Princeton University has a long history of commissioning public art by the likes of Henry Moore, Louise Nevelson, Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso, dating back to the 1960s. And when the Princeton University Art Museum opens to the public next year, at almost double the size of its original building, six new large-scale works bywomen and artists of color will have pride of place — visible beacons nearthe building’s perimeter, both indoors and out at this central crossroads on campus.
“From every access point toward the museum, there will be works of public art so that people can almost use them as visual markers of arrival,” James Steward, its director, said.
“I was thinking about how to bring voices that maybe were not yet adequately represented on our campus,” Steward said. The new artworks help “break down the distinctions between indoors and outdoors,” he added, as part of the goal to enhance accessibility and engagement with the museum’s encyclopedic collection, some 115,000 objects. (The institution is renowned for its Chinese paintings, photography and pre-Columbian holdings.)
The 1966 building was demolished in 2021 to make way for the new one. The museum has an annual operating budget of $29 million (60 percent of which comes from endowment income) and has 120 employees, expected to grow to 180 by the opening in 2025.
The 146,000-square-foot building, which is divided into nine interlocking pavilions for each area of its holdings, will place all of its collection galleries on the second floor, giving them parity. Nearly ignored in Steward’s tour was mention of the new building’s designer, the Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, acclaimed for the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Last year, Adjaye was accused of sexual misconduct by three former employees and has stepped back from day to day oversight on several projects.
As was reported at the time, Adjaye denied the accusations. “I absolutely reject any claims of sexual misconduct, abuse or criminal wrongdoing,” he said in 2023 in a statement.
Steward said in an interview, “We were 50 percent through construction” at the time of the allegations. “We were obviously not going to tear the building down and start over again.”
It is credited as an Adjaye Associates project, but Steward said the architect is no longer personally involved and the remaining work is in the hands of the collaborating architects Cooper Robertson. (Similarly, the Studio Museum in Harlem’s new building is nearing completion with Adjaye Associates and Cooper Robertson.) The Shelburne Museum in Vermont, on the other hand, which had hired Adjaye to build its new center for Native American art, had barely begun the design process last year and chose to cut all ties with his firm.
Princeton’s building was fully funded — two-thirds by private donors, one-third by the university — before its groundbreaking in 2021. “We have to reclaim our own values that have shaped the project,” the director said.
He suggested those values are embedded in the four new artist commissions, which each respond directly to the architecture and the collections.
Cave is scaling up one of his vibrant “Soundsuit” figures to 40 feet tall — it will bow toward arriving visitors as part of a mosaic combining glass, wood and metal that wraps around two walls of the entrance court. The fantastical form will be adorned in a costume of flowers with a halo of spinning tops and globes.
“I see this figure as the master of ceremonies that will welcome you,” said Cave, a Chicago-based artist, who titled his piece “Let me introduce myself. They call me MC, Prince Brighton.” A cloudscape with eight Adinkra symbols from West Africa, including ones for unity, peace, truth and courage, surrounds the figure.
Al-Hadid, a Syrian-born, New York-based sculptor, will create a ghostly ziggurat in aluminum rising 15feet on the East terrace.
“I am interested in the suggestion that this ancient structure might lay stored — in some ways buried — within a very contemporary new building,” she said, explaining that she was inspired by objects in the museum’s collection from near her birthplace in Aleppo and from Turkey.
For a narrow double-height gallery above another entrance, Nguyen has made a 20-foot-high kinetic mobile nodding to Calder. It will dangle over ancient mosaics embedded in the floor from the late 2nd-century A.D., which were discovered during excavations of Antioch in modern Turkey during the 1930s by a Princeton-led team. The polished discs of the mobile are modeled on unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War that has killed many farmers in the decades since, part of ongoing researchby Nguyen, a Vietnam-based visual artist.
“It’s the reincarnation of this bomb material left over from the detritus of war,” said Nguyen, who has designed his sculpture with bells and mallets that will chime in the breeze. “It kind of looks like this rising dragon, responding to the old mosaic of a Medusa on the ground.”
For a small viewing room cantilevered from one of the second-floor pavilions, Irish, who is based in Philadelphia, created “Cosmos Beyond Atrocity,” a Renaissance-style ceiling painting. Inside its architectural coffers, she painted vignettes of violence drawn from the museum’s art collection, including Medea slaying her children, the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, and Judith beheading Holofernes (so much of the Western canon of art is premised on such images). But her ceiling offers a different vision of the cosmos in the center, based on images of pacifism. The trompe l’oeil composition appears to rip open in the middle, revealing an atmospheric sky, populated with figures from the Vietnam antiwar movement in the United States.
Steward thinks that people walking down the sidewalk “will see this gloriously colored ceiling and want to discover what it is.”
He said he hoped the day would come eventually when the role that Adjaye played in the design of the building could be discussed without tainting the project.
“As a culture, we’re going to have to grapple more successfully with how we deal with the maker versus the work,” Steward said.
“If we were to apply the standards of today to the art of the past, our galleries would probably be decimated.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
