Hughes: Closing The Chapter On 80s Art

Twenty-five years after Robert Hughes’ wrote “The Shock of the New”, he goes back to update. But how? “Most of the 1980s artists over whom such a fuss was made have turned out to be merely rhetorical, or inept, or otherwise fallen by the wayside. Is there anyone who really cares much what Julian Schnabel or David Salle, for instance, are now doing? Do the recent paintings of Sandro Chia or Georg Baselitz excite interest? Maybe in your breast, but not in mine.”

Vandal Breaking Venetian Art

Venice authorities are puzzled over the cause of damage inflicted on religious statues all over the city. “Witnesses reported seeing a man with a hammer climb a decorated column at the Doge’s Palace in the Piazza San Marco and smash the hands of a statue. Similar damage has recently been found on religious statues at other historic buildings around the city. Mayor Paolo Costa said the attacks were the work of an isolated lunatic.”