February 24, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 5:30 am
The long list of nominees for the 2010’s Art Fund Prize is dominated by multimillion pound projects and national institutions that total up when combined to cost over £230m, with a few of the larger projects including the Conflicts of Interest project at the National Art Museum, which cost £573,000, and the Darwin Centre at the National History Museum which cost £78m.
Team leader for the Conflicts of Interest exhibit, Mairead O’Hara stated that she was excited and thrilled to hear that it was included on the long list, stating that they are proud to be behind the project and overjoyed that their efforts were recognized by the art world. The exhibition spans the last forty years, and thus the project was built in flexible terms so that the content could stay current.
The Art Fund Prize is worth £100,000 and will be given to the project that is chosen as the best example of excellence, originality, and imagination.
There are 11 contenders in the running for the prize this year including the Asmolean Museum, Ulster Museum, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Great North Museum, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, the Leach Pottery, Towner Eastbourne, Hampton Court Palace, and the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
The list will be cut down to a short-list of four which will be decided and released by the close of May, and the final winner will be declared on the 30th of June.
The judging panel consists of Lars Tharp, Jonathan Yeo, AC Grayling, and Chairwoman Kristy Young.
February 17, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:52 am
A Devon arts centre may have to close soon due to problems with funding. In order to keep the Centre for Contemporary Art and Natural World open in Haldon Forest Park about £140,000 per year of funds will need to allocated or found.
However, the Devon County Council and the Arts Council, the two main funding sources, are not able to guarantee support, and the county council has also officially stated that it cannot guarantee its support during 2010.
Usually the Arts Council matches the funding that is received from the Devon County Council, but this year without money coming from the council it is not certain how they will receive funding.
Johanna Korndorfer, the learning centre manager, Johanna Korndorfer, commented to a news station that the centre is a great place for leisure activity because it helps to inspire creativity and stimulate imagination. She added that they often get many people visiting who normally would not go to a visual arts centre.
Inside of the centre is a twenty mile network of walks, an outdoor theatre area, and views across the Teign Valley, and the forest, these are areas for on site art teaching and experience in a stunning location. Also on the grounds are children’s play trails and cycle trails.
January 28, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 5:39 am
Apparently, all it takes is one second to ruin the worth of a classic painting as a clumsy lady learned at the New York Metropolitan Museum.
The woman tripped against a Picasso painting that was formally worth around £80m and brought down its value to around £40m after causing a six inch tear.
Experts stated that while they can fix the painting, which by the way is Picasso’s The Actor, it will never again be worth what it was unharmed.
Professional appraiser Gerard van Weyenbergh stated that reducing the painting by only half of its value is being generous because at an auction one of the first things that people are concerned about is the condition of the painting and if any restoration work has been done of the piece.
The Picasso piece features a male in a pink costume and dates back to 1905. At the time of the incident was on display at the Met’s second floor gallery of Picasso works. Museum officials refused to name the woman who tripped, but did generously state that she was not injured in the incident.
Since then, the painting has been taken off display and moved to the conversation studio to be assessed and repaired. Luckily enough, due to the fact that the tear occurred in the lower corner of the painting, the repair should not drastically alter the appearance of the painting.
It was originally donated to the Met in 1952 by the daughter of Chrysler’s founder, Thelma Chrysler Foy.
January 27, 2010
Filed under: Art News, Exhibitions — admin @ 7:21 pm
UK street artist, Sickboy presents Logopop Bristol, a solo exhibition of new limited edition work and a site-specific installation in Bristol this February. It will be Sickboy’s second Logopop show in the UK, and hs is returning to Bristol where he established himself as a graffiti artist. The month-long exhibition is taking place at the Friend & Co gallery.
According to the PR:
“Sickboy recreates the lysergic symbolism that underpins much of his work, presenting a new collection which unravels the relationship between the artist’s complex and imaginatively-detailed artworks and his signature simple, bold and raw urban interventions. In addition to original artworks, the artist presents his Logopops series – artworks available in various sizes which can be interconnected to create bespoke, one-off compositions of Sickboy art.”
