Category: visual

“These photos … are not created so much out of the need to raise consciousness as out of the need to stand before these ruins in awe. It isn’t clear what you do next, after awe. … We are not ready, perhaps, to think about visiting Detroit in the same way that we would visit the Palais des Papes in Avignon. But what, really, is the difference?”

“Much of the debate involves modernist architecture’s role in landmark settings of a traditional character. Preservation professionals often advocate modernist additions to these settings, while at the grass-roots level there is strong support for keeping the new work traditional.”

Christopher Hawthorne: “Though the planned building has a futuristic gleam … in many ways it is a doggedly old-fashioned proposal, recalling the 1943 Pentagon building as well as much of the suburban corporate architecture of the 1960s and ’70s.”

“An Oakland children’s museum, citing pressure from the community, canceled a planned exhibit of artwork by Palestinian youth that depicted the Israeli assault during the 2008-09 Gaza conflict.”

The bronze work, which is the third of 22 sculptures from the original mould, was spray-painted pink and given green hair and a shoulder tattoo.

“If you’ve just had a bad week at the office, then spare a thought for 19th-century artist John Everett Millais whose famous painting of the art critic and social commentator John Ruskin is now being celebrated by a new trail in the Trossachs.”

“Hewn from marble 2,000 years ago, the giant statues of the Roman emperors Augustus, Claudius and Tiberius command the floor at Libya’s National Museum. But they have to settle for ground level. Muammar Gaddafi reserved the top floor for himself.”

The Victoria and Albert Museum had a bit of a problem getting artists to agree to participate in its ‘Postmodernism’ exhibition: “It is a real issue that so few people identify positively with postmodernism,” said Mr. Adamson. “And a whole list of people do not want to be identified with it.”

“In announcing its newest acquisition, Nicolas Poussin’s ‘Sacrament of Ordination (Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter),’ circa 1636-40, Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum said in a press release, ‘The painting is from Poussin’s famous first set of the ‘Seven Sacraments,’ which has been universally acclaimed, virtually since its creation, as a landmark in the history of art.’

And I found myself saying, ‘I wonder why the Getty didn’t buy it?'”

“U.S. authorities are working with Italian Ministry of Culture to determine the rightful owners of the work: a 473-year-old oil painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Girolamo Romano entitled ‘Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue.'”