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lekangbcu-blog · 7 years

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National Museum Cardiff, Gallery 21

Bedwyr Williams uses multimedia, performance and text to explore the friction between ‘the deadly serious’ and ‘the banal’ aspects of modern life. Williams is known for satirizing the relationship between the artist and curator by creating absurd scenarios for them to appear in. More recently he has explored, through video, themes of dystopia and mankind’s significance in the universe. Williams is shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award 2015 and represented Wales at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Video, in recent years, has become of particular interest after a decade working with spoken word performance. This new film work mixes media and involves collaboration using humour and bathos to explore issues and subjects including, our insignificance in the universe (The Starry Messenger, 2013) a hoarding dystopian future (ECHT, 2014) and buildings with odd angles (Hotel 70º, 2015).

His most recent work ,Century Egg, 2015, made during a residency with the Museums of Cambridge University, ponders the idea of preserving objects and the moment when ‘things’ become archived ‘things’. It will be presented at the British Art Show in 2015.

Recent and forthcoming solo shows include Whitworth, Manchester, UK; Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, IR; g39, Cardiff, UK; Vestjyllands Kunstpavillion, DK (all 2015); Tramway, Glasgow, UK for Glasgow International; Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno,UK (2014); 55th Venice Biennale for Welsh Pavillion,Venice, IT, (2013); IKON, Birmingham, UK (2012); and Kunstverein Salzburger, Salzburg, AT (2011).

https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/break-down/

Artists have been known to destroy their own work and even to kill themselves, but usually it is in a fit of despair or rage. Landy's art is quintessentially modern because it is so ruthlessly efficient, so mechanised. This work took him two years to organise. At first glance the scene inside C&A looks like a factory hard at work making things. Only up close do you see that a process of destruction is taking place which is as complex as the process of creation. – Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2001.

Break Down, Landy's strongest work to date, embodied more than a social commentary on shopping. His gesture of publicly stripping himself of his worldly goods had a spiritual dimension. He behaved as a shaman might, enacting a purge for communal ends. – Judith E. Stein, Art in America, June 2001.

Break Down was a real event, the first Brit Art gesture I have seen that transcended the new-establishment, new-elite, bad-boy banalities of Landy's contemporaries. He's a thinker, and a tough-minded one at that. Is it art? I don't know, but for once, thanks to the carefully reasoned rigour and impersonality of the project, I think so. – Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times, 11 March 2001.

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History Of The Poster: A short history of the advertising poster, which reached it's peak in Paris at the Turn of the Century. This unique hand drawn animation was created by Yaneff Design. A simple understanding.

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History Of Poster Design

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Art in Advertising

Research/ One of several posters of Le Chat Noir Cabaret in Paris by Theophile Steinlen (1896). History of Poster Art (c.1860-1980)

Contents

• Jules Cheret

• France's Belle Epoque

• Art Nouveau

• Paris in the 1900s

• Poster Art in Europe (c.1880-1910)

• The Inter-War Years: Art Deco

• After World War II

• "Art Posters" - Reproductions of Famous Paintings

Colour Poster for Perfecta Bicycles (1902) By Alphonse Mucha.

Jules Cheret

The evolution and development of poster art has always been closely linked to technical advances in printmaking, notably lithography. Thus although the lithographic process was invented by Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) as far back as 1798, it had little impact on posters until the advent of chromolithography later in the 19th century. Even then, it wasn't until Jules Cheret (1836-1932) invented his convenient "three stone lithographic process" in the 1860s - allowing lithographers to produce a wide spectrum of colours from just three stones - that low-cost colour posters at last became a reality.

Known as the "father of the fine art poster", Cheret not only developed a cheaper colour lithographic process, with richer more expressive colours, he also enhanced the aesthetic nature of the poster, endowed it with graceful designs (some influenced by Ukiyo-e woodblock prints from Japan, by artists like Hokusai and the younger Hiroshige) and transformed it into an independent work of art. Furthermore, he encouraged other painters to explore the genre: he later published his special book Maîtres de l'Affiche (Masters of the Poster), to promote the best designers. He also introduced the feminine form into his designs, for extra viewer-appeal. His female subjects became so popular that Parisians dubbed them Cherettes. In total, Cheret produced more than 1,000 posters, beginning with his 1867 advertisement for Sarah Bernardt's performance as Princess Desiree in the comedy La Biche au Bois. Honoured in 1928 with the opening of the Cheret Museum in Nice, Jules Cheret's posters, are some of the most highly sought-after items from the late 19th century.

The Barack Obama "Hope Poster" Designed c.2007 by Shepard Fairey.

France's Belle Epoque

By 1880, Cheret's new poster art form was attracting a number of other top designers such as Theophile Steinlen (1859-1923) responsible for the immortal poster "Cabaret Du Chat Noir", the great Toulouse-Lautrec(1864-1901) creator of numerous theatrical masterpieces, Pierre Bonnard(1867-1947), Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). Their chosen subject matter featured Parisian night life, notably the theatres, music halls and cabarets of the city. The growing popularity of poster art led to the hosting of a major exhibition in 1884. The poster craze peaked during the decade of the 1890s. Poster artists were transforming Parisian streets into colourful art galleries, attaining cult status in the process, and causing theatre stars to insist on choosing their own favorite artist to do the poster for their show. More poster exhibitions were held, while publishers produced extra copies of the best posters to satisfy collectors. See also: Post-Impressionist Painting (c.1880-1905).

Famous Posters by Toulouse-Lautrec - Moulin Rouge - La Goulue (1891) - Ambassadeurs - Aristide Bruant (1892) - La Reine de Joie (1892) - Avril (Jane Avril) (1893) - May Belfort (1895) - Jane Avril (1899)

Art Nouveau

Interest in the poster was further enhanced in the 1890s by the emergence of Art Nouveau, a decorative style of art marked by flowing, curvilinear shapes, and drawing inspiration from Byzantine icons, Pre-Raphaelite romanticism and the Celtic Art Revival movement. Largely reliant upon form, line and colour, Art Nouveau proved the ideal poster design, and dominated the Parisian poster scene up until the late 1900s. Along the way it attracted a host of artists, including: Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), Georges de Feure, Eugene Grasset (1845-1917) and Albert Guillaume (1873-1942). One of the first Art Nouveau masterpieces was the 1894 Sarah Bernhardt poster by Alphonse Mucha, the acknowledged master of the style. In 1896, the largest and most significant poster show to date, was held in Reims, with a display of 1,700 posters from all over Europe.

Famous Posters by Alphonse Mucha - Hippodrome, Leona Dare, 1883 - Arlette Dorgere, 1890 - Moulin Rouge, Paris, Cancan, 1890 - Yvette Guilbert, 1891 - L'Etendard Francais, Bicycles, 1891 - Casino de Paris, Camille Stefani, 1891 - Folies Bergeres, Fleur de Lotus, 1893 - Sarah Bernhardt as Gismonda, 1894 - Vin Mariani, 1894 - Aperitif Mugnier, Dijon, 1894 - Quinquina Dubonnet, 1895 - Bieres de la Meuse, 1897 - Job Cigarette papers, 1898 - Benedictine, 1898 - Moet & Chandon, 1899

Note: the Art Nouveau style had an important influence on the various secession movements in Germany and Austria, including the Munich Secession (1892), the Berlin Secession (1898) and the Vienna Secession(1897).

