WORLD NEWS


ARTS & STAGE NEWS

  • Yahoo! News: Arts
    Arts

    • A Con Artist, a Secret Affair, and Drunken Debauchery Enliven New York's Corot Mystery (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - In a turn to a story that seems to have been tailor-made to relieve the late summer news doldrums, the courier who claimed to have lost a $1.35 million Corot painting while on a drunken bender at a New York hotel now appears to have been in the employ of a serial scam artist. The improbable imbroglio received its latest twist when it was revealed that Tom Doyle, the co-owner of the missing artwork, is really Thomas Doyle, a convicted crook who just got out of prison for, you guessed it, art theft, according to the New York Times.
    • Spruced Up, Van Gogh's "Bedroom" Returns to View (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Vincent van Gogh spent much of his adult life alternately browbeating and charming his brother Theo into sending him money, since he was unable to generate much income selling his art. Theo unfailingly complied, but Vincent nevertheless lived a life of rather serious poverty. Thankfully, society treats the artist’s paintings a bit better than it did the artist who made them, as evidenced by the Van Gogh Museum’s announcement that, after six months of labor, his 1888 masterpiece, "The Bedroom," has been restored.
    • Rare Degas sculpture exhibit opens in Bulgaria (AFP)

      A bronze work by renowned French artist Edgar Degas is seen at a press preview in Sofia. A rare exhibit of 74 bronze sculptures by Degas has opened at Sofia's National Art Gallery, the first ever in Bulgaria of the Impressionist artist's work.(AFP/Dimitar Dilkoff)AFP - A rare exhibit of 74 bronze sculptures by French painter Edgar Degas opened Thursday at Sofia's National Art Gallery, the first ever in Bulgaria of the Impressionist artist's work.


