Category: visual

Tiffany designs have long been identified entirely with the creative mind of Louis Comfort Tiffany, but an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society will show a more complex reality. “Focusing on a designer named Clara Driscoll and the group of women known as the ‘Tiffany girls’ who worked with her in the glass-cutting department of Tiffany Studios, the exhibition explodes the myth of Tiffany as the company’s sole designer, and offers a new inside view of the workings of the studios.”

“It has been a year since Sunni insurgents ripped a hole in the glorious dome … of one of Iraq’s most sacred Shiite shrines, shattering its 72,000 golden tiles and unleashing a tide of national sectarian bloodletting. Not a single brick of the mosque has been moved since.”

A tiny Serbian village wants to errect a statue of Rocky Balboa as an inspiration to residents. “Zitiste has suffered serious damage from floods and landslides, earning it a reputation for being jinxed. Many of its residents have left the village in search of a better future.”

Why are art prices shooting up so high in London? “British journalists describe the country as having become a virtual tax haven for the superrich, and some in the art world think this contributes to some works, like ‘White Canoe,’ selling for far greater than their expected value.”

Owners of a southern California gallery plan a show that involves giving patrons signs made by the homeless and having them stand on Main Street. “To gather signs for the ‘Sidewalk Angel Project,’ the couple drive around Santa Ana, jump out of their black Cadillac when they see a homeless person holding a sign and approach cautiously. Many of the homeless are reluctant to talk or part with their signs, which they say have brought them luck.”

“When the cantilevered structure opens to the public next month, it will be the most conspicuous commercial edifice in the canyon. And, if the tribe’s plans come to fruition, the Skywalk will be the catalyst for a 9,000-acre development, known as Grand Canyon West, that will open up a long-inaccessible 100-mile stretch of countryside along the canyon’s South Rim. The cost of the Skywalk alone will exceed $40 million.”

In today’s new city highrises, “modernism is back, powered not only by the shifting winds of architectural fashion but also by things that have precious little to do with high design, including the drop-dead views — and higher prices — that floor-to-ceiling glass makes possible. Yet this revival, it turns out, is far from triumphal.”

“There’s a theory, of course, that good art is the most expensive art, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that anyone really believes this any more. I watched a sappy-looking Renoir go under the hammer on Monday for £6.1 million, but it was hard to follow the bidding owing to the fact that it was almost drowned out by the snorts of derision from the people around me. And on Tuesday an unspectacular oil by Morisot went for four times the estimate, largely because, so the expert next to me believed, it featured a small fluffy cat.”

“Forty years ago, the foreigner’s knowledge of Barcelona was so embarrassingly slight that we weren’t even embarrassed by it. The 1,500 years of the city’s existence had produced only five names that came readily to mind.” But the Spanish city is a treasure, and Robert Hughes grapples with its extraordinary history.

The Rockefeller Foundation has announced “the creation of a $200,000 award, called the Jane Jacobs Medal, to recognize individuals who have made a significant contribution to thinking about urban design, specifically in New York City. The medal will be given annually to two people: one who has made a lifetime contribution and another who is at the start of a promising career.”