Paris in the 1900s

Several events led to a decline in the Parisian poster scene during the 1900s. In 1900, Cheret abandoned poster art to concentrate on painting. In 1901, Toulouse Lautrec died. In 1904, Alphonse Mucha left Paris for America and then Czechoslovakia. And from 1905 onwards, Art Nouveau gradually lost its creative edge. Then, into this vacuum stepped a young Italian artist called Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942), who focused on simplicity and impact. He appreciated the overriding need to create instant visual impact, as exemplified by his 1906 poster designs for Maurin Quina absinthe, and in so doing established a reputation as the father of modern advertising. Meantime, French poster art was further enriched by the arrival in Paris of Sergei Diaghilev(1872-1929) and the Ballets Russes, as well as the colourism and imagery of the revolutionary painting movements known as Fauvism (1905-6), and Cubism (1908-12).

Poster Art in Europe (c.1880-1910)

The poster craze spread rapidly to most of the main cities of Europe. Exhibitions of poster designs were staged in Britain (1894) and Italy (1894), Germany (1896), Switzerland (1896) and Russia (1897), and national styles soon established themselves: Dutch and Swiss posters tended to be neat, precise but restrained; German works were direct but lapsed into medieval gothic romanticism; Italian works were typically bold and melodramatic; while Russian posters were altogether more avant-garde.

Move Away From Art Nouveau

From 1905, there was a European-wide modernist trend to move away from the fussy decoration of Art Nouveau towards a simpler more function style. More and more poster artists switched from curvilinear shapes to rectilinear and geometric imagery, in order to sharpen the advertising message.

British Poster Art

During the mid 1890s most British designers, including Aubrey Beardsley, Will Owne, Dudley Hardy, and Walter Crane, tended to be heavily influenced by French Art Nouveau. Two of the first to free themselves were the "Beggarstaff Brothers" James Pryde and William Nicholson, who focused on far more simple types of design. Other UK post artists, some of whom specialized in producing works for the London Underground rail system, included Austin Cooper, Fred Taylor, Tom Purvis, Pat Keely and the American-born McKnight Kauffer.

Posters in Germany German poster design was strongly influenced by Ludwig Hohlwein. Good at eliminating all non-essential graphics, he was noted for his use of shadow versus light, as well as his portrayals of people and animals. Other German post artists included Paul Schuerich, H.R.Erdt and the great abstractionist Lucian Bernhard.

It was Bernhard who initiated the German Plakatstil, or Poster Style. This style was characterized by extreme simplicity, represented by clean lines, minimal naturalism, flat colors and precise structure, as exemplified by his Sachplakat Poster (1906) for Preister matches. This Sachplakat (in English, "object poster") was to become a whole new genre of poster advertising.

Austrian Poster Art

One of Austria's best known poster designers was the Vienna-born Joseph Binder, noted for his geometrical, montage-type colour patterns. Others include the Viennese abstract artist Sascha Maurer, whose famous ski-posters also included elements of realism, as well as the Alfred Roller and Koloman Moser.

Swiss Poster Art

Positioned in the centre of Europe and speaking three national languages, Switzerland absorbed a great deal from its neighbours France, Germany and Italy. Leading Swiss Art Nouveau designers included Theophile Steinlen(1859-1923) and Eugene Grasset (1845-1917), both of whom were active at first in France, as well as Mangold, Emil Cardinaux, Baumberger, Stoecklin and Morach. If Italian poster art grew out of opera, Swiss posters depended on the country's status as a skiing destination.

Italian Poster Art

In Italy, posters were initially developed to promote the opera, under the German Art Nouveau artist, Adolfo Hohenstein (1854-1928). Although influenced by the French master Jules Cheret, Hohenstein became known for his luscious colour combinations and dramatic design - often executed in monumental-size works - features which would soon come to characterize the Italian national style. Examples of Hohenstein's posters include his designs for: Tosca by Puccini (1896), and the dramatic Madame Butterfly (1904).

Another leading Italian designer was Hohenstein's top pupil Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868-1944). He was noted for his allegorical works, as exemplified by his award-winning design for the 1906 International Exposition. Metlicovitz's best pupil was Marcello Dudovich (1878-1962), who - partly under the influence of Franz Laskoff (1869-1918) - streamlined Art Nouveau (known in Italy as Stile Liberty) into a more modern style. Other noteworthy Italian poster artists included: Giovanni Mataloni, Marcello Dudovich, Aleardo Villa, Leopoldo Metlicovitz, Achille Mauzan, and Aleardo Terzi.

Lastly, one should not forget the peerless Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942) (see above), who was active mainly in Paris and who eventually produced over 1,000 posters during a career spanning 40 years.

American Poster Art

The leading American poster designers were William Bradley and Edward Penfield. Others included, C.E. Millard, F.G. Cooper, C.B. Falls, H.M. Meyers, Harrison Fisher and Adolph Treidler. Edward Penfield, the pioneer of poster art in America, was actually more famous for his illustration and advertising placards for Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Cutting his teeth on ink and watercolour wash illustrations, Penfield went on to produce a large number of high quality fine art poster designs, notable for their abstract style and boldly simplified shapes. Unlike the already established artist Edward Penfield, William H. Bradley - known as the "American Beardsley" - made his reputation from poster design. Famous for producing The Twins (1894), the first American Art Nouveau poster, Bradley's style blended features of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Japanese block printing and Art Nouveau. Another American who contributed significantly to poster art and illustration was Norman Rockwell. Poster art with a social message was later exploited by Ben Shahn and other members of the Social Realism movement (c.1930-45) in America during the Depression era.

Poster Art During the Inter-War Years: Art Deco

After World War I, Art Nouveau was seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant when compared to the new modernist God of Science and the dynamism of the Machine. This new technological reality was better represented by modern art movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism and others. The first flowering of this new poster style was the Soviet Constructivism movement, inspired by Kasimir Malevich's avant-garde Suprematism movement, and led by Vladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko, and El Lissitsky. Ironically, it had more influence on Western design, through its impact on the Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement, than on posters in the USSR, which would soon be forced to adapt to Socialist Realism.

In Italy, Marinetti's Futurism seemed to be the dominant style until in the early 1920s, in the hands of Futurists Nicolay Diulgheroff, Lucio Venna and Fortunato Depero, it became too aggressive and was superceded by the quieter and more nostalgic Novecento style. Artists associated with this style included Campigli, Marcello Nizzoli and Mario Sironi, as well as Boccasile, Dudovich, and Riccobaldi.

