2000s

Scenes from Europe

Stunning Art from Thai Peck (Blog laroseedespetiteschoses) . . . Beautifully done!

“Art Exhibit Blends Video Games with Religious Iconography”

“Art Exhibit Blends Video Games with Religious Iconography”

by Owen S. Good via “Polygon“

“An art exhibit currently showing in New York imagines video game scenes as if they were religious frescoes from the late Middle Ages.

The one shown here is “Defenders of Ataros,” by Dan Hernandez, plainly referencing Atari’s Missile Command. It’s part of “Genesis 2014,” showing now at the Kim Foster Gallery in Chelsea.

Hernandez, notes the Gallery, mixes religion, mythology and pop culture in his work. “Hernandez blurs boundaries, rearranges hierarchies, and calls into question our notions of iconography, collectibles, violence and devotion,” the gallery says.

The show is running until next Saturday. Other paintings in the collection referenceStreet Fighter 2 and Space Invaders. See them at this link. . . . . “

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Hong Kong Police Search Landfill for $3.7 Mln Painting

Wonder how the contract read. . . When did title transfer over? Is the artist responsible for the cost if it cannot be found. **DB

“Hong Kong Police Search Landfill for $3.7 Mln Painting”

by AFP

“Hong Kong (AFP) – Hong Kong police on Wednesday searched for a valuable painting mistakenly dumped in a landfill after it sold for $3.7 million at auction, reports said.

 “Snowy Mountain” by Chinese artist Cui Ruzhuo, which was a main feature of the spring auction by Beijing-based Poly Culture this week, was dumped by cleaners at the luxury hotel hosting the sale, the South China Morning Post said.

Grand Hyatt hotel cleaners were suspected of dumping the painting, which sold on Monday for more than HK$28.75 million ($3.71 million), along with rubbish that was taken to a landfill, the paper said, citing an unnamed police source.

Poly Culture did not comment immediately when contacted by AFP.

Police suspected the painting was thrown out by cleaners after viewing security camera images but would not rule out the possibility of it having been stolen, media reported.

Police told AFP a theft case was reported on Tuesday by an auction house staff member regarding a painting, without giving further details.

A Grant Hyatt spokeswoman would not confirm if the painting had been dumped as trash but said hotel staff did not handle items sold at the auction because they were too expensive.

She said in an emailed statement to AFP that organisers would hire their own security and contractors for such events involving “high-value” items.

The spring sale was the first major auction organised by Poly Culture in Hong Kong following its stock debut in March.

Poly Culture Group, the world’s third largest auction house by revenue behind Sotheby’s and Christie’s, is a subsidiary of state-run conglomerate Poly Group. . . .

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“Syria artist sets Guinness record with Damascus mural”

“Syria artist sets Guinness record with Damascus Mural”

VIA AFP

Damascus (AFP) – A Syrian artist has set a Guinness record for the world’s largest mural made of recycled materials, aiming to inspire hope and creativity in his war-ravaged country.

 Guinness World Records announced on its Facebook page that Moaffak Makhoul and his team completed the mural in Damascus in January, two months shy of the third anniversary of the grim conflict in Syria.

“The largest mural from recycled material measures 720 square metres (7,749.98 square feet),” it said on its Facebook page.

Guinness said it was “created from manufactured waste by Moaffak Makhoul and a team of six Syrian artists in Al Mazzeh, Damascus.” (more…)

“First Look Inside Expanded Harvard Art Museums”

“First Look Inside Expanded Harvard Art Museums”

by Greg Cook via “The Artery“

“Light is one of the most important materials of architecture,” Renzo Piano said at a talk at Harvard University in 2009. Light and transparency—one of the ways he makes light part of his architecture—are primary themes for the suave, celebrated Italian architect.

“Transparency is still a very important quality of urban life,” he said at that Harvard talk. “Urbanity comes because the buildings talk to the street.”

These notions are evident in his designs for the newly renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums between Quincy and Prescott streets in Cambridge. On Tuesday the university announced plans to reopen the complex on Nov. 16.

Since the project began with the closing of the institution’s Fogg Museum and Busch-Reisinger museums in 2008, he’s taken the iconic Italian Renaissance-style courtyard at the heart of the 1927 Fogg, which has been protected with listing on the National Register of Historic Places since the 1980s, and extended it upward and crowned it with a futuristic-looking, steel and glass pyramid that floods the five-story-tall space with sun.

Piano first made his mark as a post-modern punk with his designs for Paris’s Pompidou Centre in the 1970s, which seemed to expose all the guts of the museum  . . . .”