Category: visual

New York art dealer Larry Gagosian is “not a discoverer of artists, but rather a cultivator of those on the rise and a seducer of collectors. It is not all about the big deal, he says. It’s fun to sell a big painting, it’s also profitable, I won’t deny that, and I spend a lot of time and energy doing that. But my relationship with the artist is probably the most rewarding, the most difficult part of my profession.” – The Telegraph (UK)

In the past three months in Turkey, the ancient city of Zeugma, “a key transit point across the Euphrates River believed to have been more than three times the size of the Roman city of Pompeii”, was threatened by flooding. A team of 250 international archaeologists and other specialists fought to rescue elaborate mosaics and other ancient Greek and Roman remains. – The Globe and Mail (Canada) (AP)

Seattle art dealer Linda Farris closed up her gallery a few years ago and took a trip. When she came back she re-invented, putting together a group of Seattle tech high-rollers in an art consortium. Farris finds the on-the-edge international artwork, the group shares it amongst themselves. And after a few years…it goes on public display and the members of the group consider giving it to a museum. – Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sixty-eight galleries, 800 Australian and international artists and 20,000 people expected for this year’s Melbourne Biennial Art Fair. – The Age (Melbourne)

Who says that buildings that don’t cost a lot have to be architecturally uninteresting? “Samuel Mockbee creates homes for the poor that are cheap, practical – and unconventionally beautiful. ‘Architecture is a social art. It has to function in an ethical, moral way to help people’.” – Time Magazine

Artist trading cards are a growing phenomenon internationally. The cards are traded like Pokemon or baseball cards, but feature different artists. “Like the Dada movement of the early 20th century, trading cards are a way of breaking down the hierarchy of the art world. – CBC

Last week, after a remarkable trial a French judge sentenced a man called by French police “the most sophisticated and prolific master-forger in the history of European art” to one year in prison. “The extraordinary progress of the 57-year-old Geert Jan Jansen from the School of Fine Art in Amsterdam to a small-town courtroom 50 miles from Paris, is a story of two false names, seven fake bank accounts and up to 1,500 fake works of art.” – The Age (Melbourne) (Telegraph)

Floods and water aren’t the only menace to Venice’s art. The woodworm has struck in a serious way. “The nuisance, attributed to warm, humid weather, is devouring not only ancient books and precious paintings but also the beams and panels of some of the city’s most beautiful churches, local officials said yesterday.” – The Times (UK)

“Much as most people in the art world are loath to admit it, their activities are strongly influenced by the state of the economy. In boom times, there tends to be a revival of painting and other decorative media, and a proliferation of vacuous or ideologically rebarbative objects meant to hang or sit in the living rooms of patrons. All large exhibitions – and even the rearrangement of works in public collections – now require sponsors, which means that art that is not attractive to sponsors is rarely seen.” – New Statesman

“Many classical architects give the impression that the world stopped in 1830, or that it should have done. So the rotunda that Lord Sainsbury has just completed at his home at Preston Candover in Hampshire is something of a surprise.” – The Telegraph (UK)