More important than Constructivism, Futurism or Novecento was a new international style known as Art Deco. Showcased at the "Decorative Arts" Exposition of 1925 in Paris, and exactly in tune with the technological criteria of power and speed, Art Deco was marked by sleek geometrical forms, and strong, even garish, colours. The movement drew inspiration from many sources including Cubism, Futurism, Plakatstil, and even Constructivism. Exponents of Art Deco poster design include the Frenchman Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, noted for his sleek ocean liner posters, the German Ludwig Hohlwein, and the Swiss designers Otto Morach and Herbert Matter.

Art Deco dovetailed perfectly with the Italian love of dynamism and drama. Cappiello and Dudovich were both leading exponents, as was Federico Seneca (1891-1976) and Severo Pozzati (1895-1983). Progress was further stimulated by Fiat and Campari, the country's largest advertisers. Among Fiat's team of poster artists were Riccobaldi, Codognato, Dudovich, Metlicovitz, Sironi, and the great Giorgio De Chirico, while Campari relied on Hohenstein, Mauzan, Sacchetti, Laskoff, Nizzoli, Sinopico, Depero and Munari. Other directions were pursued by the Bauhaus-artist Xanti Schawinsky, and Marcello Nizzoli.

NOTE: During the 1930s and early 40s, the Nazis made full use of poster art in their vicious anti-semitic campaigns, a tactic exemplified by the poster artist Hans Schweitzer (1901-80) (better known as Mjolnir). An infamous example of Schweitzer's Nazi artwas the 1940 poster promoting the anti-Semitic film, "The Eternal Jew".

Swiss Designs

In the years following World War I, Switzerland developed a clear edge in graphic design, based on their mastery of technical and creative principles from Constructivism, the Dutch De Stijl movement led by Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), and the Bauhaus Design School. An important figure inside the Swiss poster scene was Ernst Keller, who taught at the Zurich Design School where he nurtured the young group of designers who would later invent the world-famous International Typographic Style. Other leading teachers included the artists Jan Tschichold and Theo Ballmer. Other key factors which have contributed to Swiss excellence in this area, include a formidable printing industry and a willingness by the State and Cantonal authorities to invest in the necessary resources.

The Object Poster (Sachplakat)

First introduced by Lucian Bernhard (1906) the Object Poster (Sachplakat) style of minimalism was taken to a new level by Swiss designers. Examples include Otto Baumberger's 1923 textless poster for PKZ, and Peter Birkhauser's 1934 button poster also for PKZ. Meanwhile Swiss poster artists such as Herbert Matter and alter Herdeg demonstrated their advanced techniques in graphic design and photography with a series of Swiss travel posters.

Poster Art After World War II

Demise of the Object Poster

While the Sachplakat was still the No 1 style for Swiss product posters in the 1940s, thanks largely to the efforts of Basel designer-lithographers Stoecklin, Leupin, Birckhauser, and Brun, the 1950s witnessed the replacement of lithographic printing by cheaper offset printing. Other changes were also unavoidable. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, travel posters were increasingly replaced by photographs. Fortunately, Swiss graphic artists were making rapid strides in other areas. In particular, during the following decade, they launched a uniform, minimalist style known as The International Typographic Style because of its dependence on typographic elements, such as layout grids, sans serif typefaces, and black and white photography. Developed at the Basel Design School under Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder, and at the Zurich Design School under Joseph Muller-Brockmann, all of whom had trained under Keller in Zurich school, the style was ideally suited to the postwar multi-lingual global marketplace, and by the 1970s, it had become the foremost graphic style in the world. However, for commercial reasons explained below, its application in the field of poster art was strictly limited.

Decline in Poster Advertising

After World War II, advertising-posters everywhere declined in importance as the market was effectively taken over by photography, radio and later television. In addition, labour-intensive lithography was also becoming prohibitively expensive, causing advertisers to switch to cheaper but less colourful methods like offset printing and screenprinting. As a result, by the 1960s - despite exceptional campaigns by post artists Bernard Villemot and Raymond Savignac - the poster was no more than a minor genre. Designers who might previously have been attracted to posters were now moving into illustration and other graphic designwork.

Poster Art in the 1960s and 1970s

In Italy, a series of spectacular images were produced for the national film industry, by Alfredo Capitani, Luigi Martinati, Anselmo Ballester and Ercole Brini. Another great Italian poster designer of the 1950s/1960s was Armando Testa.

In addition, there was a sudden surge in Psychedelic rock posters, originated by Wes Wilson. They appeared in the late 1960s, together with other popular music graphics like Milton Glaser's poster for Bob Dylan's 1967 'Greatest Hits' album. Widespread in San Francisco and New York, the music poster movement expanded into marketing and point-of-sale with free album-posters, as well as promotional concert posters. The craze for this sort of graphic artmirrored the demand for vintage posters in Paris during the late 19th century.

Note: an iconic poster dating from the 1968 student riots in Europe, and still popular today, was the silhouette style image of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara by the American artist Jim Fitzpatrick.

"Art Posters" - Reproductions of Famous Paintings

If original advertising posters have lost their appeal for commercial companies, the "art poster", replicating a famous work of art like The Mona Lisa, remains a popular item for consumers - especially during recessionary times. Today, it is possible to buy a reproduction of almost any major painting by any important painter from the Italian Renaissance to the Postmodernist era. Online poster publishers typically stock a wide selection of the most popular works.

Designer research: BREWERY LABEL ARTIST/ Sean Dominguez is a surfer and artist, for the past 13 years, he’s been a faithful devotee of The Lost Abbey.At this San Marcos brewery, the 49-year-old artist creates labels with images drawn from Bible stories and the history of Christianity.

http://allaboutbeer.com/lost-abbey-labels/

http://lostabbey.com/people/sean-dominguez/

http://www.thebeercircle.com/lost-abbey-label-artwork/

http://www.pacificsandiego.com/food-drink/beer-breweries/art-beer-label/

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xtruss · 3 years

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Disillusioned By Two Decades of Dreams, Discerning ‘10 Illusions’ of the US From the ‘Kabul Moment’

— Shao Xia | September 26, 2021 | Global Times

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

In 2001, the US entered Kabul, and it was the Taliban who confronted the US. In 2021, the US fled Kabul in chaos, and it was still the Taliban who "sent off" the US. What's different, however, is that the Taliban updated their weapons with captured high-tech American armaments, and has learned from their opposition during the 20 years of US occupation.

This Kabul moment is far more dramatic than the Saigon moment of 1975. When the US started the war in Afghanistan two decades ago, its national strength was almost at its peak. But now the US became another superpower lost in the Graveyard of Empires, just like the Soviet Union and Great Britain. As Russian President Vladimir Putin noted, the US is now walking the Soviet Union's path.

Perhaps what the US is most worried about today is that the Kabul moment might just be the first domino to fall down and the first hole of the Broken Windows theory. History never ends. History is proceeding.

The world is undergoing a great change unseen in a century, and the momentum of change is accumulating fast. However, imperialists and hegemonists will never willingly admit their defeat, and will never honestly admit the end of "American mythology". They did their utmost to project the aura of the peak era into the shadow of today's America, and created "10 illusions" for those who yearn for America and fear America. These illusions should be considered in detail.

