Category: visual

Some three dozen US cities have deployed art on their downtown streets after Chicago reported a hit with its art cows last year. Now Chicago is talking about putting a twist on the idea next summer. “If Chicago can reinvent itself and come up with something even more inventive, I’d say we’re up for a decade of things on parade.” – CNN (AP)

The art world loathes Thomas Kinkade’s precious paintings. But America’s mall-goers can’t buy them fast enough and have made Kinkade a wealthy man.  Reviled by the critics and scorned by galleries and agents, his work has been described as everything from ‘pseudo’ to ‘a damning indictment of our society’. Some question whether what he does is art at all.” Now Kinkade’s taking his show to England. – The Telegraph (UK)

Vanity Fair is said to be publishing a story claiming that painter Francis Bacon, who died in 1992 aged 82, was a tax dodger. The magazine alleges that Bacon avoided paying tax in Britain by failing to declare payments made by his dealers Marlborough Fine Art to a Swiss bank account. – London Evening Standard

With much of Seattle’s new wealth built on the dotcom boom, the recent downturn in the market has affected gallery art sales. “Everybody’s afraid to bring it up, because everybody wonders at first if it’s just us, if our business is down and everybody else is doing fine.” – Seattle Post-Intelligencer

In 1503 Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to paint a mural in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. But the image disappeared and conjecture is that rather than being destroyed the mural was obscured when a wall was built in front of it. Now scientists are on the hunt. “We will look through ancient walls using the most advanced technologies.” – Discovery.com

A 12th Century manuscript in the British Museum is shown to have been looted from Italy. “The missal, from the chapter library of Benevento, was acquired by a UK army captain during World War II and bought by the British Museum library (as it then was) at Sotheby’s in 1947.” – The Art Newspaper

The latest style in Moscow is what might be called reconstructivism. Wherever a historic building once stood but was destroyed, a more or less exact replacement now seems to be called for. Although not official policy, this growing attempt to re-create pre-revolutionary, pre-Stalin Moscow is largely driven by the office of the capital’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. – The Guardian

Instead of being the only Cimabue to ever have been auctioned, the rare panel painting will be accepted by the British government to pay the estate taxes of the current owner. The painting will join the collection of the National Gallery. – The Art Newspaper

When attempts to place statuary atop Trafalgar Square’s fourth vacant plinth began last year, officials were surprised by how seriously Londoners took up the task. Suggestions ranged from a statue of Princess Di to a giant pigeon. A year of trading art on and off the pedestal has suggested a plan for the future. – The Times (UK)

Norman and Lear and a partner who bought a copy of the Declaration of Independence on the internet last week, plan to tour it. “I don’t want to see it sitting on a wall, I want to take it where Americans can see it. I made a film in Greenfield, Iowa, and that’s a place I know well. If that living document came to Greenfield, people would come by the busloads.” – Los Angeles Times