Category: visual

“The director of the only museum that has agreed to show a group of recently discovered paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock said today she’ll show them even if laboratory tests show that the works are fake… Harvard University has said it soon will release the first physical analysis of the works, which include two dozen paintings and a dozen sketches and studies on paper. The analysis likely will show whether the materials used to make them existed during Pollock’s lifetime.”

The controversy over the authenticity of a painting attributed to Van Gogh in Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria hasn’t swayed the confidence of the gallery’s director. “The portrait, estimated to be worth $20 million, is included in all catalogues listing the artist’s works, and was part of a US exhibition in 2000 that was seen by more than 1 million people without complaint. But its authenticity was questioned by some British critics when it went on show in August at Scotland’s Dean Gallery as part of the Edinburgh Festival.” The painting is now being carefully scrutinized by experts to determine the truth.

A new piece of software developed by researchers at the University of Maastricht may be able to significantly cut the time it takes for art experts to authenticate a painting or spot a forgery. “Using high-resolution scans of paintings, the Authentic software builds up a library of characteristics, such as brushstrokes, colours and type of canvas used, that form a ‘fingerprint’ for a particular artist. A painting can then be compared against this fingerprint to help experts decide whether it is a fake.”

“If Tate Modern, with its new Carsten Höller helter-skelters, has been accused of resembling an old-fashioned fairground, it has nothing on Frieze art fair. In the vast, chaotic encampment that has suddenly sprung up in Regent’s Park you wouldn’t be too surprised to encounter a coconut shy and a bearded lady… Frieze represents the moment in London’s calendar when commerce and art become most nakedly and shamelessly entwined. Four hundred and seventy galleries from Europe, the US, Russia, Japan, Lebanon and Eygpt have competed for the chance to have a pitch at this, the fourth Frieze art fair. Only 152 have been accepted.”

The Frieze Art Fair may be the best encapsulation available of the artistic explosion London has undergone over the past few decades. “People complain of party fatigue and all the work blurring into each other but there has never been a better time to be involved in art in London.”

The fight over the Barnes Foundation’s intended move to Center City Philadelphia has taken yet another unexpected turn, as a local congressman announces his plans to introduce a bill on the floor of the U.S. House which would block the move. The congressman claims that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s commitment of $25 million in state money to facilitate the move was the last straw in spurring him to act against the relocation.

“More than 140 years after they were given up for God, the most prized items from the world-famous Dundas Collection of rare northwest native art are returning to their ancestral home in British Columbia. The 19 sacred artifacts of Tsimshian origin purchased at auction last week by two members of the Thomson family will be publicly exhibited at an undisclosed B.C. museum late this year or early next year. The collection’s permanent home is still undecided.”

UK police have busted a gang of major art thieves. “For four years the audacious burglaries at some of Britain’s best-known stately homes in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire have embarrassed police and left leading insurers in the art world smarting from multimillion-pound payouts for antiques, curios and paintings from leading collections. More than 100 police officers from five forces were involved in the raids and 14 people seized.”

Two new Frank Gehry buildings in New York show the good and bad sides of the star architect.

Seattle has plenty of good curators. Trouble is, there aren’t nearly enough curator jobs to keep them busy, So freelance curators have turned to alternative spaces and in the process building a new art scene.