The Art Angle

How the New Heist Movie ‘Inside’ Turns Art Into a Thief’s Worst Enemy


Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Midnight Publishing Group News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

In a new feature film called Inside, an art heist goes terribly wrong for a thief named Nemo.

Nemo is played by the world-renowned actor Willem DaFoe, well-loved by the art world already for his performance in the 2018 film At Eternity’s Gate, where he played Vincent van Gogh.

In the ultra-contemporary plot of Inside, Dafoe’s character Nemo is not a world famous artist, he is a rather anonymous robber whos after a self-portrait by Egon Schiele. The artwork is not where it is supposed to be inside the ultra-modern penthouse he’s just broken into. Carefully laid plans seem to be going awry. Precious minutes are lost. Then, the alarm system locks down, leaving Nemo sealed off from the world while in the center of Manhattan. If you haven’t seen Inside yet, be advised that there are spoilers scattered throughout this episode.

So, Nemo is now stuck in a resplendent box of glass, steel, and concrete, with little more than some exotic fish, luxury furniture, and a multimillion dollar art collection. On-screen alone for practically the entire film, DaFoe’s character begins to battle against the degradation of his body and spirit—to deal with the latter, the artworks in the apartment become something like a central character, as does Nemo’s own blossoming creativity.

The artworks in the apartment, which were carefully curated, drive the plot and deepen the themes. There is a 1999 work by Maurizio Cattelan, a large photograph of a man taped to the wall with tons of duct tape, sarcastically titled A Perfect Day. There is also David Horvitz’s 2019 neon that hangs over the character’s struggle, with a sort of torturous prescience: it says “All the time that will come after this moment.” To build out the idea of a real art collection, there are more emerging stars. Kosovan artists Petrit Halilaj and Shkurte Halilaj’s work for the 2017 Venice Biennale is worn by Nemo when the penthouse’s temperature drops. And a video work by Julian Charrière and Julius von Bismarck from 2016, which was filmed at the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, is among the artworks in the film that conjure questions around humanity, planetary survival, and climate crisis—which is an undercurrent theme of the movie.

On this week’s episode, European editor Kate Brown speaks to the film’s director Vasilis Katsoupis and art curator Leonardo Bigazzi about this captivating and claustrophobic feature, which had its world premiere at the Berlinale film festival last month and is about to hit theaters in the United States.

 

Listen to more episodes:

The Art Angle Podcast: The Triumphant, Tragic Life of Nazi-Era Artist Charlotte Salomon

The Art Angle Podcast: Hito Steyerl on Why the Metaverse Has Already Failed

The Art Angle Presents: How Three Artists Envision What a Goddess Means Today

The Art Angle Podcast: Hilma af Klint Pioneered Abstract Art. But That Is Only Part of Her Story

The Art Angle Podcast: What Is Afrofuturism, and Why Is It So Relevant Today?

The Art Angle Podcast: Marc Spiegler on the Evolution of the Art Business (and Life After Art Basel)

The Art Angle Podcast: Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova on Art, Activism, and Vladimir Putin

The Art Angle Podcast: What Can the Art World Learn From an Occult Practitioner?

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The Triumphant, Tragic Life of Nazi-Era Artist Charlotte Salomon


Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Midnight Publishing Group News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

All around Europe, there are small brass bricks inlaid into the ground before the front doors of apartment buildings and houses. These bricks are like a decentralized memorial—they are known as Stolpersteine—which means stumbling stones—and engraved on each one is the name of a citizen who was persecuted or exterminated by the Nazis during World War II.

At an apartment building in Berlin that stands at Wielandstrasse 15, you will find the name of Charlotte Salomon on one of these stumbling stones. As it says on the little brass brick, she was born in 1917 here; she fled Germany to France in 1939; she was interned at a French concentration camp in Drancy; she was deported and murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.

Charlotte was also a visionary young artist, and she created a hugely ambitious work of art called Life or Theater. Made in just over a year while living in exile in France, Life or Theater consists of more than 1,000 individual gouache paintings, sectioned into three acts.

It is an artwork that defies easy categorization. It is something like an autobiography, but also not quite. There are characters that are just like her own family and friends, but their names are slightly changed. There is music that is meant to accompany her vividly painted scenes, which tell the story of her coming of age as a young woman and an artist.

The story shows what played out on Wielandstrasse in Berlin as the Nazis rose to power; the persecution of her family; the death of her mother from suicide, and later her grandmother. It tells about her suffering in exile, it discusses a murder. It also captures the birth of a brilliant artist who finds a lifeline in making art. It is hard to neatly summarize everything Life or Theater addresses—but as Charlotte put it herself, the piece is “something crazy special.” Not only is the work picturesque in the way it is painted and formally ground-breaking, Charlotte managed to achieve something deeply intimate and personal but also universal with this work. She gave it to a friend for safekeeping before she was taken to Auschwitz and it survived the war and is now in the possession of the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.

