“The latest must-go event in this gritty, left-behind city – where D.J.’s flourish among ruins, trespassing in tumbledown buildings is part of a night out, and even garage rock is bare-bones – centers on soup.”
Category: visual
Jerry Saltz’s Favorite Paintings in New York
“Summer is a great time to visit art museums, which offer the refreshing rinse of swimming pools – only instead of cool water, you immerse yourself in art. … Think of me as your Sister Wendy in swimming trunks.”
On The Trail Of Art Thieves
Art crime is on the rise, “easily outpacing efforts to police it,” Wittman writes. “The $6 billion a year figure is probably low because it includes statistics supplied by only a third of the 192 member countries of the United Nations. Art and antiquities theft ranks fourth in transnational crime, after drugs, money laundering, and illegal arms shipments.”
Fifth Time Around, Restoration Of Eakins Masterpiece Gets It Right
“The fifth such intervention, just completed, not only restored the masterpiece to something close to how it looked when it left the artist’s studio, it also proved that Weil’s aphorism isn’t absolute. History might have been compromised years ago, but to a large extent it has been revived in one of America’s greatest paintings.”
Scientists To Test For Physical Response To Art
“Scientists are to monitor the vital signs of tourists in Florence after they see works of art – to test if Stendhal syndrome exists. There’s only one problem with an attempt by Italian scientists to test the reality of Stendhal syndrome, the condition of being so overcome by beautiful works of art that you actually swoon, or at least go weak at the knees.”
New Satellite Fairs Vie For Frieze Attention
“Thirty-five mainly London-based galleries keen to benefit from the Frieze collector traffic have signed up for the first edition. Admission will be free while stand fees range from £700 to £5,000.”
Some “Little” Details In The Broad Museum Deal
“Eli Broad’s willingness to spend an estimated $100 million to build his downtown art museum has been a leading point in its favor, but the fine print of the deal approved earlier this month by L.A.’s Community Redevelopment Agency calls for Broad’s museum to eventually receive millions of public dollars as a kind of rebate on its construction cost.”
Audubon’s First Bird Discovered
“Thanks to a never-say-die effort between a currency historian and a scholar studying John James Audubon (1785-1851), the famous artist’s first published bird illustration has been discovered.”
Egon Schiele’s “Portrait of Wally” – Hostage To Money
“The distortion of artworks through their use as icons of money, power and politics has a long and notorious history.”
Disputed Ansel Adams Negatives Case Gets Weirder
The artist who bought the negatives has been selling prints from them. If he “makes a mint — and an appraisal he released Tuesday put the potential value at more than $200 million — he could face the risk of having to turn over all or part of the loot to Ansel Adams’ heirs.”