Arts news

• Phillips Hires Matt Carey-Williams and Damien Whitmore

  17-12-2014 23:46 via artnews.com
  The Art Newspaper reports that Phillips auction house, which gained a new chairman this July in Christie’s veteran Edward Dolman, has made two high profile hires recently. The company named Matt Carey-Williams deputy chairman of Europe and Asia and Damien … Read More
  
  Read more

• In the Flesh review – startling realism in a journey from intimacy to acceptance

  17-12-2014 23:28
  
  National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
  This thematic survey of what makes us human, including works by Ron Mueck, Sam Jinks and Patricia Piccinini, is a breath of fresh – if sometimes cool – air
  The mission statement of Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery is all there in the title: to represent to the nation the faces of Australians historical and contemporary via the generic language of the portrait, mostly in painting, but also occasionally in sculpture and photography. While the gallery h
  
  Read more

• Edgar Peters Bowron, MFA Houston’s European Art Curator, Will Retire

  17-12-2014 23:21 via artnews.com
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston announced today that its long-serving curator of European art, Edgar Peters Bowron, is stepping down. Bowron joined the museum in 1996 from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where he was senior … Read More
  
  Read more

• Maccarone Will Show Cecily Brown This May

  17-12-2014 22:56 via artnews.com
  Earlier today the painter Cecily Brown showed off a small painting on Instagram with the note that “Small paintings will be at Maccarone May 2015.” A spokeswoman with the New York gallery confirmed that a show is planned for that … Read More
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Why aren't the British Comedy Awards funny?

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  The British Comedy Awards turned 25 this week. Twenty five years of gongs, gaffes and riotous, lightly embittered backslapping.
  
  Read more

• Not even Jonathan Ross and Jack Whitehall can make the British Comedy Awards 2014 funny

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  The British Comedy Awards turned 25 this week. Twenty five years of gongs, gaffes and riotous, lightly embittered backslapping.
  
  Read more

• MoMA talks about race

  17-12-2014 21:48
  
  Show to reunite Jacob Lawrence’s 60-panel work about African American migration North
  
  Read more

• Cézanne Painting Will Come to Market for the First Time Since 1936

  17-12-2014 20:51 via artnews.com
  Paul Cézanne’s Vue sur L’Estaque et Le Château d’If will be sold at the Impressionist & Modern evening sale at Christie’s London on February 4. The painting comes from the collection of Samuel Courtauld, founder of Courtauld Gallery and Institute … Read More
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• How Online Is Powering The Art Market

  17-12-2014 17:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Far from competing with physical fairs such as Art Basel, digital and social media have become an integral part of the event. In addition to 73,000 visitors, Art Basel Miami has 300,000 Facebook followers, 150,000 Twitter followers and 100,000 on Instagram.”
  
  Read more

• The Frick Museum Has Been Evolving Since It Was Created (So Maybe A Little Historical Perspective Is In Order?)

  17-12-2014 17:28 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Past behaviors offer little guidance when deciding what and what not to keep. Change is messy; preservation must be balanced against needs, but also against quality of experience.”
  
  Read more

• War, Peace And A Culture Of Exceptionalism

  17-12-2014 17:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The most famous ceasefire was among British and German regiments around Christmas Eve. German soldiers actually decorated their trenches with Christmas trees and began singing carols. British forces began singing back, and in a matter of hours over 100,000 troops were unofficially crossing into disputed territory to sing, exchange gifts, and celebrate with one another. […]
  
  Read more

• Cathy Henderson obituary

  17-12-2014 17:20
  
  My sister, Cathy Henderson, who has died aged 51, was an artist who was gaining increasing recognition in Ireland and beyond.In early 2012 she was selected as co-designer, with Robert Ballagh, of the 1913 Lockout Tapestry, a big collaborative project between the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin and the Irish trade union Siptu to commemorate the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout, in which more than 100,000 people engaged in a battle for workers’ rights. Despite her diagnos
  
  Read more

• A Proposition: I’ll Pay You What You Paid For Your African Art (And Nothing More)

  17-12-2014 17:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  To encourage private collectors in the West to repatriate such pieces, Shindika Dokolo hopes to set up a war chest funded by Angolan businesses, including the State oil firm Sonangol, to reimburse buyers who purchased such items in good faith. “I want to organise a business club around the idea of heritage and start buying […]
  
