COLLECTION OF MUSEUM SZUTKI, LODZ / COURTESY MIGUEL ABREU GALLERY
Round and Round
Meticulous, methodical, and intensely mesmerizing “rhythmical lines” were the medium of choice for Polish artist Waclaw Szpakowski, who started drawing geometric mazes around 1900 and continued until his death at 85. [The Paris Review]
Nancy Spector is going back to the Guggenheim just nine months after leaving for the Brooklyn Museum. The press release made it seem hunky-dory for all involved, but one wonders about the underbelly of this quote she gave Randy Kennedy: “I can’t say it was a negative experience. It was a very amenable parting of ways.” [The New York Times]
In a surreal area of Cairo known as the City of the Dead, where people live and work among the dead in a necropolis setting, contemporary art is going on public view by way of a project by Polish architect Agnieszka Dobrowolska called “Outside In: The Art of Inclusion.” [Voice of America]
Another profile of Yayoi Kusama on the occasion of her survey at the Hirshhorn Museum, this one by the Washington Post’s Tokyo bureau chief. [Washington Post]
Bernie Taupin, lionized songwriter for Elton John (he wrote “Rocket Man”!), is more into making “wall sculpture” these days. [Billboard]
Museums as Homes
Strange sounds in the spiral—see (and hear) a video with prep for a dance piece to be performed in the Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda. [The New York Times]
A show focused on textiles from the mid-20th century to the present brings Anni Albers, Phyllida Barlow, Louise Bourgeois, Mona Hatoum, Sheila Hicks, Beyte Saar, and more to the Turner Contemporary in seaside England. [Apollo]
On infrastructural troubles—and attempts to fix them—at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, home to what it calls the “largest collection of art” in Africa. [Quartz]
A survey of Middle Eastern art aims to open eyes in Denver, Colorado. [The Denver Post]
On a reciprocal relationship between Matisse and budding young modernists in America, as surveyed by the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey.
The Magazine Antiques
A Little Out There
For a new form of “fresco cinema,” artist Joe Ramirez works with disks of gold and projections in a process he has patented. The Gold Projections, the radiant result of his wares, is premiering in Germany as part of the Berlin International Film Festival. [The Guardian]
A high-school student getting wise to the cycle of life has some art going on show at the huge Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. [The Houston Chronicle]