Category: visual

It is the province of cartoons and the often-bumbling bad guys in ridiculous capers, those who have no idea that they are displaying the most suspicious form of motion perhaps ever taken. The Pink Panther is the king of slink. So, too, it seems, is one improbably successful thief who stole a Banksy piece, “Trolley Hunters,” from a temporary gallery space in Toronto on Sunday, June 10 at 5:04 in the morning.

Sculpture and assemblage have grown to immense proportions in recent years as the art business itself has ballooned. As new techniques, materials and computer-assisted design make otherworldly shapes and surfaces possible, it’s become increasingly hard to ignore the man behind the curtain: the off-site fabricators who actually make the thing itself, whether it’s a hulking metal totem by Ellsworth Kelly or a Minimalist cube by Robert Morris.

It started with a deathbed plea and a promise – a promise that has meant decades of trying to figure out what to do with the art. “Selling the work was never part of Mr. Carlson’s plan anyway, nor has he ever tried to sell it. This wasn’t high art, but that wasn’t really the point. This was about a family relationship across generations, the weight of old promises that can keep you awake at night and, perhaps most of all, the mystery of a creative impulse quietly, relentlessly sustained.”

And there’s time for some anecdotes as well: “When you go to Lincoln Center, you see there’s a big sculpture that Johns made and one of the things I found out about it is that there’s a footprint by Merce Cunningham. He said to me Merce Cunningham had always wanted to be accepted into Lincoln Center and he never had been, so he got his footprint into the piece and the piece is now in Lincoln Center. That’s pretty performative. And it’s got a wonderful sense of humor that these two men must have just cackled over, because it also says something about society and a kind of rejection/acceptance. They kind of wiggled their way through it anyway.”

Paleoartist Jay Matternes “created the Smithsonian murals between 1960 and 1975, working with museum scientists and doing his own research to depict specific environments. Each mural was made for a specific space and exhibition, and each was painted on canvas that was adhered to plaster walls, he said. They took years to ­complete.” The murals were removed for the multi-year, multi-million-dollar renovation of Fossil Hall, and they’re too fragile to actually put back, but two new large-scale prints will be very close.

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, feuding brothers are one of the most common sources of spite buildings around the world.”

A former Transport for London board member tweeted that the young men were “common scum and criminals,” while “at Loughborough Junction station – the stop closest to where the three died – graffiti writers were among the mourners who have contributed to a shrine, with spray cans nestled among bouquets, and messages sprayed on the wall.”

What’s going on there?! “Jennifer Y. Chi, who was named chief curator and deputy director of the Brooklyn Museum in September and began her tenure there in November, is no longer at the institution.”

That’s right, the new Boston Institute of Contemporary Art space is in the East Boston Shipyard, and the route is over the bay: “It’s accessible via a new ferry route negotiated by the museum to run from Memorial Day to Columbus Day between South Boston and the waterfront in Eastie, as locals call East Boston.”

Shaun Leonardo is tired of people talking about guns. So, at the Guggenheim, he’s trying something different: “Mr. Leonardo, a former wrestler and college football player (who still has the physique to prove it) announced in advance that the performance would be inspired by one of the roughest sporting traditions to endure in the 21st century, the Italian Renaissance-era game of calcio storico. (Imagine a mix of rugby, soccer, martial arts, wrestling and fist-fighting rolled into one nearly lawless clash.)”