The Art Angle Presents: How Curator Yung Ma is Redefining Contemporary Exhibition Models

It is the exhausted end of a jam-packed month of May, and we're staring into what promises to be a similarly jam-packed June. It's overwhelming to think about it all, but exciting to discuss some of the biggest stories of the last few weeks. That's right, it's time again for our monthly roundup, this month hosted by Artnet's national art critic Ben Davis, senior editor Kate Brown, and European news editor Margaret Carrigan. Based in Berlin, Germany, Kate recently visited the Marianna Simnett show at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum, which was commissioned to coincide with the 2024 European Football Championship, being hosted by Germany. Maggie, though based in London, traveled to New York for the Art Business Conference and took in Stanley Whitney's retrospective at the Buffalo AKG, where she suggests visitors pay a visit to Albert Bierstadt's The Marina Piccola, Capri, which was gifted to the institution by the artist himself in 1863. Finally, Ben recommends the project "Means of Production" organized by Lunch Hour, which brings together the work of 75 New York-based artists in a former hosiery factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn. First up on this edition is what may be the biggest story of recent weeks and maybe even all of recent auction history, that is the hack of Christie's website that spanned the all-important week of sales in New York, which continues on, and now features a countdown clock threatening to leak valuable client data. Next, the trio discusses a dispute between the artist Maurizio Cattelan and Anthony James over who owns the right to a specific art idea, which in this case is shooting a gun at a metal panel and presenting  it as a painting. And finally, we'll talk about the public's overwhelmingly critical outrage over recent portraits of British Royals, specifically King Charles and Princess Kate Middleton. Although they are the most recent instances, there is in fact a long history of unpopular royal portraits.

Land art, the movement which emerged in the 1960s and 70s with artists such as Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and Michael Heizer erecting monumental works in far-flung destinations, is widely regarded for its engagement with the environment and its elements. These remarkable installations are crafted in concert with the Earth, meant to evolve as sun, storms, and seasons weather them continuously over time. But what if you homed in on the core of this concept, creating sweeping land artworks in ways and places where they would be truly temporary, imprints made for a moment before disappearing back into the Earth? This is the crux of California-based artist Jim Denevan’s dynamic practice, which involves interacting with topographies and terrains to craft ephemeral compositions that play with the impermanence of our ever-changing world. Since the mid-1990s, Denevan has traversed the globe creating unfathomably massive works in sand, earth, and ice, often using no more than a rake, stick, or even the soles of his feet. He has etched miles-long Fibonacci circles in Siberia’s frozen Lake Baikal, drawn shore-spanning spirals in San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, and sculpted concentric rings of sand mounds at international public art exhibitions Desert X AlUla in Saudi Arabia and Manar Abu Dhabi. His work has been featured in institutional shows at MoMA PS1, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, as well as the Oscar long-listed documentary Man in the Field, which explored Denevan’s artistic career and his culinary trajectory as the founder of Outstanding in the Field, a roving restaurant set where food is sourced to connect diners with the origins of their meals. This spring, Artnet collaborated with Denevan on an original project, titled “You Only Live Once,” showcasing the all-new 2024 Lexus GX alongside the artist bringing to life an incredible land artwork in Lake Harper north of Los Angeles. Taking the shape of the universal number “1,” the more than quarter-mile piece is a dramatic testament to making the most of our time on this Earth by confidently pursuing our curiosities and drive for adventure.

Who are the rising talents in the art world poised for greatness? Discover them in ‘Up Next’, Artnet’s popular series of profiles introducing you to key visionaries on the verge of stardom. This month, we’re airing two special Art Angle episodes spotlighting two figures shaping their fields in innovative ways. Subscribe to The Art Angle wherever you get podcasts to hear both episodes, and visit News.Artnet.com to catch the latest up-and-comers we’re celebrating in ‘Up Next’. Yung Ma is an international curator who has held positions at some of the world's most prestigious art institutions. In 2021 he was appointed senior curator at London's Hayward Gallery, and previously held positions at M+ in Hong Kong, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He served not once, but twice, as the co-curator of the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and was the artistic director of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale in 2021. It's fair to say that Ma knows better than most what audiences want from museums, and his track record organizing acclaimed exhibitions of artists like Cao Fei, and a recent retrospective of Mike Nelson proves that he knows how to deliver. Artnet's London correspondent Vivienne Chow spoke to Ma about the changing tides within the realm of museums and his personal experiences at the forefront of contemporary art.

