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Now that the brightest day of the year has been left behind, it feels like we’re slowly coming to winter. However, there is still so much summer time left full of events and appointments! Finally one can choose between online and offline. Along with contemplating arts you can also take a proactive approach and stand up for a creative who desperately needs support. More detail about that in this week’s Art Digest.

A C T I V I S M

Time for action: join ‘Free Yulia Tsvetkova’ campaign 

Russian artist and femme activist Yulia Tsvetkova has been recently charged with the dissemination of pornography. She’s being accused of administering the social media group ‘The Vagina’s Monologues’, which contains depictions of female sex organs as well as creating a series of body positive drawings called ‘A Woman is not a Doll’.

The maximum sentence of imprisonment she faces is 6 years. Artists and just concerned people from all over the world have decided to rise for Yulia and created a special platform. If you want to join and help the artist, the easiest way to do that is to sign a petition and spread the news through social media. Using back channel to resolve the situation is also encouraged. Find out more about the case, the social initiative, and ways to contribute on the platform. For those from outside Russia there is an English-language video by artist Nicole Garneau. 

Yulia Tsvetkova doesn’t only promote women’s agenda, but also supports LGBTQ rights. Until recently she was the director of an activist youth theatre in her home city Komsomolsk-on-Amur, having produced 9 plays there. Charged by the authorities, the artist was placed under house arrest in November 2019 and was released in the middle March, just as the COVID-19 lockdown became effective. Recently many social initiatives in supporting the artist have been established. One of them is ‘Yulia Tsvetkova 500-Meter Solidarity Walks’ launched and conducted by artist Nicole Garneau in Russia, Berlin, and London. The artist herself has been awarded the 2020 Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Arts Fellow. Yulia Tsvetkova’s case is tried in early July 2020, thus, it’s time for action (and everyone can help).

V I D E O  A R T 

‘Love is the Message, the Message is Death’ by Arthur Jafa streaming online all weekend long 

Arthur Jafa’s 2016 film ‘Love is the Message, the Message is Death’ will be streamed online via 13 art institutions on June 26—28. A seven-and-a-half-minute video work by Jafa is accompanied by the Kanye West’s song ‘Ultralight Beam’ and provides both colour and black and white footage, exploring the life and experience of Black Americans. It’s not only that the 13 remarkable institutions (among which are the Tate, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum) will synchronize doing that, but also the fact that Arthur Jafa has never made his video work available online before.

Arthur Jafa was born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1960. The artist focuses on making video works and producing films, exploring the African-American identity in the cultural-historic context. His works have been widely recognized and shown in the major US and world museums, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, LUMA Foundation Zurich etc. Regarding his moving video installation ‘Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death (2016)’, which has been highly acclaimed by critics, the artist said in a statement to Tate:

‘I want to make Black cinema with the power, beauty, and alienation of black music. That’s my big goal.’ 

F A S H I O N  

Paris Fashion Week to go ahead in September 2020 

The pandemic managed to strike on the fashion industry, however, the latter just won’t give up. We’ve already discussed a few online shows by some world-renowned brands launched recently — now it’s time to go offline. As you remember, Men’s Fashion Week was cancelled this year and SS20 Fashion Week has been turned online… Meet the Paris Women’s Spring/Summer Show this September, after all! The womenswear show will run from September 28 to October 6, 2020, the further details will be provided later. However, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode has announced that Paris Fashion Week ‘will comply for its implementation to the recommendations of public authorities’.

P H O T O G R A P H Y 

V&A Museum releases Glastonbury Festival archive online 

The V&A has acquired the Glastonbury Festival archive since 2014. In the year of the 50th anniversary of the Festival, the Museum reveals the collection of Glastonbury highlights and invites visitors to join. If you ever visited one of the largest greenfield music and performing arts festivals of the world, you can share your written memories, sending them to glastonbury@vam.ac.uk. The V&A appreciates being able to ‘collect and capture a living performance archive and to document and trace the Festival’s history and influence across 50 years’. Since Glastonbury has moved online this year, checking the V&A’s archive might be a good chance to remember the best parts of it. 

New online collection by Annie Leibovitz to benefit social goals 

Swiss-born contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth presents a series of limited-edition prints by the famous photographer Annie Leibovitz. Called ‘Update’ the online collection explores the sense of a place and composes the photographs made by the artist both before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. 100 % of proceeds raised from the sale will be equally splitted between the Black Lives Matter, the Equal Justice Initiative, and COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization.

