Category: visual

“Cologne cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, was placed on Unesco’s list of endangered World Heritage sites yesterday, its visual integrity threatened by skyscrapers being built on the opposite bank of the Rhine.”

Venezuela has had a tough few years. Now – curiously – it’s on an art-buying boom. “In a country hit hard by economically devastating antigovernment strikes, a 2002 failed coup and capital flight that has amounted to billions of dollars, a curious phenomenon is unfolding: The affluent are seeking to shelter their fast-depreciating currency, the bolívar, in art, demonstrating once again that art can flourish in times of crisis, whether in Nazi-occupied Europe 60 years ago, in Communist Cuba in the 1990’s or in this politically charged South American country.”

“The first painting of Antarctica, which has been hidden under another painting for the last 200 years, is going on public view in London. The painting was the work of artist William Hodges, who joined Captain Cook’s second epic voyage in 1772.”

The gorgeous new Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture Is a grand proposition.”At a total of 824 pages, the Atlas includes entries on 1,052 buildings built over the last six years by 656 architects in 75 countries. The text is accompanied by 62 maps and 7,000 illustrations. The book comes in its own clear plastic carrying case, and is a foot and a half tall and 12 inches wide and weighs about 18 pounds. At $160 plus tax, it also comes with sticker shock. Though it’s priced in reference-book territory, most copies won’t ever see the inside of an architecture firm or library.”

“The 5-year-old Jack Russell is an artist who has had her paintings exhibited in New York, Los Angeles and Europe. She recently opened a gallery and store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the borough’s epicenter of all things artsy and hip. Her intense, instinctive scratch marks — in red, blue, yellow and black — have drawn comparisons to abstract artists Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly.”

“Chicago’s reputation for innovative architecture has languished in recent decades, its silhouette blighted by undistinguished glass and steel office buildings, monolithic concrete condominium towers and ubiquitous three-storey brick apartments. Conceived in 1997 and intended as part of the city’s celebration of the new century, Millennium Park was aimed at recapturing the spirit of innovative design that had brought Chicago architectural glory.”

“According to art recovery experts there is an epidemic in stolen statuary in England and Wales that is being fuelled by the increasing demand for salvage to feed the boom in home and garden renovations. Gangs of thieves, who study magazines such as Country Life to locate their spoils, find the lead and stone figurines, iron benches and sundials easy plunder.”

“Actress Elizabeth Taylor is seeking a court declaration that she is the rightful owner of a painting by Van Gogh, to which the heirs of a former Jewish resident of Berlin have asserted a claim.”

Only days after nine Faberge Imperial eggs and some of the approximately 180 other Fabergé pieces belonging to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg went on display in the Kremlin, the clients of a failed Russian bank filed a lawsuit asking that the “newly acquired Fabergé imperial eggs be confiscated by the authorities and auctioned to recoup the money they say they lost through their business with the bank.”

When it opened in 1998, the Damien Hirst-designed Pharmacy restaurant was the hippest thing in London. Maybe it was so hip it failed to outlive its opening moments, and last September it closed. Now the restaurant’s contents are being auctioned – relics of a singular moment. “There will be paintings with estimates of over $550,000 as well as objects expected to sell for under $100. A group of 10 of the artist’s much-loved butterfly paintings, each with a bright color background and each with love in the title, are estimated to fetch over $110,000. The auction will also have 11 of his well-known medicine cabinets and a molecular model sculpture with estimates each from $183,360 to $275,000.”