Culture

“New Candidates for World Heritage Titles”

“New Candidates for World Heritage Titles”

via “Deutschland.de”

“Hamburg’s Speicherstadt and the Naumburg Cathedral are to be included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. This was announced by the Conference of Cultural Ministers. They have submitted the nominations to the GermanFEDERAL GOVERNMENT with the request that this be passed on to UNESCO in Paris.

Hamburg’s docklands Speicherstadt was built between 1885 and 1927 is widely regarded as the largest coherent and uniform storage and warehouse ensemble in the world, the applicants submitted. The Naumburg Cathedral in SAXONY Anhalt is, the Conference of Cultural Ministers continued, the most visible symbol of a unique cultural LANDSCAPE that evolved from High Medieval structures. The figures of the patron founders in the cathedral are “among the most outstanding created by European Medieval sculptors.”

The UNESCO World Cultural Heritage committee convenes once a year and will decide on the two nominations at its summer 2015 meeting. . . . “

“Art Exhibits for the Selfie Set”

“Art Exhibits for the Selfie Set”

by Richard Morgan via “Wall Street Journal“

“Carmelle Fernandez came down to Chelsea from the north Bronx with her cousin to stand in front of a pair of 18-feet-tall wooden characters. She asked a fellow visitor to Mary Boone Gallery to photograph them in similar poses as the sculptures—a shot destined for Instagram, Ms. Fernandez, a 30-year-old office assistant, said.

“It just makes you feel like you’re part of it,” she said. “It’s just fun. I think a lot of people take these photos. It’s hard not to.”

The exhibit, of sculptures and paintings by the artist KAWS, isn’t . . . .”

Out of curiosity, how long until the selfies themselves are considered works of art? I fully expect an exhibition to appear within the next 1-2 years focusing on the “best selfies” or “selfies that tell a story” theme.   It is a surprisingly important part of modern culture–the obsession with oneself and one’s own interaction with the world as opposed to merely appreciating the works and experiences of others. That being said, this is a great way to involve otherwise un-interested audiences in the arts.

‘Degenerate Art’ Opens at Neue Galerie in the Spring

‘Degenerate Art’ Opens at Neue Galerie in the Spring

by Carol Vogel via “NY Times”

The Neue Galerie’s big spring show, “Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937,” has been nearly three years in the making, yet it seems particularly prescient after the discovery last month of what may well be the biggest trove of missing 20th-century European art — about 1,400 works suspected of being traded or looted during the Nazis’ reign, including paintings by Matisse, Chagall, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and a host of other masters. Some disappeared in the late 1930s, around the time the Nazis raided German museums and public collections, confiscating works they called degenerate because Hitler deemed them un-German or Jewish in nature. . . .

This would be interesting to catch; I’m surprised so many works survived, since the Nazis destroyed so much of what they disapproved of (the loss in literary history was devastating).  It is a relief to know that so much survived, and I would be fascinated to attend this showing.  If anyone has a chance to go, a review would be greatly appreciated!

 

“Art Worthy of a Hard Look”

Art Worthy of a Hard Look

by Karen Wilkin via “Wall Street Journal“


“The most memorable exhibitions of 2013 ranged from close examinations of a single aspect of an artist’s oeuvre to broad overviews. Some placed familiar works in informative contexts. Others were surprising. Some were all of this, all at once. All demanded that we look hard and rewarded that attention by enlarging our understanding. . . ”

 

“Rediscovering China, India and Southeast Asia at the Cleveland Museum of Art: The new West Wing”

“Rediscovering China, India and Southeast Asia at the Cleveland Museum of Art: The new West Wing”

by Steven Litt via “Cleveland Art“

Exhibition: “Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian Galleries”

Location: 

The Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Blvd., Cleveland

Opening Date: Jan. 2., 2014

Cost of Admission: Free

Further Information: www.clevelandart.org

“They were destinations of conquest and desire for millennia. Reaching them by caravan or by sea was dangerous, if not deadly. Yet traders and invaders from across Europe and Asia couldn’t resist the allure of China, India and Southeast Asia.

Thanks to the completion of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s new West Wing, Northeast Ohioans can now travel with ease – artistically speaking – to places that once fired the imaginations of Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Columbus and Magellan.

 On Thursday, the museum will launch a members-only preview of six new galleries containing nearly 500 works of art in jade, silk, bronze, gold, porcelain, ink on paper and dozens of types of stone, including the blue-gray schist of Afghanistan and the red sandstone of the Ganges Valley. . . . .”