Category: visual

“They aren’t a luxury but an essential natural health service, the ultimate drop-in centre – preventative healthcare that is far cheaper than the NHS, and without a waiting list. Shame then that not only will our vital public spaces be among the first to bear the brunt of the cuts” but they also “seem increasingly restrictive of what you can do in a so-called public space.”

“None of these figures, on his or her own, promises to stand astride the cultural life of Los Angeles the way [Eli] Broad has. Yet their backgrounds, tastes and priorities offer clues about the roles they might play and the kinds of projects and architecture they might support. And they have time on their side….”

“The outcry from solstice revellers was led by the unmistakeable figure of Arthur Pendragon, a druid who believes he is an incarnation of the once and future king. Pendragon, who rejoices in the title of battle chieftain of the council of British druid orders, said he was not surprised that the £10m funding was dropped.”

“The main points of contention are [Piotr] Piotrowski’s exhibition programme, which is seen as too contemporary, and his restructuring proposals, which include redundancies. … The protest coincides with the opening of the museum’s controversial ‘Ars Homo Erotica’ exhibition, a survey of homoerotic art from antiquity to the present.”

“Michelangelo was a conscientious student of human anatomy and enthusiastically dissected corpses throughout his life, but few of his anatomical drawings survive. This one, a depiction of the human brain and brain stem, appears to be drawn on the neck of God, but not all art historians can see it there.”

“On Fifth Avenue between 109th and 110th Streets, the museum will occupy the lower floors of a 19-story condominium designed by Robert A. M. Stern and will extend New York’s Museum Mile uptown into Harlem. The limestone-colored building, with window mullions that lyrically evoke the weave of African baskets, will become a high-profile showplace for one of the only two major American museums devoted solely to African art.”

“Paul Bloom’s study, How Pleasure Works, which will be out this week, argues that there is no such thing as a pure aesthetic judgment. In developing his general theory about how humans decide what they like or dislike, he lines up evidence to show that what people believe about a work of art is crucial to the way they feel about it.”

“Today, techniques involving infrared imaging, as well as x-ray photography, electron microscopy and mass spectrometry, many of them pioneered by the National Gallery, are mainstays in the business of art curation. And occasionally their use makes headlines, as was the case with The Madonna of the Pinks.”

She’s Janet carding, currently director of the Australian Museum in Sydney. “The search was widely rumoured to have been difficult, with several prominent Canadian arts leaders quietly fingering the Crystal’s tumultuous reputation as the stumbling block. The jagged architecture and oddly-shaped gallery spaces have spurred strong opinions ranging from admiration to derision.”

Those quick cuts where viewers see a split-second of him looking sideways at a contestant? They’re actually elaborately choreographed shots filmed from every possible angle that last so long they turn into “endurance staring contests.”