Category: visual

“As the $60 billion world art market contracted by 7% in 2012, sales in China fell by more than 20%, and sales of art in the US inched up 5%, giving the US 33% of world market share and leaving China with 25%.”

“Martinez currently heads the museum’s Greek and Roman antiquities department. The 49-year-old, who was handed a three-year term, has been with the Louvre since 2007 and is leading the restoration of the famed headless Greek sculpture, the Winged Victory of Samothrace.”

As in recent years, the best attended exhibition worldwide does not feature a famous artist’s name or the word “masterpiece” in its title. It does, however, include the much used exhibition noun: “treasure”.

“The Corcoran’s board of trustees voted, 13 to 0, Wednesday afternoon to sign a preliminary agreement to explore a long-term partnership with Maryland that could include shared faculty; joint student degrees; cooperation on developing new courses; … and expansion of the Corcoran College of Art and Design by several hundred students.”

“[Jean-Luc] Martinez, who starts April 15, runs the museum’s Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities department – one of eight Louvre departments which together display a total of some 35,000 works. … Martinez takes over at a critical time: as the Louvre prepares to open its first international offshoot in Abu Dhabi.”

The traveling exhibition of outsider art, currently en route from Paris to Moscow, features former janitor Henry Darger’s cartoon epics, Dietrich Orth’s imaginary machines, the French duo ACM’s intricate and fantastical temples made from typewriter and electronics parts, … and such-like.

“We’re really trying to unlock people’s imaginations about the very real potential of a new arena and of a new Penn Station.”

“The wholesale rebuilding of China in the past couple of decades has been a phenomenon. It is building more – and faster – than anywhere else in the world ever has. Wang Shu’s considered, thoughtful architecture is both response to and critique of China’s construction hyperinflation.”

“For the past few decades, China has been replicating — almost brick-for-brick — many of the West’s iconic architectural gems, including such iconic buildings as the Sydney Opera House, the White House in Washington and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.”

“Everywhere you look, the city is being polished and scrubbed, renovated and repainted. Roads are being resurfaced, trees are being planted, and vast new museums are rising from the ground in preparation for the European Capital of Culture 2013 – which began three months ago.”