Category: visual

“At a meeting of his presidential council for culture and art in December, the Russian president … chastised officials about the state of the country’s rich architectural heritage and listened to the impassioned activists who have been fighting to save Russia’s monuments,” some of which have been vandalized or demolished illegally.

“For the most part, the important local examples of modern residential architecture that have been preserved as house museums, such as the Eames House in the Pacific Palisades or the Schindler House on Kings Road in West Hollywood, are fixed and unchanging examples of a particular design era. Goldstein’s house is something different, an example of the modern residence in flux.”

Director Mikhail Mindlin has released a statement explaining that Pyotr Pavlensky’s nomination has been rejected as it involved “breaches of the law and caused material damage.” He added that nominating this performance “to a competition which is held by a state organisation and under the aegis and with the support of the culture ministry seems impermissible to us.”

“The [Bosch Project’s] (at the very least) unprofessional manner of proceeding when offering its conclusions … not only contravenes the contractual conditions of the loan but also suggests that the Museo del Prado accepts and authorizes the proposed attributions.”

“The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is about to decide the fate of 95 properties that have been languishing, some of them for decades, on its calendar.” Michael Kimmelman looks at the issues involved – and at some of the buildings he’d like to see saved.

“In its logo, the Met is now THE MET, the two short words printed in scarlet letters, stacked and squashed together. The whole ensemble looks like a red double-decker bus that has stopped short, shoving the passengers into each other’s backs. Worse, the entire top half of the new logo consists of the word the.”

“Objects found in a burial mound at Netheravon, Wiltshire, include a bronze saw, an archer’s wrist guard, a copper chisel and cremated human remains.” (includes video)

“Designating Stonewall a landmark last year was a no-brainer and a declaration of civic pride. But it also showed how, absent additional regulations, the city’s landmark law had become a catchall.”

“The triptych from the turn of the 16th century is too precious and fragile to leave its home, the Museo del Prado in Madrid, but now, thanks to a virtual reality experience, anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or Android can ride a giant fish through the three panels of the Dutch artist’s strange world.”

“The Prado museum in Madrid has rescinded the loan of two works to a major retrospective of Hieronymus Bosch [in the painter’s hometown] after researchers downgraded the attribution of the paintings to Bosch’s workshop or followers rather than to the 16th-century Dutch master himself.”