“A painting downgraded to the work of a follower a century ago is reattributed to the 17th-century master – just in time for an anniversary exhibition next year.”
Category: visual
Lisbon Battles With Itself Over Its Fabled Tile Sidewalks
“Lisboners have a love-hate relationship with their distinctive sidewalks – painstakingly crafted from five-inch cubes of limestone since the 19th century – that flank most of the city’s streets.” But that limestone gets very slippery when wet, and “officials have stirred passions with a plan to make one of the world’s oldest cities a safer place to walk.”
What Was Beckett Waiting For As He Doodled?
“Some of the doodles have sparked academic guesswork. Why, for instance, does the third notebook contain doodles of golfers teeing off?”
How Do Comic Artists Produce Such Condensed Yet Amazing Cutaways And Maps?
“It’s those detailed visuals that often show the wonderful imaginations of comic book writers.”
The Battle Between Artists And Landlords In Queens
“I thought: Here’s my community. We’ll see each other every day. We’ll chat. We’ll have shows together.”
What Is Art – And Who Is An Artist – Now?
“This yields a fascinating, 288-page public meditation by one artist on the profound significance of another artist — one he has known, if rather casually, since they were studio-neighbors in Pasadena more than 40 years ago, back when Old Town was a crumbling wasteland.”
Has Art History Lost Its Experts?
“I believe that the basic lack of connoisseurial skills we are faced with in art history is weakening the foundations of the discipline. I may be selfishly delighted when major US museums accidentally de-accession works by Van Dyck or Rubens (it happens more often than you might think), but for the public’s trust in an institution it is a disaster.”
Rem Koolhaus: Architecture As “Endless Calculation”
“The ceiling used to be decorative, a symbolic plane, a place invested with intense iconography. Now, it has become an entire factory of equipment that enables us to exist, a space so deep that it begins to compete with the architecture. It is a domain over which architects have lost all control, a zone surrendered to other professions.”
Hirshhorn Names New Director: Asia Society’s Melissa Chiu
The Australian-born 42-year-old is currently senior vice president for global arts and cultural programs at the Asia Society Museum in New York. “[She] succeeds former director Richard Koshalek, whose tenure was marked by controversy over funding for his signature Seasonal Inflatable Structure proposal.”
Senegal Government Shuts Down Art Exhibition On Homosexuality In Africa
“The move comes several weeks after an attack on the Dakar gallery by Muslim fundamentalists … ‘Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness’ opened at Raw Material Company on 11 May, but a day later, the non-profit art centre was vandalised and the building damaged.”