Author: Darko Topalski

WASHINGTON,
DC.-The American
Institute of Architects(AIA) has
selected, Curtis Fentress, FAIA, a designer, Les Shepherd, AIA, a government
agency head, and Ken Greenberg, Assoc. AIA, an urban planner to receive the 2010
Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture. This year’s
award recipients will be honored and receive their awards at the 2010 AIA
National Convention and Design Exposition in Miami.The Thomas Jefferson Award recognizes
excellence in architectural advocacy and achievement in three categories:
Private-sector architects who have established a portfolio of accomplishment in
the design of architecturally distinguished public facilities; public-sector
architects who manage or produce quality design within their agencies; and
public officials or other individuals who by their role of advocacy have
furthered the public’s awareness and/or appreciation of design excellence.

NEW YORK,
NY.-“I don’t deal
directly with reality but with representations and stories. The truth basis of
what I’m doing is not interesting to me. In an act of storytelling, there is a
truth.” Omer Fast, as quoted in New York Magazine, December 21-28,
2009.These exact words
were never uttered in this order. But, like in Fast’s works, it is precisely in
re-telling, editing, interpretation, misunderstanding and subjective
recollections that we encounter the kernels of what is real. Postmasters
Gallerypresents an exhibition of
two video works by Omer Fast. The show coincides with Fast’s exhibition at the
Whitney Museum of American Art. On
exhibition through 13 February, 2010.

NEW YORK,
NY.-Following the
record-breaking success of its Old Master & 19th Century Art sale in
December in London,Christie’spresents its flagship New York sale of
Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors in a two-part
auction on Wednesday, January 27. This extraordinary sale of over 320
works presents the best examples of European art from the 15th to the 19th
century, and features master works and recent rediscoveries from Lucas Cranach
the Elder, Jan Brueghel II, Thomas Gainsborough, Gaetano Gandolfi, Louis Léopold
Boilly, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, and Samuel Palmer, among others.
Total sales are expected to achieve in excess of $48
million.

The French Ministry of Culture
and the Louvre have acquired the painting “Saint Peter’s Denial,” by French
painter Antoine or Louis Le Nain, attributed to the 17th century Lorraine
School. The painting is the museum’s latest acquisition and was
purchased by a private patronage for 11,500,000 euros.(16,560,000
dollars).The painting
“was found in an attic in Luneville” and sold at auction in Nancy on 19 March
2000. Estimated at 200,000 francs, it was acquired by the Parisian dealer
Charles Bailly for 9.2 million francs. The painting was denied an export permit
and was acquired by insurance company AXA.

ST. PETERSBURG
(AP).-President
Dmitry Medvedev has outdone Putin, his powerful predecessor — as an artist.A photograph Medvedev took of the
kremlin, or fortress, in a Siberian town sold for 51 million rubles ($1.7
million) at a charity auction, surpassing the 37 million rubles
(then $1.1 million) paid last year for a painting by Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin.Medvedev’s
black-and-white photo was snapped up by Mikhail Zingarevich, a board member at
Ilim Group, the pulp and paper company where Medvedev once worked as a lawyer.
Zingarevich said he planned to hang the 69-by-96-centimeter (27-by-38-inch)
picture in his office.