February 16, 2015: Pierre Huyghe Wins Kurt Schwitters Award, Sarkis to Represent Turkey at the Venice Biennale, and Arnold Böcklin’s Missing Masterpiece Might Be Found

Opening

In New York … “Dawn Kasper: Music For Matter: ENERGY INTO MATTER” opens at ISSUE Project Room.

In Milan … “McDermott & McGough: Cyan Light and Abstract” opens at M77 Gallery.

Today’s Notable News

The painting in the background of two Helmut Newton photographs could be Arnold Böcklin’s missing, presumably stolen, Tritonenfamilie (Triton Family) (1880-81). (via The Art Newspaper)

The tenth edition of the Kurt Schwitters Award with a prize of $28,000 goes to French artist Pierre Huyghe. Check out our walkthrough of his current retrospective at LACMA. (via Artforum)  

Pages and engravings from the rare collection at Russia’s State Hermitage Museum have allegedly been stolen by an employee of the museum’s research library. (via The Art Newspaper)

Sarkis will represent Turkey at the Venice Biennale this summer, in an exhibition curated by Defne Ayas. (via e-flux)

The director of the National Gallery of Denmark has released an official condemnation of this weekend’s terrorist attack that targeted a Copenhagen conference on art and freedom of speech. (via The Art Newspaper)

Best of Instagram

Via @metmuseum: “‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ will be on view in the Met’s Chinese Galleries and in the Anna Wintour Costume Center beginning May 7. It will feature more than 130 haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear fashions juxtaposed with Chinese masterpieces in jade, lacquer, cloisonné, and blue-and-white porcelain and enlivened with Chinese film clips. Yves Saint Laurent (French, founded 1961) by Tom Ford (American, born 1961). Evening dress, autumn/winter 2004–5. #metmuseum #ChinaLookingGlass #AsianArt100”

Good Reads

“Mapping Gauguin” (via Art Market Monitor)

“A sneak peek at the Broad museum draws an enthusiastic crowd” (via LA Times)

“Painting as Protest on Mexico’s Walls” (via Hyperallergic)

“Museum Rules: Talk Softly, and Carry No Selfie Stick” (via the New York Times)

“Intricate Latticework Sculpture Formed from 140-Year-Old Tree” (via MyModernMet)

“Lisa Small: On Curating ‘Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe” (via Huffington Post)

Happy Presidents’ Day!

In celebration of the holiday, we’ve rounded up portraits of some of the most influential U.S. commanders-in-chief. Official and irreverent, traditional and unexpected, these depictions run the gamut in style, circumstance, time period, and medium.

Jonathan Yeo, Bush, 2007

London-born artist Jonathan Yeo’s collage of former president George W. Bush is perhaps one of the most infamous presidential portraits to be found. Known for his portraits of public figures including preeminent politicians, movie stars, and even other artists, Yeo decided to depict the 43rd president even after a potential commission from the White House fell through. A closer look at the seemingly innocuous portrait reveals it is cobbled together from pornographic magazine images. While Yeo has asserted that pornography was a natural choice for what was also an exploratory venture into collage-making, he has also admitted that the depiction was a way to “turn [his] frustration [with the president’s policies] into action.”

Gilbert Stuart, George Washington (Vaughan portrait), 1795

On the other side of the presidential portraiture spectrum, Gilbert Stuart’s official, commissioned portraits of George Washington and others of the nation’s early leaders and aristocrats earned him the utmost esteem. Indeed, a work known as the “Athenaeum portrait” (1796), one of the paintings the artist produced from his sittings with the nation’s first president, is the image on the one-dollar bill. Stately and staid, Stuart’s depictions are a far cry from Yeo’s cheeky critique.