Category: visual

“The Austrian Supreme Court has ordered the city of Linz to pay €8.24 million ($8.96 million) plus 4 percent interest to the heirs of a local collector for losing a Gustav Klimt drawing and three pictures by Egon Schiele.”

“They thought the etching had become too faded, so they decided to scratch over it to make it easier to see. … The carving on the northern island of Tro is one of the country’s most famous historic sites and an important clue as to when people began skiing.” (This may not end as well as “Beast Jesus” did.)

The graphic work dating from 1520 was thought to have been lost during the Second World War … [It] shows a majestic view of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus, protected by an angel, and belongs to a 15-part series of [Madonna-and-Child] depictions the artist created at different stages of his career.”

“Looking at the saturated images of such vibrant, eccentric architecture, it’s hard not to feel a yearning for that kind of experimental optimism in our structures today. However, the era is also a reminder that architecture can’t solve our problems. In the end, it’s the people using the buildings who determine their successes, and perhaps the reason architecture took a different turn is that people don’t generally want to live in UFOs and modernist caves.”

Dalí’s Adolescence (1941) and de Lempicka’s La Musicienne were stolen at gunpoint from a small private museum in the Netherlands in 2009. Art detective Arthur Brand estimates that the works changed hands about ten times before a criminal gang, realizing they were stolen and couldn’t be fenced, contacted him.

“The contract of outgoing director Agnes Husslein-Arco will not be renewed due to violations of internal codes of conduct and compliance standards. … [She] was found to have charged inadmissible expenses to the museum, as well as hiring museum employees for private services.”

“The unfinished concrete-and-steel structure sits empty and construction is at a standstill while city officials and the Ada-based Chickasaw Nation work out the details of a complex partnership for operating and maintaining the 173,000-square-foot museum and developing the surrounding 200 or so acres of commercial property along the Oklahoma River.”

“This marks an 18% turnover growth for China, made more impressive by the fact that the market seems to have contracted in the West, with London down 30% and New York down 49%.”

“The chance is there to make a museum exceptional in Britain and the world, like none other. And yet – as the path of good architecture never runs smooth – there is still a risk the chance might not be taken.”

“In one room dedicated to ice cream cones, the wall is covered in vague, uncredited trivia — ‘cones damaged during production are further ground down into animal feed’ — and guests can suck on a helium-filled balloon made of heated sugar.”