The sale at Sotheby’s New York next month includes works by Lucio Fontana, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alexander Calder and Claes Oldenburg
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Artists draw inspiration from elements of the castle including its cultivated gardens, among the oldest in Ireland
The objects, including what the museum describes as England’s oldest known figurative art work, will head to Bradford for a major exhibition opening this summer
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Politicians in Milan say the “inadequate” display of the mixed-media piece depicting Giuseppe Pinelli, who died after falling out of a police station window, fails to properly confront a dark chapter in the city’s history
The late artist’s first retrospective, at a pop-up space in Manhattan, offers an idealised, futuristic take on the 21st century
BY MARK ANDERSON
A masterpiece returned to its former splendor after a restoration campaign lasting over four years is now drawing the attention of art critics. The work in question is the Altarpiece of San Leo, titled Madonna Enthroned with Child among Saints, which Annalisa Di Maria—an international expert on Leonardo da Vinci and artists of the Neoplatonic movement—attributes to the Florentine master Sandro Botticelli. The findings from this extensive research will be published in an upcoming volume that will present all the studies conducted.
According to Di Maria:
“Seeing the altarpiece, I immediately recognized, through various pictorial and iconographic elements, that it was indeed the work of Botticelli and his workshop. For over 20 years, I have studied the artistic and cultural movement that experienced a significant revival during the Renaissance: Neoplatonism. My research has focused especially on artists who supported this philosophy and who were regular visitors to the Neoplatonic Academy of Florence, founded by Marsilio Ficino in 1462 at Villa Careggi, at the behest of Cosimo the Elder.
Throughout these years, I have concentrated on the techniques, symbolism, and themes found in the works of these great artists. Botticelli, along with Leonardo da Vinci, was one of the most prominent representatives of this movement. The altarpiece was traditionally attributed to the master Frosino, but this attribution appears to be incorrect.”
Di Maria refers to a document from the late 15th century by a certain Vecchietti, a notable Florentine notary, who commissioned a work from Maestro Luca di Frosino for the community of San Leo. However, the document does not clearly identify the artwork in question.
“It is tempting to believe that the commissioned piece depicted Saints Marino and Leone, as we see in this altarpiece. While Frosino had a workshop in Florence, his style differs significantly from that of the San Leo altarpiece. A case in point is his Annunciation of Pesaro (1507), also commissioned by the Servants of Mary. Several entries in Federico Zeri’s catalogue further suggest a stylistic link between Luca di Frosino and the Maestro di Marradi, possibly connecting both to Ghirlandaio’s workshop.
However, when considering the technical and scientific data—including dimensions—the connection to the altarpiece described in Vecchietti’s document doesn’t align. It’s more plausible that the Botticelli altarpiece was brought to San Leo to replace Frosino’s work when the cathedral reopened in 1700. If Frosino had created the original altarpiece for San Leo, it may have been lost or relocated during the decades the cathedral remained derelict. What we see today is certainly not that original work.”
The rediscovered Botticelli painting was in a poor state of conservation. Over the centuries, it had undergone various restorations, yet Botticelli’s unmistakable style—and that of his school—clearly remains. Stylistic comparisons and scientific analysis have revealed the hand of Botticelli himself, along with contributions from some of his students.
“After 1492, following the deaths of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Pico della Mirandola, and Angelo Poliziano in 1494, Botticelli fell into a deep depression. He abandoned Neoplatonic iconography and returned to a more austere Christian style, with considerable assistance from his students. This painting precisely reflects that transitional period—a return to his early altarpiece style, reminiscent of the Sant’Ambrogio Altarpiece at the Uffizi in Florence.”
Botticelli’s works fell into obscurity for centuries after his death in 1510 and were rediscovered only in the 19th century thanks to the Pre-Raphaelites. Many of his works were stored in church warehouses and later reused to replace lost or damaged paintings, often modified with added iconographic elements to suit their new contexts.
“The crown on the Virgin’s head, for example, was added later during one of the many reworkings. The two flanking saints—identified today as San Marino and San Leone—may originally have been intended as Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano, recurring figures in Botticelli’s oeuvre.”
This altarpiece becomes a symbolic journey—of saints, ideas, and artistry—traveling from Florence through Montefeltro, altered at each stop, yet never losing the spirit of the great Renaissance master.
“Many hands altered this painting over time, as if each felt entitled to leave their mark. But no one dared to change the face or bearing of the beautiful Simonetta, who now lives again in a land not her own. Here, she testifies to the enduring power of beauty—how it can overcome adversity.”
This work rightfully belongs to the Municipality of San Leo.
