Category: visual

“The National Institute of Anthropology and History said Wednesday that Mexico has sent a diplomatic note to the French government seeking assistance in heading off the scheduled auction, in Paris.”

“Twenty-three years may seem like an inordinate amount of time to solve a burglary, but the Gardner case has actually come a long way from the days when it sometimes seemed to sit on the F.B.I.’s investigative back burner — and the robbery has done a lot to change the way that museums protect their art.”

“What’s most striking about the artist-assistant relationship is how it is airbrushed from public consciousness. Behind every great artist might well be a highly skilled team of assistants, but that truth is suppressed for fear of shattering our illusions: the lone-genius myth helps sales, and is partly what gives an artwork its mystique.”

“To call Mr. Ribes a colorful character is putting it mildly. Born in a brothel to a prostitute mother and a gangster father, he’s a former member of the French Foreign Legion and a lifelong devotee of the great painters. Although he created and sold his own work early on, he also provided paintings ‘inspired’ by the masters to a criminal art ring that sold the paintings as genuine.”

Yep, still sexist – and also just flat-out “extremely conservative.”

“There’s a dirt trail running from Berlin’s main railway station, and it demonstrates how this city works: First, someone comes up with something; then everyone does something completely different; and, finally, the whole thing goes haywire.”

“Fortified by three major 20th-century acquisitions made last fall … the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is making sweeping changes in its post-war permanent collection galleries. … Reviewers have criticised the post-war galleries as the weakest part of the collection ever since the [Arkansas] museum, lavishly financed by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, opened in November 2011.”

“Aus der Aufklärung (Out of enlightenment) will consist of 1,000 tents, installed along the Emscher river” in Germany’s Ruhr Valley region. Each tent – hand-crafted, unique, and big enough for two to three people – will be available for rent by the night for what the Emscherkunst Triennial’s curator calls “a low, symbolic price”.

“[He] devoted most of his life to creating … the T-square equivalent of science fiction.” For instance, living spaces straddling the Berlin Wall, an “Aerial Paris” suspended above the actual French capital by static electricity, and an Albert Einstein memorial projected into outer space on a beam of light.

“The Centre des Monuments Nationaux, the French body responsible for caring for state monuments, is preparing for a ten-year, €100m programme to restore the Panthéon, an 18th-century building that has become an expression of national pride. During the first phase, the structure will be covered in scaffolding with awnings featuring work by a yet-to-be-selected contemporary artist.”