Elena Goukassian

3 weeks ago | theartnewspaper.com | Elena Goukassian

The New York art world is abuzz with excitement about the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While the architecture of the revamped space and the newly displayed objects from Africa, Oceania and the ancient Americas have been front of mind, the wing also features a number of works by contemporary artists. Among these—and perhaps most under-the-radar—is a special project by the Ethiopian American film-maker Sosena Solomon .

1 month ago | theartnewspaper.com | Elena Goukassian

The work life of museum guards is often both banal and extraordinary. They spend most of their time standing in corners, staring into space—either at the works of art or at the people milling around the gallery—scolding children who try to climb the sculptures and fielding questions about where to find the toilets. But they also get a lot of thinking time and form unique relationships, both with the art they watch over every day and with each other.

1 month ago | theartnewspaper.com | Benjamin Sutton |Elena Goukassian |Torey Akers |Gameli Hamelo

The first full-scale retrospective on the late great painter and sculptor Jack Whitten (1939-2018)brings together more than 175 works spanning his six-decade career. His large-scale mosaic-like compositions—made from hardened acrylic paint cut into thousands of tiles—figure prominently, as do his mixed-media assemblage sculptures.

2 months ago | theartnewspaper.com | Elena Goukassian

The US’s National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has published a call for artists for President Donald Trump’s pet project, the National Garden of American Heroes. The ambitious sculpture park is planned to include 250 life-size, “realistic” statues of as many historical figures—a seemingly random selection that ranges from George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr to the late basketball star Kobe Bryant and the television host Alex Trebek.

2 months ago | theartnewspaper.com | Elena Goukassian

A New York judge ruled on Wednesday (23 April) that the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) must return a Nazi-looted Egon Schiele drawing, the latest development in a yearslong battle between the museum and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. New York Supreme Court Judge Althea Drysdale’s ruling runs 79 pages, and it took her 25 minutes to read her order in court, according to Graham Bowley and Tom Mashberg in The New York Times .