Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:32:49 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Fine Arts :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/fine-arts istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us PAULA DEITZ http://www.nysun.com/travel/a-visit-to-the-venice-biennale-of-architecture/86449/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST VENICE — Henry James, in "The Wings of the Dove," called Venice's Piazza San Marco "the drawing-room of Europe." But currently, the attention is less at James's "splendid square" than at the mouth of the lagoon. The 11th Venice Biennale of Architecture is currently underway in the Arsenale, a former maritime structure, and the nearby Giardini, a large waterfront park. With its history of international trade and shipbuilding, Venice proves a munificent host to this gathering of architects from... LANCE ESPLUND http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-gray-area-from-a-red-revolution/85144/ Thu, 4 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If history is indeed the great teacher — if, as I once read in a fortune cookie, "The past is the book of the future" — then what are we to make of "Art and China's Revolution," an exhibition centered on Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the Cult of Mao, and the artistic legacy of Mao's catastrophic Cultural Revolution, that opens tomorrow at the Asia Society Museum? Few shows have inspired in me such mixed feelings. On the one hand, "Art and China's Revolution," which focuses on images, objects, and... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/hirst-dealer-no-mountain-of-unsold-works/84849/ Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Damien Hirst's London dealer, White Cube, has denied it has a "mountain" of unsold works before a Sotheby's sale that previews today in the Hamptons and New Delhi. White Cube, which has galleries in east London, said in an e-mailed statement that its stock level for Mr. Hirst's work was normal. The Art Newspaper said on Saturday that the dealer held more than 200 paintings and sculptures by Mr. Hirst, valued at more than 100 million pounds, or $184.5 million, citing White Cube documents. "The... FRANCIS MORRONE http://www.nysun.com/arts/political-ephemera-through-the-ages/84767/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Sometime when I was in grade school, I heard the phrase "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Years would pass before I knew what it meant. I knew it was a presidential campaign slogan from way back, but did not learn until later that it was a phrase from an 1840 campaign song for William Henry Harrison (who led the troops who defeated Chief Tecumseh at the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana) and John Tyler. What's remarkable is that the phrase has lived on, that its cadence has made it the sort of... LANCE ESPLUND http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-art-world-embraces-the-wow-factor/84768/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Recently, on a windy, early August afternoon, under an active sky that threatened autumn cool and summer storm, I saw Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson's site-specific work "The New York City Waterfalls." I took a Circle Line tour that lasts half an hour and gets you, if the wind is right, within spritzing distance. The East River loop takes you as far north as the waterfall at Manhattan's Pier 35, just above the Manhattan Bridge; past the Brooklyn Bridge's waterfall, as well as the... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/redesigning-the-piazza-san-marco/84764/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Venice, Italy — Surely it will sound like sacrilege to propose that Venice's Piazza San Marco, the "drawing-room of Europe," as Napoleon famously called it, could stand improvement. But Americans abroad have never been known for their modesty, and it is in that spirit that I offer my services to the Most Serene Republic, with a suggestion that could have far-reaching urbanistic implications for its famous civic center. Before coming to Venice recently, I was in Rome, where I was struck by a... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/london-street-art-auction-disappoints/86737/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Works by Banksy and other graffiti painters failed to sell in London Saturday as buyers stayed away from an auction of Contemporary and urban art. Less than a third of the 270 lots found buyers at Lyon & Turnbull's sale, which was the latest gauge of demand for street art after prices surged to records in the last three years. Dealers said demand, reduced by worries about the economy and confusion about the authentication of Banksy's pictures, may be an ominous sign for the mainstream art... