Category: visual

“Although hair is certainly an unconventional artistic medium, it hasn’t exactly been neglected — nor have its uses been limited to the field of jewelry – since the Victorian era. Contemporary artists employ the material for a wide variety of (often startling) projects.”

“Working through a number of advisors, as well as buying directly from dealers and at auction, Qatar is reliably believed to be building up a top-class collection of modern and contemporary art.”

Christopher Knight: “Soup was essential studio slang, the conversational lingo among New York School painters when they talked about their work. Specifically, soup was the metaphor used by Willem de Kooning – the most successful artist of the era – to characterize his robust Abstract Expressionism. If soup worked for him, why not for Warhol?”

“Long a cubed dessert of hospital cafeterias, flavored gelatin is turning up in the work of avant-garde chefs and established design studios across the country. Artists are using the wobbly medium to create sculptures of everything from colorful cities to President Barack Obama.”

“The CCTV headquarters may be the greatest work of architecture built in this century. Mr. Koolhaas has always been interested in making buildings that expose the conflicting energies at work in society, and the CCTV building is the ultimate expression of that aim, beginning with the slippery symbolism of its exterior.”

The auditors focused on the maintenance, security and management of Italy’s most important archaeological sites and concluded that the amount of money needed “far exceeds the available resources, although there is no doubt that the proper conservation and promotion of this heritage would have a positive impact on the tourist industry”.

“Charles Saatchi has remade the British art market three times, most famously by championing young British artists such as Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas. But was he lucky or did he have true vision? And more importantly can he do it again?”

“When councillors are being forced to make very serious decisions affecting the quality of life of residents, to the extent of the potential closure of libraries and care homes, and funding being withdrawn for many projects supporting our young people and voluntary groups, the sale of arts collections should certainly be given serious consideration.”

Marina Abramovic and Doug Aitkin “are not the only visual artists making complex musical theatre out of solo performance art, and doing it on a spectacular scale closer to opera. … Over the past ten years, [Matthew Barney] has turned to one-off, live presentations that unfold over many hours in several locations, employ large casts and crews, and require the planning and precision of an army mobilising for war.”

Jonathan Jones: “Britain has never ‘got’ abstract art. Even articles that appeared this week marking the death of Cy Twombly attracted comments of the ‘my child could do that’ variety. It is tempting to dismiss these attacks as philistine, but that would be to ignore an eminently respectable and artistically sophisticated British tradition of disdain for abstract painting.”