Category: visual

“The petroglyphs at the Burrup Peninsula, also known as Murujuga by the traditional custodians, are Australia’s largest and oldest collection of rock art. … But a kilometre away are some of Australia’s largest and dirtiest chemical plants. The air that hangs over this remote peninsula is often fouled with a yellow haze.”

On Sunday morning, the artists jumped the wall at El Eco and proceeded to break windows, set off smoke bombs (an article on the Excelsior newspaper website suggested instead that they “activated the extinguishers to provoke clouds of smoke”), and damage a bronze work by artist Yolanda Paulsen. According to our source, the cops showed up about 15 minutes later but left shortly after, apparently because the officers felt there was no emergency after the protesters allegedly explained that they were undertaking an artistic action.

The artist (of course) fell in love with The Lord of the Rings books when he was 11 or so. “To start his maps, Bell says that he works from an open source Ordnance Survey map, and begins drawing by hand. ‘I try to emulate his typeface as closely as possible, but have modified his mountains in an effort to develop a little bit of my own style.’ He adds in additional details, such as forests, Hobbit holes, towers, and castles.”

The process is intense – and lengthy. “Sue is making way for a replica skeleton of a new dinosaur, the largest-ever-found Patagotitan mayorum, to take occupancy of the central hall. Over the course of February, the tyrannosaur will be deconstructed, spirited upstairs to its new home in the museum’s former 3-D theater on the second floor and then remounted in place for an unveiling in early 2019.”

After a gay Latino board member resigned and a straight white male artist declined to be honored because all museum’s honorees have been straight white male artists, “MOCA said it is rethinking its gala and will send out a new announcement in the next few weeks.”

There is a lot going on around this planned house, and the artists’ colony on the Munch estate, in Norway. “In the coming weeks, the country’s top heritage conservation authority will decide whether to grant a permit for the project. Artists and journalists have raised concerns in the Norwegian news media that it would alter the last remnants of the landscape Munch painted and would overshadow the historical importance of the site. … Mr. Melgaard, who is gay, also suggested that the opposition was partly fueled by homophobia”

Sotheby’s has expanded into 21st-century services like art advice and managing artists’ estates, but Christie’s and Phillips rely on auctions for their good news. And, “for the moment, the 18th-century model of live auctions continues to do nicely, tracking global economic growth.”

Cornelia Parker, whose election works go on public display this week, said that she “felt she could not do otherwise than represent the voices – often anxious, fearful, or angry – of the people she had encountered during her time observing the election campaign. ‘I was bombarded by so much emotion and visual information I had to have sound, and sensation,’ she said.”

Despite global economic and political uncertainty, 2017 was a strong year for the top end of the art market, with data-driven reports pegging the growth at 25% across auction houses.

Facebook fought for five years to avoid being taken to court in France over the case. But lawyers for the Facebook account-holder say “the deactivation of the account two and half years after it was opened, and just after L’Origine du Monde was posted, cannot be a coincidence.”