Some of the ‘Update’ photographs were made in upstate New York, where Annie Leibovitz has spent her quarantine period. These are primarily about documenting the landscape of the artist’s home environment. The other part was shot previously at the places where prominent figures, such as Emily Dickinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Darwin, and Virginia Woolf used to live and work.

‘There are no people in the pictures. I photographed houses and landscapes and objects that belonged to people who are no longer there.’ (Annie Leibovitz, on the ‘Update’ series) 

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Having happened once, some cases keep on echoing through time long afterwards. Artists from all over the world confront discrimination of any kind, supporting those who are at risk. Discover some vivid examples of artistic actions as well as other inspiring news of the week below.

P H O T O G R A P H Y 

‘See In Black’ launches a charitable photography print sale 

80 black photographers will share their vision of America through a series of prints telling the story of black people, their families and culture. The initiative has been inspired and organized by See In Black, the recently established coalition of negroid photographers and creatives. The mission of See In Black is to document history accurately, ‘with intentionality, respect, nuance and care’, which doesn’t necessarily imply making images of black figures. However, this time we’re going to see an exceptional photographic homage to black identity, which coincides with the Juneteenth (June, 19). Starting from that day, one can peruse the sale lots on the website of the coalition. The sale will end on July 3. What’s the price? $100 USD per each print. 

Juneteenth is an annual holiday in US, commemorating African-Americans freed from slavery. Exactly 155 years ago, on June 19, 1865 the Civil War ended and African-Americans were informed they were free. The holiday has been celebrated ever since, however, in the wake of tragic events such as Floyd Case, it has regained its’ meaning and relevance. The name of the holiday derives from the combination of the words June and 19. Juneteenth is also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day.

By Bobby Rogers. Photo_ See In Black

By Josef Adamu. Photo_ See In Black

By Marc Clennon. Photo_ See In Black

Meet the 2020 Street Photography Awards winners & finalists 

LensCulture Awards had it hard this year, just take the Street Photography competition: due to the pandemic and the follow-up safety measures, city streets have almost become lifeless… but not quite, fortunately. Despite everything, hundreds of photographers from different countries took part in the 2020 Edition of Street Photography Awards, either submitting the works done before the outbreak of the COVID-19 or even sending recently shot ones. Along with the series & single image winners, each of the 8 jurors of the Awards has made a special pick, briefly explaining one’s choice. Learn more about the winners & finalists from the LensCulture website. Or at least, enjoy our quick photo review below.

The jurors say, they had to make an extremely difficult choice this time. The percentage of the worthy works was high — many submissions had that special kind of storytelling, which distinguishes street photography from the other genres. 6 top winners, 8 special juror’s picks, and 25 finalists — 39 photographers from 19 countries in total, whose works charged with the right ambience and street feeling you will hopefully savor.

S O U N D 

Conceptual artist Ekene Ijeoma to show a ‘voice portrait’ of NYC residents

New York City is famous for its’ diversity in every way. Artist Ekene Ijeoma wants to capture and honor this unique city trait by recording the voices of its’ more than 8.5 million residents. The art project A Counting consists of recordings of citizens, each of them counting from 1 to 100 in one’s native language. The project’s website reports, there are 600 languages spoken in NYC, the records of 854 participants speaking in 70 languages have been already collected.

If you want to contribute to the initiative, you can either share own voice record (it might take about 5 minutes), or help the project by transcribing other calls (just 3 minutes). All you need to do is to enter the website and choose the language you want to transcribe, be it Persian, Hawaiian, or Mandarin-Chinese. 

Artist Ekene Ijeoma together with his group Poetic Justice at MIT Media Lab, and The People in response to the U.S. have established the project to support non-White and English-speaking communities through ‘language acknowledgement’. 

New York City is one of the most diverse yet segregated cities and, at a time of increasing division, ‘A Counting’ meditates on how to heal those divides and speculates on what a unified city could sound like. 

