Category: visual

Most writing about Marcel Duchamp focuses on what he said or wrote. But “through most of his subsequent career, Duchamp worked harder at burnishing his persona than he ever did at creating art. And he certainly spent more time plotting ways to expand an extremely limited oeuvre than he did poring over his signature accessory, the chess board (but that’s another story).” – The Idler

The spring auctions are on this week in New York, and while Sotheby’s and Christie’s still dominate, some attention is going to No. 3, Philips, recently bought by Bernard Arnault, the “billionaire French entrepreneur and bitter rival of Christie’s proprietor François Pinault. The works to be auctioned at the American Craft Museum, away from Phillips’s own inadequate saleroom, are impressive. The auctioneer that has traditionally sold pictures of five- and six-figure values has moved into a new league.” – The Telegraph (UK)

A familiar face will be absent at this week’s Sotheby’s auctions. Diana Brooks was the face of Sotheby’s as its president and chief executive before she resigned amidst widening auction house investigations in February. But “so big was her role at Sotheby’s that it was impossible for her simply to walk away, officials at the company say.” – New York Times

• Last December, Chinese police caught seven midnight marauders digging in an area on the outskirts of Beijing.  The leader of the seven men confessed they had long suspected there was an ancient tomb in the area – sure enough, when  “archaeologists from the Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau continued the dig [they] concluded that, not only were they on the brink of uncovering a tomb, but given the initial findings it could be the resting place of a Han dynasty king.”  – Time Asia

Philadelphia is mural-crazy, covering every blank wall it can with murals – some commissioned and painted by professional artists, but many others the cheerful product of community pride. “Last year at this time the mural count was about 1,800. Now it is 1,900, which prompts the question, how many will be enough? Has mural-painting become a bureaucratic cottage industry? Has it become so important to the city’s tourist promotion that no one will ever recognize a practical limit?” – Philadelphia Inquirer

“The intense interest in this latest Tate is not just to do with the fact that it has cost £134 million, is constructed within Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s monumental Bankside power station by the iconoclastic Swiss modernists Herzog and de Meuron; and is about to open with a grueling round of celebrity parties. Nor is it just about the negotiation with a wealthy American collector, Kent Logan, over the possible gift of a chunk of his £100m Saatchi-esque stash of contemporary art. No: it is the fact that the collection on display has been, so to speak, jumbled up.” – The Sunday Times (UK)

A Berlin thief named Krysztof stole a van and discovered the next day that he had pulled off one of the city’s biggest art thefts ever. Too bad. He’d gotten rid of most of it. “Chagall and Miro he had never heard of, so he sold them to a fence for the equivalent of a few hundred pounds. But some of the loot, estimated to be worth DM1.6m (£500,000), was thrown away, conscientiously sorted into the relevant bins at the city dump. A portfolio of drawings went into the paper recycling skip, the metal sculpture and engravings were discarded in the box marked ‘scrap’. Some paintings had to be cut up because they would not fit. But Krysztof enjoyed the task. He never did like post-modernism.” – The Independent (UK)

An exhibit in London seeks to confront its audience. The piece that provoked the strongest reaction was a punching bag filled with pig’s blood hanging in a boxing ring which, one of the curators explained was meant as a comment on the sport. “Unfortunately one of the guests ignored the ‘Do Not Touch’ signs and punched it so hard it burst. Blood went everywhere, spattering the floors, the walls and even the startled bystanders, many of whom started screaming.” – The Independent (UK)

In a memorabilia dispute, the Detroit Institute of Arts is battling with the family of a Connecticut puppeteer over who gets custody of the original Howdy Doody puppet. The museum claims the puppet was promised to it, and wants to add it to its collection of puppets. The family claims the puppeteer made no such promise. – Detroit News

Two men say they were hired by Georgia O’Keeffe to do chores for her. “John Poling, a philosophy professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and Jacobo ‘Jackie’ Suazo, a retired state employee in Santa Fe, each recall being welcomed by O’Keeffe at her Albuquerque home, doing chores and, ultimately, being allowed to paint with her.” What became of the paintings is part of a tangled legacy. – CNN