Category: visual

“Hidden beneath brown paper backing, the newly discovered pieces are unfinished, but they have sent tremors through the world of Cézanne scholarship, where additions to his body of work are exceedingly rare and where even the resurfacing of long-unseen pieces can be huge news.”

“About 200 workers are campaigning against plans to switch visitor services to a private company.”

“‘Coming out of the biggest financial crisis in virtually all of our lives, people are optimistic and are searching for legacy,’ says Dennis Scholl, a vice president at the Knight Foundation.”

“The jury tasked with selecting the design for a new hotel adjacent to Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals spa in Switzerland has ‘dissociated itself’ with the client’s decision to appoint Los Angeles firm Morphosis,” headed by Pritzker winner Thom Mayne.

“A handful of euro notes have circulated depicting ominous events like people fleeing buildings, hanging themselves, and writing bloody-looking graffiti that reads, ‘THE END IS NIGH.’ Playing off the typical euro note’s blandly interesting and politically approved historical architecture, this altered money strikes right to the heart of the crisis.”

Well, its museums, anyway. The Museum of Art, U. Penn, the Free Library, and Winterthur are all featuring Fraktur, the wildly colorful and whimsical Pennsylvania German folk art: “Drawings of hybrid fish with the heads of men. Humans mottled like snakes. Long-tongued lions.”

“An employee of the State Hermitage Museum’s research library has been arrested in connection to the suspected theft of historic illustrations, engravings and photographs from its collection. The images were allegedly cut out from from books in the library and offered for sale at antiquarian bookshops.”

“It is a sad 20th birthday for the Musée Maillol in Paris, which shut its doors indefinitely this weekend. The museum has posted a message on its website that says the closure is due to planned renovation work, but there is more to the story. On 5 February, the company that manages the museum, Tecniarte, filed for bankruptcy.”

“In the 1920s and ’30s, Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco painted murals that powerfully illustrated the issues of their day. Today, street artists rule the nation’s walls, addressing its problems with an arsenal of wit and aerosol cans.”

“The American Institute of Architects [has] rejected a petition to censure members who design solitary-confinement cells and death chambers.” Michael Kimmelman argues that AIA should reverse that decision.