Category: visual

How Clyfford Still, For Better And Worse, Kept Iron Control Over The Market For His Paintings

“In 1951, the Abstract Expressionist stopped working with galleries and became his own dealer. He continued to paint for nearly three decades, retaining complete authority over his canvases’ whereabouts: Until his death in 1980 at age 75, no one could purchase a Still on the primary market without going through the artist himself. This was no easy task. Content to live and paint in Maryland, selling the occasional work in order to get by, Still made admirers prove themselves worthy of his art.” – Artsy

Notre Dame’s Risky New Phase

The removal of melted scaffolding requires “three levels of steel beams to be positioned around its exterior to form a stabilising “belt”. Once this operation is complete, the same firm that built the scaffolding (Europe Echafaudage) will start to dismantle it, using telescopic crawler cranes that will allow roped technicians to descend into the forest of pipes and gradually cut them away after having coated them with a protective layer to avoid spreading the pollution caused by the melting of the lead roof.” – The Art Newspaper

Modernist Architecture Is Uncomfortable, Doesn’t Wear Well, And Depresses People. So Why Did It Catch On?

“The single undoubted success of the modernist movement was to spread through clever propaganda: first by co-opting the term “modern,” then by covering up a long string of practical failures. Buildings in the modernist canon weather poorly, and post-occupancy evaluations are largely negative.4 To promote such viscerally unattractive architecture, modernism’s supporters had to deprecate the neurological and physiological responses of its users.” – Inference Review

How Many ‘Goya’ Paintings Were By His Studio, Not His Own Hand?

And, of course, in a larger sense, does it matter? Well, it matters for the money, of course. “Juliet Wilson-Bareau, a Goya scholar, told the Observer that museums must re-examine their Goya holdings because there are so many ‘problematic’ pictures. She regularly sees auction houses and dealers selling works under Goya’s name when she is convinced that they are by lesser hands.” – The Observer (UK)