Category: visual

“JMW Turner was one of the most egotistical of all the 19th-century artists, with a firm belief that he was a match for any of his contemporaries – or indeed any painter who had gone before him. Now that lofty self-assessment is to be put to the test on an unprecedented scale. The Tate announced today that for its big autumn show this year it would hang Turner’s responses to some of the greatest paintings side by side with the originals.”

“Though the enormous painting is set in Tahiti and has never been seen before in Asia, the Japanese embraced it with a kind of fanaticism usually reserved for their baseball players. Gauguin’s work is much loved in Japan, where it has a special resonance, with its subtle references to Buddhism, its embrace of the natural world, and the deep Zen-like riddle of its title.”

“A five-foot-tall Picasso was sold by a victim of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme last night at Christie’s International for $14.6 million, easing the mood from the day before at Sotheby’s, when one of the painter’s works flopped. … The star lot lifted the total to $102.8 million,” but the sale’s “tally was still Christie’s lowest for Impressionist and modern art in New York since 2004.”

“Russian art experts have listed as a fake a painting that Christie’s International sold as a $3 million work by Boris Kustodiev. The picture is on the latest installment of a list of 900 works identified as fraudulent by a Russian government culture agency. The 100 new additions include three allegedly by Russian masters sold by Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s over the past decade.”

“The bust of Queen Nefertiti housed in a Berlin museum and believed to be 3,400 years old in fact is a copy dating from 1912 that was made to test pigments used by the ancient Egyptians, according to Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin.”

“A museum dedicated to Wedgwood, the world-famous pottery company, has been shortlisted for the Art Fund Prize. The Wedgwood Museum, in Stoke-on-Trent, is one of four museums competing for the £100,000 prize. … The Wedgwood Museum’s inclusion on the shortlist comes months after Waterford Wedgwood went into administration due to the financial crisis.”

“The art market flunked a stress test last night as Sotheby’s posted its lowest total for a New York Impressionist and modern art auction since November 2001. The top two lots, by Picasso and Alberto Giacometti, failed to sell. The $61.4 million total was about a quarter of the tally of a year ago….”

“Chunks of this city’s rich and eclectic architectural history tumble to the ground every few days, piece by piece, forever lost in the rubble. Neo-Baroque and Art Deco treasures deteriorate at an alarming rate. Every three days, there are two partial or total building collapses in Central Havana alone, according to architectural experts.”

“Doubtless Van Gogh was difficult, yet is there any solid evidence that Gauguin attacked him? No. To be fair, there aren’t many established facts in the strange case. … The evidence, such as it is, points to Vincent.”

The renovation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing signals a different approach to Americana. “Now [its pavilion], with 30 percent more room for displaying work, is filled with some 60 monumental marbles, bronzes, mosaics, stained-glass windows and architectural elements, many placed so that visitors will be able to examine them at close range. Before, the sculptures were decorative; now they’re the focus….”