“The only thing we know is that this is the first iteration of a recurring show,” Wakefield says of Desert X. “Maybe it’s every three years, maybe there’s one next year, who knows? This is about surprises.”
Category: visual
How Wealthy Americans Fell In Love With, And Created A Market For, French Impressionism
“This 19th-century love affair between American money and innovative French art might seem an unlikely one. Surveying his fellow Americans in Europe in the 1870s, Henry James had been appalled: ‘There is but one word to use in regard to them – vulgar, vulgar, vulgar … It’s the absolute and incredible lack of culture that strikes you in common travelling Americans.’ Yet it was these Americans, or at least the opulent advance guard among them, who would come to the rescue of struggling and despised French artists, and who found in Impressionism the beauty and value that for many decades evaded so much of the French artistic establishment.”
Leonardo’s ‘Adoration Of The Magi’ Is Restored And Coming Back To Florence
After six years of restoration work, the panel painting, Leonardo’s largest of its type, will be back at the Uffizi at the end of March.
Serpentine Pavilion In London To Be Designed By African Architect For First Time
“African architect Diébédo Francis Kéré has been selected to design this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, which is set to feature a roof that mimics a tree canopy and a central waterfall.”
‘Spider-Man’ Art Thief And Accomplices (Including The Guy Who Threw The Picasso In The Trash) Get Prison
Vjéran Tomic – nicknamed “Spider-Man” for the athletic way he executed the theft – stole paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque and Léger from the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris in 2010. He, the instigator, and the fence each got multi-year jail terms and six-figure fines plus an order to reimburse the city for the €104 million the art is worth. (The fence – who claims he threw the paintings into the garbage when his home was raided – executed a memorably self-serving piece of theater when he heard his sentence.)
Michelangelo Sculpture, Unnoticed For Centuries, Goes On View At Last
It’s a seven-foot white marble nude statue of Jesus, and you’d think it would be famous by now – or stolen. But Risen Christ survived both Napoleon and the Nazis. Elisabetta Povoledo explains how.
Can Damien Hirst Win Back Pissed-Off Collectors With His New Show?
“Like previous Hirst extravaganzas, this project is being rolled out with the same hypervigilant level of control and fanfare. And hovering over the project is whether – given the precipitous drop in his prices after his all-Hirst Sotheby’s auction in 2008 – the celebrity artist can have another chapter.” Or has he (ahem) jumped the shark for good?
The Big Challenges Awaiting New Directors For Tate And V&A This Year
Two of London’s biggest museums have new directors who have significant experience outside the museum world. This may lead to new ideas, but they may also have a steep learning curve…
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Africa’s Largest, Forced To Close Due To Leaky Roof
The roof has leaked since 1989, but heavy rains last month did so much damage that the museum – whose collection includes works by Picasso, Monet, and Rodin – has been forced to close for several months. And, as Lynsey Chutel reports, that’s by no means JAG’s only problem.
A ‘Rescue Mission’ To See If Anything Can Be Rescued After ISIS’s Destruction Of Nimrud
“An Iraqi archaeologist who was recently given emergency training by the British Museum is leading a rescue operation in Nimrud, the Assyrian site which was almost totally destroyed by [ISIS] extremists. The archaeologist has been appointed by Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to investigate the damage and stablise what can be saved.”