(Ekene Ijeoma) 

F A S H I O N 

Model Halima Aden to become first Vogue Arabia’s Diversity Editor-at-Large

Somali-American model Halima Aden will take over the newly minted position of Diversity Editor-at-Large in the Arabic edition of Vogue. Aden will be responsible for contributing a monthly column, thus, ‘highlighting hard-hitting social topics, inspiring personalities, and committed organizations with impactful work’. While the model says it’s a great pride for her to join the team of the Magazine, Vogue Arabia Editor-in-Chief, Manuel Arnaut finds this collaboration effective and meaningful. The Magazine needs extra support from a credible and competent figure, believes Arnaut. 

Still, what’s so impressive about the 22-year-old Halima Aden? She was the first model to wear hijab on a Vogue cover (June 2017 issue) as well as to walk with her head covered New York Fashion Week two years later. A UNICEF ambassador since 2018, Halima Aden embodies the world industry of modest fashion. Wearing hijab is a demand of Islamic faith, which is always covered in her modeling contracts. 

Photo_ Harper’s Bazaar

Halima Aden on Vogue Arabia cover. Photo Condé Nast

Photo_ Jean-Paul Pietrus_The Observer

C I N E M A 

Five films by Shirin Neshat available online for 24 hours 

Some of the most important works by the US-Iranian artist Shirin Neshat can be viewed online on the website of Goodman Gallery. From June 20—June 24 the Gallery will broadcast the following films one after another, which of them being available for an overnight: Women Without Men — Dreamers trilogy: Illusions and Mirrors; Sarah; Roja — Turbulent; Rapture; Soliloquy — Tooba; The Last Word — Looking for Oum Kulthum. Don’t miss the start of your favorite film (whatever it is) at 7 pm CEST on each of the days. 

An Iranian-born Shirin Neshat started her artistic career as a photographer creating politically engaged works that explore femininity in the context of the severe state regime. Later she switched to video works, which, though conveying a straight message, differ by a more poetic imagery and softer narratives. Shirin Neshat has both won a Golden Lion at the Venice Art Biennale (1999) and a Silver Lion at the Venice International Film Festival (2009), which is considered a rare achievement. She lives and works in New York.

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June is the brightest month of the year — the daytime is so long that it feels like the night will never follow. And it doesn’t really matter what to do — whether to go to a museum (the one that is already open for the public), to watch a fashion show online or flip through a cool magazine. By the way, have you heard the latest news about Manifesta 13? Yes, it’s coming, and very soon! Discover about that and more from this week PH Digest.

Manifesta 13 is to run from August 28 to November 29, 2020 In Marseille 

Manifesta 13 will finally take place this year, starting from late August. 

Originally the biennial was to open in May but was moved back due to the coronavirus outbreak. Since Marseille has remained the venue for the event, Manifesta 13 is going to focus on the identity of the key port city of France, its history and diverse culture. To date, the artist list for Manifesta 13 includes 47 creative representatives from such countries as UK, Germany, Algeria, Palestine, Lebanon, Russia, US, Vietnam, let alone local French artists. 

Titled as ‘Traits of the Union, The Third Program, The Parallels of the South’, the biennial is curated by Katerina Chuchalina, Program Director of V-A-C Foundation (Moscow), Stefan Kalmár, Director of London’s ICA, and Alya Sebti, Director of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Berlin. The biennial consists of the three parts — its central exhibition Traits d’union.s; the education and mediation programme Le Tiers Programme, and the parallel programme Les Parallèles du Sud. Though the event is to be launched from August 28, you can already start discovering its educational component. Invisible Archives #4 exhibition is available at Tiers QG, the headquarters of Le Tiers Programme from June 12.

Art for Health: 100 artworks to be displayed at London hospitals 

In such challenging times like these artists don’t stay aside. We’ve already seen numerous examples of their involvement, and there’s another one. The Arts & Health service for Barts Health NHS Trust Vital Arts (London) has launched an initiative called #100NHSRooms, which aims at placing original artworks across 100 hospital rooms of the city. Now patients and clinical staff of such hospitals as St Bartholomew’s, Royal London Hospital, Whipps Cross, Mile End, Newham Hospital can enjoy contemplating art, either recovering or resting. According to the organization, #100NHSRooms is the response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, however, the impact of the initiative might extend far beyond it. The list of the artists participating and further details on the project are available at Vital Arts website.

