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– THE BIG STORY –
The Google Art Project, that futuristic ultra-high-def virtual mapping of some of the world’s most important art museums, has just taken an enormous step toward its goal of bringing the best publicly viewable art online by announcing the participation of 134 new institutions around the globe, from the White House art collection to museums in Qatar and Japan. Modeled on the its epochal Google Street View offering, the Project now features multibillion-pixel reproductions of 32,000 works spanning the entire range of art—and it’s showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. So, is this a good thing? Well, it’s a great thing, mainly, particularly for someone looking to learn about art in, say, Kuala Lumpur, who would have a hard time ever making it to a universal museum. Two cherished traditions it might possibly erode, however, are the quasi-religious quality of the unique, original object that Walter Benjamin termed its “aura”—an idea whose time is up?—and the practice of truly virtuosic, art-historically informed painting, since everything will be flattened no matter what resolution and technique will be much harder to discern for anyone who foregoes the in-person experience of art.
– QUOTE OF THE DAY –
“They have 15 cameras around my house, and now I have four of them in my bedroom and around my home. This is to mark the day one year ago when they detained me. But this is also a gift. This is a chance for people who miss me or who feel sad about my disappearance to see me anytime with the click of a computer. It’s a kind of gift for them.” – Ai Weiwei on installing cameras to film a 24-hour live video stream onto the website weiweicam.com to parody his surveillance by the Chinese government, which has deprived him of his freedom for one year now on account of his outspoken art. Chinese officials shut down the website yesterday, 48 hours after it went live.
– MUST READ –
Now That’s Art Fair Food! – With the Armory Show’s much-vaunted farm-to-table food fizzling badly this year, the Frieze Art Fair isn’t taking any chances, signing up the critically acclaimed eateries Frankie’s Sputino, Roberta’s, the Fat Radish, the Standard Biergarten, and Intelligentsia Coffee to create a fine-dining wonderland on Randalls Island. (NYT)
Visionary Editor Uncovers Kurt Cobain Art Trove – Maer Roshan, the famed journalist behind Radar magazine, has discovered four forgotten paintings by the late Nirvana frontman in the course of reporting a story on Courtney Love, who now hopes to include the works in a Cobain memorabilia auction that is hoped to fetch up to $100 million. (The Fix)
Cambodian Statue Impounded at Sotheby’s – U.S. Homeland Security agents are seizing a multimillion-dollar 10th-century statue from the auction house’s New York office on behalf of the Cambodian government, which believes it was looted during a 1970s civil war from the site of Koh Ker. (NYT)
Photos Developed Only in the Mind – Linda Yablonsky takes an admiring look at photographer Will Steacy‘s new book Photographs Not Taken, which features writings by everyone from Mary Ellen Mark to Alec Soth about the pictures that they declined, for one reason or another, to capture with their camera. (Artnet)
– ART MARKET –
Blazing Nudes Lead Christie’s Sale – The auction house’s May 8 contemporary sale will be headlined by a 1962 Yves Klein fire painting of two naked modes and a 1976 Francis Bacon canvas of a similarly unclothed man jotting something down, both estimated to sell for up to $40 million. (Bloomberg)
Very Pretty Bowl Sells for $26.7 Million – A flower-shaped Song Dynasty bowl said to be “the color of the sky after rain” and made in the fabled, long-lost Ru kilns—said to have produced the finest ceramics ever made—sold for that whopping price at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, shattering the record for Song ware into little tiny bits. (Artinfo)
Chinese Contemporary Art Soars Too – Sotheby’s also had strong results in its contemporary auction in Hong Kong, with Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline: Big Family No. 2 going for $6.7 million and Fang Lijun‘s 1993 No.4 fetching $3.7 million, both significantly over their estimates. (WSJ)
– IN & OUT –
Elizabeth Catlett, a sculptor and printmaker whose often abstracted yet emphatic art drew on the African-American experience, has passed away at age 96. (NYT)
The Seattle Art Museum has announced that it will permanently install the artist Doug Aitken‘s Mirror, an LED piece showing scenes of natural beauty from the Pacific Northwest that will change according to the time and the seasons, on the institution’s façade. (Post-Intelligencer)
Los Angeles art tycoon Eli Broad is going to receive an honorary doctorate from the Otis College of Art and Design, where he will deliver the keynote graduation speech on May 12. (Press Release)
The Michener Art Museum has named Lisa Hanover as its new director, hiring her from the director’s post at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College. (Inquirer)
The Brooklyn Museum has expanded its gift shop into a 4,150-square-foot emporium that places an emphasis on objects made by Brooklyn-based designers. (NYT)
Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art has received $10 million from megacollectors Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson to rename the MCA Theater the Edlis Neeson Theater. (Press Release)
