Fashion has largely existed on the periphery of the ‘fine art’ world–or else has been entirely omitted from it–for centuries. Previously assigned to the realms of ‘design’ or ‘craft’, it is only in the past decade that fashion has entered the halls of museums in blockbuster exhibitions as veritable artworks in and of themselves. Instrumental in the development of this…
Famous faces
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One of Frida Kahlo’s most famous works, The Two Fridas encompasses many threads that run throughout her entire oeuvre, from Mexican identity to the female experience and her own personal history. In her signature style, mixing fantasy and symbolism with realist detail, The Two Fridas is an enigmatic composition with enduring significance today. In this article Singulart deciphers the symbols…
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The Renaissance masterpiece The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is arguably the most famous painting in the world. With her iconic smile catching viewers’ attention, she has lived in the castles of French kings, from Francis I and Louis XIV to Napoleon and today she remains a huge part of France’s cultural heritage despite her Italian provenance. In this…
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A Cotton Office in New Orleans is a seminal piece by impressionist artist Edgar Degas. On a trip to New Orleans in 1872, Degas was inspired to produce the piece after visiting the cotton office of his brother. The artwork, which mixes portraiture and genre art, is one of the most important portrayals of 18th century capitalism, and was the…
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Hailed as the first modern painting, Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass was as scandalous as it was revolutionary. Portraying an ordinary scene of everyday life on a scale previously reserved for great historical or mythological compositions, Manet rejected the conventions of classical painting to forge a path toward Modernism. In this article, Singulart dissects the scandal behind Manet’s masterpiece…
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In Mexico’s National Sound Library, researchers may have discovered the world’s first voice recording of celebrated artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). If the recording is indeed authentic, it will be a major historical discovery. “We have been waiting for this for a long time,” said Pável Granados, Director of the Fonoteca Nacional de Mexico last Wednesday. And so, of course, has…
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Scream until your voice cracks. Dance until the point of exhaustion. Be present until you can’t stand it anymore. These are the principles of performance artist Marina Abramović: to seek out strange, new experiences and engage them with every sense. Her art is radical, ruthless, and uncomfortable. Again and again she casts herself into extreme situations – scratching herself with…
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On Thursday, June 13th, the art world lost a pillar of expressionist pop art. Since the mid-70s, Joy Pensato was re-imagining cartoon characters in her pop-y, acerbic, energetic, and sometimes sinister paintings. Her work combined influences from the likes of Kooning, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston. While she described her paintings as operating within the field of expressionism, it would…
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Architecture has long been a male dominated field – and still is today. At the beginning of 2018, female architects and urban planners in Germany made up just 34 percent of the field. The Pritzker Prize, which has been awarded to the world’s best architects since 1979, has been given to 41 men and only three women. Nonetheless, over the…
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Graffiti art is when text and images are drawn or spray painted onto walls and surfaces, usually in urban, public places and normally without permission. The notion of drawing words and images on to walls is not a modern one and can be dated back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. But Graffiti art as we know it was…
