Articles

Arts Minister Michael Ellis has placed a temporary export bar on a 16th century marquetry casket from the historic Newbattle Abbey, Scotland, in a bid to keep it in the country. The treasure, considered one of the most important early pieces of South German furniture in the country, is at risk of being lost unless a buyer can be found to match the £750,000 asking price.

The Whitney Museum of American Art announced yesterday that it had acquired 300 works of art in the last six months. As a result of these acquisitions, 60 new artists and collectives have entered the collection.

Dan Robbins, an artist who created the first paint-by-numbers pictures and helped turn the kits into an American sensation during the 1950s, has died. He was 93. Robbins, whose works were dismissed by some critics but later celebrated by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, died Monday in Sylvania, Ohio, said his son, Larry Robbins.

The acknowledgment will be awarded on Saturday, 11th May 2019 at Ca’ Giustinian, Venice, during the opening of the Biennale Arte.

'It was just a theory, but I thought: what if the king asked for the next best thing: a faithful copy made by Leonardo on canvas. The latter was a new medium in those days. I started to go through the archives in France and Florence and in the latter found a letter where the king of France asks the Signoria to send Leonardo to work for him for a while. So, da Vinci goes to Milan a second time as the painter of the king, why? Because he’s making a copy of the Last Supper.'

The Bulgarian-born artist, famous for wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin along with his late wife Jeanne-Claude, will cover the massive monument with 25,000 metres of silvery-blue recyclable material.

A 2,600-year-old seal bearing the name of an official who served in the court of a First Temple period king has been discovered in the City of David in Jerusalem. The seal reads “(belonging) to Nathan-Melech, Servant of the King.”

Edinburgh Printmakers at Castle Mills, Dundee Street, will open to the public on Saturday 27 April 2019 with The Politics of Heritage vs. the Heritage of Politics by German printmaker Thomas Kilpper, a site specific floor carving commissioned to mark the organisation's move into the major new development and responding to the social history of the building. The new institution for the Scottish capital is the former headquarters of the North British Rubber Company.

Café Müller is a piece originated by Pina Bausch in 1978. The performance took place for the first time on May 20th, 1978 at the Wuppertaler Opernhaus with music by Henry Purcell, set design and costumes by Rolf Borzig with collaboration by Marion Cito and Hans Pop. The same evening were shown four performances by the choreographers Pina Bausch, Gerhard Bohner, Gigi-Geokjrghe Caciuléanu and Hans Pop, all under the same title and with communal aspects on stage: Four people at a table.

The Matching Pair vases by British artist and potter Grayson Perry go on permanent display inthe V&A’s world-famous Ceramics Galleries. Created in 2017 in response to the huge social and political rift caused by Brexit, each vase depicts supporters of Leave and Remain.

London’s Royal Academy of Arts has just opened a splendid new exhibition on ‘The Renaissance Nude’, charting depictions of the naked body in Europe from 1400-1530 in a range of different media media, from painting to sculpture, from engravings to illuminated manuscripts. Highlights include Titian’s Venus Anadyomene, from the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, and Bronzino’s St Sebastian, from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

The second part of the interview with Jean-Pierre Isbouts focuses on his study of Leonardo’s two Mona Lisas, the identity of the portraits’ sitters, and a da Vinci anniversary celebration announcement.

In 2019, the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig is awarding the Wolfgang Hahn Prize to Jac Leirner. For many years now, the work of the Brazilian artist (b. 1961 in São Paulo) has engaged in a subtle analysis of social and representational systems. Found, often industrially produced everyday objects play an important role here; following the principle of collecting, accumulating, and classifying, Leirner uses them to create installations, collages, and sculptures.

Researchers conducting provenance research into the Gurlitt art trove have identified the painting “Quai de Clichy” by Paul Signac as Nazi-confiscated art. The research finding has been confirmed by international review experts. A claim has been registered for the return of the painting. The painting was among the hoard of artworks discovered at Cornelius Gurlitt’s home in Salzburg. A report containing details of the painting was entered into the Lost Art Database in 2016.

The country's culture ministers met to prepare a joint statement on how museums and institutions should deal with items acquired during the colonial era. A Cape Cross pillar is to be returned to Namibia.

"I believe that the artist can create and talk about art only from his/her subjective position.To have a political responsibility that extends beyond the artistic territory is too much of a burden which could jeopardize the artist's creativity and freedom. In such a case, the art serves a function, becoming a manifesto. Art should not fulfill a function, it should be free. "

A Crucifixion by Pieter Brueghel the Younger was stolen Wednesday morning from a church near la Spezia in Liguria, local sources said. The work disappeared from the church of Santa Maria Maddalena at Castelnovo Magra. The thieves appeared to have been working on commission, police said.

Thieves who stole a Flemish master's painting of the crucifixion from a church in northern Italy this week are in for a disappointment: police say they had secretly swapped the original for a fake.

Jean-Pierre Isbouts - one of National Geographic’s best-selling authors- has been studying and following Leonardo da Vinci’s paper trail for 40 years. He’s written about the Italian’s career and legacy, the identity of the Mona Lisa, and the secrets behind his Last Supper. Some of Isbouts findings defy our most common conceptions of the da Vinci’s life and work.

'The philosophy is to use VR to address some of the main problems in physical displays like museums which are about costs, scalability and revenues. Also, the experience of art is getting worse. The philosophy is to make art universally accessible.'