Illusion 1: America is invincible

Relying on advanced weapons and equipment, the US military killed numerous lives, including those of Afghan civilians, as if the operators of high-tech weapons were "playing video games."

However, in the long term, "weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor. It is the people, not things, that are decisive." Calculating the strength of the two sides is not a simple mathematical question of comparing GDP, but an analytical problem of political economy.

An economic "star" may indeed be a "black hole" in politics. For example the Wall Street titans may earn a lot, but they are also powder kegs that cause polarization between the rich and the poor, creating national turmoil. America's strength is glamorous, but it is by no means invulnerable, let alone invincible, as the Taliban has confirmed.

Illusion 2: The US could play with the concepts of grand geopolitical strategy at will

The US always boasts of its military supremacy-based strategies, while completely ignores the gap between its capabilities and aspirations.

John Gaddis, an American scholar, pointed out in his book On Grand Strategy that to succeed in geostrategy, you must recognize what kind of restrictions and constraints exist. There is a saying in Sun Tzu's Art of War, "plan before moving, gain something by stopping." Napoleon, who rushed into Russia and eventually lost the war, and Perikles, who blindly pursued hegemony and eventually lost Athens to Sparta, were unwilling to be bound by realistic conditions and stubbornly pursued their overambitious goals, thereby doomed to failure.

Today, the American hegemony is falling apart, as the Economist bluntly points out that the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan had demonstrated Biden's "Great Defeat." Under such circumstances, the US is still addicted to playing with a grand geostrategy out of its control, making excuses for the Kabul moment, arguing that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan is a great turn to the grand strategy of the Indo-Pacific, as laid out by former president Barack Obama.

Even if the US does pivot to the Indo-Pacific, regional countries might have to ponder: Will the US run away again as it did in Afghanistan?

Illusion 3: American democracy could heal itself

American democracy has died in Afghanistan, and has been admitted to an intensive care unit in the US. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is not the end of disasters in the past 20 years, but the beginning of an American political civil war in the next 20 years. We saw its origins in the forced storming of Capitol building earlier this year.

Francis Fukuyama said recently that the Afghan crisis marks the end of American hegemony, while the real crisis in the US lies in internal polarization, which will result in almost no consensus on all issues. There is no sign of American democracy healing itself. On the contrary, American democracy has become an accelerator of political division and social confrontation.

Biden came to power in the general election controversy and congressional riots, talking endlessly about vaccination and infrastructure plans, rather than taking care of the American people in their time of great need. Afghanistan issues have hit Biden's approval rate hard, leading the US into a fierce political battle before the mid-term elections. No matter what happens on the US domestic political scene, the current political division in the US will not be the worst seen, it will become worse.

Illusion 4: The US could still do whatever it wants by virtue of its position of strength

People with real strength never talk about strength all the time, but recently the "position of strength" has become the mantra of American diplomacy.

The US made use of its so-called position of strength to engage in unilateral sanctions and "exerting maximum pressure," but all its expected goals have failed. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. Anti-sanction, anti-pressure, anti-bullying. More countries and people are on the way to an era of awakening.

Americans often say, don't "bet on America to lose." This makes America look like an anxious gambler, who wants to win too much but only loses more. The international community is not a casino, and no country would like to place its future and destiny on the roulette wheel.

More peace-loving countries now stand up and say no to the US, and safeguard the morality, conscience and justice of the international community.

Illusion 5: America is 'back'

Biden made a high-profile announcement, "America is back" at the Munich Security Conference in early 2021, trying to create the impression that America is returning to the world stage and intends to expand again. However, the Kabul moment has shown that this was not the case. "America is back" has changed to "America is home." The Republican Party has sarcastically stated: "The Taliban is back, not the United States."

Whether it is the crazy withdrawal from international treaties in the Trump era, or the failure to fight the epidemic, or the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, it all confirmed what Czech President Zeman noted, Americans have lost "the prestige of a global leader."

The expansionist America needs to go home, have a physical check-up, and seek remedies while reflecting on its past. On the other hand, the US should engage in true multilateralism, learn to listen and discuss, resort to problem-solving through political dialogue instead of the wanton and futile use of aircraft and artillery.

Illusion 6: The American alliance system has been 'repaired'

The Biden administration expects to create a "Grand West" through its European allies, the Group of Seven (G7), the QUAD mechanism, the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and the "Summit for Democracy". However, the US did not consult or even inform its allies about before deciding on the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many Europeans lament that the United States merely treats its allies as a tool.

It is not difficult to tell whether it is "America first" or putting allies interest first. It is the US that forced its allies to revise bilateral free trade agreements on the grounds of trade deficit. It is again the US that hoarded scarce anti-epidemic materials such as vaccines, regardless of the demands of its allies. The fate of its interest-based alliance system is doomed as it will break up upon the exhaustion of interests.

Britain, the devoted supporter of the US in the group, has repeatedly vented its dissatisfaction with the US recently. The British defense secretary expressed the idea that the US was no longer a superpower. Britons may still remember that the US betrayed Britain and dealt the last blow to "the empire on which the sun never sets" during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. Will history repeat itself? Let's wait and see.

The Anglo-Saxons believe strongly in self-interest. "Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost." A man may be stabbed with a knife in the back as soon as it is deemed expedient to do so.

Illusion 7: Universal values are the soft power of the US

"When poor, you get no friends. When rich, you get more friends than you know." The soft power depends on the hard power. When the hard power of the US declined sharply, e.g. at the Saigon moment in the 1970s, it kept a low profile and turned from ideological diplomacy to realistic diplomacy, with Kissinger as the representative.

However, it is different this time. The Biden administration propagated "universal values" vigorously and even arranged the "Summit for Democracy" after the "Kabul moment".

"Universal values" are "luxuries" given to the "third world" by the US. At the moment of severe lack of national strength, the US, unable to fulfill its promise to the followers, has only brought disgrace on itself in Afghanistan.

The Afghans who believed in the commitment of the US for democracy were either abandoned without mercy, fell from airplanes they cling to and died, or became miserable refugees. I'm afraid it will be difficult to reproduce the highlight of "universal values" at the "Summit for Democracy" in December as we still remember the Afghan children murdered in drone strikes.

Illusion 8: The economies will continue to rely unilaterally on the US

The supremacy of the US dollar has created economic dependence on the US. The US frequently abuse other economies by using tools such as tariffs, sanctions or even decoupling when necessary.

However, the epidemic has hit the US economy continuously, and the crazy financial capital injection used as a "cure" has caused the skyrocketing of prices and inflation. The trade war with China revealed the long-standing industrial and financial problems of the United States. The US's deficit with China even rose rather than fell.

More and more countries have begun to enhance their autonomy in economy and finance. A "de-dollarization" movement has begun. Countries have started to reduce their US debts substantially, give up anchoring US dollars, and increase commodity trading in currencies other than US dollars and non-US dollar currency or gold reserves.

