| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | Established in 1996 | Friday, December 9, 2011 |
| | Experts stumped by mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago
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Marks carved in the bedrock over 2,800 years ago, are seen in an archeological excavation in the city of David near Jerusalem's Old City. The mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have archaeologists stumped. AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner.
By: Matti Friedman, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP).- Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have archaeologists stumped. Israeli diggers who uncovered a complex of rooms carved into the bedrock in the oldest section of the city recently found the markings: Three "V'' shapes cut next to each other into the limestone floor of one of the rooms, about 2 inches (5 centimeters) deep and 20 inches (50 centimeters) long. There were no finds to offer any clues pointing to the identity of who made them or what purpose they served. The archaeologists in charge of the dig know so little that they have been unable even to posit a theory about their nature, said Eli Shukron, one of the two directors of the dig. "The markings are very strange, and very intriguing. I've never seen anything like them," Shukron said. The shapes were found in a dig known as the City of David, a politically sensitive excavation conducted by Israeli government archaeologists a ... More |
| Lincoln-signed copy of 13th Amendment restored at Presidential Library and Museum | | Marian Goodman Gallery presents photographs by Canadian artist Jeff Wall | | Dianne Lister, ROM governors recognized as top fundraising executive and woman of influence | 
Sharon Paschke, conservator at Graphic Conservation Co., looks over a rare, restored copy of the 13th Amendment that ended slavery. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast.
By: Tammy Webber, Associated Press
CHICAGO, IL (AP).- Time had taken its toll on the nearly 147-year-old document, its surface creased and buckled, its inscriptions faded and an edge yellowed by old adhesive. But the rare copy of the 13th Amendment that ended slavery, signed by President Lincoln and lawmakers who voted for it, still was beautiful to James Cornelius and Russ Maki when they pulled it from a vault at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. "I was overwhelmed to see it," said Cornelius, the Springfield museum's curator, who longed to display the original document, instead of the facsimile visitors see now, during the museum's celebration of the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's presidency. "But it looked up close like the rolling hills of northwestern Illinois, and I was worried about continuing deterioration ... More | | 
Jeff Wall, Boxing, 2011. Colour photograph, 84-5/8 x 116-1/8 in. / 215 x 295 cm. Photo: Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- Marian Goodman Gallery announces an exhibition of new photographs by Jeff Wall which will open on Friday, December 9th and will be on view through Saturday, January 21st. The exhibition will present pictures created over the last two years. In these new works the artist continues to address the neo-realist and near-documentary concerns at the core of his practice for the past decades. In a separate installation, in the adjacent North Gallery Viewing Room, three pictures created in Sicily in the Fall of 2007 will be shown together for the first time. Over the course of Jeff Wall’s career, his versatile and disciplined approach to the possibilities of the medium of photography to ‘paint modern life’ has resulted in a body of work notable in its attention to composition, scale, color and construction and for its hybrid integration of the documentary and the cinematographic, the ‘stree ... More | | 
This recognition highlights the leadership at the ROM and provides a valuable public platform to profile the world-class philanthropic work of the ROM Governors.
TORONTO, ON.- Robert Farquharson, Chairman of the ROM Governors, congratulates Dianne Lister, President & Executive Director of the ROM Governors, for being acknowledged as one of Canada’s Top 25 Women of Influence and as one of Canada’s top 20 professional philanthropic fundraising executives for her contribution to the publication of Excellence in Fundraising Canada. This recognition highlights the leadership at the ROM and provides a valuable public platform to profile the world-class philanthropic work of the ROM Governors. In September 2011, Dianne was named one of Canada’s Top 25 Women of Influence among some of Canada’s most talented women across the business, NGO, professional services, health and public sectors. Women of Influence Inc. is dedicated to the advancement of professional women. The organization produces a quarterly magazine, featuring inspirational stories on the triumphs and tribulatio ... More |
| Robert Mapplethorpe's Shoe (Melody), 1987 brings $47,800 in Heritage New York Photography Auction | | Art app from Tate: Guide to modern art terms now available for iPad and iPhone | | Vibrant street art exhibition at Ulster Museum showcases over 30 street artists | 
Robert Mapplethorpe, Shoe (Melody), 1987. Gelatin silver, 40 x 40 in.
