“The decade since the 2001 destruction of the twin towers, an attack that some predicted would spell the end of the tall building, have turned out to be the busiest ever for skyscraper design. More skyscrapers have gone up in the last 10 years than in all of architectural history before the destruction of the World Trade Center – and by a significant margin.”
Category: visual
Vandal Sacks Roman Fountains
“A man accused of vandalising the Moor Fountain in Piazza Navona has been arrested by the Italian police. … The man, who subsequently attempted to damage Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain, was tracked down by local police through his distinctive footwear.”
Degas’s Debt To Newfangled Photography
“Degas’s enduring images of dancers owe much to the radically experimental world of early photography and film. Ann Dumas, co-curator of [the exhibition] Degas and the Ballet, explains how photographic inventions helped him so eloquently animate his figures in pastel and paint.”
Death Metal Patchwork Quilts
“If you were a metal-head in a past life, you probably have a collection of concert t-shirts stashed away somewhere. … A San Francisco artist who goes by the name Ben Venom has come up with an unusual use for [people’s] old heavy metal shirts – he sews them into quilts.”
Pippilotti Rist: 300 Pairs Of Underwear And A Dab Of Philosophy
What the artist thinks about her planned exhibit: “They will look like whipped cream. Or sheep’s heads, with the legs of the pants forming the eyes. I hope they will make people smile, but also think about the relationship we have with this important, sexually charged area in the middle of our bodies.”
Photographed Taking Photos of Photographs
“The ubiquity of cameras in exhibitions can be dismaying,” writes Roberta Smith, but the camera “has become intrinsic to many people’s aesthetic responses.”
You’re Safe From Nuclear Warheads. Why Not Check Out The Art?
A formerly top-secret bunker near Sarajevo now hosts a site-specific art project. “I think this is the most expensive museum ever built in human history,” says the show’s director and organizer.
Degas Liked To Look, But He Likely Didn’t Touch
“Degas is at once the best and the least known of the Impressionists. His ballet pictures are among the most popular images ever created – to modern eyes they look almost too pretty. But in the human chemistry of Impressionism Degas cuts a paradoxical and elusive figure: a severe ascetic with a caustic wit, opinionated, yet intensely private.”
Anonymous Donor Makes Giant Genie, And Museum Expansion, A Reality
An anonymous donor’s $900,000 check opens the way for a massive expansion of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati – where visitors will “walk beneath a giant genie and enter a fantasy world of American advertising straight out of yesteryear.”
Banksy, Street Painter. What About Street Fighter?
“Graffiti artist Banksy is demanding an investigation into a television documentary about a ‘battle of spray cans’ between him and underground graffiti hero King Robbo. Banksy says it implies that he was responsible for putting his rival in a coma.”