Category: visual

“The Gettysburg Cyclorama, a huge dinosaur of a painting left over from the heyday of circuses, magic shows and brass bands playing on the town square, has never been a great painting. And now, in one of the stranger twists of the history of how we tell history, the giant 1884 canvas has been given the loving treatment of an old master painting.”

To protect the country’s art treasures in World War II, quarries were blasted, roads were rebuilt and secret convoys of vans set off for Britain’s most remote and secure outposts. “Hide them in caves and cellars, but not one picture shall leave this island,” said Churchill.

“The painted pub sign, one of the oldest popular visual arts traditions in Britain, is locked in decline. That is the fear of conservationists who hope to alert pub chains and breweries to a ‘catastrophic’ loss of the traditional skills involved and a failure to preserve a heritage that dates back to Roman times.”

“WaMu owns the top four floors and rents eight more floors in Brad Cloepfil’s 16-story museum expansion, which is next door to WaMu’s own 42-story tower. SAM occupies four floors in its new building. Eventually it will occupy 12. In the meantime, the museum is landlord to a tenant that may or may not be able to pay.”

“Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. owns about 3,500 contemporary artworks that have been displayed in the investment bank’s offices around the world, and the fate of the collection is unclear. Depending on Lehman’s bankruptcy proceedings and whether portions of its businesses are acquired, some or all of the art may be sold.”

This year, 335 artists submitted applications to be on the state’s roster, which is updated every two years. Only 68 of them, or 20 percent, made the cut — meaning that at least three of the five judges voted “yes.”

“Russia’s yachting, partying, British football club-acquiring billionaires are, as they mature, refining their tastes, learning the fine art of collecting fine art and breathing new life into a once-struggling Russian market.”

Lost in the various brouhahas over whether Damien Hirst is truly a great artist and whether the art market is out of control is the inescapable fact that, with his self-engineered auction this week, Hirst may have changed the market forever.

“The auction’s triumph suggests that the current art market is invulnerable to a general economic slowdown, in part because purchases of high-end art tend to involve long waits for specific works or pieces by in-demand artists–not impulse buys easily discouraged by downbeat headlines. Plus, collectors are typically cash-rich individuals or institutions, and today more of them are from Russia and the Persian Gulf States.”

Hughes’s film “argues that art is the biggest unregulated market in the world apart from drugs. Contemporary art sales, such as Hirst’s, rake in £10billion a year. Modern art is dottily expensive to buy not, says Hughes, because it’s so good, but because investors believe it will yield quick profits.”