Category: visual

“With plenty of enduring historical puzzles to solve, as well as a series of fictional riddles courtesy of thriller writers from Dan Brown to Sarah Dunant, the work of the skilled teams that interrogate the stories behind the art of the Renaissance has never looked so alluring. That this trade also allows practitioners to live among the chief exhibits just adds to the appeal.”

“The history of the [New York Photo] League has receded from our collective psyche, despite its influence on documentary photography as the field developed in the ’30s. While we may easily recognize the migrant workers of Dorothea Lange’s Oklahoma or the tenant farmers of Walker Evans’ Alabama, we know little about the Harlem streets of Jerome Liebling.”

“Although acquiring art is a core mission, private collectors donate 80 to 90 percent of what is on view in American art museums. Fewer than two dozen museums have sizable nest eggs to buy the art they choose.”

“The foundation still celebrates American art, lending works from its collection; giving exhibition grants; supporting scholarship through fellowships, residencies and academic programs; and maintaining a 9,000-title research library in Paris that it says is the only one in Europe devoted exclusively to American art.”

“The sheer scope of the 2011 disaster and the diversity of the cities and villages it ravaged means that a single monument may not be sufficient, or appropriate. … Officials should consider pairing any official monument with a network of smaller, or less formal, found memorials.”

“The Hammer Museum announced on Wednesday a new $100,000 award” – called the Mohn Prize – “to a Los Angeles artist participating in its first biennial, “Made in L.A.” And, in a popular voting process familiar from reality TV, the winner will be chosen by people who see the exhibition, after a jury of art experts narrows the choice to five finalists.”

“Lawyers are appealing against a controversial copyright ruling in which a judge said it was unlawful to recreate parts of a composition of an existing photograph, even if the second work is not a copy but a separate photograph taken from a different angle.”

“A Roman-era burial box inscribed ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’ was reprieved from the scrapheap of history on Wednesday when a Jerusalem judge completely exonerated an Israeli antiquities collector who had been accused of forging it.”

“Having previously concentrated on Islamic art, from now on the institute will also explore the pre-Islamic past of Arab countries, highlighting the diversity of cultures, languages, beliefs and ways of life that have coexisted in the Arabian peninsula and Africa for thousands of years.”