Here’s a story from Ithaca, NY similar to one that that keeps popping up in the US and...
A few days ago we pointed out the problems with architecture as holder of monetary value. The Los...
The news that Phillip Mould’s Gainsborough–which he found mis-attributed at a major auction house–is on offer to the...
Dropstuff.nl is a platform for media art and e-culture that broadcasts artworks by professional artists and designers on a network of Dropstuff Hotspots in (Dutch) museums, libraries, railway stations, schools and art academies. Base camp is the “glass house-pavilion”, a mobile AV-studio space with a gigantic LED screen that travels round various cities.
Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | Comments
JS Marcus interviews Luc Tuymans in the Wall Street Journal about a number of things. Here’s Tuymans on how he works and how his new studio affects his work:
Q: You usually create your paintings in a single day. What does that process entail?
I always build up a painting in the same way the old masters used to do it: I start to paint the lightest color, and paint all over the surface of the canvas. [Though] I don’t paint on a canvas that is on a frame, just a piece of canvas put on a wall with nails. Then I paint the surface I think I’m going to need. And then with a pencil I start to draw. Then I paint the pencil lines away a little bit, and then the painting starts. It’s really a horror for the first three hours. Although I know what I’m doing, I don’t see what I’m doing. Once the painting comes together about halfway through, the real joy kicks in. I paint nearly every painting in a day because I think that’s the only way to keep my attention span going. And I think it’s the only way to keep intensity within the painting itself.
Just in time for the Fourth of July, the Voice of America reports a new copy of the Declaration of Independence has been discovered in British archives:
Researchers in Britain have discovered a rare original copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, just as Americans are getting ready to mark July 4 Independence Day holiday. Officials at the National Archives in London say the poster-sized document was hidden among correspondence from U.S. colonists. They say a local researcher discovered it by chance. Researchers say the so-called Dunlap print is believed to be one of about 200 printed on July 4, 1776. These first copies of the Declaration of Independence were delivered to U.S. political leaders the next day. Only a handful of the copies, named after printer John Dunlap, are known to have survived. The last known Dunlap print sold at an auction in 2000 for more than $8 million.
Britain Discovers Original Copy of Declaration of Independence (VOAnews.com)
Slate reveals the deficiencies of plastic as an artistic medium in Sam Kean’s fascinating study. He begins with the artist Naum Gabo and the problems the Philadelphia museum had with some of his work:
In the 1920s, Gabo and other artists began experimenting with plastic, both because it offered the freedom to create any shape in any color and because they believed artists should embrace technology and a plastics-based industrial future. (Gabo was trained as an engineer.) Plastics manufacturers assured the artists that cellulose acetate was durable—Greek marble for a new generation. Not quite. It turned out plastics were no more intrinsically stable (and sometimes less stable) than wood, paint, or any other media—a detail Gabo and the Philadelphia curators never suspected until too late. [...] Plastics hold up well for the decade or so during which a consumer uses most products. But museums, unlike consumers, are in it for the long haul, and when plastics crash, they crash precipitously. As a result, museums of all sorts have been having Gabo moments in the past decade. [...]
Here’s a curious sales strategy. Sotheby’s is auctioning off a Houdon bust of George Washington in next week’s Old Master sales in London. The Associated Press flags the sale and points out that the Louvre, LACMA and National Gallery in DC all have editions of this same bust:
The bust comes from the workshop of 18th-Century master sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon of France and will be sold on July 9. It is one of a series of famous busts of Washington produced after Houdon was commissioned by the U.S. Congress and the Virginia Legislature to produce a life-size sculpture of Washington. Officials expect it to be sold for more than 300,000 pounds ($490,000).
Here’s the Sotheby’s catalogue on the bust:
Following the American War of Independence and the peace of 1783, Congress and the Virginia Legislature wished to honour George Washington for his important contribution. They voted to erect a life-size equestrian monument and Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris recommending Houdon for the commission: ‘I find that a Monsieur Houdon of this place, possesses the reputation of being the first statuary in the world.’ Houdon was thrilled to accept the opportunity – modelling an equestrian monument had been a long-term ambition for the sculptor.
The Indian press is already getting psyched for the second edition of the Indian Art Summit to be held in New Delhi in August:
THE UPCOMING 2nd Art Summit 2009, to be held at New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan between August 19 and August 22, is a really important art event to look forward to. After a successful Art Fair of Indian Contemporary Art in 2008, where 34 galleries from India and abroad took part, the Art Summit’s second edition is being held on a grander scale and promises to be a world-class art event.
Newsweek is caught up in the collision between art and luxury goods. Nick Foulkes wonders about Vacheron’s new line of $367,000 watches inspired by African and Oceanic masks, Ikepod’s Jeff Koons watches and Louis Vuitton’s association with just about everyone else. (Okay, just Richard Prince and Takashi Murakami.)
There was a time when artists inhabited an altogether loftier plane than the purveyors of luxury goods. There were occasional crossovers, such as Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian-inspired dress and Château Mouton Rothschild’s artist-designed wine labels. But rarely did the twain meet.
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | Comments
The big news in London is the opening of the Jeff Koons show at the Serpentine. Richard Prince’s show last year caused a stir when it came out that many of the works on view were sold. The British papers mostly focus on Koons’s own commentary from a press preview where the artist gives some palaver about ‘art as spinach’ and Popeye representing the artist’s father. Carol Vogel gives the rare extra bit of information that actually helps illuminated Koons as a serious artist:
The show — organized by Julia Peyton-Jones, director of the Serpentine; Hans Ulrich Obrist, its co-director; and Kathryn Rattee, a curator there — is on view through Sept. 13 and includes 23 works. The paintings are monumental, some more than 8 feet tall and 7 feet wide, and the sculptures of inflatable toys incorporate other familiar things: an aluminum ladder, stainless-steel pots and pans, wooden logs, even trash cans.
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | Comments
Livemint explains Tyeb Mehta’s relationship to his art, fame and money:
“Unlike other artists he was fully taken up with his work,” says his contemporary, the veteran artist K.G. Subramanyan. “He didn’t worry about some of the things that preoccupied others—like money.” Subramanyan recalls how Mehta fell in love with Santiniketan where he spent two years in 1984-85 as an artist in residence, adding that the stay had a lasting effect on his style.
Maithili Parekh, India representative of the Sotheby’s auction house, underscores the psychological boost that the Indian art market—and the Indian art world in general—received when Mehta’s work broke the million-dollar barrier. “It gave us confidence and pride,” she says. “There were many moments that were important in the evolution of the Indian art market and this was certainly one of them.”
Recent Comments