Category: visual

Four pieces stolen from a New York gallery in 1988 just turned up in a dead German art dealer’s estate.

“The government of Turkey is asking American museums to return dozens of artifacts that were allegedly looted from the country’s archaeological sites, opening a new front in the search for antiquities smuggled out of their original countries through an illicit trade.”

“Organizations that buy art are investing in themselves — and in more than a monetary sense. Art speaks to culture, self-expression and creativity,” says a corporate art advisor. “When organizations buy artwork, they are supporting the arts. That can mean buying from local artists, but it extends beyond that. Art touches lives.”

Berger’s 1972 show (and accompanying book) “demystified high art, repackaged it in terms that related to everyday life, and proved that a love of great paintings need not be elitist but could co-exist with communitarian values. Today, social and political contexts are so integral to our reading of a picture or story that it is easy to forget how revolutionary Berger’s stance was.” But in an age of Damien Hirst, does Berger matter anymore?

“The DIA is seeking the millage to cope with debilitating annual operating gaps of roughly $10 million-$12 million. Despite raising hundreds of millions dollars during the last decade, the museum has never been able to adequately replace state funding, which amounted to 70% of its budget until cuts began in the early 1990s. Where the DIA once received $16 million in annual state funding, it received zero this year, while also facing the impact of the recession and increasing fatigue among its donors.”

“Ageing varnish had left it disfigured by stains, now all but gone, with the overall effect one of lifting a yellow-brown veil, to reveal the soft blue of the Virgin’s dress – and a wealth of detail like a rocky pool of water bathing the subjects’ feet.”

“The director of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum says the famed site of modern and contemporary art will reopen to the public in its permanent location on Museum Square on Sept. 23.”

“Greek police have recovered an ancient statue worth €12m … that was illegally excavated and hidden in a goat pen near Athens, and arrested the goat herder and another man who were allegedly trying to sell the work for €500,000.”

“A South Carolina family filed a $25 million lawsuit in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday against what had been New York’s oldest art gallery, Knoedler & Company, charging that the dealer and its former president conspired to sell it a fake Mark Rothko painting.”

“Until now Leonardo’s portrait has been dated to about 1503-6, but this is being formally altered to about 1503-19. This important redating is presented in the catalogue of the Louvre’s exhibition “Saint Anne, Leonardo da Vinci’s Ultimate Masterpiece” (29 March-25 June).”