Category: visual

“Alexander Calder is famous for having made sculptures that move, but conservators and collectors are cautious about showing them that way.” The current show at the Whitney is changing that, and the Times here offers a set of video animations that show the works in motion.

The data is public for the first time, and not surprisingly, directors and COOs make a lot, while security guards and entry-level curators make barely enough to live on, much less pay off student loans.

What happens when the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit asks artists to make work from items found where most of America shops, with a total budget of $99? “Just like stock in a dollar shop, there’s an astonishing range of quality: Some offerings appear perfunctory and flimsy, while other works — the true bargains — thoughtfully engage the assignment.”

Ai: “It’s not a strategy, it’s life itself. It’s like if you go in a room, you look for the light, for the window. You turn on light, you open the window.”

In the hospital, West signed a document creating a foundation a few days before he died. “Those on the family’s side say that individuals with a financial stake in the estate, including Gagosian dealer Ealan Wingate, who was at the hospital during West’s final days, ‘wanted to make sure with the foundation that the heirs would not be in conflict’ with the gallery’s interests, Kerres says. As a result, ‘the lawyer did a rushed job, just writing something by hand and forgetting major parts of an agreement.'”

The island of Amami Oshima is renowned for its unique mud-dyed silk. The BBC documentary series Handmade in Japan follows the island’s artisans through the complex, meticulous steps required to produce the subtly patterned fabric and tailor it into a kimono. (text and video)

“Nearly four years after news of the discovery of the trove stunned the art world and stirred outrage over the fact that German authorities had kept its existence under wraps for months, the public will finally be allowed to view about 250 works” – among them pieces by Monet, Rodin, and Maillol – “selected from more than 1,200 as part of a show to open on Nov. 3 at the Bundeskunsthalle [in Bonn].”

“The Spanish Ministry of Culture had declared that the work” – the 18th-century Codex Trujillo, also called the Codex Martínez Compañón – “is an important piece of Spanish heritage, preventing its export to Peru following its sale at auction to the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI). The move provoked an uproar in the Latin American museum world. Now, as a solution, Spain will loan the work to Peru indefinitely without giving up ownership.”

The plan is part of the “Year of Public Art” initiative declared by Mayor Rahm Emanuel for 2017.