Arts news

• Why auctioneers are buying into forensics

  12-02-2017 22:00
  
  Forensic scientists usually stay behind the scenes, shining a strong light on fine art. Sothebys appointment of James Martin as its director of scientific researchand its acquisition of the firm he founded, Orion Analyticalhas turned the spotlight on the experts.
  Prior to the recent art market boom, scientific laboratories for art were mostly the preserve of institutions. But in recent years, small businesses focused on conservation have begun offering some types of analysis to private clients.
  
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• Second phase of restoration work on Mont St Michel begins

  12-02-2017 22:00
  
  France's Centre des Monuments Nationaux is continuing its multi-stage restoration of the island abbey of Mont St Michel. This year the Norman-Gothic cloister and its 13th-century courtyard garden will get a 2.2m makeover. This follows repairs in 2016 to the 19th-century gilded-copper statue of Archangel Michael that tops the abbey spire, and earlier projects to restore the roof and stained-glass windows.The abbeys site and topography presented its builders with particular architectural challeng
  
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• Court ruling forces German convent to exhibit Nazi artist

  12-02-2017 22:00
  
  The heirs of Erich Klahn, a Nazi artist whose work for churches contained racist and Germanic symbols including swastikas and runes, have won a court battle that will ensure his art continues to be displayed in a convent in northern Germany.
  In 2014, after uncovering Klahns Nazi leanings, Klosterkammer Hannover, a regional public authority responsible for managing property that once belonged to the church, cancelled a contract with Klahns heirs that obliges it to keep and display his works. In
  
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• The gender imbalance in art cannot be glossed over | Letters

  12-02-2017 21:02
  
  The systemic prejudicial gender imbalance of male/female artists perpetuated in both public and private galleries (The art gap, G2, 7 February) could be remedied. Publicly funded galleries could sell existing artworks to fund female parity, while having a part moratorium on the purchase of male artists’ work until equality is reached in, say, a maximum of 10 years’ time.The current unfair situation has had a positive effect on my own work, leading me to make art about art itself. My
  
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• On my radar: Olafur Eliasson’s cultural highlights

  12-02-2017 11:00
  
  The artist on his admiration for documentary maker Adam Curtis, Ethiopian jazz poetry and the meditative power of archeryDanish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is known for his large installations, including The Weather Project, an indoor sun shrouded in mist, at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2003. After attending the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1995, he established a studio in Berlin, where he now lives. In 2003, Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th V
  
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• Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932 review – when anything was possible

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  Royal Academy, London
  From singing peasants to Soviet mugshots, history shapes everything in this momentous showLenin, dead at 53, appears in monumental close-up in an open red coffin. The queuing mourners, also painted on the spot, are diminutive by comparison. Six years later, in 1930, he is revived as a lifesize portrait of intellectual power, working on his writings (the chair opposite significantly empty, as if inviting the passing worker to join the dialectic).Lenin grows into a bronze col
  
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• David Hockney review – sunshine superman

  12-02-2017 09:00
  
  Tate Britain, London
  From sunny California to the landscapes of his native Yorkshire, Hockney’s humanity and optimism are never far away, as this sprawling retrospective showsThe morning I visited the Tate’s comprehensive David Hockney retrospective, TV crews from around the world were flitting importantly from room to room, presenters offering shorthand pieces to camera in front of A Bigger Splash or Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. One American critic was essaying so many takes of her o
  
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• Vandals target display of multifaith artworks at Gloucester Cathedral

  12-02-2017 01:04
  
  Artist hits out at Islamophobia after exhibition on various religions sparks death threats and accusations of blasphemyControversial artworks on display at Gloucester Cathedral in an exhibition celebrating a spectrum of religious beliefs have been stolen and vandalised.The art show, Faith, put together by portrait artist Russell Haines, was at the centre of an international row last month when Christian groups heavily criticised the use of Islamic images and the reciting of a Muslim prayer insid
  
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