Articles

An environmental group has filed a lawsuit alleging that lead pollution from the April 15 fire that destroyed the spire and damaged the roof of Paris’s Notre-Dame cathedral is endangering the health of nearby residents.

Paris (AP) - The chief architect of France's historic monuments says he's afraid that the heat wave sweeping Europe could cause the vaulted ceilings of fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral to collapse. Dozens of sensors dotted around the 12th-century monument have shown no indication that it's deteriorating, but architect Philippe Villeneuve is worried.

The ancient urban complex of Kom el-Dikka has been excavated by Poland’s Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology (CAS since 1960. Polish archaeologists work in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities. Kom el-Dikka is a neighborhood in Alexandria, Egypt. Now an important archaeological site, Kom Al Dikka was a well-off residential area in Graeco-Roman times, with impressive villas, bathhouses and a theatre.

The Bauhaus existed for only 14 years in Germany, but for 100 years its ideas have now been passed on and its products relaunched, imitated and further developed. Marking the centenary of the Bauhaus’s founding, the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung’s exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie is presenting famous, familiar and forgotten Bauhaus originals and recounting the history behind the objects.

Born on December 28, 1865, Félix Vallotton was a Swiss French painter and a lover of the theatre. His theatrical, stage-like paintings have often been overlooked by Western critics, but his ability to capture images that seem to suggest something unsaid, something lurking beneath the surface, paved the way for several European and American artists including Edward Hopper.

Art collector and patron Frieder Burda has died at the age of 83. Burda made a name for himself as an entrepreneur and avid art collector. In 2004 he opened the private Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, southwest Germany. It houses more than 700 works of modern and contemporary art with a particular focus on German Expressionism and American Abstract Expressionism. The building was designed by architecht Richard Meier.

Throughout his entire career, from his debut in the 1860s up to his final works after 1900, the Opera formed the focal point of Degas’ output. It was his “own room”. He explored the theatre’s various spaces - auditorium and stage, boxes, foyers, and dance studios - and followed those who frequented them: dancers, singers, orchestral musicians, audience members, and black-attired subscribers lurking in the wings. This closed world presented a microcosm of infinite possibilities allowing all manner of experimentations: multiple points of view, contrasts of lighting, the study of motion and the precision of movement.

The Board of Directors of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center today announced the appointment of Leslie Koch as its next President. Koch succeeds Maggie Boepple, the Perelman’s current President who has worked on the project since 2012 and will continue to serve as an advisor.

The exhibition will be divided into two broad sections. The first, Histories of women, includes works from several regions, styles and pictorial genres, from the 16th to the late 19th century, including portraits, still lifes and landscapes, aside from historical and religious scenes.

"As a teacher, he has accompanied many students and given them the opportunity to grow," commented Jan Cools of the Artistic Research Department at the school. “He has always remained true to himself as an artist. His work was less figurative - he was mainly interested in color, light, time and space. "

German painter Eberhard Havekost has been found dead. He died on Friday, July 5 in Berlin. He was 52 years. The news was broken by Havekost's Dresden-based gallery owner Frank Lehmann on Saturday.

The hunt is on for an ancient Tutankhamun artefact, that could have been stolen in the 1970s, after it was sold in London for $6 million. Less than a week after the 3,000-year-old artefact was sold at Christie's auction house in London, Egypt's National Committee for Antiquities Repatriation (NCAR) asked Interpol to 'issue a circular to trace' it.

"I think that art has not such a social role that contemporary society would like us to believe. Especially when it is used as a substitute to real politic or education to try to badly fix a certain lack of social cohesion, economical fragility or cultural poverty. At this level, society's expectations of the unifying and restorative potential of art (and artists) are totally disproportionate".

To ensure the smooth progress of renovations in the Salle des États and maintain optimal visiting conditions, the Musée du Louvre has decided to temporarily transfer the Mona Lisa to the Galerie Médicis (room 801, level 2, Richelieu wing). The painting will remain there from July 17 until work in the Salle des États is completed mid-October 2019. One of the Louvre’s largest rooms, the Galerie Médicis can accommodate the many visitors wishing to see Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece. The Mona Lisa will be displayed in a temperature-controlled protective case specially designed for the painting.

The market for Russian art is one of the strangest in the auction world. It plays out in London – for the quasi-exclusive benefit of Russian dealers and collectors who jet in from Moscow. Its biggest sellers are artists beloved by Russians – who, to international collectors, appear little-known and over-priced. The market is not the preserve of Sotheby’s and Christie’s – but also involves their smaller cousins Bonhams and family firm MacDougall’s, launched in 2004 exclusively to sell Russian art.

The Egyptian Ministry of Antiques opened El-Lahun Pyramid for the first time on Friday, June 28, coinciding with the celebrations of 30 June. Although the pyramid has been closed since its entrance was discovered up until now for restoration works, the ministry has decided to open it up for the public to visit.

Kate Fowle has been appointed Director of MoMA PS1, it was announced today by Agnes Gund, Chairman of the Board of MoMA PS1, and Glenn D. Lowry, The David Rockefeller Director of The Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Fowle, until recently the Chief Curator at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, and currently director-at-large at Independent Curators International (ICI) in New York, succeeds Klaus Biesenbach, who departed MoMA PS1 in October 2018 to lead The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Ms. Fowle will assume her new role as Director of MoMA PS1 on September 3.

"Outdoor sculpture is hardly an over-reported area of the Art Market so, when I heard that an international selling-show was taking place this Summer on top of a Normandy cliff, I set off to investigate. Not just any old cliff: the cliff in Etretat where Claude Monet painted his famous Impressionist seascapes in the 1880s.".

O’Keeffe herself often commented that the colour and form of the flowers was more important than the subject matter, suggesting that she was interested in the natural form and capturing its beauty. Several feminist critics have praised O’Keeffe’s work as capturing feminist themes far ahead of their time. Certainly, in the era in which she was working, O’Keeffe was in a male-dominated world and was repeatedly reminded of her gender and otherness as she moved through the art world.

Conservator Ruth Hoppe got the surprise of her life when she looked at the x-ray of Wisteria. This masterpiece, one of three paintings by Claude Monet (1840-1926) in Gemeentemuseum Den Haag’s collection, was removed from the museum for the first time several months ago and taken to the conservation studio. To investigate the damage to the canvas Hoppe had it x-rayed and had several other tests carried out on it.