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The Headlines




PACO RABANNE ,  the inimitable Spanish fashion designer who made his name by constructing garments out of metal and plastic in the 1960s, and then built an empire selling fragrances,  died on Friday , at 88, the  New York  Times reports. Rabanne’s many claims to fame include creating  Jane Fonda ’s instantly iconic outfit for the 1968 feature  Barbarella  out of materials like PVC and chainmail, and serving as costume designer for  Jean-Luc Godard ’s  2 or 3 Things I Know About Her  (1967).  Coco Chanel  once quipped that Rabanne was “a metalworker not a couturier,” the  Guardian   notes , but he found plenty of other admirers, including artist  Salvador Dalí , who termed him “the second genius of Spain,”  Vanessa Friedman  writes in her  Times  obituary. The designer retired in 1999;  Julien Dossenahis  is now his firm’s creative director.




TELL THE BOSS YOU ARE NOT COMING IN.  There too many major articles on artists to read. Multi-medium maestro  William Kentridge  has a retrospective at the  Broad  in Los Angeles, and talked with  CBC Radio . Painter  Zeng Fanzhi , now showing at  Hauser & Wirth , also in L.A., was interviewed by  Cultured .  Masataka Shishido  , who makes objects that (rather disturbingly) recall human flesh, was covered by  Reuters ,  as was   Eugene Komboye , who turns sandals into portraits.  Wendy Red Star  wrote a moving guest essay about the late  Kimowan Metchewais  for the  New York Times . And  Ming Smith , who just opened a show at the  Museum of Modern Art , spoke with  T: The New York Times Style Magazine . In 1979, she became the first Black woman photographer to have her work enter its collection. But even before she became successful, she was confident in what she was doing. “I didn’t care if I fit in,” Smith told  T . “Photography was my sacred space.”




The Digest




A man taking a stroll in the English countryside with his trusty metal detector unearthed a 500-year-old heart-shaped pendant that references  Henry VIII  and his first wife,  Katherine of Aragon .  British Museum  curator  Rachel King termed it the greatest Renaissance-era find in a century.  [The New York Times]




The Ukrainian man accused of stealing a  Paul Signac  canvas from the  Musée de Beaux-Arts  in Nancy, France, and four other artworks from elsewhere in the country, was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.  [L’Est Républicain / UPI ]




Artist  Fred Terna , whose abstracted paintings were informed by his imprisonment in Nazi camps, has died at the age of 99. “I’d call his work representing the Holocaust beautiful even if the imagery is not beautiful,”  Suzy Snyder , a curator at the  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , told journalist  Richard Sandomir. [The New York Times]




The  Gwangju Biennale  released the full artist list for its 2023 edition, which arrives in April in that South Korean city. The lineup of about 80 artists includes  Sky Hopinka ,  Minjung Kim , and  Christine Sun Kim .  [14gwangjubiennale.com]




Globetrotting artist  Kehinde Wiley  offered a look at his new home in Lagos, Nigeria, which he renovated with artist  Billy Omabegho . “The focal point of the house” is “a lyrical, glass-enclosed interior garden and pond,”  Lola Ogunnaike  writes, and hanging on Wiley’s walls are pieces by  Mickalene Thomas  and  Amoako Boafo .  [Architectural Digest]




Artist  Refik Anadol  contributed extremely trippy digital backdrops for the  Grammy Awards  show on Sunday night. Anadol currently has an installation on view at the  Museum of Modern Art  in New York.  [@refikanadol/Twitter]




The Kicker




ON GUARD.  For 10 years,  Patrick Bringley  worked as a security guard at the  Metropolitan Museum of Art  in New York. Now he has written a book about the experience,  All the Beauty in the World . Bringley recently visited the museum  for a  New Yorker   “Talk of the Town” story  that uncorks some delightful, little-known facts about the place. For one, there used to be an underground shooting range. Why become a guard? “I was attracted by this idea of doing something straightforward and honest and useful,” Bringley, “like keeping people’s hands off of some of the most beautiful things human hands have made.” Hard to argue with that.  [The New Yorker]