Category: visual

“Although the improved East Building wasn’t exactly swamped its debut weekend, oddly angled tower rooms make sharing the space with culturally curious strangers a strenuous exercise in loving one’s fellow man.”

“Dalí’s lavish and erotic cookbook Les Diners de Gala was first published in 1973, featuring 136 recipes compiled by the painter and his wife Gala. Divided into 12 chapters with titles such as ‘Prime Lilliputian malaises’ (meat) and ‘Deoxyribonucleic Atavism’ (vegetables), the book also features sumptuous Dalí illustrations and photographs of the painter posing alongside tables loaded with a banquet’s worth of food.”

“The Lute Player was discussed in [a Paris] court last week in a trial in which eight defendants, including Guy Wildenstein, the president of the New York art business Wildenstein & Company, are charged with tax evasion and money laundering. The French government estimates that the estate could owe at least €550m, including fines and interest.”

“A study in 2010 determined that the altarpiece needed conservation – to remove varnish and to adjust the colours of older retouches. A €1.3m grant followed and now – with the restoration one-third complete – the discoveries are astonishing, casting light on a touching story of fraternal love and admiration.”

“A dietary staple of an exhausted creative vocabulary, artistic gimmicks continue to be regurgitated at art fairs around the globe. These well-worn ideas have appropriately been parodied on Tumblr pages like ‘Who Wore It Better’ and on Instagram via the anonymous profile @whos__who. Despite some variation in scale, material, or display, these tried-and-tested clichés now urgently demand retiring.”

“Despite two generations of abuse (and perhaps a little because of it), an enthusiasm for Brutalist buildings beyond the febrile, narrow precincts of architecture criticism has begun to take hold. Preservationists clamor for their survival, historians laud their ethical origins and an independent public has found beauty in their rawness.”

“Five years after the Clyfford Still Museum opened its doors, much of its collection has yet to be examined. More than 300 paintings by the pioneering Abstract Expressionist whose works fill the museum remain unstretched. ‘A lot of the paintings still smell like they are drying – we’re the first people to unroll them since he made them,’ says Dean Sobel, the museum’s director.”

“[Jeffrey] Uslip’s departure follows weeks of controversy over CAM’s current solo exhibition by white artist Kelley Walker that some found demeaning to African-Americans.”

“I felt sincere about selling this masterpiece,” Pierce O’Donnell said in a recent interview. He believes it is one of the “great art finds of the 21st century. Unfortunately, she has frustrated every effort to sell it.”

“The Portland Art Museum announced today that it will expand, connecting the museum’s two freestanding buildings, and that it will begin a 20-year art lending partnership with Mark Rothko’s children, Christopher and Kate. The partnership will allow the museum to exhibit important Rothko paintings from his children’s private collection on a rotating basis.”