Category: visual

And trying to avoid them all: “Intrepid visitors have sometimes overstepped the boundaries, forcing Ms. Viladomiu to add a barrier outside her apartment, to keep tourists at bay.” – The New York Times

Phil Kennicott: “Yes, go see Tintoretto in Venice, but never slight the power of a museum to present art with a clarity and care one rarely finds in the ordinary world in which that art was made.” – Washington Post

Both of these reservoirs of dark matter—trophy works destined for museum accession or philanthropic donation and unsold inventory—serve to keep prices afloat and maintain artificial scarcity for the thinly traded population of works that do come to market each season.  – Artsy

“A federal judge in New York rejected Sotheby’s bid to dismiss a $380 million lawsuit where Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev accused the auction house of helping his longtime art dealer’s scheme to overcharge him on dozens of masterworks.” – Reuters

“The American billionaire hedge fund manager and art collector J. Tomilson Hill is the mysterious buyer of an early 17th-century canvas billed as a rediscovered masterpiece by Caravaggio, according to a person with knowledge of the sale.” – The New York Times

“First brought against the Met in 2016, the suit alleged that Picasso’s The Actor (1904-05) was subject to restitution laws and should therefore be returned to the family of its original owners, Paul and Alice Leffmann, both of whom fled Germany during the Nazi party’s rise to power in the mid-1930s. The Leffmanns’ great-grandniece, Laurel Zuckerman, had alleged that her relatives were made to sell the work ‘under duress.'” – ARTnews

That idea of beginning with human experience rather than beauty, has applications beyond the deaf and blind communities. It’s a design philosophy that can be applied to tackling problems of sustainability as climate change worsens, and of an aging population, and of increasing urbanization. – The Atlantic

It wasn’t just Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. In the 1930s and ’40s, André Breton, Leonora Carrington, José and Kati Horna, Gordon Onslow-Ford, Wolfgang Paalen, and others flocked to Mexico City. As Kahlo once put it, “I never knew I was a Surrealist until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one.” – Artsy