Category: visual

“The decision has been welcomed by Christie’s France, which is behind the move to pass on the expense to the buyer. The auction house is ultimately responsible for paying the levy to the collecting agency, but it is now its right to ask for the money from the buyer.” — The Art Newspaper

Are things looking up at the contemporary art museum that lost its founder and saw labor complaints related to abuse by a staff member? Maybe. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Honestly, everything from Frida Kahlo air fresheners to Frida Kahlo teacups are available. But “would an anticapitalist, whose 1932 painting Self-portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States contrasts indigenous Mexican flowers and artefacts with the smoke-belching chimneys of a Ford factory, be pleased by the commodification of her image?” – The Guardian (UK)

“Rembrandt was 28 when he married Saskia in 1634; 36 when she died, leaving him with a baby son and a sorrow so destructive he gave up painting in oils for several years. The measure of his loss is apparent, too, in the nature of these images of Saskia and their happiness, made before (and in one case after) her death. Here is the artist’s heart.” – The Observer (UK)

All eyes are now on France. Despite the legal hurdles, restitutions are possible but only through a drawn-out process. President Macron’s decision earlier this month to return 26 plundered items to Benin “without delay” will have to be approved by parliament. Similarly, when the Muséum de Rouen discovered a “toi moko”—a tattooed head of an ancient Maori warrior—in its collection in 2011, restitution to New Zealand had to be approved by a special act of parliament, which took four years. – The Art Newspaper

The end result is similar to a trick often used in Hollywood. Superheroes, aliens, and the simians in Planet of the Apesmovies are animated by placing markers on actors’ faces and bodies so they can be tracked in 3-D by special cameras.  – Wired

Pantone’s color of the year for 2019 is “living coral”. And in case 2018’s color slipped by your notice, it was ultra violet. – The Guardian

With a big Piero della Francesca exhibition at the St. Petersburg mother ship and exhibitions, exchanges, and even satellite museums abroad and regional Russia, Mikhail Piotrovsky, compares his Hermitage to the Sputnik program: “a mobile cosmic system with satellites in different orbits.” — The Art Newspaper

“Nationalism — taboo for half a century following World War II and the fall of Mussolini — is suddenly in, as every possible political dispute is cast in chauvinist hues. Culture had long been a relatively neutral terrain. Not anymore. And deliberately so.” — The New York Times

Any creative illustration “fixed in a tangible medium” is eligible for copyright, and, according to the United States Copyright Office, that includes the ink displayed on someone’s skin. What many people don’t realize, legal experts said, is that the copyright is inherently owned by the tattoo artist, not the person with the tattoos. – The New York Times