Category: visual

“[W]hile the discontinuance of Kodachrome may not be felt as keenly as that of other recently defunct items — notably Polaroid’s SX-70 film or Kodak’s black-and-white printing papers — the Kodak film has given honorable service for so long (since 1935 in movie cameras, since 1936 in 35mm still cameras) that its demise calls for a send-off more ceremonial than just a quote from the Paul Simon lyric.”

“It is one of the country’s largest spaces to showcase the best of British sculpture, so being commissioned to create an artwork for the Duveen Galleries – the central space in Tate Britain – has not just drawn in hordes of visitors but also cemented the reputations of Britain’s boldest contemporary artists. Now, the gallery has selected a previously unknown artist,” Eva Rothschild, “in hope that she will become as celebrated as her earlier ‘art star’ counterparts….”

Van Gogh’s “The Night Café,” from 1888, “is posing an intricate question in international law. It’s the subject of a suit and countersuit in U.S. courts between the descendant of a former owner and Yale University Art Gallery. … So whose is it? That turns on the legitimacy of the Bolshevik government and its acts: a matter for international lawyers.”

“Trafalgar Square is a position for national heroes, where the machinery of established values whirrs away. So I thought let’s try and question this English obsession with heritage and values – let’s have a real person up there who hasn’t ever been idealised or idolised and see what happens. It’s about what you think, feel or do when…”

The cuts are aimed at neutralizing a $500,000 deficit…

MoCA “said today that it raised about $57 million in the first half of 2009. The museum said it has reversed a decade of declining contributions to its endowment fund.”

“Last year, London edged past New York to become the world’s top art marketplace by sales, thanks mainly to an influx of wealthy buyers from Russia, Asia and the Middle East who wanted to buy art closer to home. Now, midway through London’s summer art auctions, the same factors that once counted in London’s favor seem stacked against it.”

“Suddenly I was struck by a small thumbnail image; it was billed as An American School Portrait of an Unknown Man. Other than that there was nothing – apart from the guide price of $100 (£62). Something about it jumped out at me, though; it exuded a certain glow that differentiates the work of Gainsborough from his contemporaries.”

“The most environmentally responsible solution is surely to not make anything further, but recycle, reuse and adapt what already exists. That single idea undoes the entire furniture industry, which is perhaps why so many designers are sticking their heads in the sand and soldiering on regardless, or paying lip-service to green production values while struggling with the idea that consumption, as we know it, may be over.”

“For decades American museums sold very little American art. They felt required to hold on to everything they were given. There has been a cultural change and museums recognise you don’t have to keep everything in the basement. Scholarship has made the process much easier and the art is much more valuable.”