Category: visual

Comic books have come a long way from the days when Superman first crash-landed on Earth. But today’s generation of comic artists seem almost unnaturally obsessed with brutal imagery and dark themes. Gone are the innocence and humor of the original comic book heroes, replaced by ultra-violence and misery, and the new culture of “violence without consequence” has reached new levels in recent films inspired by comic book art. “Increasingly pop culture defines heroism in terms of violence and domination. Where does that leave us? Is the audience so sophisticated that good and evil no longer hold meaning?”

A dispute between the Albertina Museum and the Austrian government has led to the cancellation of hundreds of loans worldwide. These include “the cancellation of the Schiele exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, following the dropping of the Dürer show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Loans of individual works have also been withdrawn from other venues, including major shows in Paris, Berlin and Ottawa. So far over 400 promised loans have been banned from leaving Austria.”

Grant Wood’s famous representation of American farm life is one of those works of art so pervasive that it’s become a pop icon. But what is it about the stoic visages of that famous Iowa farm couple that has so captivated a nation that is increasingly uninterested in such unglamorous items as farms or the Midwest? The answer is complicated, stemming as it does from the painting’s origins, when no one from jaded New York critics to the very Iowa farmers represented in the work could decide for sure whether the artist was making fun of his subjects, or venerating them.

Wealthy art collectors in Washington state weren’t paying taxes on the art they bought out of state. But when an enterprising revenue agent began going after them to collect the taxes, her investigations were shut down. Why? Seems a little pressure applied in the right places can buy a little special treatment…

A Getty curator has been indicted in Italy on charges of plundering antiquities. “Marion True, 56, curator for antiquities at the museum and director of the Getty Villa, is accused of criminal conspiracy to receive stolen goods and illicit receipt of archeological items. It is also alleged that True in effect laundered goods that were purchased by a private collection and then sold to the Getty in paper transactions that created phony documentation.”

Barley into its big new home, the Museum of Modern Art has bought the land immediately west of its location for future expansion. “The museum is thinking of constructing a project on the new land, but notes that the air rights over the space far exceed the gallery needs of the museum. Therefore, he says the likely outcome will be additional galleries with space above for commercial use.”

What’s with this boom in museums devoted to conflict and/or atrocities? “This mania for memorial museums is a sign of a society with an unhealthy obsession. These new museums indicate a desire to elevate the worst aspects of mankind’s history as a way to understand humanity today. Our pessimism-tinted spectacles distort how we interpret the past. These museums tend to downplay historical exhibits, since the aim is to make yesterday’s conflicts relevant to today.”

Auction season in Manhattan is a two-week spending spree of paddle-waving rich people and art dealers in Prada suits, all of them vying for highbrow booty at Christie’s and its archrival, Sotheby’s. The regulars were asking questions like “How much will the Hopper fetch?” and “Which house will gross more?” But if you’d never visited Planet Expensive Art, you didn’t care about that, not after you spotted those Friedmans. After that, all you could wonder is: How does an artist peddle his doody, not to mention his doodle? And here’s another stumper: Who would buy it?

A dispute about ownership of six Gustav Klimt paintings looted by Nazis was settled out of court Wednesday when both sides agreed to put the matter before a three-member arbitration panel in Austria. “They’ll decide two questions. How did Austria gain title to the paintings? And have the conditions for restitution under the 1998 law been met?”

A rock was hung on a wall in the British Musuem. It had a caveman-like picture of a man pushing a shopping cart. “The rock was put there by art prankster Banksy, who has previously put works in galleries in London and New York. A British Museum spokeswoman said they were ‘seeing the lighter side of it’. She said it went unnoticed for one or two days but Banksy said three days.”