Category: visual

“The Van Gogh Museum confirmed Friday that two portraits suspected of being fakes are authentic. […] The analysis placed the date of the paintings in the spring of 1886 in Paris, when Van Gogh was being mentored by the painter Fernand Cormon. One of the portraits depicts a woman in hat and the other, a lady folding her gloved hands.”

An 1894 outhouse in Munich that served as a public restroom until 1992 has been repurposed as a space for exhibiting art (largely graffiti art). About 800 people visited on opening night alone.

“Afghanistan is stepping up an ambitious campaign to stop the looting of the country’s archaeological sites, with a programme to build museums, train archaeologists and repatriate the billions of dollars worth of stolen antiquities that have been spirited through its porous borders during the past seven years.”

LA’s infamous Watts Towers, an architectural landmark that has been the scene of some of America’s worst race rioting, is getting another makeover, and artists are playing a major role in rethinking the whole neighborhood. “Much of the project is about… the nuances. It’s what gets lost in the overview: the day-in, day-out stories of a section of L.A. that has seldom had a chance to define itself for itself — let alone to the world.”

“As Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury brace for their big fall auctions in New York, starting with a sale of 71 Impressionist and Modern paintings, drawings and sculptures at Sotheby’s on Monday night, anxiety is the dominant mood.”

“Two major, fortuitously concurrent exhibitions in Montreal this fall explore the relationship between art and music: Warhol Live, organized by curator Stéphane Aquin at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (examining the Pop artist’s musical affiliations and tastes) and Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967, touching down at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Both shows attempt to bridge the gap between sound and sight.”

“David Deming, president of the Cleveland Institute of Art since 1998, announced Friday he will retire from leadership of the four-year independent art college in two years… On Deming’s watch, the art institute began the transition from a five-year undergraduate degree program to a four-year one, aimed at making the college more affordable and more competitive with peer institutions.”

The 35 storey gravity defying feature tower will lean westward 18 degrees, 4 times as far as the Leaning Tower of Pisa which currently leans 3.97 degrees.

In Dubai, “not content with building hotels in the shape of God, or Mammon, or Cher, the powers that be have decided that what the place really needs is buildings actually designed by celebrities, and to this end they have commissioned all manner of stars to do just that.” Said stars include Brad Pitt, Karl Lagerfeld, Boris Becker and Giorgio Armani.

“A Jackson Pollock painting, bought for $5 in a thrift store, is for sale at a Toronto gallery with an asking price of $50 million US. The painting, made famous by the 2006 PBS documentary, Who the #$%& is Jackson Pollock, is being exhibited for the first time at Gallery Delisle in east Toronto from Nov. 13-27.”