Archaeologists in the Czech Republic have discovered a 7,000-year-old circular structure measuring approximately 180 feet in diameter, Radio Prague International reported earlier this month.

The structure, known as a roundel, dates to the Neolithic period and archaeologists believe it was constructed between 4900 B.C.E. and 4600 B.C.E. The roundel, and others like it in Europe, are considered to be the oldest massive structures in Europe.

For comparison, construction on Stonehenge is believed to started around 3100 B.C.E., while the famed Pyramids of Giza are thought to have been erected around 2600 B.C.E. at the earliest. That makes the roundel at least 1,000 years older than Stonehenge and several thousand years older than the pyramids.

This roundel was uncovered in Vinoř, a district on the outskirts of Prague. Around 200 roundels have been discovered across Europe, with 35 of them found in the Czech Republic.

Researchers are still working to understand what the purpose or significance the roundels held for Stone Age peoples.

To say Mexico City is a great place to experience art would be a substantial understatement. Not only has it produced one of the world’s most beloved painters, Frida Kahlo, but it has consistently stood at the forefront of various international art movements for more than a century.

But the city’s artistic standing — as well as that of Mexico in general — suffers from misapprehensions derived largely from the region’s rather notorious reputation. At best it’s often considered a destination that offers little more than beaches and booze and, at worst, it’s assumed to be too dangerous to visit, great art notwithstanding.

Having spent most of the the past six years living in Mexico City and the rest of the country, I can report that both assertions are inaccurate. While the country has undoubtedly suffered issues with crime, Mexico is safe for visitors, with Mexico City in particular undergoing rapid shifts in recent decades to become a safer and ever-more artistically vibrant city. The city overflows with an artistic abundance that stacks up against any other great art city of the world. To that end, here’s a selection of the city’s standout art experiences, from its most renowned museums to under-the-radar spots that only locals know to visit.

The bright side of America’s political polarization and neverending crises may be that it has provided ample creative fodder for painter Eric Fischl.

Fischl, who has been making and showing figurative paintings since the ‘70s, has become a self-fashioned bard of American decline.

In recent years, he has hewed to the news cycle: Shortly after Trump took office, he posted a painting to Facebook, fresh off the easel, that showed a boy curled into a fetal position wrapped in the American flag. Art critic Jerry Saltz said, at the time, that the work made him as though he “had fallen through a trapdoor into an infected field of American fissures formed by the election.”

During the fall of 2020, after six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fischl showed a series called, “Meditations on Melancholia,” more flag-wrapped figures, and a hula-hooping nude.

With this year’s midterm elections looming in November, Fischl unveiled his latest series, Towards the End of an Astonishing Beauty: An Elegy to Sag Harbor, and Thus America, last week at Skarstedt Gallery. The work leans heavily on the idyllic Hamptons town of Sag Harbor, where Fischl has lived for decades, as a backdrop for a grotesque and sympathetic parade of American every-men and -women.

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The Headlines

OPENING THE TREASURE CHEST. That’s how the New York Times describes its preview of Paul Allen’s storied art collection, which will head to auction this fall at Christie’s New York. More than 150 of them will be sold and are expected to bring in over $1 billion, as we learned last month. But at last, we know more about which works the ultra-wealthy can bid on, like  Georges Seurat ’s 1888 Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), which features a section of his famed painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. That work is expected to sell for more than $100 million, as is van Gogh’s Verger avec cyprès, one of five works by the post-Impressionist still in private hands and a rarely exhibited piece. A Klimt could sell for over $90 million, or more than double what Allen paid for it in 2006. It’s a collection filled with art historical gems. 

ARTISTS SUPPORTING ARTISTS. The Guardian reports that artist Tracey Emin, who made her name as a Y.B.A. back in the ’80s, will soon auction her painting Like a Cloud of Blood to benefit a residency program for emerging artists that she is creating in Margate, England. To be sold by Christie’s next month, the work is expected to fetch £700,000 ($775,000). Fashion designer and sometimes-curator Duro Olowu has organized another exhibition, this time for octogenarian artist Robert Earl Paige, who was a member of AfriCOBRA and identifies as a “a doodler, a tinker, and a dabbler.” The show is on view at Salon 94 Design in the Lower East Side until October 29. And finally, Hilarie M. Sheets has a close look at a group of artists who were formerly incarcerated, including Jesse Krimes, Russell Craig, and Jared Owens , who have supported each other as they established their now closely watched art careers. 

The Digest

September 5 – October 23, 2022

September 4 – October 3, 2022

‌We're happy to present documentation of documenta 15 in the Library!
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We had intended to feature a selection of shows on Contemporary Art Daily, but after visiting Kassel in person in August, we realized how interwoven the works are and decided it would be more appropriate to offer the archive as a whole. We hope you are able to get a sense of this extraordinarily complex exhibition.

June 1 – September 24, 2022

June 1 – September 24, 2022

June 4 – September 24, 2022

July 24 – September 25, 2022

July 8 – October 2, 2022

September 7 – October 22, 2022

September 8 – October 8, 2022

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