Art

An unusual museum opened at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa, in September 2017: the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.

To view ancient indigenous rock art in the upper peninsula of Queensland, Australia, visitors can take either a jeep or helicopter with Jarramali Rock Art Tours (Laura, Queensland, Australia; phone +61 402 805 821, jarramalirockarttours.com.au).

Featuring carvings and paintings over 20,000 years old, the rock art location is accessible only to members of this tour, guided by one of the Traditional Owners of the land, who will narrate stories depicted on the rock.

In Nancy, France, after years of restoration to match its original state, the Villa Majorelle (36-38, rue du Sergent Blandan; phone +33 03 83 85 30 01, musee-ecole-de-nancy.nancy.fr [in French only]) opened to the public as a historic monument on Feb. 19. Built in 1901-02, the Art Nouveau home was designed by architect Henri Sauvage for furniture designer Louis Marjorelle.

In four submarine bays on a former submarine base in Bordeaux, France, works of famous artists are projected on the water and on walls 39 feet high in the digital art space Bassins de Lumières (Impasse Brown de Colstoun, Bordeaux; www.bassins-lumieres.com/en), which opened April 17.

Gazing into the sky while seated on a stairway between the Würzburg Cathedral (Dom St. Kilian) and the Museum am Dom in the Bavarian city of Würzburg, Germany, is a life-sized iron statue that looks more like a mummy than a man. Known as the “Big Seated,” this statue was the subject of our December mystery photo.

Scheduled to open in Vienna, Austria, on March 12, 2020, the Albertina Modern will be home to more than 60,000 pieces of post-1945 modern art by more than 5,000 artists. Housed in the newly restored Künstlerhaus, on Karlsplatz, the museum is just off the Ringstraße, a few blocks from the main Albertina Museum.
For info, contact the Albertina Museum (phone +43 1 534 83 0, www.albertina.at).

In Cuba, Old Havana saw a new addition to its Plaza de San Francisco de Asís in May 2012. The bronze abstract statue seen in the September mystery photo portrays two people having a conversation. Mounted on a marble slab, “La Conversación” was created by French sculptor Etienne and donated to the city by Havana's French ambassador, Vittorio Perrota.

The missing portions of the bodies are said to represent the need to “read between the lines” when talking with others, not to mention the importance of communicating face to face instead of through social media or texting.

Paintings, sculpture, tapestries, engravings, furniture, documents and books — the art collection of the Liria Palace (Calle Princesa 20, Madrid; phone +34 912302200, www.palaciodeliria.com) in Madrid, Spain, opened to the public for the first time on Nov. 1.

The art is the private collection of the dukes of Berwick & Alba and was gathered over 500 years, though the palace itself dates back only to 1785. It is the only palace in Madrid that remains a private residence.

Helsinki Biennial 2020, the inaugural art festival of what is expected to become a yearly event, will be held June 12-Sept. 27, 2020, on a former military base on the island of Vallisaari in Helsinki, Finland.

At least 35 Finnish and international artists will exhibit on the theme of “The Same Sea,” the notion that everything is interdependent. At least 80% of the art exhibited will be new works, with many pieces being site-based. Visit helsinkibiennaali.fi/en.