For further information, please visit: http://friend-and-co.com
Friend & Co: 24 Park Row, Bristol, BS1 5LJ, UK
Open to public: February 6-27, 2010.
Opening times: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00
Sickboy’s website: http://www.thesickboy.com/
Filed under: Art News, Exhibitions, Photography — admin @ 9:15 am
A Manchester-based photographer and digital artist has found growing interest in his work from the Far East. Andrew Brooks, whose work has been exhibited at URBIS and CUBE Gallery, has been creating quite a stir in Japan, Taiwan and China.
Brooks was unaware of this popularity until he saw a magazine article published in the Popular Photography magazine praising his talent and futuristic style. After that it wasn’t long before huge numbers of visitors nearly crashed his website all of them coming from Japan, Taiwan and China. This was followed quickly by features on gigazine.net and fengniao.com as word of his work began to spread.
“It seems like it was one of those things that happened just through people seeing my photographs on my website as I’d never really targeted it as a potential market for my work,” says Brooks – who last year had his Hidden Manchester show named as one of the URBIS gallery in Manchester’s most popular exhibitions. “The coverage clearly sparked a lot of interest in my work and it’s been incredible to see all these visitors and offers of work coming in from the East. I know that there’s another eight-page feature in a Taiwanese magazine coming up, so I’m just getting ready to deal with the surge of interest that could create!” says Brooks.
At the end of 2009 late last year Brooks was invited to the prestigious China Pingyao International Photography Festival in the province of Shaanxi and a meeting with the one of China’s leading exhibition curators Teng Haolong who discussed the potential for a British photographer to become big in the East. Brooks as he was able to spend some time capturing cityscape images of some of China’s supercities as well as landscapes of the countryside and temples out East, before returning home to Manchester.
As he says, “I’m thrilled that there’s so much interest in my work from the East and fortunately there’s still a huge demand for my work in the UK, so with any luck it looks like I’ll be kept busy this year!”
Website: http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com
January 18, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:34 am
The art charity run by Andrew Lloyd Webber is under fire for letting Webber use one of the paintings from the collection valued at £6m to promote a Webber show playing in the West End.
The charity trustees gave permission for the JW Waterhouse painting of St. Cecilia to be placed outside of the Palace Theatre in London to promote the musical production of Woman in White.
However, the board was criticized by the Charity Commission for making it appear that its founder was able to benefit from the charity’s works. The Commission felt that the placement of the St. Cecilia was meant to benefit the founder of the charity monetarily which was not acceptable.
In its report the Commission stated that trustees need to manage the perceptions that certain decisions may leave the public with so that the public does not lose confidence and trust in not only the Webber charity, but any other charity group in general.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation purchased the St. Cecilia in 2000 for £6.7m with money that was donated from Webber.
A portion of the cost was also fronted by the gift aid scheme that allows charities to get out of paying the tax on a donation.
According to charity law, the painting should have been made available to the public for viewing but not in a way that would benefit Webber. Outside of this mistake, the Commission did report that most of the charity’s works were focused for the public benefit.
January 6, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:05 am
People have wondered about what Mona Lisa is gleaming about in her captivating gaze for many years, but until now it has never been contemplated that she may have had a medical problem.
However, a medical expert from Italy, Vito Franco the Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Palermo, claims that the gleam in her eye may in fact be because she had high cholesterol which result in fatty acids that surrounded her eye socket.
Franco claims that Mona Lisa’s eyes clearly show that she is afflicted with a plethora of diseases that could include everything from kidney stones to bone malformations.
His findings were presented in Florence at a European congress on human pathology.
Franco stated that he takes a different look at art than a normal expert in the same way that a mathematician will look at music differently than a music critic. He also mentioned that he had already analyzed over 100 works of art in the past but focused mostly on the La Stampa which belongs in the category of Old Masters.
