ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

VISUAL

Iconic Architecture Is Urban (And Insta) Clickbait

And, because of social media and marketing, it's making a serious comeback. The projects "are magnified again by technology, by the software that enables architects to visualise complex shapes and engineers to calculate them, by the photorealistic visualisation techniques that make a project seem physical before it is, by the construction techniques that turn these shapes into reality and,...

Italy’s Anarchist Architects Warned Of Endless Building Expansion

And, ironically, they might also have inspired Saudi Arabia to try to make a 100-mile-long building. - The Guardian (UK)

Manet Painting Unseen For 140 Years Headed To Auction

"The oil on canvas painting, named after the dog, a griffon called Minnay, is one of a series of eight dog paintings Manet produced between 1875-1883. The animal belonged to Marguerite, whose father was Gauthier Lathuille, the owner of a cabaret and later restaurant that featured in other Manet paintings." - The Guardian

Art Basel Postponed To September 2021

"In another blow to Art Basel and its owner, MCH Group, the art fair's organizers have postponed its flagship edition in Switzerland for the second year straight due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Basel fair, which usually takes place in June, is now scheduled for September 23 through 26." - Artnet

The Historian And The Nazi Art Thief

“The paper trail for these art plunderers, as for most second-rank figures in Nazi Germany, largely dried up after their interrogations and de-Nazifications in the late 1940s,” Jonathan Petropoulos writes. “The oral history offered by Bruno Lohse and other old Nazis provided one of the few ways to reconstruct the postwar experiences of this cohort.” - The New York...

The Man Saving Cities One Historic Building At A Time

“These once-dead buildings are now living spaces where people work, eat and carry out their lives,” says Luis Martín Bogdanovich, the general manager of Prolima, the municipality’s program to recuperate the historic center. The impact of Arte Express on the center of Lima “extends far beyond the restored physical structures to the whole dynamic of the city center itself,”...

The Tiniest Art Gallery (And Please Take The Art)

“The idea is pretty simple — anyone is welcome to leave a piece, take a piece or just have a look around and enjoy what’s inside,” said Stacy Milrany, a painter who runs a small, appointment-only gallery featuring her works. - Washington Post

The Prado Will Re-Hang Its Collection To Feature More Work By Women And Non-Spaniards

" has announced plans to make a 'far more inclusive' place by reordering its permanent collection to ensure greater representation of works by female and foreign artists. Miguel Falomir, the Prado's director, said 'one of the few positives consequences' of the COVID pandemic had been the time the museum's enforced closure had given staff to re-evaluate its treasures...

Art Collector/Felon Tries To Redeem His Reputation With Museums (Built With Spaniards’ Tax Money)

" Polo, a financier whose roller-coaster career included a major art fraud scandal that landed him in prison, has recently resurfaced in central Spain, where last month he defied the coronavirus pandemic to inaugurate a museum in the medieval hilltop city of Cuenca that is devoted to his collection. His first art space opened in 2019, in Toledo, a...

Border Wall SeeSaws Win Design Award

They were installed by Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello at the Anapra zone in Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. Even though they were only in place for 20 minutes, video footage of people using them went viral. - BBC

Reasoning Behind Tories’ Protect-Monuments-From-Mobs Law Is Rubbish

Charlotte Higgins: "What is happening in reality – and to a greater or lesser extent has been happening for years – is a reappraisal of what and who is celebrated in Britain’s public realm, as Britain gradually, painfully, and often inadequately, examines its colonial and imperial past. … What the Conservatives doggedly refuse to acknowledge is that a community...

Egyptian Queen’s 4,200-Year-Old Tomb, 13-Foot Papyrus, And Even More Painted Coffins: The Latest Treasures Unearthed At Saqqara

"Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities has revealed details of the latest landmark discoveries to emerge from the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo. The vast burial grounds sit in what was once Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt. … Among the biggest rewards for Egyptologists in this latest round of discoveries was the identity of a queen who died around 4,200...

Norway’s New Whale Museum Looks Like… A Whale

From far away, The Whale museum on the southern coast of Norway looks like, well, a whale — the tail of a whale emerging from water, to be more precise. But upon closer inspection, visitors will find that this architectural marvel is actually a scenic viewpoint and an educational center where they can learn about the local marine life....

First New Blue Pigment In Two Centuries Now Available To Public

"YInMn Blue, the brilliant pigment discovered in 2009 at an Oregon State University lab, … was finally approved by the EPA for use in artists' materials last May. Chemist Mas Subramanian and his team serendipitously came upon it while conducting experiments with rare earth elements as part of their work with semiconductors." - Artnet

Fire At Brussels’s Major Art Museum

Flames broke out on the roof of Bozar (the Musée des Beaux-Arts) in the Belgian capital on Monday afternoon (Jan. 18). No civilians were injured (the museum was closed) and there's been no report of damage to the art collection; however, the museum's concert hall, a major Brussels venue, suffered water damage, especially to its pipe organ. - VRT...

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