An exhibition at the National Gallery includes “an almost-life size reconstruction of the domed Borgherini Chapel from Rome’s Church of San Pietro in Montorio, painted by Sebastiano, with the originating Michelangelo drawings displayed adjacent.” The model was made by the Madrid firm Factum Arte, which has created widely-admired replicas of several Caravaggio paintings and Tutankhamun’s burial chamber.
Category: visual
Roman Mosaic Discovered And Taken Away To Lab For Conservation – As Townspeople Flip Out
The ancient decorative floor, recently uncovered in the French town of Uzès, was transferred to a specialist government facility in Nîmes, and local groups had no faith that the mosaic would ever be returned. (The regional government has promised that it will be.)
French Town Are Being Stripped Of Their Architectural Heritage
Throughout the French countryside, especially in less visited rural areas of eastern and central France, some homes have fallen victim to speculators who strip their architectural treasures and sell them, often abroad, leaving once graceful historic structures little more than empty shells behind gaily painted facades. In other cases, the owners themselves sell the architectural elements to raise some cash.
Skaters Put An Art-Deco Half-Pipe Inside ‘Detroit’s Largest Art Object’
“It’s a sight Fisher Building architect Albert Kahn couldn’t fathom in 1928: a five-foot mini-ramp packed with skateboarders in one of his greatest architectural achievements. In Detroit, such a brash juxtaposition is becoming the norm.”
Art Critic Finds Out What It’s Like To See Yayoi Kusama Show With Regular (Huge) Crowds – And It Worries Him
Philip Kennicott: “This exhibition highlights problems far deeper than those raised by the all-too-successful blockbuster shows of the past. This isn’t about managing success and finding the right balance between access for crowds and the integrity of the individual aesthetic experience. Rather, this is about the nature of experience itself, and whether museums want to reinforce an understanding of existence that is fractured, competitive, capitalistic and ultimately alienated from art.”
Since Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms Are So Wildly Popular, Why Not Just Make More Copies Of Them?
“Because one essential feature of the contemporary art world is artificial scarcity,” Philip Kennicott writes. “Theoretically, the Hirshhorn could line its ringed galleries with four or five versions of each room. More people could see them, and more people could experience the effect for longer periods. Except that Kusama has defined her rooms as ‘unique art works,’ and that ultimately diminishes their reach and impact.”
The Confusing Jumbled Controversy Over “Fearless Girl”
“Fearless Girl” was meant to be up for only one week, and had it remained so, it may not have given rise to so much protest and analysis about what such a sculpture means for feminism, public art, and Wall Street. Those a big topics for one sculpture to take on, but if Fearless Girl ends up staying for good, it will be because she’s raised questions about female empowerment and representation well beyond Wall Street.
Deconstructing The Met’s Many Woes
As Thomas Campbell begins his exit, the museum resets: “The wing will wait while the museum conducts long-needed repairs. Exhibitions will be cut back by as much as a quarter. And just as crucially, the Met is revamping its money-losing gift shop — because, as it turns out, America’s greatest storehouse of treasures can’t balance its budget without selling nicer scarves.”
Altadena Has A Revamped Bunny Museum, But Is It Great Or Creepy (Or Both)?
It’s all due to a love story, the Guinness Book of World Records, and a move from Pasadena in order to accommodate all of the bunnies – and to open the “Chamber of Hop Horrors, a room that only visitors 13 and older may enter.”
What To Do With All Of Those Old Slides? Well, Here’s What The Met Did
As any art historian from the pre-internet era would know, the Metropolitan Museum had thousands – and thousands and thousands – of slides it loaned out to teachers and professors for lectures. But the entire collection of slides was digitized, and the museum didn’t need them any longer. So, they found a new home.