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/acquavella-to-show-wynns-damaged-picasso/86739/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A $139 million Picasso painting damaged by billionaire owner Stephen Wynn when he somehow poked his elbow through it will be publicly shown for the first time since the 2006 mishap. The patched-up "Le Rêve," or "The Dream," owned by the Las Vegas casino operator, is part of a Picasso exhibit opening Oct. 15 at Acquavella Galleries on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Other lenders to "Picasso's Marie-Therese" include the Metropolitan Museum of Art and collector Steven Cohen, founder of hedge... THOMAS BELL http://www.nysun.com/arts/chinas-new-rich-in-256-million-auction/86758/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Singapore — Chinese collectors are expected to spend $256 million at an auction that should see the work of local artists fetching record prices. The sale, which opens next weekend in Hong Kong, will also provide a stark illustration of the new distribution of global wealth as the West suffers. In recognition of the rise of a new generation of Asian super-rich, eager to own Asian cultural artifacts once traded in London or New York, Sotheby's has shifted all of its sales of Asian art to Hong... FRANCIS MORRONE http://www.nysun.com/arts/art-deco-shows-its-roots/86638/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST "Art Deco" was not coined until 1968, when the art historian Bevis Hillier used the term in his book "Art Deco of the 20s and 30s." In those times, you might have heard such terms as "le style moderne," or "la mode 1925." The latter refers to the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes that took place in Paris in 1925. (It was also from the name of this exposition that Hillier derived "Art Deco.") Le style moderne was not entirely new in 1925. It had begun to... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/modular-modernism-reborn/86650/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Two weeks ago, I wrote in this column about 100 Park Ave., a 60-year-old building that has been splendidly reclad and fundamentally reconceived by the relatively little-known firm of Moed de Armas & Shannon. But the activities of the firm are even more extensive than I understood at the time. It turns out that this team has displayed equally exquisite judgment in recladding several other Midtown structures, and best of all, they have created an entirely new office tower from scratch, 510... MAUREEN MULLARKEY http://www.nysun.com/arts/those-who-can-teach/86545/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST 'A teacher affects eternity," Henry Adams once said. "He can never tell where his influence stops." It might not stop at all if his influence has substance and his students are great enough. Francis M. Naumann's inaugural exhibition — in new, expanded quarters in Midtown — is a testament to Man Ray's influence on modern photography. It pays special tribute to his formative influence on his most distinguished studio assistant, Berenice Abbott, who, in turn, taught Naomi Savage at the New School... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/bring-back-the-venetian-lollipops/86550/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The reclad, reconfigured, and reconceived 2 Columbus Circle, formerly the Huntington Hartford Museum and now the Museum of Arts and Design, fully bears out the suspicions of its many detractors. The problem is not so much that the new design is bad, as that it is emphatically not good. Its entrenched mediocrity represents so thorough a depletion of the imaginative faculty that one wonders how it won the trustees' approval in the first place. The New Museum's new home on the Bowery, which opened... LANCE ESPLUND http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-magical-from-the-mundane/86551/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Metamorphosis is as central to art as it is to myth. When an artist transforms his materials, he becomes a shaman. When an artist's materials are not transformed, he remains a charlatan — and we are left with a mere field of paint, not the "Sistine Ceiling"; a chunk of marble, not the "Pietà." With the advent of collage in the 1890s, however, metamorphosis took on new meaning. Invented by the Beggarstaffs (the British poster designers and brothers-in-law James Pryde and William Nicholson)... DAVID COHEN http://www.nysun.com/arts/reading-between-the-linens-cecily-brown/86539/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A visitor to a Cecily Brown exhibition must think of him- or herself as a camera. Contemplating one picture at a time is the default mode. Seeing the show in a single take is the wide-angle view. And focusing upon individual brush marks, smears, and squiggles is the furthest extension of the zoom. In these terms, in the extremes of microcosm and macrocosm, her latest show of 39 canvases in three cavernous halls at Gagosian finds the artist in triumphant mode. It is hard to think of a... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/monet-thief-sentenced-to-five-years/86526/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A French art thief who admitted to stealing and trying to sell paintings by Claude Monet and other famous artists will serve more than five years in American prison. A federal judge in Miami imposed a 62-month sentence Wednesday on 56-year-old Bernard Jean Ternus. He pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to steal paintings by Monet, fellow Impressionist Alfred Sisley, and 17th-century master Jan Brueghel the Elder. The paintings were taken by masked, armed robbers in August 2007 from a museum in... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/director-half-of-gagosians-sales-are-to-russians/86527/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Buyers from Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union account for almost 50% of total global sales at Gagosian Gallery, the art world's global leader in exhibition space, one of its directors said. Four years ago, it had almost no Russian buyers. Their numbers rose rapidly over the past 18 months, Victoria Gelfand, director of Gagosian's London gallery, said during an interview in Moscow. On September 17, Gagosian opened a show of 70 artworks in a former chocolate factory near the... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/rare-female-portrait-by-francis-bacon-up-for-sale/86528/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A Francis Bacon painting of his friend Henrietta Moraes, one of the few women the artist painted, is expected to fetch as much as $13.9 million when it comes up for auction in London. The 14-inch-high head-and-shoulders portrait, showing the sitter turning to her left against a plain yellow background, will be included in Christie's International's October 19 sale of contemporary art, the auction house said in an e-mailed statement. The sale takes place on the concluding Sunday of the Frieze... FRANCIS MORRONE http://www.nysun.com/arts/six-centuries-of-theatrical-city-scenes-at-n-yhs/86538/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The New-York Historical Society, founded in 1804, is New York City's oldest museum. It has had its ups and downs, and in recent years has been on a dramatic upswing. While such outstanding exhibitions as "New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War" (2006-07), "Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925" (2007-08), and the Audubon series have drawn from the society's rich holdings, these shows' narrow thematic scope has meant that no one of them has by itself conveyed... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/elton-johns-brooch-up-for-sale/86419/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A sapphire-and-diamond brooch worn by singer Elton John in one of his music videos will go under the gavel this week. The Art Deco piece is shaped like a "J," and was worn by Mr. John in the 1988 music video "I Don't Wanna Go on With You Like That." It is expected to fetch $22,000 when it goes up for sale at Bonhams auction house in London on Thursday. The 1930s-era brooch has brilliant-cut and baguette-cut diamonds and oval-cut and circular-cut sapphires. Despite the growing global financial... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/munchs-vampire-heads-o-auction/86422/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Edvard Munch's "Vampire," a dark, brooding painting of a woman with cascading red hair kissing a man's neck, may set a new record for the Norwegian artist when it goes on the auction block this fall. The 1894 work, which has been in private hands for more than 70 years, is expected to bring $35 million at Sotheby's on November 3. In May, Munch's "Girls on the Bridge" sold for $30.8 million, setting a record for the artist. The "Vampire" painting, also known as "Love and Pain," caused a stir... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/armstong-officially-elevated-by-guggenheim/86477/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:50:38 EST The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has named a new director. After a worldwide search, the foundation's trustees today unanimously appointed 59-year-old Richard Armstrong to run the foundation and its flagship Guggenheim museum in Manhattan. The announcement comes about seven months after Thomas Krens resigned. Armstrong has been the director of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh since 1996. His new job starts November 4... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/arts/victorian-never-looked-so-good/86403/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If Sir David Scott was anything like his peers in the 1920s, then he would have spent his lunchtime dining at one of the Pall Mall clubs. But Scott preferred to bike around London's West End and visit art galleries, a habit that helped him amass one of the greatest collections of Victorian art in the 20th century. Sotheby's American preview of the Scott Collection is on view until tomorrow evening at the York Avenue showroom. It is a chance to see works by artists that have only recently met... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/titian-showcased-in-athens/86348/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST More than 20 paintings by Renaissance master Titian and his contemporaries go on display in Athens this week on the occasion of an official visit to Greece by Italy's president. The three-month exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art opens Thursday, a day after its formal inauguration by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and Greek President Karolos Papoulias. "From Titian to Pietro da Cortona: Myth, Poetry and the Sacred" includes seven works by the 16th-century master, as well as canvases... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/christies-adds-130m-fall-auction/86265/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A splashy Morris Louis painting that once brightened a living room in Connecticut could find a new home at a $130 million Christie's International auction on November 5, a day before its big-ticket Impressionist and Modern art sale. The newly added auction includes 60 lots from the estates of a pair of wealthy New York-area widows, Rita Hillman and Alice Lawrence. The sale is stocked with blue-chip work from Mark Rothko, Édouard Manet, René Magritte, and Paul Cézanne. Christie's said an early... