Month: April 2015

Judge Ends Treasure Hunter’s Attempt to Salvage Cape Cod Shipwreck

“Judge Ends Treasure Hunter’s Attempt to Salvage Cape Cod Shipwreck”

via “NBC NEWS“

A treasure hunter’s effort to salvage what he calls $3 billion in platinum from a World War II shipwreck off Cape Cod has been ended by a federal judge.

Greg Brooks’ company Sea Hunters LP is no longer allowed to salvage additional items from the S.S. Port Nicholson, which was sunk by a Nazi U-boat in 1942, U.S. District Judge George Singal ruled on Wednesday.

Brooks said he believed the Port Nicholson carried platinum bars from the Soviet Union that were payment to the U.S. for war supplies. His treasure hunt had led to a criminal investigation and legal action by investors who paid him millions of dollars.

The judge also denied an attempt by a group of investors to win recovery rights, claims to what’s on the ship if anything is found. The judge wrote that evidence suggests there’s nothing valuable to salvage.

The record, the judge wrote, suggests that all that remains is “70-year-old truck tires, fenders and miscellaneous other parts and military supplies.”

The judge essentially ended Sea Hunters’ rights to any claim to potential treasure. He cited Sea Hunters’ actions “including the filing of falsified documents on this court’s docket and its inability to salvage any items of substantial value.” He issued the ruling with prejudice, meaning it’s permanent.

Brooks, whose company is based in Gorham, said he wishes he could talk in depth about the case to provide “the real story” but his attorneys want him to be silent.

“I will say one thing, I still believe the cargo is aboard the PN,” he wrote in an email. “I just cannot fight countries.”

Brooks said he located the Port Nicholson wreck in 2008. His claim of valuable precious metals aboard led to a splash in the media in 2012, but there were immediate questions about the veracity of it. He eventually put his vessel up for sale and laid off his crew.

READ MORE

Coming Exhibition: Collectionism and Modernity

“Collectionism and Modernity:

Two Case Studies~ The Im Obersteg and Rudolf Staechelin Collections”

Pablo Picasso. Buveuse d’absinthe (The Absinthe Drinker), 1901. Oil on canvas, 81 x 60 cm. Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel. Photography: Mark Gisler, Müllheim

Who:  Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, The Phillips Collection, the Im Obersteg Foundation, the Rudolf Staechelin Foundation

When: Mar. 18, 2015 – Sept. 14, 2015 (View Hours Here)

Where: 

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Calle Santa Isabel 52 
Madrid, Spain 28012

How Much:  (View Pricing Here)

More Information: Here

“

It was not the work of artists, critics and curators alone that made the development of modern and contemporary art possible. Another factor related to both economic and social concerns intervened as a catalyst in the process. This was art collecting.

This exhibition brings together two leading collections of early modernist art that now form part of the holdings of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland), the Im Obersteg Collection and the Rudolf Staechelin Collection, offering an opportunity to enjoy works by the most reputed early modernist masters, the vast majority of which have never before been seen in Spain. It is moreover a chance to explore the phenomenon of collecting, with a focus on its centrality to the formation of modern art.

Private collections of early modernism have traditionally been studied and exhibited with an emphasis on the contemplation of the works on display, neglecting the economic, social and political implications inherent to the activity of collecting in a context like that of Europe in the first decades of the 20th century. Nevertheless, collecting is above all discursive, and may be studied as such. A collection of whatever kind is made up not only of the works it contains but also of the narratives it successfully generates. It was in this sense that Walter Benjamin regarded the collector in his Arcades Project, viewing the act of collecting as related to the desire to understand and organize theworld as a cosmos: “Perhaps in this way it is possible to concretize the secret motive that underlies collecting: the fight against dispersion. The great collector is perturbed from the outset by the dispersion and chaos that subsume everything in theworld.”

.”

Coming Exhibition: Beirut Art Fair

“Beirut Art Fair”

Culture

Who:  ME.NA.SA

When: Sept. 17, 2015 – Sept. 20, 2015 (View Hours Here)

Where: 

Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure Center
Downtown
Beirut, Lebanon

How Much:  (View Pricing Here)

More Information: Here

“Since its inception in 2010, BEIRUT ART FAIR established itself on the international artistic scene with the vision of a ME.NA.SA. labeled art which shaped its identity and power of attraction. In tune with the centers of interest of international collectors, the fair displays the creation of this region which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia, in its wide diversity.

