Art Review: A Tension Between the Sacred and the Profane

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ken Johnson

"Luba Female Bowl Bearer," left, and a work by Constantin Brancusi, at Paul Kasmin Gallery.

NEW YORK---What is it about African tribal art that so allures us denizens of the modern, industrialized world? I wonder this whenever I encounter tribal artifacts in museums and galleries, and I’m prompted to again by two exhibitions presented by Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea. Then, around the corner, in Kasmin’s West 27th Street gallery, there’s “Brancusi in New York 1913 – 2013,” a glowing display.... A museum setting like this one, however, erases the practical magic of these objects and diminishes their spiritual potency. They have become inert collectibles. The sacred is profaned. [link]

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Bringing Back the Artistic Beauty of a 19th-Century Church: Cost $4.5 Million

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By David Gonzalez

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

NEW YORK---The stunningly decorated sanctuary of St. Anselm’s Church in the South Bronx is a marvel of art and architecture, capturing Byzantine, Greek, Italian and German styles. A similar mix is reflected in the Roman Catholic congregation, whose members hail from at least 16 countries. Under one roof, they are of one heart. Unfortunately, you can also see the deterioration in the church, which was founded in 1892 by Benedictine monks from Germany and inspired by the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. After months of study, he estimated that 90 percent of the building could be restored. What was not so easily attainable was the approximately $4.5 million needed to finance the project.[link]

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Common Sense: Record Prices Mask a Tepid Art Market

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By James B. Stewart

Sanford Robinson Gifford’s "Sunday Morning in the Camp of the Seventh Regiment," which hung in the Oval Office for over 20 years, didn’t sell at this week’s auction at Christie’s.

NEW YORK---Despite the headlines and the hyperbolic enthusiasm of many auctioneers and dealers, the broad market for fine art is in the doldrums, according to experts who track sales data. Many works are selling near or below their low estimates or failing to sell at all. As measured by the Mei Moses World All Art Index, a widely cited benchmark, the market for fine art declined 3.3 percent in 2012, and gained 2.2 percent through November, even with the recent record-setting sales. Strip out traditional Chinese art, the value of which has been surging for years thanks to the interest of wealthy Chinese buyers, and the performance would be much worse. [link]

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At a NYC Temple Proud of Its Traditions, a New Rabbi With ‘Alternative’ Ideas

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By Sharon Otterman

Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, 45, is the newly installed senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. The rabbi has already broken with some of the temple’s customs.

NEW YORK---Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, the new senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. Temple Emanu-El is a place that prides itself on tradition. It still uses a version of the original Reform prayer book, and dresses its clergy in robes. It conceals its choir above the congregation, near the organ console at its enormous Fifth Avenue sanctuary, so that prayers seem to float from the heavens. But Rabbi Davidson has already begun making his mark. He broke with an older Reform tradition of not wearing a Jewish skullcap and prayer shawl, by wearing them when he began to lead services this summer — resulting in an audible gasp from the congregation. But he also wore his robes, in a sign that custom and change could go hand in hand. [link]

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Religious Rockwell Art Sells for Record $46M at NY Auction

ASSOCIATED PRESS 
By Ula Ilnytzky

"Saying Grace" (1951) by Norman Rockwell

NEW YORK---A Norman Rockwell painting titled "Saying Grace" sold at an auction on Wednesday for $46 million, a record for the Saturday Evening Post illustrator and for any work sold at an American art auction, Sotheby's said. Two people on the telephone bid against each other for nine minutes before the hammer came down, the auction house said. The buyer's identity wasn't disclosed. The painting had a pre-sale estimate of $15 million to $20 million. The idea for the illustration came from a reader who saw a Mennonite family praying in a restaurant. Rockwell's son Jarvis Rockwell was among the models he used for it. [link]

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Multicultural Visions Promotes Interfaith Peace Through Art

ENTERPRISE PILOT
By Cynthis Paulis

Portrait artist Manu Kaur Saluja explained complexity of
identity standing between two portraits of her brother, a cardiologist,

