Category: visual

“The buildings we leave for our descendants are a vivid illustration of the national state of mind. It is not only the ones we create in our own time. The survival of the stately home, for example, reveals a respect for the brilliance of the architects, designers and craftsmen who created them, as well as a tendency that may surprise future generations to treat those who inherit them as inherently distinguished.”

“Juan Pablo Fernandez has been selling–or, rather, reselling–Alex Grey’s work online. Last month, the artist filed a copyright-infringement suit against him. Grey doesn’t dispute his fan’s right to resell the prints, which Fernandez bought at retail price straight from Grey’s gallery before framing them, marking them up, and advertising them online. Rather, he is suing Fernandez for posting online photos of the art.”

“Stonehenge simply looks like nothing else: no other ancient structure in Europe has its trademark form, of a freestanding pattern of door-jamb-and-lintel settings composed of megaliths. It is clearly the work of human hands, but has an unusually primordial and organic appearance, of mighty boulders smoothed, shaped and fitted together in such a way as to enhance their natural power as well as to create a building. As such, it has attracted curiosity and admiration ever since the twelfth century, and probably for much longer.”

“Chris Evans, the BBC Radio Two disc jockey, has accidentally thrown out a piece of artwork by Damien Hirst. Evans, 42, made the admission on his evening drive- time show, saying the print – worth thousands of pounds – was now lying in a charity shop waiting to be bought for a fraction of its true value.”

A new Van Gogh retrospective set to go on display in both the US and Europe examines the artist’s relationship with light and, more importantly, dark. “Van Gogh would often hand-copy pages from novels he was reading that referred to both the physical and mystical aspects of the night.”

“Heavily armed robbers have stolen two engravings by Pablo Picasso from an art museum in downtown Sao Paulo. A museum spokeswoman for the Pinacoteca do Estado museum said thieves made the bold theft on Thursday morning.”

“Three students from the Royal Academy Schools were astonished yesterday when the man who made the fortunes of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the Chapman brothers picked their entire graduation show. Hours before the public was allowed in to to see the exhibition the walls came out in a rash of bright red dots.”

The Art Institute of Chicago is opening “the first in a sequence of renovated spaces that leads to the dedication of a building for modern and contemporary art next spring… All 3,500 square feet are used for exhibition and include such niceties as a lighting system that uses a low number of foot candles.”

“A new city audit released this week raises thorny questions about management of the Long Beach Museum of Art, including what it calls the improper spending of $1.6 million in restricted funds earmarked to pay off bonds for the museum’s $6.5-million expansion.” Some of the museum’s collection is also said to be missing…

“Lithuania’s government Wednesday approved the construction of a new museum in its capital, Vilnius, a joint project between the Baltic state, Russia’s renowned Hermitage museum and America’s Guggenheim… The museum is due to open in 2013, in a building designed by the acclaimed Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.”