Category: visual

“Auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s focus more on Africa’s antique statues than on contemporary photography or video installations. But contemporary art from the continent is finding a foothold at some premier gatherings in Europe and the U.S.”

“A Chicago judge ruled Thursday that local conservation group Friends of the Parks could move forward with a suit to block construction of George Lucas’ radical new museum on the city’s lakefront. The lawsuit, filed in November, claims the planned site for the institution is part of a protected waterway belonging to the state and cannot legally be privately developed.”

“Pre-Columbian galleries are often overstuffed, musty affairs — a million clay shards in endless vitrines. But the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art brings drama to the works in its collection, which are just divine.”

“It seems to have to do with the fact that the male subjects in Wiley’s paintings are sexualized — an immediate red flag given the long, ugly history in this country of gay men being labeled sexual predators.”

“The stratospheric amounts now at stake in newly built Manhattan buildings perhaps can be best understood by comparison with today’s contemporary art market, where multimillion-dollar paintings and sculptures have become favored instruments in the global transfer of vast and largely unregulated sums.”

“When opened in 1903, the Gardner was, for a time, the largest privately-owned museum in the United States and boasted priceless canvases by Rembrandt, Degas, Vermeer, and other masters. Yet when the museum was hit in 1990, there wasn’t even a central fire-alarm system. The fire alarms were independent buzzing wall models, like those ones homeowners can buy at Walmart or Home Depot.”

Saving ancient sites “needs to be a priority, it needs to be the first thing” in the struggle against Islamic State, Zahi Hawass said before lecturing this week at USC. “I receive emails all the time from young archaeologists in these countries, and they are afraid. We can’t wait, we can’t leave them to destroy our history.”

“[He] was commissioned to design an architectural extravagance at ground zero. He succeeded, an accomplishment that threatens to destroy his reputation.”

“Utagawa Yoshitora’s 1866 prints Igirisukoku Rondon no zu form a triptych view of London. Together, the three images depict a street scene near the River Thames, complete with thronging English pedestrians, two sailing ships, horses, oxen, and carriages.”

“In a project likely to involve demolishing the existing Lila Acheson Wallace Wing in the museum’s southwest corner — though there are no firm design plans yet — the renovation will increase gallery space, double the size of the Roof Garden and possibly create an entrance from Central Park.”