Category: visual

This time it’s professional photographer Eric McNatt suing over Prince’s use of an image he took of former Sonic Youth leader Kim Gordon. “The complaint outlines at length Prince’s brazen attitude towards appropriating works, and his disposition toward previous legal actions against him, including the case brought by photographer Patrick Cariou.”

“Although most famous for his landscapes in his woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, he drew just about everything.”

Bjarne Melgaard sent 16 of his works from his studio in New York to his gallery in Oslo – which couldn’t collect them without paying $153,000 in VAT because customs agents insisted the paintings didn’t qualify for tax-free status. You see, they weren’t, as regulations require, “executed entirely by hand.”

“In a reversal of a 2012 vote that seemed to have buried the project, the 15-member board voted 8-7 on Monday to approve the 130-million euro ($180-million) plan. A final decision is expected next week by the 85-member city council.”

If you do the math, 65 times, it amounts to more than $180 million: a handsome sum for an offhand find and well worth continuing to court experts over, even in the face of expert dismissals and disavowals. When the Van Gogh Museum rejected the sketchbook outright in 2008 — calling the works “monotonous, clumsy and spiritless” — the owners simply sought more opinions until they found one that fit.

“It is surprising that any architect — and especially one with as much understanding of Philip Johnson’s basic philosophy as Scott Johnson — could support the idea that gravitas and the Crystal Cathedral are even the slightest bit compatible. The building has far more in common with the nearby Matterhorn at Disneyland, the Biosphere in Arizona or the domes of Buckminster Fuller than with any cathedral in Europe.”

Sculptor Helen Marten said, “In the light of the world’s ever lengthening political shadow, the art world has a responsibility, if not to suggest a provisional means forward, then at least show an egalitarian platform of democracy. I believe the hierarchical position of art prizes today is, to a certain extent, flawed.”

Here’s what the jury said about Robert Konieczny + KWK Promes’ National Museum in Szczecin, Poland: “This project enriches the city and the life of the city. It addresses a site with three histories, pre-World War II, wartime destruction, and post-war development, which left a significant gap in the middle of the city. This is a piece of topography as well as a museum.”

Young Dalí wanted to be a chef, and as an adult artist, “he loved the ‘logarithmic curve’ of cauliflowers.” Of COURSE he did.

Artist Genevieve Gaignard’s self-portraits, in which she mixes Cindy Sherman and Carrie Mae Weems with her own performance style, says “Maybe it can help [viewers] be more open and understanding to lifestyles, different people’s existence and upbringings, class and gender. I feel like that’s what’s being talked about right now.”