“The Sotheby’s art auction house has repeatedly inflated prices by failing to make full disclosures when it has an ownership stake in some of the works it sells, according to a federal suit brought Wednesday.” The plaintiff is CNet founder Halsey Minor, who was sued by Sotheby’s for failure to pay for three paintings he had bid for in spring auctions.
Category: visual
Do Maya Lin’s Earthworks Make Sense When They’re Not Memorials?
“With this new piece [‘Storm King Wavefield’], her career seems bracketed by works whose successes and failures depend as much on whom they’re for as how they look.”
The Yves Saint-Laurent Collection (of Art) Now Available
“A massive collection of art amassed by the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent is expected to fetch up to $452 million at auction, Christie’s has announced… The several hundred pieces going on sale include works by Picasso, Goya, Matisse and Mondrian, as well as drawings, art deco pieces, sculptures and antique furniture.”
The Stained Glass Windows Are of Microwaves
“At a time when the gulf between religion and science is growing ever greater, an artist has erected a temple for scientific worship. Jonathon Keats, designer of the petri dish God, built The Atheon to get people thinking about what a scientific religion (or religious science?) would look and feel like.”
Unknown Dutch Masterwork Unearthed
“A previously unknown work by 17th-century painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger has been discovered in an elderly woman’s possessions, a Dutch art television program announced yesterday… The painting, dated to approximately 1620, also bears Brueghel’s signature on the tree trunk.”
Ostian Ruins Refurbished, Opened To The Public
“The ruins of Ostia, an ancient Roman port, have never captured the public imagination in the same way as those of Pompeii, perhaps because Ostia met with a less cataclysmic fate… [But] officials hope that the decade-long restoration of four dwellings lavishly decorated with frescoes will focus new attention on this once-bustling port about 15 miles west of Rome.”
Eat Your Heart Out, I. M. Pei
Paris is to get its first new skyscraper in three decades: a tall, slender pyramid by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron (who designed the “bird’s nest” stadium for the Beijing Olympics).
A Flea Marketeer’s Dream Come True
“A Dutch version of the popular television program Antiques Roadshow has uncovered what is believed to be a previously unknown work by 17th-century Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger.”
Reviving the Hudson River School (Literally)
Jacob Collins has set up a summer program in New York’s Catskill Mountains to revive the art of 19th-century landscape painting by “modeling itself after the artistic, social and spiritual values of the Hudson River School painters.” But can 21st-century artists recapture the soul of America’s first great artistic movement without the 19th-century beliefs underlying that movement?
Piano Towers Won’t Rise In San Francisco Skyline
“After a week of saturation press coverage, it’s no secret that the California Academy of Sciences has reopened in San Francisco in a masterful new home designed by Renzo Piano. But if you’re waiting for a Bay Area sequel from the Italian architect” — and you might be, given a project begun in 2006 — “here’s a tip: Don’t hold your breath.”