Arts Abroad: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Tate Britain, May 19 – August 31, 2020

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Citrine by the Ounce 2014
Private Collection
© Courtesy of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Tate Britain will present the first major survey of the work of British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b.1977), May 19 – August 31, 2020. Widely considered to be one of the most important figurative painters working today, Yiadom-Boakye is celebrated for her enigmatic oil paintings of human subjects who are entirely imagined by the artist. This exhibition will bring together around 80 paintings and works on paper spanning almost two decades, including works from her graduate exhibition and new paintings shown for the first time.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, No Need of Speech 2018, Carnie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. © Courtesy of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Photo: Bryan Conley

The figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings feel both familiar and mysterious. Each of her works is created from a composite archive of found images and her own imagination, raising questions of identity and representation. Her paintings are created in spontaneous and instinctive bursts, revealing expressive, short brushstrokes and a distinctive palette of dark, dramatic tones contrasted with flashes of brightness. By stripping away the signifiers of any particular era, her figures seem to exist outside of a specific time or place, inviting viewers to project their own narratives, memories and interpretations. Surveying the development of Yiadom-Boakye’s unique formal language from 2003 to the present day, the exhibition will include early paintings such as First, created for her MA degree show at the Royal Academy Schools in 2003, alongside more recent examples of her best-known paintings including Complication 2013 and No Need of Speech 2018.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, To Improvise a Mountain 2018. Private Collection. © Courtesy of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Photo: Marcus Leith

“J.M.W. Turner: Quest for the Sublime” Makes Sole U.S. Appearance at Nashville’s Frist Art Museum

The Frist Art Museum presents J.M.W. Turner: Quest for the Sublime, an exhibition of extraordinary oil paintings, luminous watercolors, and evocative sketches by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), a central figure in the Romantic movement widely recognized as Britain’s greatest painter and among the most highly regarded landscape painters in Western art. Selected from Tate‘s Turner Bequest and organized in cooperation with Tate, the exhibition will make its sole U.S. appearance in the Frist’s Ingram Gallery from February 20 through May 31, 2020.

Long admired for his ingenuity, originality, and passion, Turner strove to convey human moods and the feeling of awe aroused by nature’s immensity and power—its palpable atmospheres, pulsating energy, the drama of storms and disasters, and the transcendent effect of pure light. With approximately 75 works, the exhibition conveys highlights in the British painter’s career from the 1790s to the late 1840s, from dizzying mountain scenes and stormy seascapes to epic history paintings and mysterious views of Venice.

Frist Art Museum (PRNewsfoto/Frist Center for the Visual Arts)

The Romantic movement of the late 18th- through mid-19th centuries arose in response to the Enlightenment emphasis on reason over emotion. “For Turner, psychological expression and the liberation of the imagination were of paramount importance,” says David Blayney Brown, senior curator, 19th-century British art, Tate Britain. “He achieved these goals in images of the landscape that evoked human moods by portraying extreme contrasts of intense light and gloomy clouds, dramatic topographies, and energetic brushstrokes.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851). Venice, the Bridge of Sighs, exhibited 1840. Oil on canvas, 27 x 36 in. Tate: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856. Photo © Tate, 2019

Turner portrays climatic events not only as compelling forces by themselves, but also as settings and metaphor for historical and modern dramas. “Mountains and sea show the world in motion: the glacial creep of geological change in the Alps, the sudden fall of a rock propelled by an avalanche, the changing appearance of Mont Rigi according to time and weather, the swell and heave of the sea,” says Brown. Societal and technological changes are captured as well, with images of steamships and other suggestions of industry signaling the forthcoming machine age. The exhibition also includes elemental images of sea and sky, painted late in Turner’s life, which appear nearly abstract.

Annenberg Space For Photography’s Vanity Fair: Hollywood Calling Exhibition Opens In February 2020

Exhibit Showcases Iconic Images, Cover Shoots, and Behind-the-Scenes Moments from Vanity Fair

Today, the Annenberg Space for Photography, L.A.’s premier destination for photography, announces its next exhibition opening in February 2020 – Vanity Fair: Hollywood Calling – The Stars, the Parties, and the Powerbrokers. The photo exhibit, opening Oscar weekend, runs from February 8 – July 26, 2020.