  Read more

• The Essential Ballet? It’s About Generosity

  17-12-2014 17:07 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Again and again among dancers and teachers, I saw examples of generosity that were not simply random, but intrinsic to this world. The real-life counterparts of the ballet teacher who nurtures Billy Elliot and his talent turn out not to be the exceptions but the rule. The die-for-your-art histrionics of The Black Swan and The […]
  
  Read more

• ‘Tis The Season For Kitsch (So Here’s Why Kitsch Is Bad – And Good)

  17-12-2014 17:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Kitsch, in other words, is not about the thing observed but about the observer. It does not invite you to feel moved by the doll you are dressing so tenderly, but by yourself dressing the doll. All sentimentality is like this – it redirects emotion from the object to the subject, so as to create […]
  
  Read more

• OMG! Our City Is OVERRUN With Nutcrackers! WHY???

  17-12-2014 16:58 via feedproxy.google.com
  “I would call our Nutcracker The Great American Way Nutcracker! You get your Nutcracker in a half an hour, you can sit with your family, enjoy coffee, bagels, muffins, a balloon twister and dancing with the Nutcracker characters. And… photos with Santa! No mall lines!”
  
  Read more

• Have You Ever Noticed How Violent Kids’ Cartoons Are?

  17-12-2014 16:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Rather than being the innocuous form of entertainment they are assumed to be,” writes a research team led by Ian Colman, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Ottawa, “children’s animated films are rife with on-screen death and murder.”
  
  Read more

• Freer And Sackler Galleries Put Images Of All Their Art Online (Here’s Why)

  17-12-2014 16:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The technology pushes the boundaries of what it means to be a museum because it allows for unrestricted study and enjoyment of the collection. Next month’s release will include at least one image of each work — the majority in high-resolution — and the collection will be searchable and largely downloadable for non-commercial use.”
  
  Read more

• The Problem With Academic Books (For Everyone Involved)

  17-12-2014 16:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  “There are certainly university press books that sell 350 books and that’s a copy sold to literally everybody in that sub-field and some libraries. So, that’s 100 percent market saturation. I consider that a kind of victory for a book.”
  
  Read more

• Virtual-Reality Art Gets Real

  17-12-2014 15:30 via artnews.com
  Last March, Facebook spent around $2 billion to buy Oculus VR, a virtual-reality company founded by 22-year-old Palmer Luckey. Mark Zuckerberg called Oculus “a new communication platform,” and spoke of sharing “entire experiences and adventures” through the use of the … Read More
  
  Read more

• Morning Links: December 17, 2014 Edition

  17-12-2014 15:27 via artnews.com
  A Cézanne at Christies is expected to bring in $12 million, thanks to Chinese interest. [Financial Times] Marc and Arne Glimcher of Pace Gallery buy $5.6 million condo on Madison Square. [New York Post] “Amy Adams got the ultimate seal … Read More
  
  Read more

• Olafur Eliasson review – intoxicating grotto of wonders

  17-12-2014 14:43
  
  Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
  The alchemist of the art world effortlessly transports us into the sublime with a warren-like world of awe-inspiring optical illusions
  Romantic art is not dead. It glows on, a blazing horizon, in the work of Olafur Eliasson.Eleven years ago, Eliasson set the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern alight with a gigantic illusory sun that was the most seductive and entrancing project ever staged there. It became a psychedelic happening, where people lay on the floor,
  
  Read more

• Olafur Eliasson conjures a delightful grotto of lights and wonder in Paris

  17-12-2014 14:43
  
  Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
  The alchemist of the art world effortlessly transports us into the sublime with a warren-like world of awe-inspiring optical illusions
  Romantic art is not dead. It glows on, a blazing horizon, in the work of Olafur Eliasson.Eleven years ago, Eliasson set the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern alight with a gigantic illusory sun that was the most seductive and entrancing project ever staged there. It became a psychedelic happening, where people lay on the floor,
  
  Read more

• Where I work: artist Paula Rego’s north London studio

  17-12-2014 13:56
  
  The Portugal-born artist on her space, her working day and what music she listens to as she works on a pictureI am not a tidy person. My studio, in north London, is full of things. I have wash-basin that’s not plumbed-in that was used as a prop for a painting. I’ve got a lot of dolls, and a lot of different animals; all like different characters in a play. I move them around as I tell the story for my picture. My favourite, at the moment, is Francesca, who has pigtails. Sometimes I need to h
  