People do not seem to be as aware of Salomon as they should be giving the pioneering, avant-garde nature of this artwork. On the occasion of an upcoming exhibition of Life or Theater at the Lenbachhaus in Munich, Midnight Publishing Group News’s Kate Brown was joined by the show’s curator Irene Faber, who is also the curator of collections at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, and an expert on Charlotte’s life and art.

Listen to more episodes:

The Art Angle Podcast: Hito Steyerl on Why the Metaverse Has Already Failed

The Art Angle Presents: How Three Artists Envision What a Goddess Means Today

The Art Angle Podcast: Hilma af Klint Pioneered Abstract Art. But That Is Only Part of Her Story

The Art Angle Podcast: What Is Afrofuturism, and Why Is It So Relevant Today?

The Art Angle Podcast: Marc Spiegler on the Evolution of the Art Business (and Life After Art Basel)

The Art Angle Podcast: Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova on Art, Activism, and Vladimir Putin

The Art Angle Podcast: What Can the Art World Learn From an Occult Practitioner?

The Art Angle Podcast: 4 Predictions on How the Art Industry Will Transform in 2023

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Hito Steyerl on Why the Metaverse Has Already Failed


Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Midnight Publishing Group News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

 

 

Given the manifold political, climate, and technological crises unfolding just two months into 2023, one wonders if that ominous future our species so fears is much closer than we anticipated. It is a tense and dramatic time, but it does further underscore the importance of the cultural figure Hito Steyerl.

The German filmmaker’s bold artworks investigate emerging technologies and media, and she often sites these inquiries within society and politics, globalization, and capitalism. Yet despite the complexity of the subject matter and her research-intensive process, Steyerl’s works are readily enthralling, often manifesting as highly ambitious, immersive architectural environments.

It is no small wonder that her work has reached a global stage. Last year, her largest-ever retrospective, called “I Will Survive,” wrapped its European tour at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And just last month, her exhibition called “This is the Future” opened at the Portland Art Museum, where it is on view until mid-June. 

On this week’s episode, European editor Kate Brown spoke to Steyerl to tackle some of the questions about what artificial intelligence, the metaverse, crypto, and an increasingly imperiled natural world might mean for us.

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How Three Artists Envision What a Goddess Means Today


Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Midnight Publishing Group News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

 

In ancient mythology, figures like Athena and Aphrodite were exalted as paragons of virtue, strength, and beauty. Midnight Publishing Group and Cadillac invited three artists to interpret the goddess theme through their individual lenses and to create new work to celebrate the return of the brand’s Goddess hood ornament on the new ultra-luxury EV CELESTIQ. These images will be offered through a no-reserve online auction presented by Midnight Publishing Group to benefit the nonprofit organization Free Arts NYC.

Last week in Los Angeles, the three contemporary photographers—Ming Smith, Petra Collins, and Dannielle Bowmann—joined Midnight Publishing Group News’s executive producer Sonia Manalili to discuss their unique approaches to the medium, and how to interpret the iconic goddess imagery for a new generation. 

 

Listen to more episodes:

The Art Angle Podcast: Hilma af Klint Pioneered Abstract Art. But That Is Only Part of Her Story

The Art Angle Podcast: What Is Afrofuturism, and Why Is It So Relevant Today?

The Art Angle Podcast: Marc Spiegler on the Evolution of the Art Business (and Life After Art Basel)

The Art Angle Podcast: Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova on Art, Activism, and Vladimir Putin

The Art Angle Podcast: What Can the Art World Learn From an Occult Practitioner?

The Art Angle Podcast: 4 Predictions on How the Art Industry Will Transform in 2023

The Art Angle Podcast: Why the Very Serious Artist Paul Chan Is Taking a Breather

The Art Angle Podcast: An End-of-Year Art-World Quiz Show Extravaganza

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The Art Angle Podcast: Marc Spiegler on the Evolution of the Art Business (and Life After Art Basel)


Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Midnight Publishing Group News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

For Art Basel, the most well known art fair in the world, the fourth quarter of 2022 marked the end of one era, and the beginning of another. In early November, leadership of the company transitioned to Noah Horowitz, who returned after a roughly year-long stint at Sotheby’s to become the first ever CEO of the same fair brand where he served as director of the Americas from 2015 to 2021.

But clearing Horowitz’s path to the chief executive’s office was the one and only Marc Spiegler. Spiegler shocked the art world in October 2022 by announcing that he would end his decade-long campaign as Art Basel’s global director at the end of that year (though he will stay on as an advisor through June of this one).

During his time at the helm, Spiegler oversaw a transformation of the company across multiple dimensions, including doubling the annual number of Art Basel fairs; dramatically expanding the company’s digital presence; quintupling the size of its staff; responding to a global pandemic; and much more.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that, if you look closely at these shifts, they mirror back some of the most important ways that the art business as a whole has morphed during the 21st century. Spiegler sat down for his first extended interview since announcing his exit from Art Basel with Midnight Publishing Group News’s Tim Schneider, to discuss the past, present, and future of the art world.

 

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