Black Suns

While many museums remain shuttered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibitions will include shows at institutions that are now reopening as well as digital projects providing virtual access to art and culture.

From Malevich’s cross to the ultranoir paintings of Pierre Soulages, the colour black has held a particular fascination for artists throughout the 20th century. This exhibition of some 180 works at the Louvre-Lens, which reopened on 3 June, traces the use of the colour back to earlier painters like Jusepe de Ribera, Eugène Delacroix and Gustave Courbet, and explores its many symbolic meanings, from infinitude and power to melancholy and fear. The show was initially set to open in late March; it is now scheduled to run until 25 January 2021. Find out more from the Louvre-Lens website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here

The Stream (c. 1865), Gustave Courbet. Photo: Daniel Martin/Musée des Augustins, Toulouse

Black Cross (1915), Kazimir Malevich. Photo: Philippe Migeat/Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais

Untitled (1985), Jannis Kounellis. Photo: Jean-Luc Lacroix/Musée de Grenoble

Peinture 202 x 453 cm, 29 juin 1979 (1979), Pierre Soulages. Photo: Philippe Migeat/Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais; © ADAGP, Paris