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The Headlines
GAINING PACE. New York-based conceptual artist Anicka Yi has joined Pace, with the gallery representing her in partnership with Gladstone Gallery, 47 Canal, and Esther Schipper. Yi spoke to ARTnews about why artists must go beyond simply participating in conversations about new tech, developing new tools, and finding a gallery that understands her microbiology and algorithmic-based art language. In a warning about where new tech is currently heading, she shared her critique of current machine-learning AI models that draw on existing data, but have no ability for causal reasoning. This, said Yi, is a crucial flaw to energy-sucking, and intellectually limited AI models, that give an “illusion of intelligence.”
IN MEMORIAM. Philadelphia-based mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar has died at the age of 86, reported the New York Times. He made sprawling mosaic murals of mirror shards, crockery, and found objects like bicycle wheels and bottles, encrusted all over Philadelphia. He notably founded the Magic Gardens nonprofit, which owns his celebrated, 3,000-square-foot museum, gallery and sculpture garden. The NYT estimates Zagar made over 50,000 square feet of mosaic murals in Philadelphia and Latin America, some of which is held in local museums, and many of which include portraits of himself and his wife, Julia Zagar. “My whole stance in making art is joy,” he once told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Digest
Spain’s biggest art fair, Arco Madrid, opens today with 206 galleries from 36 countries at the Ifema convention center. [The Art Newspaper]
Graham Wilson, the founder of Tribeca’s Swivel Gallery, has joined Marc Straus Gallery as a partner and senior director. As part of the move, Swivel will close its Tribeca space, and its artists will move over to Straus. [ARTnews]
The Belarus Free Theater, an underground theater group in exile since 2020, will stage a collateral event to the 61st Venice Biennale, titled “Official. Unofficial. Belarus.” Held at the La Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia, it “will explore how art is made, censored, and experienced under authoritarian power and constant surveillance,” said a statement by Belarus Free Theater cofounder Natalia Kaliada. [ARTnews]
Former Louvre president Laurence des Cars cancelled a second planned appearance yesterday with a parliamentary commission to interrogate her about the museum’s management. Des Cars quit her role the day before she was due to appear before the commission on February 25. [Le Figaro]
The Kicker
TURNING POINT. For the first time since 1799, a watercolor painting thought to have launched the career of a then-young JMW Turner will be shown publicly, reports the Times. From April 25, visitors to the Gainsborough House’s museum and art gallery in Suffolk will finally get a chance to admire Abergavenny Bridge, Monmouthshire: Clearing up after a Showery Day (1789), which Turner made during a tour of Wales, and then displayed at the Royal Academy in 1799. The stunning work helped the 24-year-old artist get elected as the youngest ever Associate Royal Academician, setting on a path towards stardom, and the rest is history. Yet until now, only a lucky few could see it. The painting’s current owner agreed to loan the work, which he paid £71,500 ($95,734) for in 1992.