NEW YORK---On a crisp November evening, more than 200 people arrived at Chelsea Mansion in East Norwich for the Long Island Jewish Community Relations Council Holiday Party, "Multicultural Visions, Artists Exploring Identity." There was Stanley Covington, an African American artist from Hempstead; Paul Kolker, a Jewish doctor, lawyer, and artist from Westbury; Rene Efi Hakimian, a Persian Jew from Great Neck; Simon Zareh a Jewish Iranian art collector from Rosyln; Lisbeh Herrera, a Nicaraguan American artist from Bayshore (her husband and children were present but not the artist); and Manu Kaur Saluja, a Sikh artist from Old Brookville now living in Queens. Each artist addressed the audience and talked about their art and how it reflects their individual identity as a Jew, A Sikh woman, a Latino woman and an African American man.  [link]

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Judaica on View During Hanukkah at Metropolitan Museum

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Hebrew Bible on display at Metropolitan Museum of Art

NEW YORK---The Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrates Hanukkah—the Jewish Festival of Lights, through the evening of December 5—with two medieval depictions of the Temple menorah are on view at . Additional works of Judaica will be on view during and after the holiday. The menorah, an elaborate ceremonial lamp with seven branches, was among the furnishings of the Temple in Jerusalem. Its form considered to be divinely ordained, the menorah has been a recognized symbol of Judaism from ancient times.

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Through a Novel, Author Oscar Hijuelo (RIP) Gave Us a Christmas Window to His Beliefs

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Samuel Freedman

PUBLISHING---Nearly 20 years ago, when he was three books into an acclaimed literary career, Oscar Hijuelos delivered the manuscript of his new novel to his editor. It was a Christmas tale filled with the joy Mr. Hijuelos had always taken in with the trappings of yuletide, from manger scenes to oratorios to evergreens strung with lights. From one who had already won the Pulitzer Prize..., it felt lacking. At least it did to Mr. Hijuelos’s editor at HarperCollins... He rejected the book. Mr. Hijuelos headed into his home office the next morning and started to work. Ultimately, however, he produced what is surely one of the most fully achieved novels about religion, “Mr. Ives’ Christmas.” It is, in distillate, the Book of Job transposed to Morningside Heights in the late 20th century. Mr. Hijuelos died in October at the age of 62. [link]

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20X200 Art collecting is back just in time for the holiday season

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

NEW YORK---Beginning in 2017, 20x200 began it's mission of advocating art collecting for everyone, featuring fine art prints for as little as $20. A year ago however, they went out of business, but now founder/art dealer Jen Beckman is leading its return. Currently hiring, and operating in beta mode, they are seeking input on anything amis. Everything on the site right now is in stock and ready to go. You can order it, frame it, and get it on your walls in time for the holidays. The best way to get the first word? Subscribe to our email newsletter, follow us on Twitter, and tune into our blog for regular dispatches from behind the scenes. Questions in the meantime? Browse their FAQ or email them at hello@20x0200.com.

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Gap Praised for Quick Response to Racist Graffiti Against Sikh Model

NEW YORK DAILY
By Carol Kuruvilla

NEW YORK--- Images of Sikh Model Waris Ahluwalia in Gap’s new “Make Love” campaign are still being defaced in New York City. A vandal apparently tried to rip Ahluwalia out of a Gap ad inside the Christopher St. station. Evidence of racist graffiti against the Sikh actor and designer started appearing online on Tuesday. Journalist Arsalan Iftikhar alerted his social media followers to a subway ad that compared the 39-year-old Ahluwalia to a terrorist. The vandal replaced “Make Love” with “Make bombs,” then wrote, “Please stop driving taxis.” [link]

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Tampa Artist, Paula Brett's Candy Mandalas Earn National Recognition

TAMPA BAY DISPATCH
By Robynn Mitchell

"Tree of Life" Candala (2013) by Paula Brett

FLORIDA---Paula Brett placed the ribbon candies in a circle atop a sheet of white paper on the floor of her art studio in Tampa. She was building a mandala, an artistic representation of the universe and the idea of impermanence with roots in the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Brett, former yoga instructor and art teacher, connects with the idea of impermanence and the sacred symmetry of mandalas. Wall-sized 40-foot by 40-foot photos of Brett's mandalas will go on display in New York's Dylan's Candy Bar on Dec. 2. Dylan's Candy Bar will display the limited edition candy mandala prints and sell them for $2,150. [link]

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Francesco Vezzoli’s Italian Church Art Is Halted on Its Way to NYC's PS1

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ted Loos and Gaia Pianigiani

The church packed for its planned trip to New York.