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/arts/pompeii-transported-to-washington-dc/86284/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST This fall, the National Gallery of Art will host the first major exhibition of ancient Roman art in the nation's capital. "Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples," which runs between October 19 and March 22, re-creates the world of the ancient citizens. "It's often been said that Washington is a city based on the French Enlightenment, but it's actually a Roman-style city," the National Gallery of Art's chief of exhibitions, Dodge Thompson, said. "Our... CHARLOTTE COWLES http://www.nysun.com/arts/what-treasures-hide-in-dusty-piles/86247/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST New York has reinvented itself throughout its history, adapting to meet the diverse needs of its inhabitants. It is fitting that the city's oldest museum, the New-York Historical Society, is also full of surprises, many of which can be found in its new catalog of works on paper, entitled "Drawn by New York: Six Centuries of Watercolors and Drawings at the New-York Historical Society." The release of the catalog coincides with an exhibit at the Society, which opens today. Both are the fruits of... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/van-gogh-in-a-new-light/86079/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Vincent van Gogh was such a good painter that it is worth putting on a show of his work even when there is no particular reason to do so. A case in point: "Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night," which is set to open on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, with 23 paintings, 10 works on paper, and sundry illustrated letters in the artist's own hand. The show's stated subject, van Gogh's interest in nocturnal scenes, is a little less compelling than the curators at MoMA and at the Van Gogh Museum... LANCE ESPLUND http://www.nysun.com/arts/morandis-subtle-spectacle/86073/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The Italian artist Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), the subject of a long-awaited and absolutely out-of-this-world retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a painter who, especially in his small flower paintings and still lifes — façade-like clusters of crockery, tins, bowls, bottles, boxes, and vases — synthesized an array of disparate approaches, creating pictures mysterious, unique, and wholly modern. Morandi was influenced by the rich, close range of browns, creams, and grays, as... DAVID COHEN http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-conceptual-provocateur-rirkrit-tiravanija/86074/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Rirkrit Tiravanija is an art-world provocateur whose practice takes the central problem of conceptual art and runs wild with it. Conceptual art can mean different things, but whether seen historically — as an extension of Minimal art in its radical reduction of the art object for the sake of linguistically questioning art's nature — or understood more generally — as art where the material manifestation is strictly subservient to bigger ideas — the aesthetic problem of such art is: What is there... JOHN GOODRICH http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-origins-of-abstraction-order-and-intuition/86068/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Who painted the first abstraction? Some believe it was Kandinsky, and others Arthur Dove, or the Chicago artist Manierre Dawson. In any event, Americans have had a hand in abstract painting since its very beginnings around 1910. Toward mid-century, a second generation of abstractionists thrived, even with the ascendancy of Social Realism and Regionalism. The American Abstract Artists group was founded in 1936, and works by John Ferren, Ilya Bolotowsky, and other Americans were exhibited at the... MAUREEN MULLARKEY http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-little-elephant-that-could-drawing-babar/86075/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The miraculous moment when line and color quicken into art occurs as gladly in children's picture books as in medieval Psalters. A Francophone elephant in a green suit belongs to the natural history of make-believe no less than the griffins and unicorns of ancient bestiaries or manuscript marginalia. So, the Morgan Library is a fitting repository for the surviving drafts of text and illustrations for the creation of Babar, the paterfamilias of a classic modern bedtime story. "Drawing Babar... DAVID COHEN http://www.nysun.com/arts/frozen-instants-of-failure/86080/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Diana Al-Hadid's menacing, heavily worked, baroque structures take arrested hubris as their theme. In three large sculptures, powerful in impact and ambition alike, a wall installation, and supporting drawings, once-soaring, elaborately engineered towers are rendered as ruins, whether slowly decaying in fragments or caught in a moment of catastrophic meltdown. Her evocations of destruction and decomposition generate rich surfaces as well as unsettling contemplations of the demise of powerful... LANCE ESPLUND http://www.nysun.com/arts/note-to-museumgoers-beware-spectacular-sensory/85964/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Every