Category: visual

” ‘Value’ is decided by the very few and then presented to the many. When I look at the AGO and so many of its peers, I see an institution guided not by public participation, but by the generic, elite consensus that rules the global art market, which sees product over public good.”

“Artist Mina Cheon, a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, … has successfully sent hundreds of USB sticks containing short videos of contemporary art lessons into North Korea as part of a new art project. … Arranged by thematic subjects such as art’s relationship to power, food, feminism, and money, the [ten] lessons trace major movements including pop art and abstraction.

The main museums in San Juan and Ponce report that they suffered minimal damage from the storms. While most but not all are open, their staffs are all back at work, helping with rescue and rebuilding efforts and offering free programming for their suffering communities.

Geffen’s pledge raises LACMA’s fundraising total to $450 million of the $650 million needed to break ground on a modernist Peter Zumthor building, arguably the most anticipated new piece of architecture in L.A. since Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall opened in 2003.

One thing that is now universally appreciated is Basquiat’s importance as an artist. Institutions were slow to understand his work and he is woefully under-represented in museum collections. In his recent monograph, The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat (published by Enrico Navarra Gallery, New York), Fred Hoffman writes that in the year following Basquiat’s death, Herbert and Lenore Schorr offered the Museum of Modern Art in New York the opportunity to choose a painting from their collection as a gift. “The museum replied that having a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat was not even worth the cost of the storage.”

Eliminating the estate tax—an especially onerous burden where bequeathing art is concerned—would undoubtedly be cause for rejoicing among the wealthiest buyers. “That would be very good for art collectors because art is one of the most difficult assets to plan with for estate-planning purposes. It’s the asset that, in many estates, has appreciated very much in value.”

“The Lion of al-Lāt, … which stretches 11 feet high and weighs 15 tons, was moved to Damascus after Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra in March 2016. Polish archaeologist [Bartosz] Markowski was able to restore the Lion of al-Lāt over the course of two months, and says approximately half of the resurrected statue is comprised of the original.”

“The work by the Dutch art and design collective Atelier Van Lieshout, entitled Domestikator, was due to go on show later this month as part of the Hors les Murs public art programme organised by representatives of the Fiac contemporary art fair (19-22 October).” The director of the Louvre argues that “this work has a brutal aspect; it risks being misunderstood by visitors to the gardens,” and that it would have been near a playground.

“The sculpture” – titled R-Evolition – “was created by artist Marco Cochrane as part of [his] The Bliss Project. He said the sculpture was meant to combat a culture that increasingly dehumanizes women and sexualizes the female form. … The sculpture is being brought to Washington, D.C. by the organizers of Catharsis on the Mall, an annual three-day event that features 24-hour activities, music and an effigy burn. “

The case concerns two works, White Palm on Red and Green Snail on Blue, that were among hundreds stolen from a cache of works belonging to one of Matisse’s sons stored at a Paris warehouse shortly after that son died in 1989. Many of those works were recovered; these two turned up at Sotheby’s Paris in 2008 with no line of provenance submitted, and without authentication, the house wouldn’t sell them. So the consignor is suing the Matisse family.