According to Franco there are signs in the old paintings that show signs of illness in mythical heroes, angles, and Madonnas or at least in the people that sat for the painting sessions.
One other illness that he reports is of the Portrait of a Young Man which hangs in Washington at the National Gallery. The man portrayed has ‘spider fingers’ which is a clear sign of Marfan syndrome that is also seen in the painting Madonna which hangs in Florence.
December 30, 2009
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 3:57 am
UK scientist Martin Baily is claims that Vincent Van Gogh may have cut off a portion of his left ear due to the fact that he was afraid to lose the support of his brother Theo.
According to Baily, Vincent learned that Theo planned to get married shortly before he cut off his ear, which prompted him to do so out of fear that his brother may not support him after his marriage.
The scientist claims that the evidence is present in the 1889 painting Still Life with a Plate of Onions which was created shortly after Van Gogh hacked at his ear with the razor blade. Within the painting is an envelope that Baily believes may have been the letter containing news about the impending nuptials.
The painting belongs to the Dutch Kroller Museum collection where Bailey studied it and noted that the envelop has a circle with the number 67 on it which is the official postal stamp of a post office located close to Theo’s Monmartre apartment.
The Parisian postal museum stated that the mark was only used on letters sent in December which confirms that Van Gogh received the letter around the time that he sliced off his ear on December 23rd.
Baily was led to his conclusion also due to a letter that is still preserved that Theo wrote to his finance in which he mentions that after visiting Vincent his brother knew that he was talking about marriage and that he told Theo marriage should not be viewed as the most important part of life.
December 22, 2009
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:49 am
A new set of documents shockingly proved that hundreds of sculptures, paintings, and other pieces of artwork have been damaged while under the supervision of the leading galleries and museums in the UK.
Among the works damaged are pieces by Tracey Emin and Andy Warhol and include dinosaur bones and a doll house. In one specific case a complete steam engine was destroyed by accident. A few items were damaged to the point where they had to be scrapped, while others required thousands of pounds worth of renovations.
The National Galleries of Scotland were responsible for eight damaged pieces of art, including the Andy Warhol painting Mark of the Beast and the Tracey Emin piece My Uncle Colin. The Tate Modern damaged Ishi’s Light, 2003 by Anish Kapoor when a film cameraman hit it.
Paintings were also damaged by poor supervision at the Tate, which saw damage twice in one year to Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon: once when a child left fingerprints on it and another incident in which it was dented by a child.
For the most part, the documents found that incidents were most likely to occur while a painting or work was being taken down or installed by staff. For instance, at the London National Gallery Domenico Beccafumi’s painting Marcia was broken in two when being removed from the wall. An adhesive failure was blamed for the incident which led to repair costs.
The Victoria and Albert Museum also damaged a 15th century Christ figure while removing it at the cost of £1,600 in repairs.
December 10, 2009
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 8:47 am
John Pistone was one of the first US soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler’s home in the Alps near the end of World War II. As he went through Berghof he noticed an album of photos that he decided to take home with him.
64 years later Pistone has finally learned that the album of photos and sketches were actually meant to show all the artwork that Hitler wanted included in a museum that he planned to build in Linz, Austria called ‘Fuhrermuseum.’
The album of photos will be given back to Germany in January said the US State Department. Currently Germany has 19 additional albums that were found at Hitler’s home that were all part of the collection of works that were possibly to be included in the Linz collection.
Pistone found out the value of his book by mistake when a friend took note of the book on Pistone’s bookshelf and decided to look it up on the internet. The friend found that the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art based in Dallas, TX had restored two other albums that detailed stolen art from Jewish families by Nazis.
The founder of the group, Robert Edsel, went to Ohio this past autumn and took a look at the album only to determine that it was part of the missing albums from the series of photos for the Linz museum.
Edsel stated that his foundation on average gets a call every day about an object that they are curious about.
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