Category: visual

“A new collection of Vincent van Gogh’s letters casts doubt on the popular notion that his mental illness was also the source of his artistic genius. A curator at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Leo Jansen, and two Dutch colleagues are working on a complete annotated edition of the artist’s more than 800 extant letters. The new edition will also include around 2,000 illustrations, artwork by van Gogh himself and by other artists that he refers to in his letters.”

The recent unearthing of an Etruscan tomb in Tuscany relied on an unconventional work force: not professional archaeologists but local amateurs. “If it weren’t for amateur groups … much of Italy’s ancient heritage would be even more at risk to random plundering by tomb robbers, said Gabriella Barbieri, who is the state official in charge of protecting the area’s archaeological heritage and granted permission for the excavation. ‘The more citizens are concerned, they more they can help us,’ she said. ‘The state can’t be everywhere at once.'”

High-end architects are abandoning competitions. “Simply emerging as a finalist can bring prestige and business to a firm and unleash creative juices. But losing can also mean steep financial loss and profound disappointment after months of effort.”

“There’s a lesson in the ugly Barnes saga for all the private collections being turned into museums by the hedge-fund Barneses of our day: Donors don’t readily cut million-dollar checks to sanctify Barnes’s or anyone else’s quaint art theories. They want their Cezannes to hang next to his Cezannes. They want to attach their names to institutions that learn, grow and change.”

Santiago Calatrava’s “design for the twisting, 2,000-foot-tall Chicago Spire is rational inside and expressive outside, epitomizing the new aesthetic freedom made possible by the structural undergirding of the latest generation of supertall skyscrapers.”

“Until recently, museums and auction houses were — and were perceived to be — opposite sorts of institutions, their values so different as to preclude cross-fertilization. But in the past decade or so the wall between museums and auction houses has become porous. This trend, although a rainmaking boon for the auction houses, might in the long run wind up making life more difficult for museums.”

A few years ago, visual art at the annual Edinburgh Festival was the poor relation of theatre and comedy. Now, with the fourth Edinburgh Art Festival co-ordinating a series of exhibitions and art-related events in galleries around the city, it is taking centre stage.

“Until recently, when UCLA got its own torqued ellipse and the Orange County Performing Arts Center received its stunning, 66-foot-tall Connector, the L.A. area was weirdly bereft of Serras — weird because of the artist’s California roots. Maybe being raised in the Bay Area and schooled in part at UC Santa Barbara didn’t make him quite Southern California enough. Maybe there’s something about the work that seemed, in the past, antithetical to Los Angeles — too heavy, too earnest, too serious, too sculptural. No more.”

“Many of the buyers of contemporary art have been hedge-fund managers and other investors who obviously are having a difficult time and have lost lots of money. The art market will soften, and an adjustment in values will take place, but it may not happen for six months to a year.”

“A collection of black art owned by Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Los Angeles has been carted off to be auctioned in New York, infuriating local art historians who want it to remain in California.”