Category: visual

“Today, portraits may be deliberately ugly, filled with palpable angst or defiantly abstract. The works are more about scouring the psychological depths or playing with the concept of portraiture than about illustrating a patron’s smooth likeness. These portraits reflect a shift in the power dynamic between collectors and artists.”

“A museum on the road separating Jewish west Jerusalem from the Arab neighborhoods in the city’s east is attracting a daring group of artists from Middle Eastern nations that shun contact with Israel, trying to erode political barriers through art.”

“Researchers attribute the unique climate of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as a leading factor in the preservation of a treasure trove of Russian icons and liturgical objects recently found in St Catherine’s Monastery.”

“Years of wrangling over whether the Autry National Center has a right to shed a costly and inconvenient subsidiary, the Southwest Museum, has spilled, perhaps inevitably, into the courts.” The Southwest Museum has a highly regarded collection of Native American artifacts.

That’s what the director of the Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts did. In February, politicians cancelled a planned €18 million underground extension of the museum. Now Laszlo Baan has gone to back to the government with a €150 million plan to add two new buildings to the existing one.

“Those in the know call Edgar Miller Chicago’s Gaudi, because like the famed Catalan architect, he had a knack for making art with whatever materials were available. In an era of scarce materials, Miller made mismatched, scavenged pieces look chic when arranged to his liking.”

Since he became director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1978, Edmund Capon “has overseen huge increases in visitor numbers, doubled the gallery’s exhibition space and significantly increased its collection. He has been described as the most successful gallery director in Australia.”

“The best art at this year’s Edinburgh festival is not in a gallery. It is under your feet. You walk up and down it and you may, if you like, look at it as a work of art; but no one is forcing you to experience it that way. … Martin Creed has created a work of art so perfectly integrated into the world that you feel a bit of a fool for making a fuss over it.”

“The rise of the designer-maker has a lot to do with the fact that while design is an ever more popular career choice, the opportunities to work with manufacturers are not growing at the same pace (and in the UK are actually diminishing). Where product and furniture designers once aspired to get their work mass-manufactured, many have now given up on the idea.”

“A trio of hapless thieves who tried to abscond with a $1-million sculpture by famed Canadian artist Jean-Paul Riopelle ended up ditching their treasure instead in the Quebec woods. It was retrieved – broken but salvageable.”