Category: visual

“Everyone hated Marsala, Pantone’s 2015 color of the year, a dark red that critics widely slandered with comparisons to blood, rust, and meatloaf. This year, the company … made an unprecedented move by nominating not one bold color but ‘the blending of two shades’ – Rose Quartz (baby pink) and Serenity (baby blue).”

“Assemble’s win signifies a larger move away from the gallery into public space that is becoming ever more privatised. It shows a revulsion for the excesses of the art market, and a turn away from the creation of objects for that market.”

“Galleries are closing left and right across the country,” he said. “Something’s been afoot for a year, a year and a half. It feels like the ’90s, when everything died. There was nothing after the ’80s boom. The question is: Is it cyclical or is it a paradigm shift?”

“The Westfries Museum in Hoorn, 50km north of Amsterdam, said on Monday it suspected members of the Ukrainian state security service, SBU, the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) party, and ‘art criminals with contacts … at the highest political level’ might also be involved in the attempt to sell the canvases.

“ISIS manages oil and antiquities under the same bureaucratic umbrella, the ‘Diwan al-Rikaz,’ an archaic phrase that literally translates to ‘Department of Precious Things That Come Out of the Ground.'”

“With a trial looming, the Knoedler Gallery, its former director Ann Freedman, and Knoedler’s owner 8-31 Holdings have reached a settlement with the New York collector John Howard. Howard had bought a fake work by Willem de Kooning from the gallery for $4m.”

“Donhauser will inherit a gleaming building, but also long-standing challenges, such as competition for visitors in a city where blockbuster shows in bigger museums draw millions of tourists each year. The museum must balance its role as a repository for historic objects ranging from photographs to 18th-century tankards with devising new shows that appeal to contemporary audiences.”

“They claim the Allen museum would be ‘geared towards tourists and not citizens.’ This weekend, the group organised workshops and artistic activities outside the building in support of its campaign. Campaigners are reminding the city’s radical mayor, Ada Colau, that one of her electoral promises last May was to reopen the building as an art school.”

“Behind this slick campaign is one family’s tale of persecution, division and conflicting views on government control of art. The story offers a darker counterpoint to the party’s upbeat message, underscoring longstanding efforts to control art and bend it to political aims.”

“Much of how the public has come to remember that time period has been through [Oscar] Castillo’s camera. ‘I had a personal need to do it,’ Castillo says. ‘I never thought I was going to be well known for this. I never really thought I would be creating a legacy.'”