Recent links of note:
“Pope Hosts Artists in Sistine Chapel, Even Some Who Attracted Controversy”
Elisabetta Povoledo, The New York Times
Andres Serrano has been endorsed by the pope.
Imagine the confusion that sentence would have caused someone thirty years ago. There was a time when Serrano—the creator of Piss Christ (1987)—was recognized as one of postmodernity’s chief blasphemers, but that charge of blasphemy has apparently been absolved in the form of a thumbs-up from the pontiff. Last week, Serrano and a cadre of artists were invited to the Sistine Chapel on behalf of the pope as part of an ongoing effort to strengthen ties between the Church and the contemporary art world. Of course, in order to be one of the Church’s great artists, you don’t need to be a saint (just ask Caravaggio); you do, however, need to be a great artist, which seems to disqualify Serrano. Nonetheless, the photographer was among the visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians in attendance for the pope’s address. With The Last Judgment as a backdrop, the bishop of Rome praised art for its ability to expose the “ploys of consumerism” and homogenizing “globalization” before imploring the craftsmen in attendance to remember “social justice” in their pursuits. No mainstream coverage of the event has failed to praise Pope Francis’s call for social justice; mysteriously absent is any mention of what he said about globalism.
“Sultry Klimt portrait smashes European auction record, selling for £85.3m in London”
Kabir Jhala, The Art Newspaper
In one of art history’s more uncouth moments, Klimt painted Goldfish (to my critics) (1901–02), in which the canvas’s main subject shows their behind to the viewer. The piece operates as Klimt’s last laugh in the face of his detractors, namely those stodgy bureaucrats and academicians who’d deemed his Faculty Paintings (1900–07) at the University of Vienna too radical—the ceiling murals had the gall to doubt the monolith of Enlightenment principles. But Goldfish would be just the first of many last laughs scored by Klimt, and to that record one can now add the artist’s latest post-mortem achievement: the European auction record. Sotheby’s dropped the gavel on Lady with a Fan (1917–18), the last piece the artist worked on, for $108.4 million this Tuesday. And while this blockbuster sale is no doubt good news for the Modern Art market, buried beyond the lede is the disappointing performance of the rest of the program. Pieces by such masters as Munch, Monet, and Manet failed to find a buyer, and on the whole the night was “middling,” according to The Art Newspaper’s Kabir Jhala.
“‘Young Picasso in Paris’ Review: A Giant Comes of Age”
Lance Esplund, The Wall Street Journal
Señor Picasso has been a popular punching bag as of late. Most of these punches, such as those detailed by Julia Friedman in a recent Dispatch piece, have failed to land. While the Brooklyn Museum whiffs, however, the Guggenheim has quietly organized an intimate exhibition of Picasso’s first Parisian efforts. Encompassing only a few months from 1900–01, “Young Picasso in Paris” reveals a young painter devouring all the artistic delights that the City of Light had to offer at the turn of the century. Each canvas presents a Picasso in full flirtation with a different style—he moves from Pointillism to Art Nouveau to Post-Impressionism and beyond with such quickness that, as Lance Esplund reports, “‘Young Picasso’ at times resembles a group show, so many different artistic personalities does it put on view.”