Cornelius Gurlitt inherited a massive collection of artwork from his father who was an art dealer who traded in works confiscated by the Nazis. 1,400 items were found at Gurlitt's home during a tax case investigation back in 2012. Officials are saying that 458 of those may have been seized from their owners by the Nazis. Some of the works include works by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is predicted that at least 300-350 of those works will be returned to Gurlitt. A task force has been set up in order to research each of the confiscated pieces. If, in one year, research hasn't been completed on a work, it will be turned to Gurlitt. Further research on a returned work is still able to be done after the year and any works with a pending restitution claim will be kept in trust. This article was interesting to me because of the sheer number of works that were being looked into.
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2014
OakOak Uses Street Art to Clean Up the City
During the day, the artist known as OakOak works a normal 9-5 job, but when the workday is over, he finds places within the urban city of Saint Etienne, France to paint. The town is mainly fueled by coal mining and has begun to become "grubbier" as OakOak puts it. Anyplace that has a crack, is broken down, or in disrepair he tags it. The article has some of his works and they are amazing. This reminds me a little of the documentary about Banksy I watched in my Philosophy of Art class earlier this semester and our discussions on site specificity. If OakOak were to paint these on canvas and place them in galleries, it would change the meaning that was meant to be conveyed. This brings me back to the John Ahern case where the message he meant to convey was not the one that was communicated. Here, however, it is clear that he is trying to bring light and color to these parts of his town.
Famous Stolen Painting Recovered After Hanging On Autoworker's Kitchen Wall For Years
This story almost echoes back to the Jackson Pollock movie. A Sicilian man buys a painting and it turns out to be worth far more than what he originally payed for it. The difference here is that there seems to be no doubt as to the painting being an authentic Paul Gauguin still life. This article is interesting because all that the man has to do is prove that he bought this in good faith. This painting was bought along with another painting at an Italian state railway in 1975 for $100. After the autoworkers son noticed that it could be a Paul Gauguin, an expert was brought in and it was decided to likely be a Paul Gauguin still life. It was the dog in the upper right corner that tipped the son off to the possibility as Paul Gauguin usually used dogs as his signature motif. It's worth is now set between 19 to 13 million euros ($14 million to $40 million).
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sword Art Online II
Sometime this year, the second arc of Sword Art Online, an anime based in a fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, (MMORPG or MMO for short), is going to be released. The first arc began with the release of an MMO entitled Sword Art Online, a fully virtual world using a virtual reality helmet so the user would actually feel as if they are there. All is going well until the creator tells them that they cannot leave the game until they beat all 100 levels. If someone tries to remove the helmet, they will instantly die in the real world. If they die in the game, they die in the real world. The whole story revolves around two characters who together beat the game and free everyone...sort of. All but the female main character is freed, who turns out to be trapped in yet another MMO. This time the male main character saves her and frees her from the game. I love anime so I continually look for news about upcoming and new anime. This series kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time and I am excited to see the direction this new arc will take, with new characters and a whole new world to be explored.
Who is Banksy?
Banksy, an artist known for not being known. He is a street artist that has been tagging buildings around the world. Some of his pieces go for thousands of dollars. There was a YouTube video of him placing his artwork with labels and everything in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was discovered and taken down, but not after being seen by many. The big thing about Banksy is the fact that no one knows who he is. In this article, it talks about how if there are people that actually know him, they are not coming forward out of respect for him. If they did squeal, their own reputations would be destroyed. The article talks about how street art is about respect and how even if someone could make a quick buck from exposing his real identity, they still wouldn't because, “If you want to be cool with Banksy, you don’t really talk about him.” Below is one of his most notable works: the NOLA Girl with Umbrella.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Map Painting
Fernando Vincente, an artist living in Madrid, has taken some antique maps and used them as canvases for a number paintings in his "Atlas Series." For each painting, he used the geographic boundaries in order to shape each painting. I thought this was really interesting as most of us really haven't thought of maps as something that could be art. Maps function as a way to get from one place to another, and not usually to express creative ideas. These paintings, although unable to function as maps now, allow us to see them as more than their usual static categorization. This is why I chose this. He is showing us his interpretation of these as more than maps of a certain location. He is turning the world's landmasses into his perception of the aesthetic qualities that can exist within cartography. This reminded me of the day we looked at different images and had to decide if we thought it was art and if it had a large monetary value.
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