Category: visual

“The buildings that often get the most praise (one famed tower in Pisa not withstanding) are those that stand up straight, refuse to bend or bow over time. But those buildings are boring. The really compelling constructions are those buildings that, despite looking like they are slowly keeling over, continue to stand, and continue to be used.”

“On Tuesday, the poet, actor, photographer, and makeup artist James R. Miller filed a lawsuit against the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation (RMF), claiming copyright to four photographs that have been shown and sold for decades as Mapplethorpe’s work.”

“The prints of the cans, which are among the artist’s most recognizable works, had been part of the Springfield Art Museum’s collection since 1985, and were currently on display in a special exhibit of British and American pop art.”

“How can these terrible losses be put right? That seems to be the question archaeologists are asking. It seems to be what the world expects. Yet it may be the wrong approach. Restoration is a delicate art, and the responsible preservation of antiquities has to mean accepting the finality of loss where rebuilding might be deceitful.”

Posters for brands like Christian Dior and Chanel went missing; at his studio, Michael De Feo covered the models in cheerfully painted bouquets and returned the posters before anyone noticed. Fashion companies are loath to let street artists tinker with their messaging. (Who wants a mustache on Julia Roberts’s face?) But somehow, designers are embracing Mr. De Feo’s colorful approach.

“Julia Peyton-Jones, who put the institution on the international map, is stepping down as co-director this month after 25 years at the helm. Jana Peel will work in partnership with Hans Ulrich Obrist who has been at the Serpentine since 2006 as co-director of exhibitions and programmes. He takes on the new role of artistic director.”

The museum is famous, of course, for having the first sustained department of architecture and design of any museum in the world.

The new structure doesn’t have an official planned height yet, but the developer says it will be “a notch taller” than the nearby Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest skyscraper. Both Calatrava and the developer say that the building will be as iconic for Dubai as the Eiffel Tower is for Paris.

“Every single day I have to remind someone that I am, in fact, an architect. And sometimes not just an architect, but the architect. … Every new job site means a contractor who will assume I am the assistant, decorator or intern.”

“The mysterious 400-year-old canvas was only found by accident when the owners of a house near Toulouse went to fix a leak in the ceiling. The large, remarkably well-preserved canvas of the beheading of the general Holofernes by Judith, from the apocryphal Book of Judith, was painted between 1600 and 1610, specialists estimate. And many experts believe it could be a work by the Milan-born master, Caravaggio.”