Basquiat in Nude on View in New York

We are used to seeing Jean-Michel Basquiat's name associated with auction records and top prices, but an exhibition that just opened in New York offers a great opportunity to see the artist in a more private intimate setting.

The Suzanne Geiss Company put on display a selection of rare black&white nude photographs taken of the artist by his then girlfriend Paige Powell in the 80s. Together with Pink Martini musician Thomas Lauderdale, Powell have began sorting through her extensive photography archive that chronicled her life in the midst of the 1980s art scene in New York as an inner member of Andy Warhol's Factory crowd. The result is this first exhibition focusing on Basquiat, and the 2-year relationship with Powell, where we see the artist in a series of nude portraits taken by Powell in her apartment. In these natural poses, Basquiat looks pretty relaxed, drawing, smoking, and watching cartoons. It is wonderful to witness Basquiat on a more personal level, who died when he was only 27 from a drug overdose in 1988. The exhibition is on view until 22nd of February 2014.

MoMA is Expanding Again, Drawing Criticism

Last week MoMA announced its new expansion plans which is basically adding more space by razing the adjacent old building of the Folk Art Museum (purchased by MoMA in 2011), and criticism is coming from both sides of the Atlantic. Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times criticised the plan calling it "lacking vision" while Los Angeles Times Archicture critic Christopher Hawthorne explains the facts and reasoning behind this expansion, but concludes "The great irony of this plan, as with so many recent museum expansions, is that out of frustration with its packed galleries MoMA has decided to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build more of the same."

If you remember, MoMA had a big expansion just back in 2002 which had the museum move to Queens temporarily until it was re-opened to the public in September 2004. There were critics of that expansion too and the Guardian's Michael Wolf tells you why he thinks "...it is really too late for MoMA. The damage is done. Glenn D Lowry is the villain of the piece" because "The intimate, jewel-like space has become a standard-issue institutional structure, more suited to a corporate headquarters in Los Angeles or Dallas."   Read the rest of his article here.

British Museum Expands Contemporary Collection with Canan Tolon, on view at Parasol Unit

Tonight is the opening of the Turkish-born artist Canan Tolon's first major London show at Parasol Unit. Dividing her time between San Francisco and Istanbul, Tolon's work is based on and deals with space, time, gravity, and chance interactions between disparate materials. She had an early interest in the marks left by the processes of growth and transformation over time which led to her using unusual techniques such as applying coffee grounds, letting grass grow on a canvas, or allowing rust to occur naturally and mix with pigment in her paintings. This exhibition also coincides with the British Museum's recent acquisition of a set of Tolon's drawings, Futur imparfait, 1986–1999, a series of 33 ink-wash and crayon figurative drawings. Since 2009, the British Museum has an active acquisitions committee for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Middle East since 1980s, CaMMEA. This patrons group has joined forces with the Turkish SAHA Association that provides funding to projects and museum acquisitions which contribute to the presence and visibility of contemporary art from Turkey. There is a good educational program alongside the show as well with talks, poetry and concerts. Spanning over Tolon's career from the 1980s until present day, this show promises to be an interesting one to visit. It is on view until 16th of March 2014.