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By LUSYA YANGIROVA
In December 2023, fetchish_net reimagined the heart of London’s Pushkin House into a site of fantastical disruption, queer celebration, and dreamlike transformation. Titled “Winter Special: Ordinary Miracle”, the art performance fused the sensibilities of underground rave culture with the ornate spirit of masquerade—resulting in an unforgettable experience that blurred the boundaries between performance, visual art, and participatory costume.
Rather than adhering to any staid holiday tradition, Ordinary Miracle dared to rewrite it. Guests—draped in costumes ranging from angelic to grotesque—moved through a space that felt alive, reactive, and rich in myth. The atmosphere hovered between Slavic folklore and deconstructed club aesthetics. Every corner of Pushkin House was charged with the eerie magic of a fairy tale rewritten by queers, punks, and romantics.
A Visceral Space of Performance
Among the strongest conceptual anchors of the night was the audio-reactive visual environment crafted by Anastasia Kozlova, whose work acted not merely as set design, but as a vital organ in the event’s living body. Her visuals—dreamlike yet fragmented—stitched together club culture’s rawness with the tender melancholy of traditional winter iconography. Deconstructed visuals pulsed across walls: snowy television static bled into soft candle glows, Orthodox motifs flickered beneath digital frost, and echoes of Soviet holiday broadcasts were corrupted into glitchy ephemera.
Kozlova’s approach wasn’t decorative—it was dramaturgical. Her visual curation shaped the emotional arc of the night, syncing with sound in a way that made the room feel enchanted and unstable all at once. Her manipulation of archival aesthetics—looping VHS textures, pixelated memories, bursts of chroma—invoked a kind of haunted nostalgia, collapsing time into sensation. The work offered no fixed image of winter celebration; instead, it danced between broken fragments of memory and possibility. In her hands, tradition didn’t shatter—it shimmered, refracted, and reformed.
Importantly, Kozlova’s role extended beyond the screen. As a key part of the curatorial team, managed by Zlata Mechetina, a London-based producer and curator, she helped shape the night’s rhythm—ensuring the transitions between visual, sonic, and spatial experiences flowed like a hallucination rather than a program. Her work offered continuity and rupture in equal measure, becoming the very terrain on which other elements—performance, costume, intimacy—could unfold.
In one room, a “bedroom installation” softened the spectacle. Velvet-red sheets spilled onto the floor as bodies reclined, read, and connected. Amidst the flicker of chaotic visuals, this intimate corner provided a moment of grounding—a soft cocoon within the night’s revelry. It echoed the quiet, tender moments of a holiday night: warm drinks, whispered confessions, and resting in the arms of others.
Nearby, furry mythical creatures, created by Sonya Bleiph and Marina Aleksashina, loomed with playful menace. These beings—rooted in Slavic mythology—became touchstones of the night’s core inquiry: What happens when folklore is queered, fractured, and worn like a second skin?
A Queer, Sonic Mythology
Headlining the night were two magnetic performers whose styles echoed the event’s fusion of intensity and play. Henry Spychalski, frontman of the London-based experimental group HMLTD, delivered a performance charged with theatrical abandon and an undercurrent of erotic chaos. His presence—equal parts glam, punk, and spectral cabaret—embodied the night’s fluid energy.
Equally captivating was VenesiaWorld, a deconstructed hyperpop producer from Serbia, who conjured a soundscape of dazzling digital excess. Her performance oscillated between sweetness and distortion, offering up a sonic ritual that felt both futuristic and folklore-tinged. Together, their sets constructed an alternative mythology—one rooted in rupture, glitch, and celebration.
Bodies in Rebellion and Ritual
Looking at the documentation of the event—a series of flash-lit, analog-style photographs—we are met with a tableau of poetic dissonance: a woman in sheer lace and angel wings adjusting another’s crown; two figures in whisper-close conversation, makeup smudged and eyes glittering; a clown-faced guest speaking with someone cradling Bert and Ernie puppets like talismans. These are not just party snapshots—they are glimpses into a communal rite where costume becomes language, and gesture becomes resistance.
There’s a tension in every frame—between irony and sincerity, costume and identity, excess and vulnerability. What emerges is a living carnival, not of spectacle alone, but of self-revelation. This was a night where playfulness could coexist with political edge, and myth could become queered embodiment.
The Miracle Is the Gathering
In an era where winter holidays are often co-opted by commerce and emptied of subversion, Ordinary Miracle offered something radically different: an act of joyful resistance. Fetchish_net didn’t simply throw a party; they curated a world where magic, memory, and masquerade met in a state of flux. Through costume, performance, and immersive scenography, they invited a new kind of festive ritual—one that honored intimacy, absurdity, transformation, and the ecstatic truth of collective becoming.
The miracle was not in any one object or act. The miracle was the gathering.
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