ITALY---It was a typically elaborate, provocative move by the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli in a career full of them: He had contracted to buy the ruins of an old deconsecrated church in the southern Italian town of Montegiordano and had planned to ship them to New York, brick by brick, for exhibition in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. But “The Church of Vezzoli,” as the exhibition was to be called, was canceled Monday in the midst of a legal imbroglio in Italy. The MoMA PS1 show was meant to be the third leg of “The Trinity,” a multicity retrospective of Mr. Vezzoli’s work. [link]

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A Ketubah Shows the Promise That Turned a Young Printer Into a Renowned Artist

TABLET MAGAZINE
By Annie Abrams

Detail of Marriage Contract, Printer: J. Bien, New York,
New York, United States, 1852 (Courtesy of the Jewish Museum)

NEW YORK---As their ketubah makes clear, Cornelius Roos married Caroline Elsasser at New York’s flagship Reform synagogue Congregation Emanu-El on Jan. 11, 1852. The wedding contract includes many other names: the groom’s father Raphael Roos, the bride’s father Asher Elsasser, the officiant Rabbi Leo Merzbacher, and witnesses E. Lyons and J. Cahn. But the most significant name on the ketubah might ordinarily be overlooked, since it appears in small letters along the bottom border of the page: printer Julius Bien, who would go on to have an illustrious career making maps and lithographs of animals, landscapes, and machinery. Today, artwork bearing Bien’s name can be found at institutions like the Brooklyn Museum, New York Public Library, Butler Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. [link]

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Gap's Ad With Sikh Model Waris Ahluwalia Defaced With Racist Graffiti, Drawing Incredible Response From Company

THE HUFFINGTON POST

NEW YORK---This is how the Internet is supposed to work. Arsalan Iftikhar, senior editor at The Islamic Monthly and founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, posted a picture to his Twitter and Facebook wall of a defaced subway advertisement for Gap featuring Sikh actor and jewelry designer Waris Ahluwalia. He told The Huffington Post, "I wanted the world to see how millions of brown people are viewed in America today." The next day, Gap tweeted back at Iftikhar to find out the location of the ad, which is part of its holiday "#MakeLove" campaign featuring a wide variety of diverse models. But that wasn't all. The company proceeded to change its Twitter background to the picture of Ahluwalia, to show solidarity and support.[link]

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Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche on Display for Holiday Season at Metropolitan Museum

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

NEW YORK---The Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a long-standing yuletide tradition in New York, will be on view for the holiday season, from November 26, 2013, through January 6, 2014. The brightly lit, 20-foot blue spruce—with a collection of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs hovering among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene at its base—will once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum’s Medieval Sculpture Hall. This exhibit of the crèche is made possible by gifts to The Christmas Tree Fund and the Loretta Hines Howard Fund. [2012 Highlights]

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My Obsession With Religious Opera? Credit The New York Times

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

"The Indian Queen," at Teatro Real in Madrid, was also produced
by the National Opera in London and the Opera of Perm in Russia.

It was only a few years ago that I became interested in Opera, and the credit for that is the coverage in The New York Times. Case in point, the recent reviews by Raphael Minder and Anthony Tommasini on religious operas. Minder makes note of how the artistic director, Mr. Sellars chose Purcell’s religious music "to offset the fact that “the subject of Spain’s Conquista is usually treated only in a very materialistic way"; and when Tommasini describes the Noah's story of the Ark, he wrote: "When the storm turns terrifying, the orchestra bursts into gnashing chords, darting riffs and harmonic chaos. Then, calmly, the inhabitants of the ark start to sing the hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” and I felt as if I were there. Thanks to The New York Times, I became a regular at the MET, where I now feel the wonder of Opera as the perfect blend of art, music, theatre, and religion.

Spain’s Conquest of America as Opera
By Raphael Minder, THE NEW YORK TIMES

MADRID — Peter Sellars, the American theater director who has regularly transported classical opera to the modern world, is used to ruffling feathers with his unorthodox stagings. The opening night here of his latest production of “The Indian Queen,” based on the unfinished opera by the English baroque composer Henry Purcell and first performed in 1695, was no exception. While the night ended with an ovation, some spectators booed at points and several left half-way. Mr. Sellars said that the subject matter of “The Indian Queen,” which is about Spain’s American conquest and handling of indigenous people, was always going to make it difficult to win over the more conservative members of Madrid’s opera audience. “Our job as artists is not to seek the easy way but to challenge society and open up some wounds, so that they can be cleaned rather than allow them to fester,” Mr. Sellars said in an interview the day after the production opened at the Teatro Real, Madrid’s opera house. [link]

On the Ark, Two by Two, Creatures (and Performers) Great and Small
By Anthony Tommasini, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Noye’s Fludde Samuel Wong, lower left, conducting a cast assembled by Lighthouse International and Park Avenue Christian Church, at Park Avenue United Methodist Church.

