Category: visual

“In recent years, the city’s 20th arrondissement has been deliberately positioning itself as a graffiti mecca. A traditionally working-class district whose population has more recently included immigrants and artists, the 20th is now a few years into a campaign that aims to ‘develop urban culture at the heart of the neighborhood,’ meaning graffiti, or as they call it in Paris, le graff.”

“Having the Barnes collection next door should benefit Rodin, which has coordinated its opening hours with those of its neighbor. However, the Barnes is such an overwhelming experience, especially for first-time visitors, that doing Rodin on the same day might strike even committed aesthetes as a too-formidable challenge. Certainly the two collections demand different mind-sets.”

“If passed in all three counties, the millage would funnel an estimated $23 million a year to the DIA. In return, the museum has promised free admission for residents of counties that approve the tax, as well as extended hours and additional education and community programs.”

While art lovers may appreciate the I.R.S.’s aesthetic sensibilities, some estate planners, tax lawyers and collectors are alarmed at the agency’s position, arguing that the case could upend the standard practice of valuing assets according to their sale in a normal market. I.R.S. guidelines say that in figuring an item’s fair market value, taxpayers should “include any restrictions, understandings, or covenants limiting the use or disposition of the property.”

“The sundial, created by Moore in 1965 as a working model for a larger sculpture, was taken from the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, overnight between 10 and 11 July. Said to be worth up to £500,000, the distinctive artwork was found at an undisclosed location after a televised appeal for information last Thursday.”

“To New Yorkers, Edward Hopper is likely to evoke visions of moody nighttime urban scenes. But the painter created some of his most famous work in the bright seaside town of Gloucester, Mass., on Cape Ann, where he spent time in the 1920s. The photographer Gail Albert Halaban has been locating the original houses in Hopper’s paintings there and taking pictures of them as they look today.”

“William Morris, the philosopher, novelist and leading light of the Arts and Crafts Movement, once urged householders to have nothing they did not ‘know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’ in their domestic environment, and soon visitors to Water House in Walthamstow can judge him at his word once more.”

“Now that there’s a glut of biennials, triennials and other festivals worldwide, not to mention the art fairs that serve as their commercial counterparts, the competition for visitors is fierce. It isn’t just biennial fatigue — it’s almost a backlash. Why go to a biennial today when there are so many other venues for discovering new art? What does a biennial offer that making the rounds at galleries can’t? Driven by such issues, many U.S. biennials are rethinking, refining or just plain abandoning their missions.”

“The governmental body in Nigeria that regulates the nation’s museum systems is demanding the return of 32 artifacts recently acquired by the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. … The pieces were originally looted by British soldiers in the late 1890s, following the Benin massacre of 1897.”

“The Pantheon is about more than engineering. It is about space–architectural space as a conduit to spiritual space. The Pantheon is the greatest interior in Western architecture, one where space is nearly as palpable as the forms that contain it–what isn’t there is as important as what is. This effect derives in part from the perfection of its proportions.”