From 17 to 20 September 2015, organizers will receive at BIEL around fifty international modern and contemporary art and design galleries. Exhibiting artists represent all of the trends of current art and express themselves through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, design or performance… Confirmed and developing artists mingle and invite the viewer to share their visions of the world, their dreams or their positions. 

BEIRUT ART FAIR confirms the position of Beirut as the cultural and intellectual capital of the Arab world, at the junction between the East and the West. It is part of the international fairs dedicated to art and serves as a window for the ME.NA.SA. creation which is open to the world.”

Use Force to Stop ISIS’ Destruction of Art and History

“Use Force to Stop ISIS’ Destruction of Art and History”

by Hugh Eakin via “NY Times“

Will the world do nothing to stop extremist groups from destroying some of civilization’s most treasured monuments?

The question has confronted Western governments with stark urgency in the weeks since the Islamic State released a video of militants smashing ancient sculptures at the Mosul Museum. In early March, following reports that extremists attacked the ancient Assyrian sites of Nimrud and Hatra, Iraqi officials pleaded for American airstrikes to stop them. But so far the United States and its allies have wrung their hands.

Secretary of State John Kerry described the devastation as “one of the most outrageous assaults on our shared heritage that perhaps any of us have seen in a lifetime.” Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, said: “This is not just a cultural tragedy. It’s also a security issue, with terrorists using the destruction of heritage as a weapon of war.” The United Nations Security Council condemned the “targeted destruction of religious sites and objects” by the Islamic State and the Nusra Front.

But the United Nations says it is largely powerless to deal with the threat, and Western governments claim they have more urgent military objectives.

This is dangerously wrong. By loudly deploring this “war crime” and doing nothing, the world may be playing into the extremists’ hands. “ISIS is doing it because they can,” Amr Al-Azm, an Ohio-based Syrian anthropologist, told me. “They are striking at things the international community holds dear, but is impotent to do anything about.”

Since 2011, five of the six Unesco World Heritage sites in Syria have suffered significant damage; four have been requisitioned for military purposes by different groups, in direct violation of international protocols. Tunnel bombs have devastated Aleppo’s old city; thousand-year-old minarets have been detonated; medieval forts have been shelled; Parthian and Hellenistic sites have been pillaged.

Then came the Islamic State, which turned such attacks into an explicit strategy. Taking over archaeological sites near its stronghold, the northern city of Raqqa, the group turned local looting brigades into large-scale businesses. And it has used social media to broadcast the carefully choreographed destruction of mosques, cemeteries, libraries and other monuments belonging to any groups or sects it regards as deviant.

READ MORE

“Haystacks painting is officially declared a newly discovered Monet – but why did the Impressionist paint over his signature? “

“Haystacks painting is officially declared a newly discovered Monet – but why did the Impressionist paint over his signature?”

by Lydia Willgress via “Daily Mail“

An oil painting has been proven to be one of Claude Monet’s – after scientists discovered the artist painted over his own signature.

The 1891 painting, titled ‘A Haystack in the Evening Sun’, was largely unknown and its origin had never been verified.

But a team of researchers from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland painstakingly unearthed the signature.

An 1891 oil painting - titled 'A Haystack in the Evening Sun' - has been proven to be one of Claude Monet's despite the artist painting over his own signature

The painting has been owned by the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation, also in Finland, for more than 50 years.

It is thought to be part of a wider series by Monet with all the pieces illustrating stacks of hay in fields after the harvest season.

The painting was verified after a special camera was used to examine the composition of the work.

This allowed researchers to see different layers including a previous signature by Monet.

It is thought to be part of a wider series by Monet (above) with all the pieces illustrating stacks of hay in fields after the harvest season 

Ilkka Pölönen, a researcher, said the camera scans one ‘line’ at a time.

He told ArtDaily: ‘When the camera is moved using the scanner an image of the whole picture can be obtained.’

The Fine Arts Foundation said the artwork is the first Monet painting to be held in a Finnish public collection.

The other paintings from the series are held at various galleries including the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Scotland and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.

READ MORE