Category: visual

“Mobs of treasure hunters are tearing into Iraqi archaeological sites, stealing urns, statues, vases and cuneiform tablets that often date back 3,000 years and more to Babylon and Sumer, archaeologists say.”

The self-portrait of van Gogh hanging in Oslo’s National Gallery is now considered a fake. But the news hasn’t proved to be a liability. “The painting of a troubled face on a blue-green background is the only portrait of van Gogh after he cut off his left ear. Visits have nearly tripled at the National since the van Gogh came home, and it had the same effect in Italy where it was on loan when the controversy over the painting’s origin erupted.”

Seattle artist Jeff Hengst put two paintings outside his studio – an oversized Arnold Schwarzeneger and an oversized Anna Nicole Smith. He woke up this week to find that Nicole had been taken overnight. “Arnold’s useless to me without Nicole,” he said. He called the police immediately. Although he wasn’t expecting them to rush over and dust for prints, he was somewhat taken aback when they declined to come. They took his story over the phone and sent him a form to fill out.”

For whatever reason, rural Wisconsin is jam-packed with architecturally significant houses built by unbalanced geniuses and wealthy stars looking for an escape from the masses. One of the most remote and interesting structures of the bunch is known as “Ten Chimneys,” the sprawling hideaway of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, once known as America’s premier acting couple. From humble beginnings, “the compound grew to include a small hunting lodge moved piece by piece from Sweden, a chicken coop converted to a charming house, a swimming pool and fanciful changing house topped by a weathervane that was a gift from fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, an 18-room great house and other structures.” The house opened to the public for the first time this week.

A British artist is offering portraits of dead spouses painted with their cremated ashes as a tribute to the dead. “Why not use a fraction of the ashes from an urn sitting on a mantelpiece for a portrait, so you can have that person physically there with you. Some people may think it is a macabre idea, but personally I do not think so, as long as the portrait is done with loving care.”

An online archive of 100,000 images of artworks is the self-sufficient collaborative project that allows visitors to compare images side-by side. The digital archive offers “the opportunity to compare far-flung works while staying in one place and would be valuable to art teachers, students and scholars. As much as you want somebody to study your collection, those works get their meaning from context, and context is provided by other works in other collections.”

Greece’s high court has ruled that the Greek government cannot build a new museum at the Acropolis to house the Parthenon Marbles. Sources “are quoted as saying the decision was influenced by fears that the construction work on the slopes of the Parthenon – the proposed site for the new museum – could damage nearby antiquities. Correspondents say such a ruling is a serious setback for the Greek Government’s efforts for the return of the Parthenon frieze known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, which once adorned the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, from the British Museum in London.”

Lincoln University, which has a major role in the oversight of the Barnes Foundation, has petitioned a judge to make public an audit of the Barnes that has been depicted in the media and in a book as being very critical of the Foundation’s management. “Keeping the audit confidential does a disservice to the public because the information contained therein in numerous instances reveals diligent and persistent efforts to improve the administration of the foundation.” The Barnes is seeking to lessen Lincoln’s influence and make a move to Philadelphia.

It’s good to know that there’s an audience for art, but what about those exhibitions where so many people press in that you can’t see anything? “Big, high-profile loan shows are now so crowded it’s almost impossible to see what you’ve come to see – the art. Which raises a question: Has the blockbuster become a victim of its success? Is it now defeating the very purpose for which it was invented?”

“Considered in the cold light of reason, a visit to Venice might sound pretty grim. It is underpopulated (except by pigeons), overvisited, chronically polluted and notoriously expensive. Subsiding inexorably into theme-park status, the city that built its reputation on hard-nosed mercantile pragmatism has turned to fleecing foreign tourists for a living. But there’s no point in taking a down-to-earth view of Venice. This is a city which seems, quite literally, out of this world. Drifting like a mirage upon the surface of its lagoon, it could almost be set, as one early medieval visitor put it, ‘between the star Arcturus and the shining Pleiades’.?