Category: visual

“Given Twitter’s 140 character limit, it might seem next to impossible to recreate something as complex as the Mona Lisa. […] But the complexity of the task didn’t faze [Mario] Klingemann, whose experimental image encoding technique translates the image into Chinese characters and spits out a version of the Mona Lisa that … Picasso would have loved.”

The legendary pieces of textile propaganda were commissioned in 1592 by Lord Howard to commemorate England’s victory over “the swarthy Spanish dastards.” They spent nearly two centuries adorning the Lords chamber in Westminster Palace until they were destroyed in an 1834 fire. Now they’re being recreated – but in paint on canvas.

A new wharenui near Auckland “is not just a splendid example of traditional meeting-house architecture, but a three-dimensional ‘reference library.’ The carvings on every surface, including the floor, tell a comprehensive story of the Maori experience, from the earliest times until the present.” (One of the bas-reliefs includes a map of Auckland’s freeway system.)

The company “is releasing the almost ridiculously fitting Architecture series, beginning with the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection, six planned sets including the Guggenheim in New York and Fallingwater, the iconic cantilevered waterfall-house outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

“Too bad for Rene Magritte, his museum really is a museum. As of Wednesday, the 20th century surrealist who famously painted a pipe with the comment ‘this is not a pipe’ finally has his own temple, in the heart of his home city of Brussels. But, like the artist himself, the ultra-classic museum front gives away little of the tricks that lie inside.”

“The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden gained $461,000 from the sale of two paintings by Thomas Eakins yesterday at a public auction conducted by Christie’s in New York. The museum had placed three works by the 19th-century American artist up for auction to build up cash in its acquisition fund. The third painting, a study for ‘Portrait of Mrs. Charles L. Leonard,’ did not sell.”

“[I]n a bid to boost visitor numbers in hard economic times, Culture Minister Andonis Samaras announced Wednesday [that] … admission will cost €1 ($1.4) for the first six months – as much as a public bus ticket.”

“As a way of asking God to forgive her father [King Henry II of England], Eleanor commissioned paintings of the murder of Becket to adorn the walls of a church in the northern Spanish town of Soria. … [T]hree decades ago, builders were stabilising the ruin when they re-discovered these medieval paintings in excellent condition.” This week, protective wood and glass were removed temporarily to reveal these paintings and raise finds for their restoration.

Witold Rybczynski: “Certain features are taken for granted in today’s residential market: granite countertops, glass-walled showers, and, judging from this recent ad for a new Upper West Side condo, very tall ceilings. Not so long ago, 8-foot ceilings were the norm. What changed?”

“The public artist’s lot in modern Britain is similar to that of the portrait painter. In this century, we’ve fallen in love with public art; every city wants its Angel of the North. But just as the British portrait has been restricted for centuries by the tastes of the commissioning classes, public art is never going to be great art so long as it has to conform to the prejudices, enthusiasms and assumptions of the majority.”