What is a connoisseur? Who can be one? What role do they play in shaping tastes of the art market and the large expanse of art history? There's perhaps no better place to ask these kind of questions than at TEFAF, the many splendored Dutch fair where art, antiquities, and antiques take center stage. Each spring, the event returns to New York City and a swath of visitors—international and local, new and returning, celebrity and, well, not—flock to the storied Park Avenue Armory. Last week amid those festivities, as dealers sold every kind of treasure from ancient Roman sculptures to contemporary Korean paintings, Artnet and TEFAF hosted a panel  featuring three experts discussing the state of connoisseurship today, and how a new generation of collectors is approaching that field. This week, listen to a recorded version of that lively conversation moderated by Artnet Pro Editor Andrew Russeth, joined by Adam Charlap Hyman, Principal at Charlap Hyman & Herrero; Eleanor Cayre, Art Advisor, Cayre Art Group; and Ebony L. Haynes, Senior Director, David Zwirner & Director, 52 Walker.

Who are the rising talents in the art world poised for greatness? Discover them in ‘Up Next’, Artnet’s popular series of profiles introducing you to key visionaries on the verge of stardom. This month, we’re airing two special Art Angle episodes spotlighting two figures shaping their fields in innovative ways. Subscribe to The Art Angle wherever you get podcasts to hear both episodes, and visit News.Artnet.com to catch the latest up-and-comers we’re celebrating in ‘Up Next’. Alexander Shulan has a knack for spotting emerging talents. The founder and curator of Lomex Gallery is a born-and-bred New Yorker who began the venture as a sort of "collaborative project" between himself and a group of artist friends. That lark turned into a full-blown commercial enterprise showing the likes of Robert Bittenbender, Emma McMillan, and Andrea Fourchy, and Maggie Lee. While the gallery's ethos has long been dedicated to showing new-New York artists, when the gallery moved from its original home in the Bowery to the new art mecca of Tribeca, Shulan has begun to expand his purview beyond "hyper-local" confines. In a roving interview with Artnet's Wet Paint columnist Annie Armstrong, Shulan discusses how the gallery is forging a new path in the ever-crowded art world.

There is a lot to unpack—literally and figuratively—in the Metropolitan Museum’s new Costume Institute show, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” which opens on Friday May 10. It’s about nature and the cycle of life (and as it turns out, there is a lot about death). It also touches on chemistry, biology, mythology, and so much more, all told through the lens of fashion. Added to this litany of themes, the show also tells the story of The Met itself, and the goings-on behind the scenes. It’s about how archived garments are preserved and how they are disintegrating. It’s not just about clothes, but about how they were worn and who wore them. It tells the story of us. It's a visceral exhibition of over 400 years of fashion that engages the senses. It can be a heady experience. There are the sounds of waves crashing, and birds calling, and poems being read aloud. There is textured wallpaper you can touch—and courtesy of the German artist Sissel Tollas, wallpaper you can scratch and sniff and tubes you can snort. Frankly, this portion of the exhibit kicks like a mule and is unforgettable, with scent being such a powerfully triggering memory force. “Sleeping Beauties” was curated by this week’s guest Andrew Bolton, the Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who previously helmed such blockbusters as "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty," "China Through the Looking Glass," and "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination," which were some of the most visited exhibitions in the museum’s entire history. Today’s fashion-exhibit-heavy museum landscape has a lot to do with Bolton’s successes, but with his trained anthropologist’s eye, he never fails to zero in on the intellectual and human connotations in the garments.

We're sharing a special preview of Previously Unknown, a podcast from our friends at Independent New York.  Previously Unknown reframes and reevaluates what we think we know about contemporary art.  In this segment from the latest episode, Artnet News Pro Editor Andrew Russeth moderates a discussion with Independent art fair founder Elizabeth Dee, curatorial advisor Matthew Higgs and artist Joel Mesler. In 2019, Mesler performed an act of radical generosity by painting portraits of visitors at the fair, to benefit the not for profit gallery White Columns. Mesler will return to Independent this year, to restage the memorable presentation with a series of new portraits made on-site, in honor of the 15th anniversary of the art fair.  Tune in to Previously Unknown on your favorite podcast platform.