NEW YORK, NY.- A gelatin silver print of Robert Mapplethorpe’s sultry Shoe (Melody), 1987, was the top lot in Heritage Auctions’ Nov. 19 Vintage & Contemporary Photography Signature® Auction, easily beating its pre-auction estimate of $30,000+ to finish the auction with a final price realized of $47,800. The auction, which realized $521,588 on 213 lots, took place at The Ukrainian Institute of America at The Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (2 East 79th Street at 5th Ave.). “The Mapplethorpe lived up to its billing as the auction catalog cover,” said Rachael Peart, Consignment Director for Photography at Heritage Auctions, “and collectors showed their reverence for the piece and the photographer in the form of spirited bidding and a respectable final price realized.” Collectors at The Fletcher-Sinclair also responded enthusiastically to the wide array of Contemporary offerings, with Marilyn Minter’s ecs ... More | | 
Users can search the Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms app by artist, movement, technique or trend.
LONDON.- Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms, produced by Aimer Media, is an art dictionary for iPad or iPhone. Over 300 terms are defined with clarity and precision, putting themes, movements, media and art practices at your fingertips. The first modern art app to be released by Tate Publishing , one of the world’s leading art publishers, this guide aims to become a staple for gallery goers the world over. "How many times have you read the caption next to a work of art or a review of a contemporary art exhibition and found yourself none the wiser? For many of us the language in which modern art is described is as mystifying as the art itself. This comprehensive but concise guide is the answer,” says Roger Thorp, Publishing Director at Tate Publishing. “We are hoping this will become one of the best art apps for people engaging with art terms whether they are avid gallery visitors, art students, or people unacquainted with art.” Users can search the Tate Guide ... More | | 
Kate Bellamy, the Head of International Strategy at the V&A.
BELFAST.- A vibrant collection of works, by some of today’s most celebrated and controversial street artists, opens at the Ulster Museum, Friday 9 December. The exhibition showcases over 30 street artists, including the world-famous Banksy, D*Face, Sickboy, Miss Tic, Shepard Fairey and Jamie Hewlett, featured through bold and colourful prints and stickers, highlighting the diversity and talent that can be found in the street art community. Street art is an internationally recognised urban phenomenon that crosses all boundaries and media. It is a diverse, constantly evolving art form that moves across the derelict buildings, bus shelters and hoardings of cities around the world. The exhibition, which runs until March, explores the way street art has moved from the painted wall to other forms of media, such as printmaking, creating distinctive, exciting visuals along the way. Kim Mawhinney, Head of Art at National Museums Nor ... More |
| London Art Fair announces the 29 galleries taking part in next edition of Art Projects | | 20th Century Decorative Art & Design showcased in Christie's December sale in New York | | Pearl Harbor Day memories live on at National World War II Museum in New Orleans | 
Gabriel Dubois, Instant Harmonica. Courtesy of Edel Asanti.
LONDON.- London Art Fair announces the 29 galleries taking part in Art Projects, the Fair’s curated showcase of the freshest contemporary art from across the globe, in large-scale installations, solo shows and group displays. Curated by Pryle Behrman, Art Projects captures a snapshot of the current concerns of contemporary artists, providing an insight into the future of the art world. This year, escapism is a dominant theme of this curated section of the fair, with artists demonstrating a reaction to the financial crisis and its impact on the art world. Pryle Behrman, Art Projects curator comments: “More so than any other year, Art Projects in 2012 highlights a need for escapism; the themes of travel and dream are very prominent. The artists often take a satirical approach to their work, questioning established authorities and mocking the art world itself.” Highlights of the selected galleries include: ... More | | 
Emile Galle, Crocus vase, circa 1900 (estimate: $20,000-30,000). Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2011.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- On December 17, Christie’s 20th Century Decorative Art & Design sales in New York will showcase the entire range of 20th Century Decorative Arts, from Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, and Art Deco, to the Modernist and Contemporary movements. The auctions featured are Magnificent Tiffany: Including Property from the Estate of Jeanne Laverne Dailey, at 10am (separate press release available), and Important 20th Century Decorative Art & Design at 2pm. With more than 300 lots offered for the combined sales, the auctions include iconic works by the category’s most distinguished creators, and are expected to achieve upwards of $7 million. The sale features a strong selection of Art Deco works and leading the group are the extraordinarily elegant wall panels by Jean Dunand (1877-1942) designed for the breakfast room at Templeton Crocker’s San Francisco apartment in 1929 (estimate: $250,000-350,000). The ... More | | 
A wristwatch that stopped at 8:04 AM on December 7, 1941, when a sailor aboard the USS Oklahoma hit the water after a torpedo attack at Pearl Harbor. REUTERS/Lee Celano.
