Category: visual

“The museum, like its audience, is interested in assimilation, even in the ways in which the larger culture assimilates Jewish ideas and associations. It focuses not on the substance of Judaism, its laws, or history or ritual objects, but on perceptions of them.”

“The museum’s conservation experts are hoping to salvage the painting. It was on loan to the Carnegie Museum of Art as part of the 2008 Carnegie International exhibit, one of eight works by Ms. Celmins depicting the night sky.”

“Pope Benedict XVI has launched a campaign for a new era of religious art to rival the works of the Medicis. As religious themes become increasing influential among contemporary artists, the Holy See, which governs the Catholic Church, is searching for rich patrons to sponsor works in new houses of worship designed by cutting-edge architects.”

“This landmark development will accommodate an opera house, playhouse, arts gallery, performing arts school and themed hotel on an island in Dubai Creek just off the mainland part of the district. All of these facilities will be state of the art to host world class performances and exhibitions.”

Collectors from Russia, Asia and the Middle East are taking up the slack of fewer Americans at Switzerland’s Art Basel.

“The Newport Beach-based museum is announcing today that it is relocating to Costa Mesa, and has received legal title to a 1.64-acre parcel of land next to the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. The land transfer is the first major step toward moving the county’s contemporary art museum, now tucked away in Newport Center, to the central arts district across from South Coast Plaza that’s being billed as the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.”

by climbing the New York Times building Friday. “The pair of incidents also introduced a new word to the pop-culture lexicon: “buildering,” which means to scale a piece of architecture without any equipment. (It’s adapted from the rock-climbing term “bouldering.”) There is, not surprisingly, a whole series of websites devoted to the obscure hobby, including buildering.net, on which by Thursday night the message boards were buzzing with news of Robert’s latest conquest.”

“For much of the past century, the job of imagining the worst possible outcomes of their good intentions — of assessing the radically dystopian implications of urban progress — has fallen to film directors and production designers. They invent the city of the future not as a model but as a cautionary tale; and their future is the only future we know firsthand.”

“Galleries devoted to architecture are well established in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. But despite being the second oldest AIA chapter in the country, founded in 1869, Philadelphia has lacked its own showplace.” But that’s about to change, following the opening of a new architecture museum in the city.

A New York artist looking for a way to shock the public into paying attention to his work appears to have found one after he stenciled “The Assassination of Barack Obama” onto the window of the storefront housing his latest collection. Also paying attention: the NYPD and the Secret Service.