Category: visual

“In the context of a national political convention, where every symbolic choice is sure to be scrutinized, there are more than a few risks in going with Frank Lloyd Wright as your architectural touchstone.”

“In the building design, work benches line up in curving arcs like swarms of fish. They are organized into work-group “neighborhoods” dotted with meeting rooms that might be painted with graffiti and ad hoc lounges furnished with arcade- game consoles.”

“Among the preliminary findings, a single percentage point increase in Google hits on the artist–the assigned indicator of popularity–corresponded to a chunky price increase of 38 percent.”

“A Norwegian art gallery lost a Rembrandt etching worth up to $8,600 in the mail after trying to save money on courier and insurance costs, the gallery’s chief said on Thursday.”

“Nizhny Novgorod’s old city is known as one of the world’s best examples of Russian Byzantine design, a distinctive style of brick and wood buildings popular in the 1830s. Why would authorities allow the country’s history to vanish without a trace? Nizhny Novgorod’s citizens know the answer: The kickbacks city planners receive [for approving new construction].”

“Ironic art fans have launched a petition to save the ‘world’s worst restoration’: a retouched, century-old church painting of Christ that has become an international joke.”

“There’s something utterly charming about seeing those objects in the haughty museum and something hopelessly patronizing about it as well. They don’t belong there, but there they are, and the effort is winning — if you’re willing to be a sport about it.”

The restored version is apparently the work of an octogenarian neighbor of the church, who, noticing the damage to the painting, took it upon herself to restore the painting “with good intentions” but “without asking permission,” as culture councillor Juan Maria de Ojeda put it. It became clear to the amateur restorer — quickly, one imagines — that “she had gotten out of hand,” and she confessed to local authorities.

“Asymmetrically protruding, squiggling, and contorting canopies overlap like pieces of tinted cellophane, corrugated cardboard, and construction paper, catching the eyes of visitors arriving to the city by cruise ship.”