season, for every art lover, an exhibition or two stands out. This fall, among a long list of almost-certain-to-be-spectacular offerings at museums, the promise of two shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art really gets my heart going: "Giorgio Morandi, 1890-1964" (opened yesterday, through December 14) and "Calder Jewelry" (December 9-March 1). Last fall, one of the most stunning New York gallery shows was "Simplicity of Means: Calder and the Devised Object," an exhibit of Alexander... DAVID COHEN http://www.nysun.com/arts/paintings-post-feminist-form-sculptures-matron/85974/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A striking feature of the roster of shows on offer this season in New York's commercial galleries and nonprofit spaces is the strength of sculpture and sculptural installation. First up is a two-person show of sculptural installation at James Cohan Gallery (until October 4), featuring Xu Zhen and Folkert de Jong, whose aesthetic is similarly robust and visceral. Diana Al-Hadid, who is having her debut solo show at Perry Rubenstein (until October 11), has made a Tower of Babel-like structure... JAY NORDLINGER http://www.nysun.com/arts/fleming-mattila-and-damrau-ignite-the-opera-season/85972/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The "first semester" of the 2008-09 classical-music season is loaded with opera. I will give my sense of the highlights. They will not include anything from City Opera, as that company is somewhat sidelined this year. They are transitioning. What they're transitioning to, we can't be quite sure. But we can hope for the best. At the Metropolitan Opera, Renée Fleming will star in a gala (September 22). It is devoted to her. Ms. Fleming is a great singer and a great opera performer, as will be... KATE TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/new-york/wall-street-woes-endanger-funding-for-the-arts/85935/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The turmoil on Wall Street will affect a wide swath of New York City's cultural institutions, hurting corporate and individual donations at a time when these organizations are facing what one philanthropist called a "perfect storm" of economic pressures. "It's a very challenging time for not-for-profits," the chief executive officer of CIT and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York City Ballet, Jeffrey Peek, said. "It's a little bit of a perfect storm." Among the other... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/picasso-show-to-highlight-influences/85864/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Pablo Picasso dreamed of hanging his paintings next to those of Velazquez, Goya, Manet, and the many other masters he admired. Thirty-five years after his death, that dream is coming true. In a three-part Paris exhibition, Picasso's paintings will be placed alongside those of the artists he emulated, drew inspiration from, and paid tribute to throughout his life, including El Greco, Titian, Rembrandt, van Gogh, and Gauguin. "Picasso et les Maîtres," or "Picasso and the Masters" (October 8... JAY AKASIE http://www.nysun.com/arts/sothebys-stands-tall-with-hirst/85881/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Although the world's capital markets were in a tailspin, a potent combination of formaldehyde, butterflies, and skulls in London kept the market for art by Damien Hirst as strong as ever. Sotheby's auction of the celebrity artist's new works smashed sales records yesterday. The evening sale portion of Mr. Hirst's "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever" collection at Sotheby's headquarters established a new auction record for a single work: "The Golden Calf," an enormous bull calf encased in a... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/rem-koolhaass-lou-costello-tower/85901/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST And it shall be known as the Peek-a-boo Building. That, at any rate, seems to be the consensus, in the initial print articles and on the Web, concerning the building that Rem Koolhaas has just designed at 23 E. 22nd St., renderings for which were officially made public last week. The reason for the odd moniker is the way this 22-story structure, configured in a stepped succession of cantilevered floor plates, seems to peer out sneakily from behind the back of the much taller One Madison Square... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/hirsts-shark-sells-for-17m-at-auction/85867/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:03:10 EST LONDON — Sotheby's auction house has sold a pickled shark by British art provocateur Damien Hirst for 9.6 million pounds (US$17 million). Today's sale kicked off a two-day auction of the artist's work that is expected to generate more than 65 million pounds (US$116 million). Sotheby's said it expects the sale to set a new record for an auction of works by just one artist. Mr. Hirst is selling more than 200 new works at auction rather than through a gallery. He has said it is a more democratic... