Category: visual

The seismographic range of institutions, causes, and charities staging sales creates a constant barrage for artists. “It’s a side business keeping up with all the auctions,” said Simmons, who gave away 16 works last year. “It takes an amazing amount of, for lack of a better word, administrative time. It’s very hard to keep it all going.” Artist Marilyn Minter said she receives requests for donations every week. Rob Pruitt fields about 20 solicitations a year.

“Who knew you could parse Benjamin Moore Classic Gray by percentages? That’s what Dominique Lévy was doing with her team recently while readying their gallery’s booth for the Art Basel art fair in Switzerland, which starts next week – determining how deep the shade of a wall should be behind a Gerhard Richter landscape (50 percent? 75? 100?).”

“A competition launched last week by London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan will bring a striking nocturnal makeover to the city’s River Thames. Called the Illuminated River, the contest will see 17 of Central London’s bridges enhanced by a creative lighting design from the winner, turning what is often a hidden, lugubrious space at night into a string of pearls that could attract more nighttime visitors to the riverbank.”

“Once as curators we were preaching to the converted. Whoever dared to say that an empty shoe box in a museum was a joke was considered an imbecile. Today if you are not able as a curator to articulate in a comprehensible language why the shoe box is a masterpiece YOU are the imbecile. So I don’t think it is the fault of the audience if they reject certain obscure encrypted exhibitions or works of art.”

“A towering waterfall appears to fall from midair into the Grand Canal at the Palace of Versailles as part of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s latest exhibition. Cascading from high above the surface of the pool, the Waterfall installation appears as a torrent of water of with no discernible source when viewed from the front steps of the palace.”

“Viewed side-on, the pavilion is rectangular. But when seen from the front or at an angle, its curving silhouette is revealed. It also changes from opaque to see-through, depending on the viewing angle.”

“Architects Kunlé Adeyemi, Asif Khan, Yona Friedman and Barkow Leibinger … have created structures to reference Queen Caroline’s Temple in Kensington Gardens, designed by architect William Kent in the early 18th century.”

Tiffany Jenkins is “unconvinced that museums have any real power either to atone for past sins or to address social ills. She notes, quite rightly, that the experiences we have in museums are personal, emotional, and unruly.”

“Archaeologists in Spain have come across an extraordinary series of Paleolithic-era paintings in Basque Country’s Atxurra cave that they estimate date as far back as 14,000 years. The 70 or so animal drawings lie nearly 1,000 feet underground, which made access difficult when archaeologists first found the site in 1929 and during excavations carried out by José Miguel de Barandiarán five years later.”