Category: visual

“Over the four day weekend, according to the Smithsonian, the museums clicked through 358, 500 visitors, compared to 418, 000 in 2010.”

“Thousands of art and antiques dealers, fair organisers and auction houses have been targeted in a global extortion scam that involves victims being subjected to months – and even years – of threatening demands for money.”

“As museums take major strides forward, the area’s alternative art centers seem to be slipping backward, cutting curatorial positions and settling for inconsistent and often unambitious exhibition schedules.”

“The tenor of the dispute is distinctly Newportian. Many of the combatants have known one another for decades, as did many of their mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. … Despite the air of politesse, the fight has taken on the intensity of a debate over the soul of Newport itself.”

“Some of the world’s most impressive monuments have backstories of bickering, which, in addition to good gossip, give travelers insights into local culture, history, and priorities. Even when a monument’s construction is well publicized, a positive reception isn’t guaranteed, whether because of differing aesthetic tastes, costliness, or partisanship.”

“From the beginning, Mr. Kelly declined to treat the material with stain or varnish. ‘When do you do something to it, that’s furniture,’ he said. The wood grain also provided a new way for Mr. Kelly to explore the intersection of the act of drawing – which he considers the basis of all of his art – and the surrealist penchant for lucky accidents.”

“Scott LoBaido, a Staten Island painter, describes himself as a ‘Creative Patriot.’ … He’s also a religious Catholic and was so offended by the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly, a video that features a shot of ants crawling over a crucifix, that he decided to take matters into his own hands.”

After four of Czech cubist Emil Filla’s paintings were stolen, one of his paintings sold for a record-setting price in Prague — and then another Filla painting, this one seized in Vienna because of a lawsuit, returned to Prague and stands at the center of a controversial new Czech policy about artwork.

“Artists Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi were well ahead of their time. They were black artists based in L.A. in the 1970s who were not making especially political art. They were women artists not making explicitly feminist art.” And little of their art has survived – so they’ve remade it for a Pacific Standard Time show at the Hammer Museum.

“Drawing is a labour-intensive activity, yet the results have the lightest touch, to be subjective and impressionistic, to be chasing the fugitive moment. You have to come in close to a drawing to examine it properly, and the relationship is one-on-one.”