As anyone who has been listening to this show recently will already know, the world's largest and most closely scrutinized art event—the Venice Biennale— is now open in Italy. Every two years, different countries compete for the attention of art lovers and judges with individual national pavilions. For the 2024 Biennale, among the most talked about is that of the United States, which chose Jeffrey Gibson as its representative artist. Gibson is one of the most visible artists currently working, and with his Cherokee and Choctaw heritage, he is also the first Native American to represent the U.S. in Venice. Representing your country at the Biennale is among the highest honors that any artist might receive, and also among the most fraught. Even from this show's title, which is "The Space in Which to Place Me," you can tell that Gibson is pondering what national representation means. Gibson has transformed the U.S. pavilion's brick exterior with prismatic murals. Inside you find a spectacle that is clearly the work of vast amounts of team labor. There are 10-foot-high figures with ceramic faces draped in beads, ribbons, and large fringe; sculptures of large birds and human busts meticulously decked out in detailed rainbow bead work. Vibrant paintings that incorporate artifacts by unknown indigenous makers were sourced from estate and garage sales. Meanwhile, a bright red central chamber contains one of the types of work that has become Jeffrey Gibson's signature, a punching bag that he has transformed via intricate bead work into a hanging sculpture, this one featuring the vaunted phrase, "we hold these truths to be self-evident." Whether that line refers to the truths of the Declaration of Independence that it is citing, or to the truths of the other art that surrounds it, you have to decide for yourself.  Gibson's pavilion climaxes with a nine screen video installation featuring a dancer performing a traditional Ojibwe powwow dance to a techno beat, the images ultimately breaking apart into kaleidoscopic abstraction in its mix of historical references and pop, and above all, in its color and warmth. "The Space in Which to Place Me" is a fine introduction to the themes that define Jeffrey Gibson's career. In the lead up to the opening, host Ben Davis spoke with him about his long road to the Venice Biennale.

It is time for another edition of the Art Angle Roundup, where we look at some of the biggest headlining stories of the past month. But really, let's be honest, in the art world there's just one headlining story, and that is the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale, the so-called "Olympics of the Art World," which opened to the public last Saturday, April 20. Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa's "Foreigners Everywhere" was a major feat, and it brought together more than 330 artists and collectives, the vast majority of whom have not been seen at the Biennale before. So it was truly exciting. And all over Venice, there were scores of collateral shows, galleries that brought their own exhibitions, private foundations pulling their weight as well with all of their palazzos. Suffice to say, the lagoon was busy. As we know, it's a challenge to get anywhere fast in a city without cars and bikes, and it's very easy to get lost along the way, but there is, naturally, a lot of great art to see. This week, Art Angle co-hosts Kate Brown and Ben Davis are joined by acting Editor in Chief Naomi Rea, who were all together at the vernissage and are now back to remotely chatting from Berlin, New York, and London respectively. After a very busy week, a look back at what it was like on the ground in Venice, beginning with the main show curated by Pedrosa (who was a recent guest on the podcast); the protests that took place around the Biennale art week; and finally the national pavilions, the nation-state pavilions, and all of the hits, misses, and stories that came out of it.

The art press is filled with headlines about trophy works trading for huge sums: $195 million for an Andy Warhol, $110 million for a Jean-Michel Basquiat, $91 million for a Jeff Koons. In the popular imagination, pricy art just keeps climbing in value—up, up, and up. The truth is more complicated, as those in the industry know. Tastes change, and demand shifts. The reputations of artists rise and fall, as do their prices. Reselling art for profit is often quite difficult—it’s the exception rather than the norm. This is “the art market’s dirty secret,” Artnet senior reporter Katya Kazakina wrote last month in her weekly Art Detective column. In her recent columns, Katya has been reporting on that very thorny topic, which has grown even thornier amid what appears to be a severe market correction. As one collector told her: “There’s a bit of a carnage in the market at the moment. Many things are not selling at all or selling for a fraction of what they used to.” For instance, a painting by Dan Colen that was purchased fresh from a gallery a decade ago for probably around $450,000 went for only about $15,000 at auction. And Colen is not the only once-hot figure floundering. As Katya wrote: “Right now, you can often find a painting, a drawing, or a sculpture at auction for a fraction of what it would cost at a gallery. Still, art dealers keep asking—and buyers keep paying—steep prices for new works.” In the parlance of the art world, primary prices are outstripping secondary ones. Why is this happening? And why do seemingly sophisticated collectors continue to pay immense sums for art from galleries, knowing full well that they may never recoup their investment? This week, Katya joins Artnet Pro editor Andrew Russeth on the podcast to make sense of these questions—and to cover a whole  lot more.