The dominance of the US dollar is not guaranteed by sufficient real economy and a gold standard; instead, it is endorsed by national credit. A mudslide of the dollar collapse is not far away when the US Congress continually abuses its credit without any restraint every year.

Illusion 9: America would have the last laugh on epidemic prevention and control

COVID-19 has infected tens of millions of Americans and caused more deaths than the sum of those lost in World Wars I and II, accompanied by more severe social conflicts and crisis.

In the past few days, the daily average number of confirmed cases has exceeded 150,000 consecutively. There have been over 1,000 new fatalities each day, drawing sharp criticism even from its own allies. The European Council decided to take America off the "EU safe travel list" and suggested its member countries take epidemic prevention restrictions against American travelers. Despite "natural disaster" factors at the beginning of the epidemic, America's current situation where a large number of hoarded COVID-19 vaccines still cannot reverse the tide of considerable deaths of its people can only be called a "man-made disaster".

However, America attempts to shirk its responsibility and hide its incompetence by blaming China. It declared that "China's so-called anti-pandemic achievement is the result when authoritarianism defeated "human rights" and China's "Zero-Covid" policy would lead to huge economic costs and would only make itself into an "island isolated from the world".

In fact, the countries imitating American anti-pandemic measures have had to swallow bitter pills. Europe once interrupted their lockdowns against the epidemic and is now suffering from a variant of the virus that is bouncing back. India, passively taking measures for epidemic prevention and control, has been completely trapped in uncontrollable consequences. Vietnam, a country that relaxed its vigilance during the fight against the epidemic, has been faced with tough results.

America may have false hopes that vaccines will save its people from misery, the economy would reinvigorate itself, and it would successfully shirk its responsibility for its repeated mistakes in the fight against the epidemic. Please wake up. The result can only be that, American measures against the epidemic will meet the final failure, American people will be the victims, and the whole world will have to face the resulting consequences.

Illusion 10: America could determine the development of history

30 years ago, the dissolution of the Soviet Union once gave America a reason to cheer. The "end of history" has made America unreasonably believe that it could determine the development of history.

Today, history does not advance straight along the designed route of "end of history", instead it shifts to other paths. Today, America stands against global trends of history, and heads towards a mirage of ideology built on hegemonism and neoliberalism. The "American myth" has been stricken by a financial crisis, Donald Trump's failed administration, failure in the anti-epidemic fight, riots on Capitol Hill, defeat in Afghanistan, and America has arrived on the brink of an edifice falling apart under the weight of its own dreams.

It should be remembered, America's historical view was built on its short story of 250 years, and thus it has no concept of "sunset", only "sunrise". There has never been any era of America solely. America was, is and will be only a country in the era.

— The author is an observer on current affairs. [email protected]

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itsiotrecords-blog · 7 years

Link

http://ift.tt/2qQ7GHo

Artwork can sell for millions of dollars, so it’s always a newsworthy event when someone discovers a new piece by a famous artist. The vast majority of found art is found in storage units or secure vaults, but in some cases people have found incredible artwork where you’d least expect.

#1 Nazi Artwork In Tiny Apartment In 2012, police discovered a collection of over 1,300 pieces of art in a small Munich apartment. Most of the work had been feared destroyed during Nazi rule in Germany. The collection had belonged to the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had used his position on the Nazi Commission for the Exploitation of Degenerate Art to hide away and sell a huge number of paintings. The artwork, most of which appeared to have been acquired legally, was inherited by his son, Cornelius Gurliit. Cornelius hoarded most of the work in his small apartment, only selling pieces when it was financially necessary. Following his death in May of 2014, most of the artwork passed to a museum in Switzerland. Police only made the discovery after Cornelius was found to be in possession of €9,000 on a train. With no apparent income, tax authorities obtained a warrant to investigate his apartment. The artwork came to light during that search.

#2 Painting Found Inside Couch In 2007, a German student in Berlin bought a pullout couch at a flea market. When she unfolded the couch at home she found a small oil painting inside. The painting was a piece called “Preparation to Escape to Egypt” and has an unknown origin, though it is believed that the artist was part of the inner circle of the better known Venetian painter Carlo Saraceni. It was painted at some point between 1605 and 1620 according to the auction house appointed to sell the work. It went on to be purchased in Hamburg by an anonymous bidder for a price of $27,630, making the student 100 times what she originally paid for the couch.

#3 Tamayo Piece In Pile Of Trash A New York resident came across a painting lying in the trash while walking through Manhattan in 2003. Elizabeth Gibson knew nothing about modern art but decided to take the piece home with her. After spending four years trying to find out information about the painting she finally saw a website that listed it as having appeared on Antiques Roadshow. The painting was by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, who died in 1991. The piece “Tres Personajes” was painted in 1970 and had previously belonged to an anonymous Houston collector. It was stolen while the collector and his wife were moving and had been lost ever since. Upon learning this, Elizabeth turned it in and it went on to sell for over one million dollars. She received a percentage of the seller fee as well as a $15,000 reward for finding it.

#4 Golden Buddha Found Inside Statue A statue of Buddha dating from the 13th or 14th century was moved around various temples for a number of years before eventually settling at Wat Traimit in Thailand. This temple was not large enough to hold the sculpture so the people in charge chose to leave it outside, where it was protected only by a tin roof. In 1954, the decision was made to house the statue in a newly constructed part of the temple. While moving the statue a rope accidentally snapped and the statue crashed to the floor. Workers discovered that plaster had been chipped off and solid gold could be seen beneath the surface. After carefully removing the rest of the plaster, they found that the statue was in fact made of gold. At some point in the past, the statue had been covered in plaster and painted over. Scholars theorized it was to deter it from being stolen by hiding its value. Over time, people forgot about the gold sculpture underneath the plaster, believing it to be just another ordinary statue.

#5 Jackson Pollock Painting From Thrift Store During the 1990s, retired truck driver Teri Horton entered a thrift store and saw a strange painting. After negotiating the price down from $7 to $5, she took it home intending to give it to a friend as a gift. However, an art teacher happened to notice the painting and its unique style, and believed that it could have been the work of Jackson Pollock. Horton then went on a quest to have the painting authenticated, enlisting the help of forensic experts when auction houses would do nothing to verify it. Matching a partial fingerprint on the painting with some of Pollock’s on his art equipment seemed to prove that it was genuine. Although there is still intense debate over whether it’s authentic, she has since had numerous offers for the painting and it’s currently valued at $50 million by a Toronto gallery.

#6 Movie Poster Found Behind Artwork Laura Stouffer, an art dealer and collector, was looking through the items in a thrift shop when she noticed a print of “Shepard’s Call.” The painting shows a dog who has found a lost lamb in the snow, and was originally painted at some point between 1850 and 1880. She immediately recognized the print and bought it for a relatively low price. Intending to clean the incredibly dusty picture, she took the backing off to discover that between the frame and the print was a poster — an original window card from the 1930 classic film All Quiet on the Western Front, which theaters would have used to advertise showings. Very little memorabilia remains from the film, making the poster more valuable than the print she initially bought.

