Category: visual

“A small but anatomically perfect wooden Christ on the cross is set to cause a stir in the art world this weekend as it appears in Florence for the first time, billed as a hitherto unknown masterpiece by the city’s most famous artist, Michelangelo Buonarroti.”

“An Italian archeologist said Tuesday he had uncovered ancient objects that show an unexplored site in Guatemala’s Peten region to be one of the most significant preclassic Mayan cities ever found.” The city he has discovered could have been home to 10,000 Mayans at its peak, he says.

In Afghanistan, red and white stones are used to warn people where landmines are buried. “But instead of protecting civilians, looters are using these symbols to prevent access to sites where they are systematically stealing the country’s valuable artefacts. Three years after the world looked on in horror as the Taleban destroyed the giant Bamyan Buddahs, many of the nation’s historic treasures continue to be destroyed, this time stolen by looters often aided by local gunmen.”

The UK government has “placed a temporary ban on the export of a painting by the 19th Century artist Richard Parkes Bonington to try and keep it in the UK.” The hold will give British buyers time to find the £2.1 million price to block export.

Sculpture can be whatever it wants these days – there’s no defining aesthetic or style that has to be followed. “The down side is, if sculpture can be anything, then maybe it is not anything in particular. It loses a sense of tradition, identity and purpose. And it becomes hard for people to care very passionately about it (the way many people still care about painting), much less evaluate it. If you think that artists, like children, need limits, you may not like what has become of sculpture.”

It wasn’t political, it had no cultural agenda, and it never really pushed the boundaries of what was considered permissible on the comics page. So how did Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” endure for 50 years in countless American papers? Perhaps it was the simplicity of the art and the humor, or the tender way in which Schulz portrayed the most hapless characters, or maybe it was just that Charlie Brown seemed to represent a bygone era of innocence for which many Americans long. This week, the first edition of what will be a complete reprinting of every Peanuts strip ever drawn is being released, authorized by Schulz’s widow against his previously expressed wishes.

Jon Routson creates his art by going to his local multiplex, hauling out a handheld video camera, and taping a bootleg version of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. He then shows the distorted films, complete with audience coughs and shaking camera, at art galleries as his own work. He does not sell his works, thus avoiding charges of piracy, but his days as a video artist may be numbered, nonetheless. The act of appropriating pieces of another’s work is always a touchy subject in the art world, but Routson’s particular method is illegal in five states, and is about to become illegal in his home state, as well.

Picasso’s Garcon a la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe)sold for $104 million Wednesday night. The painting is “one of the most important early works by the artist ever to appear on the market. It was the star item in the collection of the late Mr and Mrs John Hay Whitney. The record price previously paid for a painting was $82.5m for Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet at a Christie’s auction in 1990. The previous high for a Picasso was $55m.”

“Until now, most of the America’s 3,000 or so historic-home museums have resisted opening pop-culture exhibits and renting out galleries for corporate dinners – even as prestigious art museums have done just that. But sharp state budget cuts, stiff competition from more modern attractions and the overall tourism slide have left many of the homes with little choice. Just in time for the summer tourist rush – and to the dismay of purists – historic homes from California’s Hearst Castle to Virginia’s Mount Vernon are rolling out Broadway-style productions, opening fast-food outlets and courting party planners to combat a steep drop in financing and plummeting attendance.”

Dr Joseph Brown, one of Australia’s biggest art collectors has decided to donate his collection to the National Gallery of Victoria. “The fate of the highly-prized collection — renowned in art circles for its quality and quantity — has been a 20-year saga. A succession of state governments have failed to take up Dr Brown’s offer of the works, which was once valued by art experts at more than $60 million. The historic value of the works, by many famous artists including Streeton, von Guerard, Drysdale and Whiteley, is immense. The collection has been in storage since 2002, at a cost of about $650-a-week insurance and $300-a-week storage.”