Category: visual

“I imagined the building to shimmer, … because only the windows angled toward the sun pick up the light. It is like the eye of an insect that can see more than 180 degrees around.”

The boy king who “gave his life for tourism” and the treasures from his tomb go on display this spring near Times Square, just as shows of ancient Egyptian art open at the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums. (And why isn’t Tut at either of those venues? There’s a story there …)

“With mutton-chop sideburns, a gone-fishing hat and a Ratatouille-style accent, Thierry Guetta is a character that documentary filmmakers pray for: gregarious, oddball, dogged and hungry for fame. In April, a documentary about Mr. Guetta – who’s either an overnight art-world sensation, or wholesale bogus creation – opens in New York, directed by British art-star Banksy.”

“The dramatic design, which consists of bright red geometric panels with retractable awnings, is part of the gallery’s annual series of temporary summer works. Visitors will find the Pritzker prize-winning architect’s pavilion has been rendered in pillar-box red, to contrast with the lush green lawns of Hyde Park.”

“‘Boston’s very conservative, which is both a good thing and a bad thing,’ Ms. Hawley says. ‘It sometimes impedes the kind of thinking that one should do. For example, [the city] sat out the 20th century in the visual arts.'”

“In a bid to uncover the roots of super-sized American fare, a pair of sibling scholars has turned to an unusual source: 52 artists’ renderings of the New Testament’s Last Supper. … Over the course of the millennium, [they] found that the entrees depicted on the plates laid before Jesus’ followers grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%.”

“You travel with your tribe, you reinforce each other’s opinions, you track the same Web sites and you draw from the same wells of information. … What gets lost in such curated cocoons is the sense of what we share: the Bay Area geography, the built and natural forces that shape every one of our lives.” (second item)

“Every level of Mr. Nouvel’s project, from its materials to its dominant forms to its sprawling layout, reflects a richly imaginative effort to retain a connection to the fading world of the Bedouins from which modern Qatar sprang, while also embracing the realities of a rapidly urbanizing society.”

“The guards you see at museums may seem like ciphers standing silently in their blue uniforms, and only speaking when you ask a question or get too near that work of art. But the 35 artists showcased in this journal give the world a very different picture of themselves.”

“Rather than being separated from their subjects by thousands of miles,” like artists were before long-distance travel was easy, “today’s artists are separated by thousands of years — even millions of them. Fortunately, they have a lot more scientific information on which to base their images. But they cannot eliminate the gap between reality and image.”