beauty industry titan Sydell Miller—Christie’s 20th century sale was uneven and slightly erratic, with its fair share of bidding wars and auction records but also an disappointing amount of bid-squeezing and awkward silences. More than 40 percent of the lots hammered at or below their low estimate and 12 lots failed to sell, four of which came in the last six lots of the sale. By that time, most of the people who came to watch had cleared the sales floor for the more inviting environs of their idling black cars or their reserved table at Mr. Chow. “All this is really about desire,” art advisor Megan Fox Kelly told ARTnews ahead of the marquee sales week. Advisors, she said, try to be rational, provide information, statistics, background, and  comparable. “But really it’s all about their desire. I think that’s what we’re going to see this week. People aren’t sitting on their hands right now. There’s confidence. But really it comes down to just a few things, quality of the object, provenance, and desire.” There were highlights, of course, and that’s where the

At the start of the sale, a glitch in the auction house’s live stream, which brings in remote viewers, stalled sight of activity on the first several lots. Opening the sale was a painting by Chinese-born London-based artist Li Hei Di titled Unfolding a Flood (2021). At 27 years old, Li was the only artist included in the sale whose work had not been sold at auction before. The piece outperformed expectations, selling for $127,000—over double its high estimate of $60,000. Half of the sale’s lots were works made before 1980. For the works that are decades old and meant to carry the financial weight of the sale, there was less success. Jackson Pollock’s Untitled, a black and white drip painting from 1948, sold for $15.3 million, within the high level of Phillips estimate range. A triptych collage by Jean-Michel Basquiat, who has generated a big bulk of evening sale revenues over the last several years, didn’t perform as expected. The work, titled Self-Portrait failed to sell at an estimate of $10 million after bids were registered with Phillips co-chairman Robert Manley. Similarly, a Claes Oldenburg sculpture from 1964, a glass case filled with 24 faux open-faced sandwiches, only gene