#7 Abandoned Apartment Contains Rare Painting An apartment that had been abandoned for 70 years was discovered to hold a painting by the artist Giovanni Boldini that eventually sold for $2.5 million. The original owner of the apartment had fled Paris before World War II began, but kept up payments on it despite never returning to it from her new home in the south of France. When she died in 2010, experts had to enter the home to catalog all the items and belongings. While the apartment had a number of expensive items scattered around beneath layers of dust, the painting was what immediately grabbed everyone’s attention. Although they suspected it may have been by Boldini they could find no mention of the painting in any records. However, upon searching the home further they found a note signed by Boldini himself that confirmed the painting was genuine.

#8 Venus de Milo Buried Underground This famous statue was accidentally found when a man from the Greek village of Tripiti came across it. Yorgos Kentrotas found the Venus de Milo buried underneath a field he was working in. With the help of a local farmer, Yorgos was able to dig up the entire sculpture and a number of other statues in a few hours. A French naval officer who was on the island immediately arranged for the statue to be purchased by the French ambassador. It was later presented to King Louis XVIII as a gift, who then donated the statue to the Louvre.

#9 Ancient Statue Used As Bike Rack Two Egyptologists discovered a 2,700-year-old statue of the Pharaoh Taharqa in the basement of a British museum. The statue, a piece of Kushite art, shows the Egyptian king portrayed as a god marching forward in victory. The artwork had been left in the basement of Southampton’s God’s House Tower archaeological museum for over a hundred years. The staff, unaware that the statue was of any value, had been using it as a bike rack. Its importance only became known by chance, when the two Egyptian experts were visiting the museum and noticed it. No one has any idea how anyone could leave such a historic work of art in a basement for so long. However, the statue has since been moved to its own gallery, meaning staff at the museum will have to find something else to rack their bikes on.

#10 Ancient Disc Underneath a City On February 25, 1978, a number of electrical workers were digging up roads in order to begin laying new wiring. After digging for two meters, they eventually hit a large chunk of stone. Careful excavation revealed a giant stone disk that weighed around 20 tons. The disk had a detailed carving that depicted the Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui. This discovery lead to a search of the whole area for other lost work. After demolishing blocks of apartments, archaeologists began working on digging up the surrounding land and found that it was the site of an ancient Aztec temple that had been destroyed by Spanish colonial forces. The project went on to unearth the remains of the pyramid temple along with a number of skeletal remains and smaller statues and carvings. Most of the findings are now available in the Templo Mayor Museum just 200 yards from where the original disk was found.

Source: TopTenz

#IoTRecords

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deniscollins · 7 years

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German Art Collectors Face a Painful Past: Do I Own Nazi Loot?

If you were a CEO, what would you do if informed that art displayed in your company’s lobby and in your office had been stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family during World War II and then bought by a family member: (1) keep the art, (2) sell the art, (3) return it to the pre-World War II owner, (4) donate it to an art museum or (5) something else, and if so, what? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

After World War II, few Germans with sizable art holdings made a point of digging into their collections for signs of Nazi looting.

And because private collections were off limits for those trying to track down stolen art, works of unexamined provenance have hung for decades in family homes and office corridors, the stories of how they were acquired often vague, inconsistent or simply not discussed.

But as one generation of Germans has died and given its art to the next, a number of people with prominent collections and unsettled consciences have stepped forward to investigate what they own.

“I don’t want stolen goods hanging on the wall — it’s quite simple,” said Jan Philipp Reemtsma, who hired a researcher 15 years ago to examine the collection he inherited from his father, the tobacco industrialist Philipp F. Reemtsma.

Now, to persuade more collectors to undertake such research, the German government has announced it will begin subsidizing such efforts, using money from a national fund of 3.4 million euros (about $3.6 million).

“With the new funding, we will be able to support people by helping them to find out how such objects came into their family,” said Uwe Hartmann, head of provenance research at the German Lost Art Foundation. The foundation reviews applications from art owners seeking help and awards grants as high as €300,000 (about $320,000).

Until now, public money had helped to search for looted items only in German museums and libraries. The decision in February to broaden the scope was made after the 2013 revelation of Cornelius Gurlitt’s art hoard in his Munich apartment.

Mr. Gurlitt had inherited the art from his father, a dealer for the Nazis who purchased works that had been seized from Jewish households or sold under duress by Jews desperate to flee. The case brought the issue of tainted art in private collections to the fore, raising the specter that thousands of plundered artworks might be lurking in attics and cellars.

The German government team studying the Gurlitt works has identified five that were looted or sold under duress, and another 153 that it suspects were looted.

Mr. Hartmann said in recent years that he had seen an uptick in interest by private collectors who want to understand the origins of their art. He estimates reviews of a dozen collections are underway or have been completed. His office had long received the occasional package in the mail, containing an object the sender assumed was stolen, he said. Since the Gurlitt case, the parcels are more frequent, he said.

“We received four miniature paintings with a note saying, ‘We know our father was in Ukraine,’” Mr. Hartmann said. But all he could do, he said, was to send them back and post photographs on lostart.de, an online database that carries images of art with unclear provenance.

Some owners did not need the Gurlitt discovery to pique their curiosity. In 2006, a few years after Mr. Reemtsma hired the provenance researcher Silke Reuther to study his collection, so did Bettina Horn, who runs a foundation that manages the art collection of her husband, Rolf Horn, who died in 1995.

“It is an ongoing duty,” Ms. Horn said. “If this generation doesn’t complete it, then it will fall to the next.”

Ms. Reuther did not find any looted works in either collection, although she did note wide gaps in the provenance for many of the works.

But the family-owned company Dr. Oetker, which makes baking products and other foodstuffs, has identified four looted paintings in its possession out of about 200 so far researched in an effort that stretches back several years.

One of the works, “The Portrait of Adriaen Moens,” was painted in 1628 by Anthony van Dyck and hung for many years in a quiet corridor leading to the executive suite at Dr. Oetker’s modest, red-brick headquarters in Bielefeld. It depicts Moens, an Antwerp theologian, in profile, with a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee and a voluminous black gown, resting his fingers lightly on the yellowing pages of a large, leather-bound book.

The company announced this year that it was returning the painting to Marei von Saher, the sole heir of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch dealer who fled the Nazis in 1940. The portrait was forcibly sold and passed through the hands of the Luftwaffe commander in chief Hermann Goering, the Dutch government and a London old masters dealer before being acquired in 1956 by Rudolf-August Oetker, then chief executive of Dr. Oetker.

Tracking down the original owner is part of a long process to confront a dark chapter of the company history that Mr. Oetker’s children could only begin after his death in 2007. An untersturmführer in the Waffen-SS, Mr. Oetker took over the firm in 1944 from his stepfather, a committed Nazi. After the war, he defended the company’s record during the Third Reich and venerated his stepfather’s achievements.