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/fantastical-form-in-tribeca-herzog-de-meurons-56/85827/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST At first glance, Herzog & de Meuron's 56 Leonard St. looks for all the world like the sort of high-concept, radical design that is often planned in New York and never built: In the renderings, its tower reads as a warped honeycomb bristling with dense clusters of windows and cantilevered balconies. It will not be this Swiss firm's first completed building in Manhattan. Last year saw the opening of their residential development at 40 Bond St., a very different affair from this latest project... PHILIP BOROFF and LINDSAY POLLOCK http://www.nysun.com/arts/sothebys-stock-falls-prior-to-hirst-sale/85792/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Sotheby's shares fell 9% last week to their lowest level since June 2006 amid concern the global art market can absorb only so many dead animals in formaldehyde. Sotheby's said in July that it expects to realize more than $114 million in its auctions today and tomorrow of new Damien Hirst works in London. The inventory of more than 200 lots includes a tiger shark in formaldehyde, a zebra in formaldehyde, a calf in formaldehyde, and a foal in formaldehyde. The sale, which also features paintings... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/germans-russians-in-art-stalemate/85674/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST German efforts to recover about 1 million artworks looted by the Soviet Union after World War II demand a long-term strategy, the director of the Prussian Cultural Property Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, said. In the 1990s, the lost art was regularly discussed at German-Russian government meetings. Now, it has slipped off the agenda as more pressing issues — such as oil and gas supplies, human rights, and Russia's invasion of Georgia — have cooled relations. Mr. Parzinger, who took on his post... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-park-avenue-tower-stands-corrected/85694/ Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Radiantly reborn, 100 Park Ave. presents lovers of architecture with a curious aesthetic conundrum. Is this sleek and gleaming tower a new building, or is it simply an old building reclad? In the most flatfooted and literal sense of the term, it is surely the latter, since it was built back in 1949 by the once eminent firm of Kahn & Jacobs, and so has been standing there in plain view for the past 60 years. But because this 36-story structure, rising over the ghost of the Murray Hill Hotel... JAMES GARDNER http://www.nysun.com/arts/taking-it-from-the-streets/85596/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST As we enter the last days of summer, life in the big city begins its seasonal retreat from the sidewalk to the interior spaces. That the Bronx Museum of the Arts should choose this moment to open a new exhibition, "Street Art, Street Life From the 1950s to Now," is, then, perhaps fitting. Curated by Lydia Yee, from London's Barbican Art Gallery, this exhibition casts a wide net, aspiring as it does to account for a variety of practices that differently engage the life of the street, often but... LANCE ESPLUND http://www.nysun.com/arts/landscapes-as-labors-of-love-wang-hui-at-the-met/85597/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Drawing from the art of the past is a necessary and nurturing process for an artist, a labor of love that enables him to learn his craft and to reinvent his influences. The medieval painter and theorist Cennino Cennini instructed that an artist should copy only from the best masters he can find, so that he will learn to gather "roses," not "thorns." Picasso, who could paint like Raphael, Ingres, Corot, an ancient cave painter, and an ancient Greek, advocated that an artist must not "borrow"... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/versailles-welcomes-koons/85581/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Jeff Koons, whose sculptures sell for up to $25.8 million, baffled visitors to the Palace of Versailles as he displayed his steel rabbit, balloon dog, and hanging lobster in the chateau's grandest rooms. "Jeff Koons Versailles," which opened Wednesday and runs through December 14, presents 16 monumental sculptures inside the ornate palace, and one in the gardens. A few dozen French protesters demonstrated outside the gates, calling the show disrespectful to French heritage. "It would never be... CASSANDRA JARDINE http://www.nysun.com/arts/damien-hirsts-fear-of-failure/85599/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Sotheby's is full of bling. Diamonds twinkle next to iridescent butterflies. Spots dance before the eyes. Spin-painted Day-Glo skulls dazzle from the walls. Dead animals with golden accessories stare out from tanks. The Damien Hirsts on show are undoubtedly fun, but the mood among the viewers is not uniformly sparkly. "Did he actually paint that?" one man is saying, looking at a picture of a skull on an armchair. "Of course not," says his companion. "Hirst can't paint." That was on Friday... DAVID COHEN http://www.nysun.com/arts/robert-bordo-the-heady-hedonist/85598/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In the title for his 2007 Venice Biennale, critic and curator Robert Storr exhorted the art world to "think with the senses, feel with the mind." One artist who has already staked a claim to what could be called the "concept-sualist" position is Robert Bordo. With his new show at Alexander and Bonin of 14 landscape canvases, the Montreal-born painter demonstrates himself to be more than ever the heady hedonist. He has an incredible touch, seducing the eye with lubricated surfaces as if his...