By: Mark Guarino
NEW ORLEANS, LA (REUTERS).- Robert Templet was walking to breakfast on that Sunday, December 7, when he heard a plane motor surging at his back. He turned and saw the pilot, his goggles atop his head, smiling down at him before a torpedo fell from the plane's belly. "It happened so fast, we didn't know what was going on," Templet told Reuters. Stories like Templet's are being documented in "Infamy: December 1941," an exhibit opening on Wednesday, the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Even though 70 years have passed since the attack killed nearly 2,400 American service men and women, the memories are still very much alive for veterans of that ... More |
| Sotheby's Results: Important Watches & Clocks bring $8.8 million in New York | | Colombian sculptor and painter Fernando Botero released from hospital in Bogota | | Midwest collectors drive sale of important Tiffany Glass at Christie's New York | 
Cartier/European Watch & Clock Co., Inc. An Important and Rare Gold and Enamel Portrait Time Piece with Wandering Hours, circa 1919. Est. $45/65,000. Sold for $122,500. Photo: Sotheby's.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- The December 6, 2011 auction of Important Watches & Clocks at Sotheby’s New York achieved $8,832,572, selling a strong 85.9% by lot and well within pre-sale expectations of $6.7/9.6 million. This marks the highest-ever total for an ‘Important Watches & Clocks’ auction at Sotheby’s New York. In addition, 93% of sold lots brought prices within or above their pre-sale estimates. “We are thrilled with today’s record result for New York,” commented John Reardon, Head of Sotheby’s Watches department in New York. “Our strategy as a team has been to focus on the client experience, both for our buyers and consignors, and the diverse offering we presented them resulted in a range of global interest that included top buyers from Asia to the United States, Europe and Africa.” The sale was dominated by timepieces from Patek Philippe – nearly one-third of the to ... More | | 
File photo of Colombian artist Fernando Botero posing in front of a self portrait at the Pera Museum in Istanbul. REUTERS/Murad Sezer.
BOGOTA.- Colombian sculptor and painter Fernando Botero has been released from a hospital. Both doctors and relatives say he's doing well. Juan David Botero tells The Associated Press his brother went to a hospital because he felt ill due to a sudden change in altitude as he travelled from sea level to the city of Rionegro at about 7,000 feet (2,130 meters). He says the 79-year-old artist now is doing "very well." Dr. Juan Manuel Sierra says Botero was examined by internists, cardiologists and urgent care specialists after coming to his San Vicente Foundation clinic on Tuesday. Botero is famed for portrayals of fat figures. His monumental bronze sculpture titled "Dancers" was auctioned for more than $1.7 million in New York recently. Botero was born in MedellÃn, Colombia in 1932. He moved to Bogotá in 1951 and had his first show there the same year at Galeria Leo Matiz. His first retrospective took place in 1970 in Germany at museums in Baden Baden, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hambur ... More | | 
Tiffany Studios. A Selection of Decorated and Floriform Favrile Glass Vases, circa 1900-1910. Estimates from $5,000 to 20,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2011.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- Christie’s announces details of its upcoming sale of Magnificent Tiffany: Including Property from the Estate of Jeanne Laverne Dailey on December 17, 2011, at 10am. This lively collecting category has achieved outstanding results in recent years, fueled by increased demand from collectors for top-quality examples of the distinctive Tiffany style. The sale will feature two private collections, including more than 100 lots from the Estate of Thomas F. Walker of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Property from the Estate of Jeanne Laverne Dailey, Ohio, which comprises a dozen Tiffany Studios lamps. The Tiffany Studios portion of Christie’s Important 20th Century Decorative Art and Design sale in June 2011 realized more than $2.5 million – 128% above the pre-sale estimate – with buyers of this quintessentially American art coming from as far afield as Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The strong prese ... More |
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 Jerry Robinson, Batman's Joker artist, dies in US NEW YORK (AP).- Comic book industry pioneer Jerry Robinson, who helped create Batman sidekick Robin the Boy Wonder and their arch-nemesis The Joker, has died at age 89. An editor and friend, Charles Kochman, said Robinson was different from most artists in the field because he worked on every kind of comic genre, from political cartoons to theater illustrations. "Jerry brought a realism to comics — and a sense of humor," said Kochman, his editor at Abrams Comic Arts, which last year published a book called "Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics." Robinson not only used his fame and position in the industry to serve as its ambassador but also fought on behalf of other artists and creators — especially to win credit for their work, including the Superman series. Initially, in the 1930s and '40s, publishers owned the rights and would discard drawings after they were used. Robinson, who died ... More Sotheby's to offer archive of Noble Prize winning writer Naguib Mahfouz LONDON.