In 1981, DeWitt was commissioned to design a horticultural installation for Fairmount Park. The plan he produced, titled Lines in Four Directions in Flowers, ended up going dormant (as it were) for three decades. Newly completed, Lines stretches out from just beyond the rear portico of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Category: visual
Would Anyone Pay Attention To Stolen Art If Its Cash Value Wasn’t High?
Mark Stryker ponders the question after last week’s art heist in Detroit. “The FBI didn’t release details of all 19 pieces, and it’s possible they’re keeping mum about more expensive works as a gumshoe tactic. But it’s also true that if they didn’t float a value of at least $1 million, it’s doubtful anyone would have paid attention.”
The Killer App: Designing The First Fly Swatter
In 1900, Robert R. Montgomery of Illinois “was issued Patent No. 640,790 for the Fly-Killer, a ‘cheap device of unusual elasticity and durability’ made of wire netting, ‘preferably oblong,’ attached to a handle. The material of the handle remained unspecified, but the netting was crucial: it reduced wind drag, giving the swatter a ‘whiplike swing’.”
Art And Earthquakes – A Terrible Mix Heading For Disaster In Italy
“The terrifying thing is not just how much art was lost in this earthquake. No – the scary thing is that world culture got off lightly. The epicentre of the quake is close to so many irreplaceable treasures of such importance to humanity that it could have been almost infinitely worse.”
If You Secretly Erect An Art Installation That Fascinates Los Angeles, Where Do You Reveal That You Did It?
On Facebook, of course – with a few LOLs.
Dia Art Foundation Announces Its Plan To Return To Manhattan
“Almost a year ago, after years of negotiations, Dia bought the former Alcamo Marble building at 541 West 22nd Street in Chelsea for $11.5 million. The purchase was a coup for Dia because that building sits between its former space at No. 545, and its existing six-story building at No. 535. With this additional site Dia can build a substantial 22,000-square-foot Manhattan home.”
Did MoMA’s Famous ‘Family of Man’ Exhibit Squash Dissent – Or Promote It?
“In totalitarian countries, they argued, mass media delivered propaganda
messages directly from the mouths of dictators; as a result, they undermined their
citizens’ abilities to reason and transformed them into automatons. When Steichen
and his team designed ‘The Family of Man,’ they sought to build a media environment that would have the opposite effect.”
What Does ‘Art School’ Even Mean?
“Art school serves a number of social functions aside from teaching art and granting credentials. It serves as a repository for the third son or any recalcitrant wastrel (or any daughter) of the idle (or even the industrious) rich, since for a mere contribution of tuition, room, and board, you can stash that embarrassing child somewhere post high school.”
Art Thieves In Detroit Make Off With Warhol, Beuys, Larry Rivers
“The FBI says that sometime between April 27-29, an Andy Warhol silk screen used to produce Flowers and 18 works by other artists were stolen from a business in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.” The collection “includes drawings, prints and paintings by artists such as Larry Rivers, Francesco Clemente, Philip Taaffe, Peter Schuyff and Joseph Beuys.”
The Market Cost Of Being A Female Artist
“[The] proceeds on all the works by women artists in [this month’s enormous] Christie’s sale tallied up to a mere $17m – less than 5% of the total and not even half the price achieved that night by a single picture of two naked women by Yves Klein. Indeed, depictions of women often command the highest prices, whereas works by them do not.” Things are slowly getting better, however.