Shiva Ahmadi published in BOMB magazine
An interview with Professor Shiva Ahmadi, associate professor of art, was recently published in BOMB magazine. In the article, “Contradictions and Tensions: Shiva Ahmadi Interviewed by Naomi Falk,”
Ahmadi discusses contradiction, negotiation, democracy, and the perils of transporting pressure cooker art across U.S. customs. You can read the article here.
Professor Lucy Puls participates in exhibition at the Catharine Clark Gallery
The “Hotheads” Tribute Wall, coordinated by Julie Heffernan, “features the invited artists’ pieces, each honoring a hothead who inspires them.” Puls’ contribution is inspired by hothead Joni Mitchell and is titled Caerulum Exempli (Joni Mitchell). The exhibition is currently online until Sept. 5, 2020, but the Gallery hopes to open the exhibition and gallery to viewers this June. You can check out the exhibition online. Here is one of the videos in the exhibition, below.
Professor of art and art alum featured in “less than half” online newsletter
Puls and her former student, alum Sandra Ono (BA 2003), were featured in an article about women artists in Northern California in the online newsletter less than half, a newsletter devoted to promoting women artists in the United States. You can read “Women of Northern California.”
Thiebaud’s pinball painting expected to fetch a hefty price
Christie’s is auctioning off a painting by Professor Emeritus Wayne Thiebaud of the UC Davis Art Studio department. The painting, “Four Pinball Machines,” is expected to fetch between $18 million and $25 million at auction. Read more and see the painting here in ArtNews.
According to Christie’s, the work is one of the most important from the artist’s oeuvre still in private hands. Their website description reads:
Out of the public eye for two decades, the works also carries an exhibition record that proves its rank among the most important examples of Thiebaud’s legacy. Following its original purchase from Christie’s in 1981 by elusive real-estate magnate, Donald Bren for just $143,000 — in 1985-86 it was showcased at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Newport Harbor Museum of Art (now the Orange County Museum of Art) — Bren, the founder of Irvine Company donated the land to establish the Newport Harbor institution and serves as a trustee. Later, the work featured in the painter’s seminal traveling retrospective in 2001 at the Whitney Museum. The seller of the work is investment executive Ken Siebel, founder and chairman of California-based wealth management firm Private Wealth Partners. He bought the work from Bren a year later in 1982 in a deal facilitated by Allan Stone, following the Christie’s sale — where Bloomberg reports, the Siebels attended in person.