- Sotheby's London will offer for sale a major cache of manuscripts by Naguib Mahfouz, probably the most important Egyptian novelist of the 20th century and the only Arab writer to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The archive estimated at £50,000 - £70,000, will be sold in the English Literature, History, Private Press, Children’s Books and Illustrations sale on 15th December 2011. This extraordinarily rich and diverse group of manuscripts spans seven decades of the author’s career, from the 1930s to his death in 2006. Dr Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s Senior Manuscripts Specialist said: “It is an immense honour to be offering what is to the best of our knowledge, the first manuscript material by Naguib Mahfouz to appear at public auction – much of it previously unpublished. Throughout his life, Mahfouz constantly revisited his great subject, the city of Cairo and what is perhaps mos ... More Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University appoints Alison Gass as curator EAST LANSING, MI.- The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has appointed Alison Gass curator of contemporary art. Gass, who was named a young curator to watch by The New York Times in 2010, currently serves as assistant curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. At the Broad/MSU, Gass will be responsible for developing exhibitions and commissions of international scope, guided by the museum’s dual focus on presenting international contemporary art in all media, as well as thematic exhibitions that investigate contemporary works within a historical context. Gass joins the new museum as it prepares to open its Zaha Hadid-designed building to the public on April 21, 2012. The Broad/MSU’s inaugural exhibitions, curated by founding director Michael Rush, include Global Groove 1973/2012, which will use Nam June Paik’s seminal 1973 video ... More A brave new world: Royal Institute of British Architects President's Medals Student Awards 2011 LONDON.- From a dystopian vision of Brixton to a sanctuary for quarry workers in Bangalore to new homes for a remote Aboriginal community in Australia, this year's RIBA President's Medals Student Awards, in association with Atkins, show how today's architecture students around the world are grappling with pressing social issues and, through architecture, coming up with original solutions. The winners of the President's Medals were announced yesterday evening (Wednesday 7 December 2011) at the RIBA in London. Kibwe Tavares, a student of The Bartlett, University College London, has won the Silver Medal – awarded to a Part 2 project (second degree) – for Robots of Brixton. Taking the existing buildings of Brixton as a starting point, and eerily prescient of this summer's riots in English cities, this startling short film combines architectural drawings and futuristic animation to comment on the social tensions of ... More The Misplaced Stuff: NASA loses moon, space rocks WASHINGTON (AP).- Astronauts may have had the 'right stuff' to go to the moon, but when it comes to keeping track of what they brought back, NASA seems to have misplaced some of that stuff. In a report issued by the agency's Inspector General on Thursday, NASA concedes that more than 500 pieces of moon rocks, meteorites, comet chunks and other space material were stolen or have been missing since 1970. That includes 218 moon samples that were stolen and later returned and about two dozen moon rocks and chunks of lunar soil that were reported lost last year. NASA, which has loaned more than 26,000 samples, needs to keep better track of what's sent to researchers and museums, the report said. The lack of sufficient controls "increases the risk that these unique resources may be lost," the report concluded. After last year's case of a missing moon sample loaned to a Delaware astronomical observatory — ... More Walking 40 miles in Jesus' shoes CAPERNAUM (AP).- A new trail across northern Israel offers travelers the chance to walk — or trot — through New Testament sites in the footsteps of Jesus. The newly opened Gospel Trail winds for 39 miles, heading south from Nazareth, across gentle green hills, through Jewish and Arab towns and down to Capernaum, the fishing town where Jesus is said to have established his home base. The Tourism Ministry believes the new trail may attract up to 200,000 Christian pilgrims to northern Israel over the coming year. Christians are a rapidly growing segment of Israeli tourism, comprising about two-thirds of the 3.45 million people who visited in 2010. On the Gospel Trail, tourists can ride toward the Sea of Galilee on horseback, accompanied by escorts from a nearby ranch wearing jeans, big belt buckles and embroidered cowboy boots with spurs. The scene feels more Texas than Gospel, especially because according ... More |
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