Impressionist, modern and contemporary art with an estimated value of least $1.6 billion will be offered at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips. The value of these consignments, which include works by Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Fernand Leger and Franz Kline, as well as, incongruously, a Ferrari racecar, represents an increase of more than 46 percent over the equivalent auctions last November.
Author: Douglas McLennan
How Did A Valuable Stolen de Kooning End Up In Somebody’s Bedroom?
In 1985, Woman-Ochre was stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art during opening hours. Thirty-two years later, the $165-million masterpiece wasn’t discovered tucked away in the mansion of a mafioso or for sale on the black market; it was found hanging demurely behind the bedroom door of an elderly couple in rural New Mexico.
How Josephine Baker Spied On The Nazis
“Baker flitted back and forth between Casablanca and Lisbon, Seville, Madrid, and Barcelona. Between performances, she accepted invitations to parties and embassy functions, where she hobnobbed with the elite and diplomats. And as she bantered over champagne and twirled around the dance floor, she continued her intelligence gathering.”
Counterfeiters Are Using AI To Make Better Fakes
It’s not just the news that’s fake anymore but all sorts of media and consumer goods can now be knocked off thanks to AI. From audio tracks and video clips to financial transactions and counterfeit products — even your own handwriting can be mimicked with startling levels of accuracy. But what if we could leverage the same computer systems that created these fakes to reveal them just as easily?
The Impacts Of Artificial Intelligence Are Accelerating Exponentially
“The truth about AI, according to experts such as Ray Kurzweil, is that there’s no part of our lives that won’t be directly affected by it. As individuals we probably won’t notice the changes in real-time, but our dependence on machine learning will increase at exponential rates. The law of accelerating returns is behind the artificial intelligence revolution — and Ray Kurzweil’s predictions.”
Buffalo’s Knight-Albright Museum Reconsiders Its Controversial Expansion Plans
“The museum and its development team will re-examine an expansion option on the north and northwest side of the campus connected to the 1905 Building to determine whether this could meet the museum’s needs, while also minimizing impacts on the Albright-Knox’s historic buildings,” according to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, in a statement Friday afternoon.
Martin Amis In America: “I’ve Mellowed Somewhat”
If America is, for Amis, an easier place in which to grow old – fewer critics, for a start – he retains an expectation that he and his wife will move home one day. “I miss the English,” he says. “I miss Londoners. I miss the wit. Americans, they’re very, well, de Tocqueville saw this coming in about 1850 – he said, it’s a marvellous thing, American democracy, but don’t they know how it’s going to end up? It’s going to be so mushy that no one will dare say anything for fear of offending someone else.
NY’s ATT&T Building Makeover Provokes Argument Between Pragmatism And Design Theory
Justin Davidson: “Widely mocked and grudgingly admired, the emblematic tower of the postmodern age made its pop-culture debut as a scale model that its maker held aloft like a trophy on the cover of Time in 1979.”
Rules Of The Road For Classical Music Concerts?
“To my colleagues who work in classical music, I have a request. Let’s stop with the rules. If there is in fact something wrong with classical music, consider that it has everything to do with how we talk about it and nothing to do with anything else. And, if you are hearing music by Bach in a church performed by an internationally-known soloist who has been performing this music for nearly seven decades, being reverential is OK, not snobby or elitist. Likewise, some guidelines in the program may be entirely appropriate for a roomful of teenagers new to classical music-going.”
In A World Run By Algorithms Is There Any Place For Ideas?
“Platforms like Twitter and Facebook have done an astonishing jobs of connecting hearts and minds throughout the world, but they’re also filled with escalating sophistry, falsehoods, and vicious personal attacks that frequently displace intelligent conversation.”