Conrad Shawcross ‘Tamara Spline’ 2014

Diango Hernandez ‘Hashtag Love’ 2020

Henry Hudson ‘IPad Dreams’ 2020

London Fashion Week running online from June 12—14

Early in April it was announced that London Men’s Fashion Week scheduled for June wasn’t going to take place this year just like those of Milan and Paris. However, now we have an alternative — the event has been relaunched as a ‘digital only platform’, covering wear both for women and men. What does that mean, exactly? That would mean we are not going to see any fashion shows in the usual sense, but it would be rather a variety of digital content formats provided by the participating brands. The platform of London Fashion Week is free for everyone to access from June 12—14.

Panel discussions, online conversations, playlists, and podcasts instead of unveiling new seasonal collections? That may be a way out in circumstances where many factories are temporarily closed and supply chains are halted. However, while the emerging brands such as Robyn Lynch and Bianca Saunders grasped the opportunity of trying new formats, several established names refused to take part in London Fashion Week at all. Thus, Burberry, Craig Green, Martine Rose, Wales Bonner are among the absentees. And yet it’s worth visiting the LFW digital platform — first, it’s a precedent that may go down in history; second, where else would you find such a variety of audible, visual, and interactive content starring faces of the fashion scene in one place?

Sony World Photography Awards 2020 announced its winners 

One of the world’s largest photography competitions Sony Photography Awards has revealed the names of the laureates for this year edition. The recipients of the award have been chosen in the four competitions — Professional, Open, Youth, and Student, plus in the brand-new Alpha Female and Latin America Professional Award categories. In 2020 more than 345,000 images in total were submitted for the contest. On the Awards website you can not only see the winners’ works but also watch their acceptance videos.  

As a result, Pablo Albarenga from Uruguay has been rewarded twice as both Photographer of the Year and Latin America Professional Award winner. For his series of works Seeds of Resistance Pablo received $25,000. Tom Oldham from UK (Open) presented a black-and-white portrait of Charles Thompson aka Black Francis, a Greek photographer Ioanna Sakellaraki (Student) showcased a night-time view of the renewable-energy systems found on the island of Tilos, which she called Aeiforia. Lily Dawson-Punshon from UK made a photographic reference to the renowned Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring and, thus, became the Alpha Female Award winner, while a 19-year-old Taiwanese Hsien-Pang Hsieh was chosen in the Youth category for featuring a street performer. 

Aeiforia by Ioanna Sakellaraki, Royal College of Art

Black Francis by Tom Oldham, United Kingdom

Lily Dawson-Punshon, United Kingdom

Samira Nasr is the new and first-ever black editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar

The former executive fashion director at Vanity Fair Samira Nasr will head Harper’s Bazaar starting in July, replacing the magazine’s longstanding editor Glenda Bailey. Montreal-born Nasr who has Lebanese and Trinidadian routes is the first colored person to be in charge of the edition in its 153-year-history. Seems like it has taken a long time for change, yet better late than never. In comparison, the other leading US fashion edition Vogue can’t boast of ‘elevating and giving space to black editors, writers, photographers and designers’, as Anna Wintour, Vogue longtime editor-in-chief has recently admitted. Back to Samira Nasr, the new head of Harper’s Bazaar seems to have a proactive stance and much energy to continue the changes started by her precursor Bailey.

The cover of the new Vogue Italia designed by children 

Remember discussing the covers of the July print edition of Vogue UK last time? Vogue Italia has revealed the images of the June issue, which is entirely dedicated to children under the hashtag #OurNewWorld. And yes, the covers are designed by the younger generation as well. 8 kids from 2 to 10 years have presented their drawings that now decorate the face of the Italian edition. Learn more about the #OurNewWorld initiative from @vogueitalia Instagram account.

Cover of Edition 838 Vogue Italia, June 2020

Cover of Edition 838 Vogue Italia, June 2020

Cover of Edition 838 Vogue Italia, June 2020

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For the first time multimedia art has been placed into a museum, doctors and train drivers become the new fashion icons, Artsy plays tribute to queer love. What news does the first week of summer bring us?

A midwife, a supermarket assistant and a train driver are on the cover of Vogue UK

Vogue UK reveals the covers of the upcoming print edition. In July you are not going to see any celebrities embellishing the legendary fashion magazine. The three new faces of the edition are ‘ordinary’ women who have been working and thus assisting people at the time of COVID-19. Meet Narguis Horsford, who is a London overground train driver, Anisa Omar, a supermarket assistant, and Rachel Millar, a midwife. 

