28 February 2007 | Baroque/Neoclassical
According to ADNKronosInternational, the Italian press is reporting that “Italy’s baroque painting genius Michelangelo Merisi might not have been born in the northern town of Caravaggio, the name by which he is universally known, but in Milan. The astounding discovery has reportedly just been made not by an art historian but by a pensioner, a [...]
28 February 2007 | Books, Journals, Theory
In the Autumn 2006 issue of Critique d’Art, Bruno-Nassim Aboudrar rejoices that “at least three recent books attest to the new awareness on the part of art history of the theoretical challenges of its object or — which comes to more or less the same thing — attest to a reconciliation-in-progress between art history and [...]
28 February 2007 | Architecture, Islamic, Medieval
From the New York Times: “In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century. A new study shows that the Islamic pattern-making process, far more intricate than [...]
28 February 2007 | Uncategorized
From Herbert Muschamp: “Mr. Rosenblum, who died in December at 79, went on to become the most consistently edifying art historian of his generation. With a combination of iconoclasm, faultless lucidity and wit, he smashed aesthetic prejudices the way physicists smash atoms. There ought to be a Nobel Prize for that sort of achievement.”
27 February 2007 | Baroque/Neoclassical, Books
In the Feb. 2007 Artforum, Arthur Danto reviews T.J. Clark’s The Sight of Death, which Clark wrote after spending half a year before two Poussin paintings: “all this is pure association, and it is a pretty meager havest for six months of intense looking … the experiment ought not to have just awakened personal associations, [...]
26 February 2007 | Journals, Photography, Theory
In language that recalls the recent CAA panel devoted to the definition of architecture, the Spring 2007 issue of History of Photography devoted to “hybridity” argues in its introduction that “our postmodern age has transformed hybridity (both the process and the result) into one of its master codes, and perhaps even into one of its [...]
23 February 2007 | Architecture
The Feb. 14 Architect’s Newspaper contains an appreciation of Phyllis Lambert. In it, Jean-Louis Cohen writes: “As shown by her recent contributions to the exhibition Mies in America (Whitney Museum of Art, 2001) and the journal Grey Room (2005), Phyllis Lambert is a rigorous scholar of North American architecture. But before all, while she could [...]
22 February 2007 | Asia
From the University of Chicago Chronicle: “The Rev. Henricus ‘Harrie’ Vanderstappen … who was a pioneering scholar of Chinese art and one of the first Catholic priests to hold a professorship at a secular university, died Thursday, Jan. 25 … An expert in the art of the Yuan and Ming periods, Vanderstappen was part of [...]
22 February 2007 | Renaissance
From the AP: “A 450-year-old receipt provides proof Michelangelo kept a private room in St. Peter’s Basilica while he was the pope’s chief architect, Vatican experts said. While going through the basilica archives for an exhibit on the 500th anniversary of the church last year, researchers came across an entry for a key to a [...]
22 February 2007 | Modern, Museums
The controversial paintings that some attribute to Jackson Pollock have again been scheduled for exhibition, this time at the Boston College McMullen Museum of Art, in September of this year, according to the Boston Globe.
22 February 2007 | Career, Conferences
Blogger Franklin Einspruch writes on the CAA job fair: “To Prairie Dog Technical College, thank you for thanking me as I picked my package back up. You showed class. To Dastardly Beaver University, who seemed pained to take it in the first place, I have noted your snotty avoidance of eye contact for future reference [...]
22 February 2007 | Books, Renaissance
David Landau reviews the first volume of Giovanni Agosti’s Su Mantegna in the Dec. 2006 Print Quarterly: “This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. For a long time we have felt the need for a reassessment of Mantegna … Agosti has done this and more: he has developed our understanding of [...]
21 February 2007 | Conferences
Artforum’s Scene & Herd diary has a dispatch (with photos) from CAA, written by Sarah Thornton: “Some art worlders lead sexy lives, others spend Valentine’s Day at the Hilton in Midtown … Bigwig art historians wandered the corridors with entourages of grad-students nipping at their heels. When they encountered dons of similar rank, they made [...]
21 February 2007 | Conferences
For more reporting on this panel, see Artnet.
21 February 2007 | Conferences
Blogger mayhem writes: “I went to the Feminist Art Project seminar for the College Art Association conference. Initially I’d had vague dreams of swanning around with little business cards, networking and sussing out a post-doc. But – I have days where everything is too much. i can barely meet people in the eye – let [...]
21 February 2007 | Conferences
Blogger Joanne Renaud writes: “Well, what a productive trip it’s been! … I did manage to sell ‘Bunnie Antoinette‘ to the director of the College Art Association for not an enormous sum — but it is out in the world now, and I don’t have to lug it home in my suitcase.”
21 February 2007 | Ancient
From The Chronicle of Higher Education: “When he saw the letter, Donny George Youkhanna knew it was time to get out of Iraq. It was late this July, and someone had dropped an envelope containing a bullet on his parents’ driveway in Baghdad … he filed for retirement from the Iraq State Board of Antiquities [...]
21 February 2007 | Ancient
NYU Institute of Fine Arts director Mariët Westermann writes: “Professor Donald Hansen died this Thursday afternoon [Feb 15]… He came to the Institute in 1963, having earned a PhD from Harvard … His major scholarly contributions always rested on sound and resourceful fieldwork throughout the Middle East. In the course of his career, he participated [...]
21 February 2007 | Conferences
Responding to the CAA panel on copyright, Blogger Mike Madison puts forward the idea that “copyright law is constituent of the artistic process, not external to it, and via fair use (among other doctrines) copyright offers a crucible for mediating between multiple conceptions of ‘art’ … Christo endured years of zoning battles with local authorities [...]
20 February 2007 | Conferences
More on the appropriation and the law panel from participant William Patry (of Google).