  Read more

• Barcelona elevates design to a new level

  17-12-2014 11:21
  
  Museo del Disseny brings together city's historic collections
  
  Read more

• Rowan Moore’s top 10 exhibitions of 2014

  17-12-2014 11:00
  
  Parking lots in Los Angeles, arty wind tunnels, Dada collages and 1960s visions of future living – Rowan Moore picks his favourite shows of the yearParking lots in Los Angeles, water towers in Ruhr factories, wooden churches in the Depression era: when it comes to architecture, photographers have a taste for the overlooked. They like to seek out places with the aura of an architectural signature, the glamour of a famous name. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• “Scandalous Desecration”: Restorers Paint Walls Of Chartres Cathedral; Architecture Critic Flips Out

  17-12-2014 10:26 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Looking upward we then saw panels of blue faux marbre, high above them gilded column capitals and bosses (the ornamental knobs where vault ribs intersect), and, nearby, floor-to-ceiling piers covered in glossy yellow trompe l’oeil marbling, like some funeral parlor in Little Italy. How could this be happening, and why had we heard nothing about […]
  
  Read more

• Oldest Surviving Example Of Polyphonic Music Discovered By Chance In British Library

  17-12-2014 10:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The scrap of music, which would have lasted no more than a few seconds, was written on the bottom of a page of a portrait of a saint and has been dated to around AD900. Although there are very early treatises on such music, the discovery is the earliest practical example intended for use by […]
  
  Read more

• All The World Really Is A Stage: Shakespeare’s Globe Actors Report Back From “Hamlet” Tour To Every Country On Earth

  17-12-2014 09:57 via feedproxy.google.com
  “On 23 April this year, to mark the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, a company of 12 actors … set sail on an epic journey. Their mission: to take the world’s most famous play – Hamlet to every country in the world … during [a] two-year-long tour … Here, in personal diary entries, the players […]
  
  Read more

• The Shakespeare Staging That Made Live Audiences Faint And Retch Will Induce Nausea At A Cinema Near You

  17-12-2014 09:55 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The Shakespeare’s Globe production of Titus Andronicus, which was so bloody it caused more than 100 audience members to faint or leave during its theatre run, is to go global as it is screened in cinemas across the world.”
  
  Read more

• 25 Women Who Drove The Culture In 2014

  17-12-2014 09:39 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Whether they sent us into a collective tizzy with their scandalous album covers or had us pumping our fists in favor of their truthful testimony, these 25 women (plus a few honorable mentions at the end) were the ones who got us talking, thinking, re-thinking, and maybe, just maybe, planning a revolution of our own.”
  
  Read more

• Sony Hackers Threaten Theaters That Show Kim Jong-Un Spoof “The Interview”

  17-12-2014 09:16 via feedproxy.google.com
  “The threat was made in rambling emails sent to various news outlets Tuesday morning. [One] said, in part: ‘Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)'” Both cinema chains and the studio are in a difficult […]
  
  Read more

• An Interview About “The Interview”, With Seth Rogen And James Franco

  17-12-2014 09:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  Rogen: “No one has officially told me our movie, 100 percent, has proven to be the cause of any of this stuff. We’re not the first people to shed light on how crazy North Korea is, the myths that exist there and the oddities of the regime.”
  
  Read more

• The great African art buy-back

  17-12-2014 09:00
  
  Sindika Dokolo is offering collectors what they paid. And no more
  
  Read more

• Overcoming conflict, India and Pakistan to share pavilion at Venice Biennale

  17-12-2014 08:57
  
  Artists from the countries will show in historic joint presentation next year
  
  Read more

• Janis Martin, Mezzo-Turned-Wagnerian-Soprano, Dead At 75

  17-12-2014 08:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  “To most opera lovers worldwide, Ms. Martin is best remembered for her potent mastery of the challenging soprano parts in the works of Wagner and Richard Strauss. She was a regular at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, dedicated to Wagner’s music, and she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper […]
  
  Read more

• Norman Bridwell, Author Of “Clifford The Big Red Dog” Books, Dead At 86

  17-12-2014 08:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  “To hear Norman Bridwell tell the story – and hundreds of millions of children around the world have read his tales for more than 50 years – Clifford the Big Red Dog almost never came to be.”
  
