Month: April 2000

“Every year fresh new ranks of art-producers rise up almost fully-formed from the art schools, au fait with the current ways of art-knowingness, hard on the heels of their predecessors, intent on subverting the art world hierarchy and establishing their own rightful niches within it. They have to be seen to be doing something different from what was done before, or revamping the old in contemporary guise, to live up to and perpetuate the Western art tradition of continual innovation.” That we’re in a new millennium only accelerates the quest. – *spark-online

A number of artists are experimenting with medical testing in their art. Scans, endoscopy, genetic testing – “to obtain images of their insides, artists are pushing the boundaries of self-exposure, subjecting themselves to painful scrutiny on many levels.” – ARTnews

Georgia O’Keeffe was fond of secrets. But everyone thinks they know the artist’s work. Turns out not as well as people might think. In compiling the O’Keeffe catalogue raisonné its author “was stunned to find hundreds of carefully preserved sketchbooks, tiny line drawings, detailed renderings of landscapes, luminous floral pastels, and completely abstract late watercolors. The works on paper make up about half of the slightly more than 2,000 entries in the two-volume catalogue.” – ARTnews

Someone’s doing some work on your property. They find a cache of buried gold coins. They claim it for their own. Do they have a right to it? “Idaho Supreme Court will soon hear a dispute pitting media mogul Jann Wenner, the owner of Rolling Stone magazine, against  a construction worker who discovered a cache of gold coins buried on Wenner’s land near the Sun Valley resort area. The worker made his claim based on the ancient common law rule of treasure trove, which awards title of an artifact to the finder, be he looter or archaeologist.” Is this fair? – Archaeology Magazine