Category: visual

“At the major visual-art museums in the Seattle region, all of the directors are women. At smaller museums, like the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience or the Northwest African American Museum, the directors are women. At the Seattle Art Museum, all seven curators are women. At many of the region’s art nonprofits, the top positions are also held by women.”

“Also known as ‘opaque couché,’ the drab hue of greenish brown has drawn endless comparisons to baby poop.” (We think it looks more like guacamole that’s been in the fridge too long.) “Researchers first discovered widespread repulsion to this particular tone in a 2012 study intended to help the Australian government come up with unappealing packaging for cigarettes.”

“The Bibliophile is a painting by Susan Macdowell Eakins, wife of the celebrated Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins. An accomplished painter, Susan had studied with Thomas at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. … Now a graduate student in the Winterthur/University of Delaware program in art conservation has detected, beneath the surface, a separate painting.”

“Art fraud officers detained the two dealers for questioning were both Paris-based experts in 18th century furniture. They are suspected of selling two fake chairs out of a batch of four to the Chateau at Versailles, home of Louis XIV, for €1.7m … sending France’s high-end antiques world into ‘panic’.”

“Designed by the Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi, the [Makoko] Floating School [in Lagos] was the winner of multiple awards for architecture and urbanism, attracting great international attention and acclaim. … At 10.30am on [last] Tuesday, the Floating School collapsed during a heavy seasonal thunderstorm.”

“Although it wasn’t a total surprise — the full-time faculty was expected to shrink in proportion to budget cuts, a shrinking student body, and as part of the school’s ongoing integration into George Washington University (GW) — no one expected this many beloved professors to lose their jobs. Of the school’s 19 full-time faculty who taught last semester, only 9 will be back to teach in the fall.”

“Of course it would be a beautiful thing if there could be a standard, but the reality is that there’s so many different considerations that cultural institutions have to take into account, based on their collections or jurisdictions or educational missions.”

“I love Brutalism, and am increasingly clear that it is not merely the equal of any other period’s architecture, it is better. There has never been a more remarkable period of architectural achievement.” Barnabas Calder makes the case.