Category: visual

“An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 has destroyed buildings and homes in the mountains of central Italy, trapping residents in their homes as they were sleeping in the early hours of Wednesday (24 August). At least 38 people have been reported dead. Two towns were hit particularly hard by the tremors.” (photo journal)

“Doig, whose paintings sell for millions of dollars, ‘absolutely did not paint the disputed work,’ U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman said, adding that … the evidence shows another man with a similar name, Peter Edward Doige, a now-deceased carpenter who dabbled in painting, was the creator of the painting.”

“James Smith had been patrolling the halls of the museum’s Egyptian art section for years when a museum technician noticed green marks on a pair of statues in his sector. The museum pinned blame for the 2014 incident on Smith, although video evidence exonerated him, he claims in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.”

“The best way to understand the underlying drive of art collecting is as a means to create and strengthen social bonds, and as a way for collectors to communicate information about themselves and the world within these new networks.”

“Thomas Hardy is best known for his grand tragedies, but the chance discovery with an iPhone torch of an altarpiece believed to have been designed by the writer for a Windsor church reads like the start of a crime caper.”

“After 30 years, the iconic Heidelberg Project – [Tyree] Guyton’s internationally acclaimed outdoor wonderland of wit and whimsy, painted abandoned homes and repurposed urban debris on Detroit’s east side – is being dismantled. … No, Guyton is not abandoning his life’s work or waving a white flag in the face of 12 arson-fueled fires that have destroyed six houses since 2013.”

“At best, one might say that the most virulent haters are dead or are moving on, but the void is still not exactly filling up with love. Maybe there is some grudging respect, which might count as a victory for this most singular of artists.”

“The house on which the mural is painted is a few miles from GCHQ, home of the UK government’s surveillance operations. It appeared just months after Edward Snowden’s revelations of widespread phone-tapping by western governments.”

“This stipulation has major implications. It means that something like 60 percent of SFMOMA’s indoor galleries (not counting free-admission areas that serve as combination lobby and exhibition spaces) must always adhere — or, at least, respond — to a narrative of art history constructed by just two astute but obdurately private collectors.”