Category: visual

“There have been moments of dazzling balance between the representational and the abstract — for example, Byzantine mosaics; pre-Columbian and American Indian textiles and ceramics; Japanese screens; Mughal painting; and post-Impressionism. Painting may be in a similar place right now, fomented mostly, but not always, by young painters who have emerged in the last decade.”

“Police said the images [depicting human rights violations] were not fit for display because they showed nudity and injuries, and because the show’s organisers could not prove they had consent from all the subjects. But human rights activists won a high court ruling to have the pictures sent back for the exhibition’s opening….”

“The memorial, which will be built on a four-acre parcel just south of the Mall near the National Air and Space Museum, will be a mix of traditional and contemporary elements, but none of them scream Frank Gehry.” While the design “was the most elaborate of three proposals submitted by Gehry … it stands to the side of Gehry’s popular curvilinear style.”

“A painting by Swiss artist Paul Klee that was stolen from a New York gallery in 1989 been recovered after a Montreal gallery owner became suspicious and turned it over to U.S. authorities.”

“Miriam Shiell Fine Art in Toronto reported that a small bronze by the English sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1996) it had agreed to inspect for possible sale had been stolen in 2001 from an unnamed New York gallery.”

“Readers, I understand that most, if not all, of these names may be unfamiliar, and I realize too that I am visiting an Our Town cemetery that’s probably not yours. But new art almost everywhere acknowledges these now-quiet creators, once fountains of insouciance. … Much of the incisive fashion, music, photography and art of the 21st century owes its edge and bravery to these denizens of downtown.”

“Director Marc Mayer confirmed the cuts, a measure he felt was necessary as the Gallery faces a decline in revenue from tourism and rising costs. … Educational programming and the National Gallery of Canada Foundation are taking the brunt of the cuts.”

In cities dotting the globe, “rogue knitters … have taken their ‘yarnbombing’ to the street to brighten the cityscape.” One Philadelphia yarnbomber “ties crocheted flowers to lampposts, wraps bike racks with rainbow-colored covers, and gave the Rocky statue a scarf.”

“[A]s more people choose to live along [our] boulevards as the city grows denser — and as pedestrians and cyclists began to take back sections of them for their own use — we are realizing that along the edges of those traffic arteries is a significant collection of public land waiting to be rediscovered, re-inhabited and redesigned.”

“Indeed, the first reaction on entering Circle’s new hospital outside Bath is that you’ve entered a hotel by mistake. There’s a cheery brown-uniformed concierge, a scent of non-hospital food, and a clean-lined, light-filled, stone-paved modern interior with large cylinders of gauzy cloth hanging, like giant lamp shades, from the ceiling.”