“The astronomical rise in prices for the most-sought-after works of art over the last generation is in large part the story of rising global inequality. At its core, this is the simplest of economic math. The supply of Picasso paintings or Giacometti sculptures (one of which sold for $141 million in the same auction this week) is fixed. But the number of people with the will and the resources to buy top-end art is rising, thanks to the distribution of extreme wealth.”
Category: visual
Smart Machines Are Now Teaching Us How To Look At Art In Deeper Ways
“One application of the new algorithms is to pick out paintings with similar characteristics (see images). That provides a new and powerful tool for historians to look for influences between artists that may never have been aware of. It also allows a new form of art exploration, jumping from one image to another similar one, in a process that is visually equivalent to finding synonyms.”
Three Women And A Housing Project Are Finalists For 2015 Turner Prize
The housing project, a Liverpool complex revamped by the young architecture collective called Assemble, is joined on the shortlist by a study room, a chamber opera, and fur coats sewn onto Marcel Breuer chairs.
Picasso’s Stepdaughter Has Paris Dealer Arrested For Trying To Steal Her Picassos
“Catherine Hutin-Blay, the only daughter of Picasso’s second wife Jacqueline, … believes that some of the works the art dealer was hired to transport have gone missing. Prosecutors would not say which works were involved nor give their estimated value.”
Canada’s Most-Visited Museum? (Sorry, Toronto)
“For the second year in a row, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts can claim to be the most-visited art museum in Canada, beating out both the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Slightly more than one million people visited the MMFA in 2014, making it the 58th most popular art museum in the world and the 12th most popular in North America.”
Picasso’s ‘Women Of Algiers’ Is Now The Highest-Priced Artwork Ever Sold At Auction
“To a medley of whoops, hollers and gasps on Monday night, Pablo Picasso’s 1955 painting Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’) sold for $179.4 million including fees at Christie’s ‘Looking Forward to the Past’ sale of artworks spanning the 20th century.”
The Tate Modern Has Been Open For 15 Years. What’s Next?
“Tate Modern really has transformed Britain. When people in Britain talk about art today, they mean art as Tate Modern has defined it.”
The U.S. Might Finally Be Reading For A Museum Of African American History, A Century After It Was Planned
“In 1915, a group of black Civil War veterans began pushing for a memorial and museum dedicated to black service members. A little over a decade later, President Calvin Coolidge approved the construction of a building to serve as a ‘tribute to the Negro’s contributions to the achievements of America,’ according to the Smithsonian Institution. Thanks to the Great Depression, that building never came to fruition.”
Why Does The Left Wing In Britain Care Nothing For The Architectural Past?
“For many people, old toffs’ houses are the stuff of Tory ascendancy. We are supposed to prefer the architecture of 1970s housing estates or the gross ostentation of the Shard to Palladio, the Italian genius who inspired Clandon Park’s lost elegance.”
One Way To Get People Interested In Your Museum: Create Game Of Thrones Recaps From The Art
“Getty Media producer Sarah Waldorf and manuscripts curator Bryan Keene have been rolling out recaps of Season Five on the museum’s Tumblr, telling each week’s narrative through items and imagery from its collection of medieval art. The result is a brilliantly fun tour of art and a unique analysis of the real historical inspirations for scenes and settings of the show.”