NEW YORK---Benjamin Britten loved composing pieces for children, not just for children to enjoy but also to perform. There is no better example that “Noye’s Fludde” (“Noah’s Flood”), a 60-minute opera based on a 15th-century mystery play, written for amateurs, especially children, with professionals mixed in. This telling of the biblical story was first performed in 1958 at Orford Church in Suffolk, England. It was presented as part of Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival with artists from the English Opera Group along with a large local cast, including a children’s choir. It was an inspired idea for Lighthouse International, an multifaceted organization serving people with vision loss, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School by joining with Arts at the Park, an affiliate of Park Avenue Christian Church, for an enchanting production of “Noye’s Fludde” on Friday night. [link]

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A&O INSPIRE ME! ARTIST, Niccolo Cosme Solo Exhibition in NYC Through January 2014

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"San Sebastian" by Niccolo Cosme

NEW YORK---Opening this evening "The Altar Boy: Niccolo Cosme’s Solo Exhibition" Tally Beck Contemporary will present the first solo gallery exhibition in New York for Filipino photographer Niccolo Cosme. The show will feature approximately 13 large-scale personification photographs by this 2012 INSPIRE ME! Artist. For more information on the exhibition, click here. At the opening reception this evening, Wednesday, November 20, we will be auctioning artwork by Filipino artists Niccolo Cosme and Lenore Lim with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross’s Typhoon Appeal. The reception will take place from 6 pm to 9 pm with the auction at 7:30 pm. For more information on the opening reception and charity auction, click here.

Tally Becks Contemporary: "The Altar Boy: Niccolo Cosme’s Solo Exhibition," (Nov. 20-January); 42 Rivington St., NYC, tallybeckcontemporary.com

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Celebrate Hanukkah on Your Smartphone with Free App From the Jewish Museum

YAREAH MAGAZINE

NEW YORK---The eight day holiday of Hanukkah begins at sundown on Wednesday, November 27th 2013.The Jewish Museum’s Hanukkah app, which debuted in 2012 and has now been expanded, is available for free in the App Store and on Google Play. The app is perfect for those without a menorah, travelers, students, or anyone seeking a flexible, fun way to mark the holiday. Light My Fire: A Hanukkah App allows users to select a contemporary or traditional Hanukkah lamp from the Museum’s renowned collection, choose a unique background to place it on, light the lamp, and then share it with their family and friends. [link]

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Gay Muslim Movie 'Naz + Maalik' Explodes Stereotypes

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Yasmine Hafiz

HOLLYWOOD---An upcoming independent feature film borne out of director Jay Dockendorf's reaction to hearing about the FBI's program of secret spying in mosques in Brooklyn, "Naz + Maalik" explores the world of two closeted Muslim teens who have their Friday afternoon ruined by FBI surveillance. Though the American Muslim community is becoming increasingly diverse, the problem of ignorance and bigotry towards Islam is still an issue. In that sense, American Muslims share a history of prejudice with the black and gay communities, which all intersect in this film. [link]

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Art Review: ‘Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom,’ at the Metropolitan Museum

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ken Johnson

A larger-than-life Buddha made of cast iron in the late eighth or early ninth century.

NEW YORK---Here’s a good question for “Jeopardy!”: One of the world’s longest-running dynasties, it emerged around 57 B.C. and grew to dominate the Korean Peninsula in the seventh and eighth centuries before meeting its demise in A.D. 935. The answer: What was Silla? If the name Silla is unfamiliar, it might be partly because no major museum exhibition about this kingdom’s art, craft and culture has been mounted in the West until now. “Silla: Korea’s Golden Kingdom,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents more than 130 objects dating from A.D. 400 to around 800, organized by Soyoung Lee, associate curator, and Denise Leidy, curator, in the Met’s Asian art department, with colleagues at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul and the Gyeongju National Museum.[link]

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