British fashion photographer Jamie Hawkesworth captured the characters while cycling across London in search of some interesting and meaningful stories. According to the editor of Vogue UK Edward Enninful, the values and reference points have shifted — today we look up at new heroes who are worth praising. Inside the magazine there is a 20-page section devoted to some professionals who have stayed active during the pandemic. Find the stories of doctors, epidemiologists, taxi drivers, teachers, volunteers, and many others in the pages of the July print issue.  

Banana Republic donated clothes worth €20 million to those in need

As part of the campaign Will Work for a Better Republic the famous fashion brand continues to support people through clothing. Banana Republic donated clothing at a cost of €20 million to the most impacted partner organizations, such as Hour Working Women Program (New York), Central City Neighborhood Partners (Los Angeles), Family Focus Englewood (Chicago) etc. The donation will be transferred to Americans who are in need, including the unemployed. The program is implemented in partnership with the apparel retailer Delivering Goods which is a division of Gap Inc.

World’s first new media art museum to open in Netherlands 

Nxt Museum is a Dutch privately funded ‘startup’ museum which focuses on new media art. Situated in the post-industrial creative district of Amsterdam-Noord, the museum is designed as a permanent space for multi-sensory experiments. The opening of the venue was scheduled for August 29, however, due to the current situation with the pandemic it might proceed on a reduced scale. 

The co-founders or the museum, its managing director Merel van Helsdingen, creative director Natasha Greenhalgh, and curator Bogomir Doringer are ready to share the nearest plans. The first exhibition at Nxt Shifting Proximities will comprise 7 room-seized works, including four new commissions. According to the co-founders, the museum’s program will focus in large part on education and research. The expected attendance is 120,000 annual visitors, the price for a single adult ticket will be €24,50.

‘Portrayal of Queer Love’ collection available on Artsy 

In honor of Pride Month Artsy decided to gather works on the topic by 14 artists belonging to LGBTQ+ community. The new collection ‘Portrayal of Queer Love’ available on Artsy displays painting, photography, mixed media installations by contemporary artists who challenge the dominants rooted in the social fabric, such as heteronormativity, predominance of the white race, masculinity, etc. Among the featured artists are Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, David Hockney, Isaac Julien as well as some their contemporary successors (explore all the participants on the website). The curator of the collection is Gemma Rolls-Bentley, Artsy’s curatorial director.

Pride Month is an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ community and its’ impact acknowledged by UK, US, and many European countries. The celebration is held during the month of June and consists of different events, the most popular of which is a colourful parade. Obviously, it wasn’t always like that. Since homosexuality was only excluded from the major list of diseases by WHO in the 90s, one can imagine what a hard time LGBT artists had before that period. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Cage, and other artistic geniuses of the 50-60s did dissipate their non-traditional sexuality on art, but indirectly. Robert Mapplethorpe was the one to make bold statements about the contradictory nature of human sexuality in photography, while Andy Warhol started speaking of queerness freely in his experimental cinematic works & silkscreen prints. Today it’s useful to think of the walk done from cognitive rigidity and belligerence to greater tolerance. And works from ‘Portrayal of Queer Love’ are a worthy illustration for this. 

Iconic works by Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe & Michael Halsband at auction on June 11

Swann Galleries auction house famous for trading of rare print and manuscript works invites you to join the upcoming auction. The bidding takes place online on June 11, 2020 at 10:30 AM ET. The catalogue for the auction ‘Fine Photographs: Highlights by Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe & Michael Halsband’ is available for browsing via the website. Such living legends of fine art photography as V-J Day Kiss by Alfred Eisenstaedt, portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol, moving nudes by Frantisek Drtikol, and many more are on display (and for sale).

New York City-based auction house Swann Galleries has been specializing in antique and rare works on paper since 1941. Founded by Benjamin Swann as a family-owned firm, Swann Galleries has been operating continually over the course of 8 decades. Now it’s considered the oldest specialist auction house in New York, running more than 35 catalogued live auctions a year. Different departments within the company focus on books, photography, drawings, illustration art, African-American fine art, all of which turn into lots and are auctioned off from time to time. Quarantine made the auction house change its’ plans, but not abandon them. Recent auctions by Swann Galleries have been conducted remotely with an opportunity of online preview for bidders.

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