  Read more

• Andrew Litton Named Music Director Of New York City Ballet

  17-12-2014 08:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  “It is unusual for a symphony conductor of Mr. Litton’s stature to decide to lead a ballet company ensemble: He is the music director of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway, and was formerly music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.”
  
  Read more

• Panel that advises UK museums on Nazi-era claims faces government review

  17-12-2014 08:43
  
  Since it was created in 2000, the independent body has issued reports on 18 cases involving art lost during the Second World War
  
  Read more

• Arts Council England’s New CEO: Boss Of UK’s Classic FM

  17-12-2014 08:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Arts Council England has appointed the managing director of Classic FM, the music radio station, to be its next chief executive. Darren Henley will take over at the country’s main arts funding body in 2015, replacing Alan Davey, who leaves after seven years in the role” to become controller of the BBC’s classical network, Radio […]
  
  Read more

• Thanks To The Nobel, Americans Are Finally Paying Attention To Patrick Modiano

  17-12-2014 08:16 via feedproxy.google.com
  “One of his most famous works, Missing Person,” … had sold just 2,031 copies before the prize was announced in October, and has since sold more than 13,600 copies. … Now, a big commercial publishing house has acquired Mr. Modiano’s latest novel, with the hope of drawing more American readers to his work.”
  
  Read more

• Walking The Paris Of Patrick Modiano’s Novels

  17-12-2014 08:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  “There is probably no other writer like Modiano who invites his readers on a tour. Give me your hand, he says, and I’ll take you to the streets of Paris. He returns to places he knew many years ago, and demonstrates that very little has changed. He gives us a clear, concise, amazingly accurate map […]
  
  Read more

• Is “Gone With the Wind” America’s Strangest Film?

  17-12-2014 08:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Far from being simple, wholesome family entertainment, the film is an admiring portrait of a conniving, lying, mercenary seductress. It’s a valentine to the slave-owning South, and a poison-pen letter to the anti-slavery North. … It’s a romance that puts the hero and heroine at each other’s throats. And it’s an episodic coming-of-age story that […]
  
  Read more

• Alexei Ratmansky Recreates One Of Petipa’s Classic Ballets

  17-12-2014 07:49 via feedproxy.google.com
  Marius Petipa more or less created what we now think of as classical ballet, but very few of his works have survived intact. “Together with Doug Fullington, an expert in Stepanov notation, he[Ratmansky] has painstakingly pieced together this 1881 Petipa ballet [Paquita], created for the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg.”
  
  Read more

• Why Materialism Doesn’t Really Make People Happy

  17-12-2014 07:40 via feedproxy.google.com
  In a new press release from the American Psychological Association, “psychology professor Tim Kasser gives an interesting perspective from his research on just why placing a high value on stuff is no good. In a recent meta-analysis he published with colleagues from the University of Sussex, he found that materialism seems to undermine some of […]
  
  Read more

• Remember That Old Lady’s Botched Fresco Restoration in Spain? Best Thing That Ever Happened To That Town

  17-12-2014 07:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  “Grief [at the damaged painting] has turned to gratitude for divine intervention – the blessing of free publicity – that has made Borja, a town of just 5,000, a magnet for thousands of curious tourists eager to see her[the hapless restorer’s] handiwork, resurrecting the local economy.”
  
  Read more

• Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.16.14

  17-12-2014 07:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Restoration Scandal At Chartres Cathedral AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-12-16 The Middle Class Gets Crushed AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-12-16 Perform or Die AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2014-12-16 Recent Listening, Vinyly: Broadbent, Lowe, Horvitz, Chemical Clock, Kanda AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2014-12-15
  
  Read more

• Icelandic artists ask for €1 per head in arts funding

  17-12-2014 07:00
  But the country’s parliament slashes budget to nearly half its previous allotment
  
  Read more

• Bungaree, the first Australian: history revisited in Aboriginal art today

  17-12-2014 01:37
  
  The man who witnessed the First Fleet sailing through Sydney harbour in 1788 has inspired 16 contemporary Indigenous artists to re-interpret his responseBungaree: the First Australian is a new exhibition pondering an eccentric and compelling figure in Australian history. Bungaree was an Aboriginal man, a contemporary of Bennelong and Pemulwuy, living in the Sydney basin at the time that the First Fleet sailed through the heads at Sydney harbour in 1788.He was also an eyewitness to what followed.
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUKnews on Twitter!