But Dr. Oetker had profited from its SS and Wehrmacht connections and had “Aryanized” Jewish property, as a comprehensive study by three historians revealed. After the study was published in 2013, “it became clear a second step would require a scholarly approach to research the provenance of objects in the art collection,” said Jörg Schillinger, a historian and spokesman for Dr. Oetker.

In October, Dr. Oetker announced that it had hired a researcher to investigate the company’s collection of silver and gold antiques, porcelain and several hundred paintings, largely acquired by Mr. Oetker. In addition to the van Dyck, it has announced it will return “Springtime in the Mountains,” by Hans Thoma, to the heirs of Hedwig Ullmann, a Jewish art collector who fled Nazi Germany before the outbreak of World War II.

Given German law, the heirs of the original Jewish owners must rely on the good will of private collectors. While museums are bound by the international Washington Principles — which require them to reach “just and fair solutions” with the heirs if they identify Nazi-looted art in their possession — those principles do not apply to corporate collections or private individuals, and the law protects the current holders of stolen art with statutes of limitation and other defenses.

But Mr. Hartmann, who helps run the government funding program, said the current generation is more aware of the restitution issue and willing to talk about it.

“In some cases,” he said, “this was a subject that was taboo while their parents were alive, and the children are only willing to address it now.”

Sebastian Neubauer, 31, said that he confronted some unresolved family history when his grandmother died. He and other relatives inherited “Spanish Dancer,” a painting by Gustave Doré that his grandmother had loved. She had always described it as an old family treasure, one she had saved when the family home in Leipzig was hit by a bomb in 1943 and she carried the painting and several other items away in a suitcase.

But after her death, Mr. Neubauer’s family uncovered a different story in letters sent to her by her father during World War II. Her father wrote of acquiring the painting at no cost in Paris and described it as compensation for art the family had lost in the Leipzig bombing.

“It’s pretty clear that it was stolen,” said Mr. Neubauer, a political scientist studying for his doctorate. “The story of the suitcase was true, but the painting wasn’t in it.”

The question for Mr. Neubauer, his mother and his aunt was: “Do we want to be complicit in this crime? Do we want to profit from it?” he said. “No. We all agreed we wanted to give it back to the owner. We didn’t want to keep it.”

He contacted dozens of government and museum officials, and Mr. Hartmann’s team listed “Spanish Dancer” on lostart.de.

No one has claimed the painting, which has been on the site since 2009.

“I think there are so many more stories like that, so many lost objects lurking in people’s homes,” Mr. Neubauer said. “There is a deathly silence hanging over it.”

#Art

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caveartfair · 6 years

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Hidden “Void” Discovered in Egypt’s Great Pyramid—and the 9 Other Biggest News Stories This Week

01 A team of researchers and scientists have discovered a “void” in Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza with the help of particle physics.

(via Wired & National Geographic)

In an article published in the journal Nature on Thursday, an international team of researchers detailed their discovery of a previously unknown giant “void” above the Grand Gallery of the 4,500 year-old, 50-story pyramid. With the permission of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, a group of scientists entered the Great Pyramid in December 2015 and left several bathroom tile-sized panels containing special photographic film on the floor of the queen’s chamber, an area usually closed to the public. They left the panels, made with nuclear emulsion film, there for more than three months to capture images they could later use to discover new passageways in the pyramid. The film works by recording pictures of tiny particles called muons (like electrons but heavier). The process has previously been used to observe the magma of volcanoes and the inside of Belize’s Mayan pyramids. Physicist Jacques Marteau told Wired that “it’s the same principle as X-rays,” only stronger. Overall, the team of researchers employed three independent measures to verify the 153-foot-long, 26-foot-tall space, which they’ve decided to call a “void” rather than a chamber, as its purpose remains unknown. The team will likely work with specialists on ancient Egyptian architecture as it aims to uncover the void’s ancient uses.

02 Hundreds of works from the famed trove of Nazi art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt went on view this week at a pair of exhibitions in Germany and Switzerland.

(via the New York Times)

The roughly 450 pieces, by artists including Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne, that are on view as part of the dual-venue exhibition “Gurlitt Status Report” are only a fraction of the 1,500 pieces found during a 2012 police raid of the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, Hildebrand’s son. A subsequent raid unearthed more works in his Salzburg home. The initial seizure only became public about a year later, and led to early speculation that the collection held $1 billion worth of art, estimates that have since proven wrong. The exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Bern in Bern and Bonn’s Bundeskunsthalle are the first opportunity for the public to see some of the pieces Cornelius hoarded away in his apartment after the death of his father. Cornelius, who died shortly after the discovery of his work, bequeathed the collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern, but a legal challenge to the will by a distant cousin delayed exhibition. An ongoing investigation into the provenance of the works has so far confirmed that six pieces were looted by Nazis, though many of the works on view are of dubious provenance as well. Though Gurlitt bequeathed his entire collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern, the institution has only accepted works for which the provenance has been firmly cleared.

03 Linda Nochlin, a pioneering scholar who famously shepherded feminist theory into the art-historical canon, died Sunday at the age of 86.

(Artsy)

She is best known for her essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” a searing takedown of gender inequality in the art establishment. First published by ARTnews in 1971, it shook the deep-seated patriarchal underpinnings of the art world by asserting: “The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education.” Other groundbreaking writing followed. Woman as Sex Object: Studies in Erotic Art, 1730–1970 (1973) and Women, Art and Power (1988), for instance, combined Nochlin’s incisive intelligence with her passion for communicating art’s cultural influence. Beyond her wide-ranging scholarly achievements, Nochlin is also remembered for her intellectual generosity and consistent support of aspiring art historians over her many years teaching at Vassar College. “She was brilliant, of course,” art writer and former Nochlin student Aruna D’Souza of the trailblazing historian’s far-reaching impact told Artsy. “But she was also kind and empathetic, she was funny and sharp, and most of all she treated everyone as if they had the potential to change the way she, and the field, thought about art. How empowering that was, and how refreshing, too, her determination not to reproduce herself—to support work that challenged her own views, that took unusual paths and awoke new curiosities.”

04 Thousands signed a letter denouncing sexual harassment in the art world, and Artforum contributing editors publicly criticized their publishers, as fallout from the Knight Landesman scandal continues.

(via The Guardian, Artforum, and Artsy)

Over 150 artists, gallerists, and curators, among others in the art world, penned an open letter last week addressing discrimination and harassment against women in the art industry and distributed it through social media channels with the hashtag #notsurprised. “We have been silenced, ostracised, pathologised, dismissed as ‘overreacting’, and threatened when we have tried to expose sexually and emotionally abusive behaviour. We will be silenced no longer,” it reads. Though the letter was seemingly prompted by sexual harassment allegations against Landesman, who resigned as a co-publisher of Artforum last week, it said, “the resignation of one publisher from one high-profile magazine does not solve the larger, more insidious problem: an art world that upholds inherited power structures at the cost of ethical behaviour.” Around 2,000 people signed the letter before it was released to the public. In a separate message posted to Artforum’s website Wednesday, several of its contributing editors—including Hans Ulrich Obrist and Anne M. Wagner—said they “stand with the magazine’s current and former staff in condemning the publishers’ handling of the allegation of Knight Landesman’s sexual misconduct—as reflected in their original statement.” The letter also expressed “full support” for David Velasco, who assumed the role of editor-in-chief after his predecessor, Michelle Kuo, tendered her resignation from the role on October 18th. “We expect the magazine’s publishers both to assume responsibility and to take all action necessary,” the letter stated. Following the publication of the contributors’ letter, Artforum’s publishers reached out to each of them individually to tell them the publication’s original statement from October 24th, which called the complaint “unfounded,” was made in response to the legal suit and was “in no way intended as a defense of Knight Landesman or any of his actions.” They added, “as publishers, we assume complete responsibility for the statement, despite the profound regret we feel for the making of it.”

