“Before the Sistine Chapel meeting, the invited artists are being taken on a guided tour of this collection which includes works by Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland, Matisse and Georges Rouault. They will be gently encouraged to make a gift of one of their works to the Vatican collection.”
Tag: 11.21.09
Is Precious Ghetto Pathology Porn? Black Americans Debate
Critic Armond White wrote, “Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious.” Responds the novelist Sapphire, “With Michelle, Sasha and Malia and Obama in the White House and in the post-Cosby Show era, people can’t say these are the only images out there.”
Savion Glover’s Feet Lead A Jazz Combo
“The subtext of the week’s performances [at the Blue Note] – with McCoy Tyner, Roy Haynes, Eddie Palmieri and Jack DeJohnette as guests on various nights – is that Mr. Glover is a musician. The raised wooden board beneath him isn’t just his stage; it’s his instrument, with eight microphones underneath.”
High Tech Trompe L’Oeil: Augmented Reality As An Artistic Medium
“Augmented reality (AR) has been touted as the bridge between the physical and virtual worlds, as new technologies add information to real-world environments.” A new exhibition titled “Give Me More” uses AR “to reveal hidden layers of meaning associated with ordinary objects. … Storybooks become animated, t-shirts bestow powers on their wearers, and Euro notes show their more salacious face.”
‘The Book Of Omens’: Divining The Future With A Persian ‘I Ching’
“Reading the future and shunning possible mishaps is mankind’s oldest dream. In 16th-century Iran and Turkey, … it inspired some of the most intriguing book paintings ever. These were prompted by a peculiar literary genre, the Fal-Nameh, or Book of Omens, which took off around the 1560s and lasted at least until the early 18th century.”
‘The Limits Of Verisimilitude’: Trompe L’Oeil Through The Ages
Surveying the history of artists’ attempts to fool their viewers, from Ancient Rome through Giotto and the Flemish masters to American tricks with pictures of money and sculptors who made rock look like bronze and porcelain resemble wood.
Financial Crisis Wallops LACMA’s Investments, Donations
“The Los Angeles County Museum of Art saw its investment portfolio lose nearly a quarter of its value during its 2008-09 fiscal year.” In the same period, contributions to the museum fell by $100 million – nearly 80 percent – from the year before.