Category: visual

A massive oil painting depicting the Battle of Gettysburg known as the Gettysburg Cyclorama “is returning to public view on Friday after a five-year, $15 million restoration… The painting is now mounted in a new $103 million visitor center, which includes an impressive 24,000-square-foot Gettysburg Museum of the American Civil War that opened in April and surveys not only the three days of battle here, but also the war and its impact.”

“Moving as the ensemble is, the overall effect is also oddly unresolved, almost nihilistic. ‘This happened,’ the memorial seems to say. ‘We don’t know why, and we don’t know what it means.'”

“An artist who scratches out frescoes of farmyard scenes and animals on her neighbours’ milk bottles and leaves them without explanation has revealed herself. The artist had mystified the village of Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, for months.”

“Media involvement in art exhibitions began in Japan in the 1920s, when the country didn’t really have so many museums… The newspaper companies would send people overseas, where they would liaise with foreign salons and institutions, borrow works and bring them back for shows in venues ranging from department stores to private halls. By the time dedicated public museums appeared here – mostly after World War II – the newspaper companies had a monopoly on the networks and knowhow.”

“[W]hen a tiny upstart, such as the Claremont Museum of Art, gets a $10-million windfall, it isn’t merely an enhancement. It’s a ticket to transformation.” In this case, however, it comes with a catch. “The bulk of the money will arrive in the form of annuities, trusts and real estate after the donor’s death. Until then, the museum will reap about $250,000 a year.” Given that, how to plan for the future?

“The Whitney Museum of American Art is expected to get final city approval today for its downtown expansion plan, just as the economic turmoil has made the museum’s $680 million fund-raising goal more daunting than ever.”

“Buyers from Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union account for almost 50 percent of total global sales at Gagosian Gallery, the art world’s global leader in exhibition space, said one of its directors. Four years ago, it had almost no Russian buyers.”

“In a village in southern China, Wu Ruiqiu is worried about the effect of an economic slump on the art market. He should be. Wu represents artists that make 60 percent of the world’s oil paintings.” Their product? Fakes. “While employees in the city make cheap DVD players, computers and T-shirts, workers here produce Rembrandts, Monets and Warhols — by the millions.”

The 1894 painting, formally titled Love and Pain and part of Munch’s 20-work series “The Frieze of Life” (along with The Scream), is expected to fetch more than $35 million at Sotheby’s this November.

“A Brooklyn artist is giving Wall Streeters the opportunity to vent their irritation with corporate America. Geoffrey Raymond takes his over-sized paintings of CEOs to Wall Street, then asks passers-by to write comments on his artwork.”