05 Cyber criminals are stealing “large sums” from galleries, dealers, artists, and collectors by impersonating them in email correspondence.

(via The Art Newspaper)

The theft involves “straightforward email deception,” in the words of The Art Newspaper. Thieves hack into the email accounts of art dealers and collectors, monitoring their correspondence. When a legitimate sale has occurred and an invoice is sent to a purchaser for payment, the thieves send a follow-up email to the buyer from the seller’s account claiming that the details of the legitimate invoice were incorrect. The buyer is then told to wire funds to a different bank account belonging to the criminals, who then move the money, so that both buyer and seller are unable to recover funds after the deception is discovered. London dealer Laura Bartlett only realized she’d fallen victim to the scam after she called a U.S. client after not receiving payment for a sale. The collector had wired funds to the account of the scammers, who then used the client’s account to send Bartlett a series of emails promising payment and stalling her inquiries. “This particular sale was going to pay a lot of bills,” said Bartlett, who shuttered her gallery shortly after the fraud. Other times, the fraudsters send a gallery or art fair accountant an invoice from the email account of an internal source asking for funds to pay for a fictitious service. Global gallery Hauser & Wirth and Tony Karman, president of EXPO Chicago, were both targeted, but detected the fraud and avoided any loss of funds. The thefts and attempted thefts have raised awareness about the need for cybersecurity across the art industry, which is not known for being on the cutting edge of technology.

06 A judge in a Massachusetts court heard arguments on whether to grant an injunction against the proposed sale of works from the Berkshire Museum’s collection.

(via ARTnews)

The roughly two-hour hearing at Berkshire County Superior Court on Wednesday grew contentious as lawyers for each side debated whether the board of the museum had breached its fiduciary duties and been honest and transparent with its members. They also debated whether the plaintiffs, who include museum members and the sons of Norman Rockwell, whose donated works are due to be sold for tens of millions of dollars on November 13th, had legal standing to pursue the museum in court. The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Courtney Aladro filed a motion Wednesday to join the suit as a plaintiff in case others were found to lack standing. Judge John A. Agostini said in closing “that he would rule as soon as possible, and thanked the crowd for its attention,” ARTnews reported. Agostini had noted at the opening of the hearing that the courtroom typically didn’t see such crowds “except for a few large murder cases.”

07 Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith reported a third-quarter loss of $23.5 million—slightly better than expected—during the company’s earnings call Friday.

(via ARTnews)

The auction house’s total revenue over that period was $171 million, beating projections by roughly $60 million. The $23.5 million overall loss amounted to a $0.45 net loss per share, above an anticipated $0.67 per share decline (the third quarter is typically the slowest for the New York auction house). Some of the better-than-expected results can be chalked up to $7.4 million that Sotheby’s set aside in 2013 for a potential tax liability. When the statute of limitations on that liability expired, Sotheby’s was able to count that money as income, boosting third-quarter bottom line. “Such an action provided a one-time discrete cash infusion that, while relatively insignificant, made a ripple in this most uneventful of quarters, and was responsible for a $0.14 per share benefit,” reported ARTnews. Smith also cited sales in Hong Kong, the scheduling of which meant they were included as part of the company’s third-quarter this year, for the uptick. Total sales for the auction house nine months into the year are up 13%, according to Smith.

08 Police seized a $1.2 million ancient bas-relief from a dealer at The European Fine Art Fair.

(via the New York Times)

Last Friday afternoon, prosecutors and police officers entered the Park Avenue Armory, the New York home of The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), with “with stern expressions and a search warrant,” reported the Times. They left after seizing an ancient limestone relief depicting a Persian soldier from the booth of London-based antiquity dealer Rupert Wace. While police did not provide details around the evidence underpinning the warrant, some experts suspect that the work—which was unearthed during a 1933 excavation of the ancient region of Persepolis, in modern-day Iran—left the country after the Persian government passed a law in 1930 prohibiting the export of antiquities. An Iranian cultural official told the Tehran Times that the relief had been stolen, and “legal follow-ups are underway to first prove that the relic belongs to Iran and finally repatriate it.” But Wace maintains he purchased it legally, telling the New York Times that “this work of art has been well known to scholars and has a history that spans almost 70 years.” He said an art collector donated the bas-relief to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in the 1950s, where it hung until it was stolen in 2011. Authorities recovered the work in 2014, but the museum kept the insurance money it received and left the work to AXA, the insurance company that Wace said sold him the object. As of Friday, the Manhattan district attorney had yet to make any arrests in connection with the seizure.

09 Artist Sean Scully’s former assistant has been arrested for allegedly stealing a triptych and later offering it at auction.

(via Hyperallergic and the New York Post)

Brooklyn-based artist Arturo Rucci purportedly stole a small three-panel painting from Scully’s Chelsea studio in 2011 before consigning it to Bonhams Auction House. Scully contacted the NYPD when the auction house called to confirm the authenticity of his 1985 work (valued between $400,000 and $600,000) and he realized it was missing. The 50-year-old Rucci has seen modest success as an artist himself since leaving Scully’s employ, exhibiting in various New York galleries and selling work for sums hovering just below $2,000. Pieces by Scully, a famed Irish artist, on the other hand, have appeared at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chicago’s Art Institute, and London’s Tate Modern, among other institutions. They generally sell for upwards of $1 million. Police arrested Rucci on Thursday, charging him with “criminal possession of stolen property,” according to the New York Post

10 London architecture firm dRMM won the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize for its rehab of a disused pier in Hastings, England.

(via dezeen)

The winning plan transformed the 1872 pier into a wide-open deck with a visitor’s center clad in reclaimed wood. The large, unadorned deck allows flexibility in how it is used, departing from the typical pier plan that has a lot of commercial spaces, such as restaurants or cafes. The design also has “a grand external staircase that doubles as a performance space,” according to dezeen. The annual RIBA Stirling Prize goes to a project “judged to have made the biggest contribution to British architecture in the past year,” dezeen reported. The judges said dRMM’s pier project had “evolved the idea of what architecture is and what architects should do.” Shortlisted twice before, dRMM’s final victory this year follows last year’s selection of Caruso St John Architects for designing Newport Street Gallery in south London.

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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