Category: Новини

An exhibition featuring the work of Simone Leigh — one of America’s most influential contemporary female artists — is now on display at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. Leigh, known for her focus on feminism, gender equality and racial justice, became the first Black artist in history to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale in 2022, where she was awarded the coveted Golden Lion. Maxim Adams has the story. Camera: Sergii Dogotar.
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One of Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, Woman with a Watch, was sold at auction Wednesday night for $139.3 million by Sotheby’s in New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist.

In a jam-packed room at the venerable auction house, it only took a few minutes of telephone bidding for the 1932 painting depicting one of the Spanish artist’s companions and muses, the French painter Marie-Therese Walter, to be sold.

Femme a la montre had been valued at over $120 million before going on the block, according to Sotheby’s.

It was part of the house’s special sale this week of the collection of New York arts patron Emily Fisher Landau, who died this year at age 102.

Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s head of impressionist and modern art, called the Picasso canvas — which hung in Landau’s living room — “a masterpiece by every measure.”

“Painted in 1932 — Picasso’s ‘annus mirabilis’ — it is full of joyful, passionate abandon yet at the same time it is utterly considered and resolved,” he said.

Walter was regarded as Picasso’s “golden muse,” and features in another of his works going under the hammer on Thursday at Christie’s: Femme endormie, or Sleeping Woman, estimated to sell for $25 million-$35 million.

She also featured in Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Therese), or Woman Sitting Near a Window, which was sold in 2021 for $103.4 million.

Walter met Picasso in Paris in 1927, when she was just 17 and the Spanish artist was still married to Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova. The couple had a daughter, who died last year.

Another Picasso from 1932 was sold for $106 million in 2010.

The record sale for one of his works was of The Women of Algiers (Version O), a 1955 oil painting which sold for $179.4 million.

When it went under the hammer at Christie’s New York in 2015, it was also the record for any work of art sold at auction.

It was dethroned in November 2017 by the sale of Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which went for $450 million and holds the record to this day.

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Fifty years after his death in 1973 at age 91, Picasso remains one of the most influential artists of the modern world, often hailed as a dynamic and creative genius.

But following the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault, his reputation has been tarnished by accusations he exerted a violent hold over the women who shared his life and inspired his art.

Sotheby’s has already netted $406 million in sales from Landau’s collection, which also includes works by Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol.

Flags by the 93-year-old Johns sold for $41 million, while Securing the Last Letter (Boss) by painter and photographer Ed Ruscha sold for $39.4 million.

Auction houses are enjoying a healthy art and luxury goods market, driven by China and showing no signs of a slowdown, said Kelsey Reed Leonard, head of contemporary art sales at Sotheby’s.

Against a backdrop of wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as worldwide inflation, the two titans of the sector — Sotheby’s and Christie’s — will be moving a host of big-ticket lots in the autumn sales, though they may still have a hard time topping last year, when total sales hit a record $16 billion.
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The SAG-AFTRA actors’ union reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios to resolve the second of two strikes that rocked the entertainment industry as workers demanded higher pay in the streaming TV era, the union said Wednesday.

The 118-day strike will end officially just after midnight, SAG-AFTRA said in a statement. The group’s national board will consider the deal on Friday, and the union said it would release further details after that meeting.

Members of SAG-AFTRA walked off the job in mid-July asking for an increase in minimum salaries, a share of streaming service revenue and protection from being replaced by “digital replicas” generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The union said negotiators had reached a preliminary deal on a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents Walt Disney DIS.N, Netflix NFLX.O and other media companies.

An AMPTP representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The breakthrough means Hollywood can ramp up to full production for the first time since May, once union members vote to ratify the deal in the coming weeks.

“I’m relieved,” actor Fanny Grande said in an interview. “It’s been really difficult for most people in the industry, especially people of color. As it is, we don’t have as many opportunities. We aren’t big celebrities that have money in the bank for months. I just really hope that it’s a fair deal.”

Actors had similar concerns to film and television writers, who argued that compensation for working-class cast members had dwindled as streaming took hold, making it hard to earn a living wage in cities such as Los Angeles and New York. TV series on streaming did not offer the same residual payments that actors enjoyed during the heyday of broadcast TV.

Performers also became alarmed by recent advances in artificial intelligence, which they feared could lead to studios manipulating their likenesses without permission or replacing human actors with digital images.

George Clooney and other A-list stars voiced solidarity with lower-level actors and had urged union leadership, including SAG-AFTRA President and The Nanny actor Fran Drescher, to reach a resolution.

Many film and TV sets shut down when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) called a strike in the spring. While WGA members returned to writing scripts in late September, the ongoing SAG-AFTRA work stoppage left many productions dark.

The disruptions cost California more than $6 billion in lost output, according to a Milken Institute estimate.

With little work available, many prop masters, costume designers and other crew members struggled to make ends meet. FilmLA, the group that approves filming permits, reported scripted production during the week of Oct. 29 had fallen 77% from the same time a year earlier.

The Hollywood strikes came during a year of other high-profile job actions. The United Auto Workers recently ended six weeks of walkouts at Detroit carmakers. Teachers, nurses and healthcare workers also walked off the job.

Hollywood’s work stoppages forced broadcast networks to fill their fall lineups with re-runs, games shows and reality shows. It also led movie studios to delay big releases such as Dune: Part 2 because striking actors could not promote them.

Other major films, including the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise and Disney’s live-action remake of animated classic Snow White, were postponed until 2025.
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Transsexual people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican’s doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop. 

The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, was vague, however, in response to a question about whether a same-sex couple could have a church baptism for an adopted child or one obtained through a surrogate mother. 

Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro, Brazil, sent the doctrinal office six questions in July regarding LGBTQ people and their participation in the sacraments of baptism and matrimony. 

The three pages of questions and answers were signed by the department’s head, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, and approved by Pope Francis on October 31. They were posted in Italian on the department’s website Wednesday. 

Francis, 86, has tried to make the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ community without changing church teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are. 

In response to a question of whether transsexual people can be baptized, the doctrinal office said they could with some conditions and as long as there is “no risk of causing a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful.” 

It said a transsexual people could be godparents at a baptism at the discretion of the local priest, as well as a witness at a church wedding, but the local priest should exercise “pastoral prudence” in his decision. 

A person in a same-sex relationship could also be a witness at a Catholic wedding, the office said, citing current church canonical legislation that contained no prohibition against it. 

The response was less clear regarding persons in same-sex relationships and their role in baptism, which is the initiation into the church for infants, children or adults. 

The Brazilian bishop sought guidance on whether a same-sex couple who had adopted a child or obtained it from a surrogate mother could have that child baptized in a Catholic ceremony. 

The response said that for the child of a same-sex couple to be baptized, there had to be “a well-founded hope that it would be educated in the Catholic religion.” 

There was a similarly nuanced response to a question about whether a person in a same-sex relationship could be a godparent at a church baptism. It said the person had to “lead a life that conforms to the faith.” 
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