The Annenberg Space for Photography logo (PRNewsfoto/The Annenberg Space for Photography)

Curated by Vanity Fair‘s creative development editor David Friend and the magazine’s former director of photography Susan White, Vanity Fair: Hollywood Calling features photographic portraiture and multimedia installations that capture the magic and glamour of the film and television industry’s major players from the last four decades. The exhibition is a look at the Hollywood stars, the parties, and the powerbrokers, through the distinctive lens of Vanity Fair – the most widely celebrated journalistic arbiter of Hollywood power and personality.

Documentarians, May 1998. Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Lady Gaga & Mark Ronson, Vanity Fair Oscar Party, 2019 (Credit: Justin Bishop)

Latino Directors, November 2015, Photo: Jason Bell

With 130 photographs and more than 50 photographers, Hollywood Calling showcases Vanity Fair‘s vaunted portraitists, including the magazine’s principal photographer, Annie Leibovitz, as well as Jonathan Becker, Harry Benson, Cass Bird, Cristina de Middel, Ethan James Green, Erik Madigan Heck, Horst P. Horst, George Hurrell, Helmut Newton, Jackie Nickerson, Herb Ritts, Collier Schorr, Lord Snowdon, Firooz Zahedi, and dozens more.

Oscar-winning director Ang Lee, Hollywood Issue 2019. Photo: Peter Hapak

Barry Jenkins, Hollywood Issue 2019. Photo: Peter Hapak

Alfonso Cuaron, Hollywood Issue 2019. Photo: Peter Hapak

The show features images of iconic celebrities in film/TV, comedy and more, including Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Lena Waithe, Lupita Nyong’o, Philip Seymour Hoffman, George Clooney, Michelle Williams, Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, Viola Davis, Brad Pitt, Heath Ledger, Jack Nicholson, Ellen DeGeneres, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, Steve Martin, Janet Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Jodie Foster, Jennifer Lopez, Halle Berry, Oprah Winfrey, Michael B. Jordan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Blythe Danner, Jennifer Lawrence, and many more.

Johnnie Walker and Funny Lady Mindy Kaling Team Up to Bring Holiday Spirits to a New Level

The Comedy Writer and Iconic Blended Scotch Whisky Brand Have Created A Series of Merry Messages To Personalize Your Johnnie Walker Blue Label Gifts This Season

Award-winning actress Mindy Kaling and Johnnie Walker, the number one Scotch Whisky brand in the world, have teamed up this holiday season to bring maximum cheer. Using her comedic way with words, Mindy has created original holiday messages that can be engraved on bottles of the iconic Johnnie Walker Blue Label. (http://www.MindysBlueLabelHoliday.com)

(PRNewsfoto/Johnnie Walker)

One in every three spirits purchased in December is a gift1, so Johnnie Walker has enlisted Kaling to help gift-givers find the right words to say. With a message from Mindy, an engraved Blue Label bottle will certainly stand out from the rest. Choose from eight engravings by Mindy to customize your next gifted bottle of Blue:

• Snow Much Fun, You Guys
• From Your Whisky Elf
• Damn, Someone Made The Nice List
• Sip By The Fire (Or A Fire Gif)
• The Sip That Keeps On Giving
• (Recipient’s) Best Holiday Present
• Peace, Joy & Whisky
• I Love This For You, Happy Holidays

“Johnnie Walker Blue Label is the perfect gift for everyone who appreciates a rare whisky and a bold personality, like me! I love that you can engrave the bottle with a personal message, so every time someone pours a sip, they think of you. And for anyone short on words, I have you covered. I teamed up with Johnnie Walker to create a few, festive holiday messages of my own for you to engrave. Thank me later!” shared holiday enthusiast, Kaling.

Mindy Kaling and Johnnie Walker teamed up this holiday season to create original holiday messages that can be engraved on bottles of the iconic Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

Holiday shoppers can engrave complimentary messages from Kaling on Johnnie Walker Blue Label online at www.MindysBlueLabelHoliday.com and also at the Johnnie Walker Holiday Pop Up Powered by Giftagram, located in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place in New York City. As the rarest and most exclusive offering in the Johnnie Walker portfolio, Johnnie Walker Blue Label is an iconic whisky meant for celebrating all of life’s meaningful moments.  A personalized engraving from Kaling transforms this already special bottle into a truly one-of-a-kind gift and as a little something extra to get shoppers in the holiday spirit, Kaling and Johnnie Walker are offering free shipping with code MINDY. Consumers must be of legal drinking age to participate.

For more information on Johnnie Walker, please visit www.johnniewalker.com and follow @JohnnieWalkerUS on Facebook and Twitter and @JohnnieWalker on Instagram.

1 Source: F20 AOP and Numerator Occasions Tracker – April 2018 thru January 2019