    • Restoration ends of Van Gogh's 'Bedroom' (AP)
      AP - Vincent van Gogh must have been horrified when he returned from the hospital to his studio in Arles early in 1889 to find one of his favorite paintings damaged by moisture.
    • California Bill Could Alter the Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - A bill was approved by California lawmakers on Monday that allows for the extension of the amount of time during which citizens in that state can sue museums, galleries, and auction houses for the recovery of stolen works of art — an important step in creating decisive legislation to deal with the myriad difficult-to-try, emotionally fraught cases concerning the restitution of Nazi-looted art.
    • Riding Market Surge, Saffronart Offers $6.5 Million Modern and Contemporary Indian Art Auction (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Looking to improve on its $6.7 million haul at its June auction of Modern and Contemporary Indian art, fledgling Mumbai–based auction house Saffronart has announced that it hopes to net $6.5–$8.7 million at its September edition of the auction. Set for September 8 and 9, the 90-lot sale includes work by 43 artists, including the big-name masters — like S. H. Raza and N. S. Harsha — that have proven to be the auction house’s bread and butter in recent sales.
    • Zimbabwean Artist to Stand Trial for Massacre Paintings (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Zimbabwean painter Owen Maseko will go to trial later this month in his native country for exhibiting realistic depictions of massacres that took place three decades ago under the regime of Robert Mugabe, who served as prime minister at the time. The artworks — some small, others wall-engulfing murals — depict images of political events that, according to government authorities, are prohibited under current law.
    • From Black Light to Blackout, How a Drunk Man Lost a $1.4 Million Corot Painting (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Here’s a story, sad but true, about a man who took a coy-looking female to a hotel, then got drunk and lost her. Unfortunately for this man, an art courier named James Carl Haggarty, his lady friend was highly two-dimensional. In fact, she was contained within a painting — none other than "Portrait of a Girl," a 19th-century work by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot with an estimated value of $1.4 million, which Haggarty was taking to show to a potential buyer. In a lawsuit filed against Haggarty by Kristyn Trudgeon, the majority owner of the portrait, she states that Haggarty woke up to find that he "did not have the painting and could not recall its whereabouts, citing that he had too much to drink the previous evening." Whoops.
    • Billionaire Carlos Slim Readies $750 Million Mexico City Museum (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Mexico City’s burgeoning art scene will welcome a new private museum in November, when billionaire collector Carlos Slim inaugurates a new branch of his Soumaya museum. The $750-million project — that’s 50 percent more than SFMOMA plans to spend on its recently announced expansion, for those keeping track at home — has been designed by Slim’s son-in-law Fernando Romero and is already under construction in western Mexico City, according to Reuters.
    • Murakami's Planned Show at Versailles Riles Right-Wing Critics (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - The Coordination de la Défense de Versailles (CDV) doesn’t pull any punches when expressing its opposition to the upcoming exhibition of Japanese Pop artist Takashi Murakami at the Château of Versailles. Having been formed to press (unsuccessfully) for the cancellation of a Jeff Koons show in the palace in 2008, the organization now condemns what it calls "the veritable ‘murder’ of our heritage, our artistic identity, and our most sacred culture."
    • Absent for 35 Years, Iraq May Return to Venice Biennale (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - With U.S President Barack Obama set to announce the end of his nation's combat operations in Iraq in a televised address this evening, the Middle Eastern country's long history of turmoil and its recent, slow progress toward peace will once again receive major media attention. However, if American-born, Italy-based curator Mary Angela Schroth gets her way, it will be on the international stage again in the near future for a much more positive reason. Along with a team of patrons, artists, and curators, she is working to create a national pavilion for the nation at the 54th Venice Biennale, which opens next June. It has not participated in the biannual event since 1976.
    • Battling Blaze, Firefighters Douse Titian Masterpiece (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - It is a dangerous world out there. Just days after a van Gogh was stolen from a Cairo museum, a work by Renaissance master Titian that is housed in the Santa Maria della Salute basilica in Venice was almost accidentally destroyed. The culprit this time? Italian firefighters attempting to quell a blaze in a nearby seminary.
    • Protesting Proposed Pay Cuts, Detroit Symphony Orchestra Players Authorize Strike (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Funding for the arts has been cut in many cities in recent years as a result of the troubled economy, but some Detroit Symphony Orchestra members say that they believe something else is at least partially responsible for the drastic pay cuts that have been proposed by the orchestra's administrators:  a history of mismanagement. Through their union, they have voted to authorize a strike.
    • Curator Cancels Ansel Adams Authentication Claim (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Though entrepreneur Rick Norsigian continues to argue that photographic negatives he purchased at a California garage sale are the work of famed American photographer Ansel Adams, the evidence supporting that stance is quickly unraveling. One of the experts that had authenticated the works, former Museum of Fine Arts, Boston curator Robert C. Moeller III, has recanted his previous assessment, telling the New York Times that at least some of the photographs were taken by another man, Earl Brooks. Norsigian has been working with a team of lawyers to sell prints of the negatives, which he says are worth $200 million.
    • Six Shows to See Around the World (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - "With Glass, Under Glass, Without Glass," at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 185, Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montreal, Canada, through October 3, macm.org
    • Zaha Hadid Tapped for Baghdad Bank Building (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Though U.K.-based Architect Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, she has never before received a commission to work there — or anywhere in Iraq, for that matter. But that is no longer the case. Authorities at Baghdad's Central Bank have confirmed that the award-winning architect has been picked to design a new headquarters for the institution. Hadid’s new design will replace the bank’s previous home, a marble-clad concrete structure that was attacked by suicide bombers and gunmen on June 13, killing 14 people and injuring well over 50.
    • A New Group Aims to Protect Graffiti Artists (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Street art, teetering as it has been for the last decade between crime and high-end gallery cash crop, has taken another step toward establishing itself as a legal, rarefied art form. This past weekend saw the launch of the Urban Art Foundation, which styles itself as an ACLU for graffiti-related criminal charges, offering financial backing and legal representation for those arrested for tagging city streets. It also hopes to procure landmark status for some of New York’s finest covertly-made works and promote the art form in public schools.
    • Gagosian to Open Deluxe Gallery in Paris's "Golden Triangle" (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - Art dealer Larry Gagosian has finally lifted the veil on plans his new gallery in Paris, announcing that he will open at the heart of in the city’s "Golden Triangle" off the Champs Élysées on October 20th.
    • A Prize Ham Hammers for $1.6 Million at a Kentucky Auction (ARTINFO)
      ARTINFO - "Are pigs the new cats?" New York Magazine fashion blog The Cut asked this week, noting the sudden omnipresence of porcine creatures in the fashion world as the animal-accessory of choice. Now ARTINFO has a question to ask: Are hams the new Hirsts? A 16-pound country ham earned an outsize, contemporary-art-style $1.6 million at the 47th annual Kentucky Farm Bureau Country Ham Breakfast in Louisville, Kentucky, yesterday morning, according to the Lexington Herald-Ledger.
    • Cee Lo says f-bomb song is 'art' (AP)

      FILE - In this Sept. 4, 2008 file photo, Cee-Lo Green arrives at the 8th annual BMI Urban Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)AP - Cee Lo's expletive-laden song has been criticized for being in poor taste, but the musician says it's actually a work of art.