Some Art News

By Charles Kessler

Museum and Gallery News:

• The Lower East Side gallery Feature Inc. has a museum-quality exhibition of Tantra Paintings (until February 12th). They are small abstract paintings in tempera, gouache, and watercolor on salvaged paper made by practitioners of Tantrism as a guide for their private meditation. The sophistication and  subtlety of this work is astounding — equal to the best of work by Richard Tuttle or Tom Nozkowski. For more information see the Santa Monica Museum of Art  and siglioblog websites. Here are some high-quality photos that illustrate how sensitive the work is:

ANONYMOUS, tantric painting;  Legend: The eternal race of the feminine principle towards its masculine homologue; Jodphur, Rajasthan, 2008; unspecified paint on found paper; 13.625 x 8.875” (Courtesy of Feature, Inc.).
(Click to enlarge.) 

ANONYMOUS, tantric painting;  Legend: The illustrious fish; Jaipur, Rajasthan, 1993; unspecified paint on found paper; 9.125 x 7”  (Courtesy of Feature, Inc.). (Click to enlarge.)

ANONYMOUS, tantric painting; Legend: The universal manifestation, always in evolution; Bikaner, Rajasthan, 1989; unspecified paint on found paper; 9.25 x 13.375” (Courtesy of Feature, Inc.). (Click to enlarge.) 

• L Magazine reports the blue-chip Chelsea gallery Luhring Augustine will finally open their Bushwick space.
• Christopher D’Amelio explains why they will be closing the D’Amelio Terras Gallery in Chelsea. 
• The Times reports that the Met is getting serious about contemporary art -- they hired Sheena Wagstaff, chief curator of Tate Modern, to be in charge of their new department of 20th and 21st century art.
• And it’s hard to believe, but with the addition of their glassed-in Portico Gallery, the Frick has become even better. It’s a pleasure to walk along the portico in the middle of winter and look out at their grounds and Fifth Avenue. 

Jean-Antonio Houdon, Diana the Huntress, 1776-95, terracotta, 75 ½ inches tall (photo, Michael Bodycomb).

Other Art News:

• T J Clark recently wrote two typically brilliant reviews for the London Review of Books, one on Gerhard Richter and another on the Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London.
• Via Hyperallergic is this article on a building in Taiwan that almost disappears.

Sou Fujimoto’s ’21st-Century Oasis’ (All images by Sou Fujimoto via Architizer)

• Here's a good read from The Morning News about the experience Christopher R. Graham, a music critic, had conducting a professional orchestra. He found it terrifying, and he felt completely over his head. 
• Slate has a series of articles by Tony Perrottet on Vatican City including secret areas of the City such as a bathroom within the Papal Apartments decorated with erotic frescos by Raphael in 1516, and the newly-restored Vatican Library.
• Yvonne Rainer criticized Marina Abramovic's MoCA performance/gala for economically exploiting her performers. Now Abramovic adds fuel to the fire in a MoCA video about the gala. A clueless Abramovic talks about how much she appreciates the wisdom of the free market and/or the virtues of the pre-modern system of rule by kings. 
• Finally, The New Scientist reports on the discovery in Nigeria of a rare 2000-year-old Nok terracotta.

(Image: Nicole Rupp/Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt )