12/23/2009

The Story of Herbert and Dorothy Vogel

"He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian.With their modest means, the couple managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history. Meet Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, whose shared passion and commitment defied stereotypes and redefined what it means to be an art collector."

"They've collected more than 4,000 pieces over 45 years and recently worked with the National Gallery of Art to loan 50 works to one public art institution in each state. The collection is known primarily for its minimal and conceptual art and has drawings, paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, and illustrated books." -AP

Local Pitch: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection is at the Weisman!http://www.weisman.umn.edu/exhibits/Vogel/home.html

Check out the YouTube Trailer of the movie:

Egypt to Demand Return of Nefertiti Statue From Germany

“Egypt will demand the return of Queen Nefertiti’s bust from Berlin as the diary of the archaeologist who discovered it shows that he misled authorities when it was transferred abroad, the antiquities authority said.” - Bloomberg

Field Museum Offers Special Display Case Package for Marriage Proposals

“Neelam Patel couldn't believe it when she saw her boyfriend, Neal Patel, reach his hand into a case at the Field Museum and grab the diamond ring sitting inside…” – Chicago Tribune

Microbial Art

“Einstein in E. coli, an apple tree grown from fungi and a fluorescent Mario are just some of the masterworks cast in agar jelly by creative microbiologists, on display at http://www.microbialart.com/”– New Scientist

Ahmadinejad Replaces Head of Art Academy for Regime-Friendly Poet

“Iran's Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution announced late Tuesday that it had removed opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi from his position as head of the Academy of Arts, apparently at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” – LA Times

12/16/2009

Out West

You might have heard it mentioned on The Tonight Show yesterday... the exhibit at the Autry "examines the history of homosexuals and transgender people in the Old West." -LA Times

Oldest Known Santa Figurine Found
"Archaeologists working in Akron, Ohio, claim to have found the world's oldest three-dimensional representation of Santa Claus. Known as the "Blue Santa," the object was made circa 1884 by The American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company, which burned to the ground in 1904. The figurine is 2.5 inches tall." -Discovery.com

Louvre Returns Five Frescos to Egypt

"French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented one of the slabs, or steles, to his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, who was on a visit to Paris. The Egyptians had demanded the return of the Pharaonic fragments and had broken off ties with the Louvre." -BBC

Caravaggio Work Burned By Mafia

"A lost painting by Caravaggio which art lovers have long hoped might still be found was burnt and destroyed by the Mafia, according to a former hitman turned pentito (informer). The painting, Nativity with Saints Francis and Lawrence, was stolen from the oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo in 1969. Its whereabouts since then have remained a mystery despite investigations not only by police but also by scholars and art lovers." -UK Times

Gabriel Orozco Slideshow: MoMa Retrospective

A look at the Mexican artist The New Yorker once hailed as "The leading conceptual and installation artist of his generation." - NY Times

The Hirshhorn Balloon
"For the last several months the newly appointed director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Richard Koshalek, has been quietly at work on a plan to erect a 145-foot-tall inflatable meeting hall that would swell out of the top of the internal courtyard of the museum, which sits on the Mall midway between the White House and the Capitol." - NY Times

12/09/2009

The Turner Prize Winner Decided

(Above: 2009 Winner Richard Wright)

"The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organized by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicized art award. Although it represents all media, and painters have also won the prize, it has become associated primarily with conceptual art." - yanked from wikipedia

• Read the history of the prize here.
• Take a look at the NY Times slideshow of the front runners here.
• Check out a critic's round-up on the winner this year here.

MoMA Staff See Pay Freeze, Reduced Benefits

Some current struggles at the MoMA, after investments take an 18% hit. Also a focus on the history of labor troubles there, with mention of the 134 day strike in 2000.

New $100,000 Art Prize For Artists Under 35

Announced by The Victor Pinchuk Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 by its namesake Ukrainian billionaire and art collector.

Chicago Architects Create Gingerbread Houses for Charity

Exactly what the title says, but with some photos. Blueprints are also available if you're so inclined...

Chicago Court of Appeals Weighs Destruction of Public Art

While we're on the topic of the windy city... “The plaintiff is artist Chapman Kelley, whose Wildflower Works, a 1.5-acre garden in the part of Grant Park known as Daley Bicentennial Plaza, was deliberately hacked up by the Park District five years ago. In a mixed decision last year, a U.S. District Court ruled against Kelley's claim that Park District officials violated his rights as an artist when they shrank and changed his work so drastically as to make it unrecognizable.”

RISD Director “Forced Out”

An article out of Boston titled "Nightmare at the museum". A good look at the politics behind the shuffle at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art.

Australia Denies North Korean Artists Visas

As part of the UN block on travel from North Korea to influence nuclear policy. Here's a BBC article on the topic.

Rembrandt and Raphael Set Records at Christie's

Selling for $32.9 mil and $29.2 mil.

12/02/2009

Former Guggenheim Bibao Financial Director Sentenced to 32 Months in Jail for Theft of $750,000.

Because being the Financial Director at the Guggenheim didn't earn him enough money...

Researchers "Clone Original Pigment Colors" of DaVinci's Last Supper

Reconstructing the original look of the famous fresco.

Google Puts Iraq Museum Online

Google will create a virtual copy of the museum at its own expense, which will be available early next year.

Art Council Feeds the Hungry

A great idea here. Local artists in Vermont donate works of art for an online auction to support the Vermont FoodBank. (They raised $10,254 last year.) You can bid online @ www.vermontartscouncil.org.

Science Museum Extends Titanic Show

They'll never let go, Jack. They'll never let go.

Paris Museums Closed Due to Employee Strike Over Hiring Practices

Ooh la... what? I have to wait? The Louvre joined in this morning.

11/18/2009

Warhol Work Sells For Big Money
A Bloomberg article discussing the recent sale of Andy Warhol's "Two Hundred One Dollar Bills."

NY Times Auction House Article

Expanding on the resurgence of art auctions in the poor economy.

Museum Employee Caught For Theft

A DE man spent over $128,000 of the museum's money, over a period of years, on personal items including a flat screen TV and two all terrain vehicles... and he got caught.

Tim Burton at the MoMA

An interesting retrospective of his work opened at the MoMA. Some think it's a publicity stunt. You be the judge.

Check out the videos the MoMA is using to accompany the show(the whole video shows up in firefox, but internet explorer cuts the embeded videos in half):

Shaquille O'Neal Curates a Contemporary Art Exhibition in NY

Yes, you read that right. "This exciting exhibition, on view from February 19, 2010 - May 27, 2010, includes works from international artists exploring the myriad ways that scale affects the perception of contemporary art." Check the website for a list of artists.

China Demands Return of Artwork

Again.

New "Holocaust Restitution" Legislation in the UK

Museums in England and Scotland are now allowed to return artwork looted by the Nazis to the families of former owners, where previously established law had prevented it. (Thanks to CAS for the link)

The Electric Prado

The Google team went inside the Prado museum in Spain, and added ultra-high resolution images of some artwork to Google Earth.

Check out the Video:




How do you think this technology will affect the world of art? Can you imagine being able to access all famous works through the internet? Would it take away from the tangible nature of the museum?

The Big Art Prize

This week, as the competition reaches it's second and final week of voting, we take a look at "the largest art prize in the world." (Above is an entry from Michael Glenn Monroe and is a 20 foot high Steel and cement sculpture of a tree which is holding a kaleidoscope filled with natural items that the visitors can look through.)

Voted on by the public using modern networking technology, the ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, MI is a very unique experiment in connecting the masses to the scene of contemporary art. Here is a quote from their website:

"At ArtPrize, any artist—from established to emerging—has the chance to show work. Any visitor can vote. The vote will determine who wins the largest art prize in the world. We also took the unusual step to allow people in the city to open a venue and choose the artists to show in their space. There is not one official curator or jury for the competition. The number of venues is fluid, so the number of competing artists is fluid. The possibilities are wide open."

Some tidbits:
Top prize: $250,000
Dates: September 23 - October 10
Winner is determined by public vote
All attendees of the event can vote
Top 10 entries will receive a prize (Totalling $500,000)
Multiple artists can collaborate on an entry
Artists may only submit one entry
Property owners/renters in downtown Grand Rapids can become a venue
Number of artists represented is only limited by number of venues that become available

Here is a clip made by one of the top contenders, Rob Bliss, who gathered 20,000+ people to watch 100,000 paper airplanes falling from the top of large buildings in the city:

SOME OTHER CONTESTANTS:

"The Red Ball": Kurt Perschke
"Through the RedBall Project I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday. Through the magnetic, playful, and charismatic nature of RedBall the work is able to access the imagination embedded in all of us. On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. It opens a doorway to imagine what if? As RedBall travels around the world people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination. I have witnessed it across continents always issuing an invitation. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the project. The larger arc of the project is how each city responds and what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination."

"Surf - N- Turf": Derek Maxfield
"A live exhibition, and an underwater colored ice and snow sculpture, these unconventional materials are used to create a three-dimensional sculpture with a main focal point being a of a stylized tiger shark swimming through its habitat.

The unique attraction will be set up in a freezer truck. The trucks over all dimensions are 26 feet long, 7.5 feet wide and 11 feet tall. The sculpture will be viewed at the rear of the truck through a window. A 10’X 10’ platform or stage will be used to raise the viewers to look through a 5 foot by 5 foot window into the truck. Sculpting ice at above freezing temperatures will be interesting to see.

I enjoy the idea of turning water into art. The essential ingredient for life itself, H2O covers a staggering 70 percent of earth’s surface. A human body is comprised of 60–70% water and a plant body up to 90%. Sculpting water in it’s solid state then seeing the metamorphosis into a liquid when melted or a gas when it sublimates has always intrigued me."

Check out more at the top 100 list!: http://www.artprize.org/artist-top100List

Art at the White House

The news has been full of art and politics this week.

First, we'll take a look at the presidential tradition of selecting works on loan to be displayed in different areas at the White House. Two big articles covered this story, the NY Times called the choices "bold and modern." The Washington Post analyzed the politics behind each choice. Both articles have great slideshows.

Above, a work on display: Edward Ruscha – I think I’ll . . . – National Gallery of Art·

Here is a list of the presidential picks this year, courtesy of Reuters:

Loaned art in the Residence·
Josef Albers – Homage to the Square: Elected II – Hirshhorn Museum·
Josef Albers – Homage to the Square: Midday – Hirshhorn Museum·
Josef Albers – Study for Homage to the Square: Nacre – Hirshhorn Museum·
George Catlin – A Crow Chief at His Toilette – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Camanchees Lancing a Buffalo Bull – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Grassy Bluffs – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Mired Buffalo and Wolves – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Cheyenne Village – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Grizzly Bears Attacking Buffalo – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Game of the Arrow-Mandan – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – A Foot War Party in Council-Mandan – National Gallery of Art· George Catlin – Ball-Play Dance-Choctaw – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Buffalo Chase, with Accidents – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – Catlin and Indian Attacking Buffalo – National Gallery of Art·
George Catlin – K’nisteneux Indians Attacking Two Grizzly Bears – National Gallery of Art· Edward Corbett – Washington, D.C. November 1963 III – National Gallery of Art·
Edgar Degas – Dancer Putting on Stocking – Hirshhorn Museum·
Edgar Degas – The Bow – Hirshhorn Museum·
Richard Diebenkorn – Berkeley, No. 52 – National Gallery of Art·
Nicolas De Stael – Nice – Hirshhorn Museum·
Sam Francis – White Line – National Gallery of Art·
Winslow Homer – Sunset – National Gallery of Art·
Jasper Johns – Numerals, 0 through 9 – National Gallery of Art·
William H. Johnson – Booker T. Washington Legend – Smithsonian American Art Museum· William H. Johnson – Children Dance – Smithsonian American Art Museum·
William H. Johnson – Flower to Teacher – Smithsonian American Art Museum·
William H. Johnson – folk Family – Smithsonian American Art Museum·
Glenn Ligon – Black Like Me #2 – Hirshhorn Museum·
Giorgio Morandi – Still Life – National Gallery of Art·
Giorgio Morandi – Still Life – National Gallery of Art·
Louise Nevelson – Model for “Sky Covenant” – National Gallery of Art·
Susan Rothenberg – Butterfly – National Gallery of Art·
Mark Rothko – Red Band – National Gallery of Art·
Edward Ruscha – I think I’ll . . . – National Gallery of Art·
Alma Thomas – Sky Light – Hirshhorn Museum·
Leon Polk Smith – Stretch of Black III – National Gallery of Art·
Unknown Artist – Chief Jumper of the Seminoles – National Gallery of Art

Loaned art in the West Wing·
Frank O. Salisbury – President Harry S. Truman – Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri – Cabinet Room·
Lucy M. Lewis (Acoma Pueblo) – Vase – National Museum of the American Indian – Oval Office·
Jeri Redcorn (Caddo) – Bottle: Intertwining Scrolls – National Museum of the American Indian – Oval Office·
Steve S. (Iroquois) – Jar – National Museum of the American Indian – Oval Office·
Maria Poveka Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) – Jar – National Museum of the American Indian – Oval Office·
Samuel F. B. Morse – Telegraph Register patent model – National Museum of American History – Oval Office·
John A. Peer – Gear Cutter patent model – National Museum of American History – Oval Office·
Henry William’s 1877 steamboat feathering paddlewheel patent model – National Museum of American History – Oval Office

Loaned art in the East Wing·
Alma Thomas – Watusi (Hard Edge) – Hirshhorn Museum – East Wing

Not yet placed·
Mark Rothko - No. 17 [or] No. 15 - National Gallery of Art

THE NEA AND THE WHITE HOUSE
The White House was also in the news this week for some controversy surrounding their communication with the NEA. A phone conference between artists and a White House staffer encouraging them to create artwork about their community was interpreted by some as politicizing the NEA. Turns out the person that brought up supporting Obama's policies was an artist, and not a member of the administration. It was and still is a conservative talking point. Here are some articles about it, along with the 44-page transcript of the meeting:

Fox News Coverage

A brief NPR mention

MediaMatters "debunking" the Fox News report

The Full Transcript