Category: visual

The federal government is not happy with the town of Tournal, where, after years of argument and discussion, a crane pulled apart the bridge over the Scheldt, in sections. “A crowd on the river’s banks audibly reacted when some of the brickwork was seen falling into the water on Friday. Many watching a live stream on the website of the regional television station, Notele, wrote of their sadness at saying ‘goodbye’.” – The Guardian (UK)

“Sotheby’s Mei Moses found that between 2012 and 2018, sales results rose just eight percent for men, while women saw the price for their work go up an astonishing 73 percent. By comparison, the study found that resale markets for men and women had been about the same over the 50 previous years.” – Artnet

Andrea Scott: “Of course, the major power dynamic at play in this story is the one between art and money. For too long, patronage of the arts has come with patronizing attitudes toward artists—that they should be grateful for funding, no matter its source. The obscenely inflated contemporary art market—whose metrics are based on auction results, from which artists don’t see a penny—has created the impression of art as a playground for the wealthy. But the delusion that art is an oasis in which beauty is truth and politics are irrelevant is more risible than it ever has been. Art isn’t made in a vacuum, and neither is money.” – The New Yorker

“It explicitly states that the cathedral must be rebuilt as it looked before the fire … and it limits derogations to the existing heritage, planning, environmental and construction codes to the minimum.” The new law also lays out the structure of a new agency to be created to oversee the reconstruction. – The Art Newspaper

“Beijing brags about its humming art scene. Galleries thrive. The art schools possess a certain frisson. Art is widely taught in elementary schools. But shrouding all this creative fervor is the meddling hand of the government. Censorship is rife in literature, and film. Although few art shows have been closed in the last few years, exhibitions are self-censored, and many artists choose to work abroad to escape the official tastemakers.” – The New York Times

“The idea that an old building becomes inauthentic if it is seamlessly restored is a credo that has been repeated so often it’s easy to forget that this was not the way that buildings were repaired in the past. It was the custom among the ancient Chinese, when an important building was damaged or destroyed by earthquake or fire, to simply rebuild as if nothing had happened.” – The American Interest

“Between 2010 and 2015, [Timothy] Sammons is said to have pocketed money from art he sold for his clients” — including works by Picasso and Chagall — “and used art that did not belong to him as collateral to obtain personal loans.” – Artnet

“The 75-year-old [José Berardo], who has been described as the ‘Portuguese Charles Saatchi,’ used his 900-piece collection — which includes works by Picasso, Bacon, and Basquiat, among others — as collateral for bank loans of nearly €1 billion … The majority of the works are on loan to the Berardo Collection Museum in Lisbon, one of the country’s most visited art museums.” – Artnet

“Arc Majeur, an imposing 250-tonne steel structure [that will be 60 meters tall], will stand over the busy E411 between the city of Namur and Luxembourg, a spot chosen partly on the basis that a driver’s view will be unencumbered by any lampposts.” – The Guardian

In an Instagram post that has received tens of thousands of likes, children and adults can be seen playing and interacting on both sides of the fence using the seesaws, which provide “a literal fulcrum” between the countries. – The Guardian