Category: visual

At L’Atelier des Lumières, “artists’ works are transformed as images of their paintings are projected (using 140 laser video projectors) on to (and across) 10-metre-high walls over the vast 3,300 square metre surface area of the renovated 19th-century building. These images provide an immersive and panoramic show throughout the space, to a sound track of music by Wagner, Chopin, Beethoven and others, using an innovative ‘motion design’ sound system.”

Until the latest round of tariffs, art could be imported here duty-free. “Dealers in Chinese art and antiques described the proposed tariffs as misguided and detrimental to cultural exchange, noting it would not serve to protect a domestic industry, since American artists — unlike American factory workers — are not competing directly with Chinese artists. Nor would it meaningfully harm the robust and growing Chinese and broader Asian fine art and antiques markets.”

Sebastian Smee: “When Whitten died this year, little more than a year after being presented with the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama, almost no one knew about the half-century of sculpture he had under his belt. That’s partly because the sculptures were made, and remained, mostly in his home in a small village on the Greek island of Crete, where he had spent almost every summer since 1969.”

“The presence of ancient artifacts underground is a daunting challenge for urban developers. For archaeologists, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. ‘I think it’s the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me, professionally speaking,’ says Simona Morretta, the state archaeologist in charge of the Amba Aradam site. ‘Because you never get the chance in a regular excavation to dig so deep. That’s how we’ve found architectural complexes as important as this.'”

“The historic walls are under threat as never before from a combination of an exploding population that has put pressure on land and housing, as well as local politics. … Houses and commercial buildings have sprung up on [some] demolished sections or been turned into dumping grounds for rubbish, litter and sewage from the ever more crowded city. Elsewhere, excavators dig into the fortifications for the red iron- and aluminium-rich rock laterite, which is loaded onto donkeys and taken away for use in construction and renovation.”

It was supposed to be Bahrain’s flagship cultural initiative, an art fair with international programming that would raise the profile of the Gulf State’s artists, diversify the economy and boost tourism. But after only three editions, Art Bahrain, now renamed Art Bahrain Across Borders, is facing accusations of unpaid invoices and chronic mismanagement from both exhibitors and former collaborators.

“Since the 1970s, Calle has repeatedly invited us to question whether artists should be held to the same standards as other people. In viewing her work, we must ask whether invading someone’s privacy or betraying their trust is an acceptable emotional cost to art.” Natasha Bell looks at some of Calle’s most famous projects, similar work by other artists such as Arne Svenson, Dries Depoorter and Santiago Serra, and a graduate-school project of her own that got her an A and lost her a close friend.

Numbers were up across all three selling platforms. Private sales, which dropped by 32% in 2017, saw the biggest increase (up 135% to £287m) followed by online-only auction sales, which grew 40% to £27.7m. Auction sales rose 20% to £2.65bn. Sell-through rates averaged 84% by lot, compared with 81% last year.

“The bas-relief, which depicts a Persian guard, was seized in October by investigators for the Manhattan district attorney’s office from the Park Avenue Armory, where it was being offered for sale at an art fair. … Investigators say the item was reported stolen from Tehran in 1936, and then was stolen a second time, in 2011, from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, to which it had been donated decades earlier.”