The new exhibition Contemporary Collecting: Selections from the Donna and Howard Stone Collection opens today at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibit includes Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #1111: A Circle with Broken Bands of Color (2003) in the Modern Wing’s Griffin Court. A recent entry on ARTicle, the Art Institute’s blog, documents the installation of this work in photographs and an interview with Matt Stolle, technical painter for the contemporary art department.
On June 21st and 22nd, more than one thousand works from The Polaroid Collection were sold. Via Photo District News:
The court-ordered auction of portions of The Polaroid Collection, which took place Monday and Tuesday at Sotheby’s, raised nearly $12.5 million for the company formerly known as Polaroid Corp. The funds raised in the sale will be used to settle debts with the bankrupt company’s creditors.…PBE Corp. became a victim of a $3.7 billion Ponzi scheme by Minnesota businessman Tom Petters, whose Petters Group Worldwide bought it in 2005. Petters was convicted last year of fraud and money laundering, a sentence he is appealing while serving a 50-year prison term.
In the auction’s first session Monday evening, a buyer paid $722,500 for Ansel Adams’ “Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park,” which outstripped the previous record sale of $609,000 for an Adams photograph.
High profile artists including Chuck Close reached last-minute agreements with PBE Corporation (formerly Polaroid Corp.) to have their works (including the one above) removed from the sale. Some artists claimed that the auction violated the original terms of their donation agreements.
The Netherlands-based company The Impossible Project is close to a deal to purchase a portion of the collection which has been housed at the Musée de l’Elysée in Switzerland since 1990. The Impossible Project previously made news for saving one of the last Polaroid instant film production plants.
Hear more about the history of The Polaroid Collection on NPR’s Weekend Edition.
According to a recent BBC News article:
Human remains found in a church in Tuscany almost certainly belong to Renaissance artist Caravaggio, Italian researchers said… Researchers used DNA and carbon dating to make their findings.
Scientists now hope a proper burial will be provided for the Italian Baroque painter, but first the remains will be put on display. 2010 marks the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio’s death.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 to enhance the understanding and appreciation of Islamic culture as expressed through architecture. The 19 nominees for the 11th cycle have been announced. The nominees, which include a textile factory in Turkey, a school built on a bridge in China and a wetlands project in Saudi Arabia, will be competing for the prestigious award. Visit the Award’s website for more information about the 19 nominees. You can also download high resolution images of each nominated building.
The second floor of the Art History Department, including the VRC, is undergoing extensive renovation this summer. The first stages are well underway. Faculty offices and the “old” VRC have been emptied in advance of construction and asbestos abatement.
This means that after a several weeks of packing and preparation, the VRC has temporarily relocated to the first floor of Cochrane-Woods Art Center, Room 156. We will be open for the duration of construction (except for days when the building will be closed for abatement). Our summer hours are: Monday – Thursday, 8:30-5; Friday, 8:30-2. Please come see us!
After finals are complete, you might consider taking a break and some inspiration from these couch cushion architects (critiqued by authors of the BUILDblog).
A brilliant synergy between the weighted foundation and the light tensile structure, this project impressed us with its attenuation of structure and bright interior spaces. The courtyard and formal entry are also well thought-out and provide a clear means of way-finding. Grade A+
The Graphics Atlas from the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology allows for dynamic exploration of printing processes, from pre-photographic to digital. Visitors can browse techniques visually, by name, or on a timeline. Detailed comparisons of different techniques help viewers learn to visually distinguish one printing process from another.
Early silent films recently discovered in the New Zealand Film Archive are returning to the United States for preservation under the guidance of the National Film Preservation Foundation. About seventy-five films were chosen because of their historical significance, including John Ford’s Upstream and a Clara Bow period drama. Shipment and preservation of the films has been difficult and time-consuming; most are printed on highly-flammable nitrate film and are already in advanced stages of deterioration. Preserved films will eventually be made public as streaming videos on the foundation’s website. For more information, see this article from the New York Times.
Two new projects utilize Google Maps and historical photography to create composite views of contemporary city streets. The Museum of London‘s free mobile application, Streetmuseum, combines GPS and photographs from the museum’s collections to create an interactive visual exploration of London history.
Hold your camera up to the present day street scene and the same London location appears on your screen, offering you a window through time. Want to know more? Simply tap the information button for historical facts.
Historypin, a web-based project created by We Are What We Do in partnership with Google, pairs viewer-submitted photographs and their geographical coordinates with Google Street View, allowing for multiple snapshots of the same space throughout time. Viewers can also submit personal stories about specific places.
Some new features and updates were recently released from ARTstor, including an Export to Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 feature for all registered users. From the ARTstor blog:
When viewing an image group, look for the Export to PowerPoint icon in the utility bar or click Tools > Export to PowerPoint. The resulting PowerPoint file will include:
- A title slide displaying the name of the image group
- Individual slides for each image in the group, in the order in which they appear in the image group
- ARTstor descriptive data for each image, appearing in the notes field of each slide
- Embedded hyperlinks in each image that will launch the ARTstor Image Viewer when clicked in presentation mode (requires web access)
Learn more about Export to PowerPoint.