Category: visual

“She appeared on Good Friday [of 2011] beneath a railway bridge in the California beach town of Encinitas: the Virgin of Guadalupe calmly surfing a cobalt blue wave, her cloak pointing toward the words ‘SAVE THE OCEAN’.” For complicated reasons, the town government didn’t want the mosaic to stay, and it’s gone now – though it may soon reappear.

No one is taking responsibility for the bronze, which is badly discoloured and covered with incised graffiti. “It is the most damaged Moore that I have seen on display in Britain,” says Moore specialist John-Paul Stonard.

“What do New York painter Chuck Close, L.A. artist Laddie John Dill and the estate of L.A. sculptor Robert Graham have in common? They are lead plaintiffs in a pair of class-action lawsuits filed Tuesday against the New York operations of Sotheby’s and Christie’s, alleging that the auction houses violated the California Resale Royalty Act.”

“The art galleries and independent boutiques that nearly vanished from SoHo in the past two decades because of skyrocketing rents have started trickling back. Brokers say rents on West Broadway have shrunk from their peak in 2008 and 2009, when some landlords were asking as much as $400 a square foot.”

“With the Science Center fighting for its life, the unfinished exhibit and red ink provide a look at the severity of the financial woes, management issues and trouble at the center’s ambitious manufacturing shop in Ferndale. They also raise the question of whether the cash-strapped museum violated its donors’ intent by paying for daily operations with money given expressly for exhibitions and programs.”

“Experts from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam say they are not convinced by claims made in a new book that Vincent van Gogh was shot by teenagers in the village where he lived.”

PAM executive director Brian Ferriso determined that the museum needed to launch a major rebranding effort. So Ziba, a design firm that has worked with PAM on two recent exhibitions, created a new logo: a large, salmon-colored, filled-in letter P which the museum says looks like an Ellsworth Kelly painting. (Not everyone agrees.)

Museum of Modern Art director Glenn Lowry has helped his institution loan many works to the High Museum of Art. Why? “Bringing great art to Atlanta has to also over time create a culture of collecting within Atlanta. That’s where you start to get a critical mass of collectors who in a very collegial way compete with each other to develop outstanding collections. That will be the legacy. The exhibitions come and go. Staff comes and goes. The legacy always is the actual works of art that remain in a community.”

For those stuck in traffic, flashing billboards aren’t exactly soothing – unless what they’re flashing is work from contemporary artists, with no consumer message attached.

“The naivety of the art world is oft exposed and curiously celebrated, with hoaxers and fraudsters gaining the celebrated status of the anti-hero, perceptively beating the establishment at its own game. I can take pleasure from a good hoax, but more sinister applications leave you contemptuous, resentful and out of pocket.”