Tag: News

TEHRAN.- Iran will cut its links with the British Museum and ask bodies such as UNESCO to reconsider their own ties if the museum does not keep a promise to lend Iran an ancient Persian treasure, Iranian media reported on Sunday. Iran’s Cultural Heritage Organization said in October it had set a two-month deadline for the British Museum to allow the public display in Iran of the so-called Cyrus Cylinder, linked to the Persian ruler’s 6th century BC conquest of Babylon. The Museum, which houses a vast collection of world art and artifacts, said in September that plans to hand over the 2,500-year-old clay cylinder had been delayed due to unspecified “practicalities.” “If we find out for certain that the British Museum does not want to send the Cyrus

BALTIMORE, MD (AP).- Edgar Allan Poe’s fertile imagination has endured for more than 150 years — and so has his pale, death-haunted image, with his sunken eyes, a trim mustache and unruly mop of curly hair. However, scholars say Poe looked far more vigorous, perhaps even dashing, in his earlier years than he does in the well-known series of daguerreotypes taken in the final years of his life. The more robust Poe is captured in a small watercolor by A.C. Smith, one of just three surviving portraits of the author, which will be shown publicly for the first time Saturday and is expected to fetch tens of thousands

VANCOUVER, BC.- The Vancouver Art Gallery will play a central role in enlivening Vancouver ’s downtown streets during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games with three major public art installations in the city’s most prominent locations. Using the exuberant floral patterns of Taiwanese fabric, Taipei-based artist Michael Lin will cover the Gallery’s entire northern façade with a massive hand-painted mural. The southern side of the Gallery will be transformed into an outdoor theatre presenting a continuous flow of video-based works on a massive LED screen. At Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite, the Gallery’s recently launched outdoor exhibition space, internationally renowned Vancouver artist Ken Lum will construct large-scale sculptures replicating squatters’ shacks once built on North Vancouver ’s

LONDON.- The 22nd edition of the annual London Art Fair closed on Sunday 17th January 2010, reporting excellent visitor figures, strong sales and positive feedback. The show drew 23,219 visitors and 250 media representatives from the UK and around the world. On the first night, 3731 people attended. VIPs who visited the Fair included Sir Peter Blake, Gavin Turk and Vic Reeves, Nicholas Serrota [Director of Tate], Matthew Collings, [Broadcaster and British Art Critic]. Celebrities such as Johnny Borrell [Frontman of the rock band Razorlight], Emma Thompson, Damien Lewis, Victoria Wood, Emilia Fox and Bill Bailey also came. 116 galleries took part in total, compared with 112 in 2009, making this year the largest since it began in 1988. 86% galleries were returning from 2009, a

SANTA MONICA, CA.- The Robert Berman Gallery presents a selection of Ben Talbert’s paintings, drawings and assemblages from the 1960’s. “Luck and Love Revisited” is curated by Talbert’s close friend and well know curator, Hal Glicksman. Ben Talbert was an accomplished painter and sculptor, who was part of the original circle of beat and alternative Venice artist’s from the 1960’s. Not only was he friends with all of the people from the seminal group, in particular Wallace Berman and Ed Kienholz, but was also exhibited in a major show with both of them at the Pasadena Art Museum as well as a solo show curated by Walter Hopps. Talbert’s assemblages are still well known and were recently in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum and at the Santa Monica Museum.

EDINBURGH.- For generations, the cast of an unknown criminal dubbed with the mock Latin title of ‘Smugglerius’, has been used in the teaching of anatomical drawing at Edinburgh College of Art with no real knowledge of its provenance. This exhibition, developed as part of the ongoing restoration of the Edinburgh College of Art Cast Collection, at last reveals the man behind the cast. In addition to detailed research which examines the history of the cast and the life of the man it was most likely moulded from, the exhibition includes original artworks created in response to Smugglerius and the theme of a past unveiled. Dating from 1854, the College Smugglerius is a copy of an original écorché – a figure with the skin and fat removed to expose the muscles and tendons – made in 1776

LONDON.- Somerset House will present “Pick Me Up”, the first contemporary graphic art fair in the UK. The fair will bring together a selection of the most innovative galleries, collectives and designers under one roof, and showcase affordable work by the world’s most cutting-edge graphic designers and illustrators. Work by some of the best known names in the industry will be for sale as well as exclusive limited edition art work from the most exciting emerging artists. These works will be presented alongside a unique programme of events and live performances, including an open studio with celebrated designer Rob Ryan. Conceived as a celebration of graphic arts, the fair will take place in The Embankment Galleries of Somerset House. The fair will include an exhibition of work by the best up-and-coming international graphic designers

TAIPEI (REUTERS).- A Taiwanese man has tamed the tiger, shrinking the Chinese zodiac animal into a sculpture smaller than a grain of rice that’s fully visible only through a magnifying glass. Chen Forng-shean, who has been sculpting as a hobby for some 30 years, carved from resin what he calls the world’s tiniest tiger at 1 millimetre (0.04 inch) high and just over a millimeter long ahead of the Chinese lunar Year of the Tiger which starts on February 14. But Chen said the brightly colored beast nearly got the best of him over 10 attempts to create it. “If the hands shake a little bit, the work would jump away and disappear,” said Chen, 54, a minting plate designer by trade. “For this tiger, the toughest part is because it is three-dimensional. It can be looked at from any angle and still seem very lively.

PRINCETON, NJ.- “We expect a lot of portraits,” writes Tom Hare, the William Sauter LaPorte ’28 Professor in Regional Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton. “A good likeness seems essential, but not sufficient, because the likeness should show us something about the person that goes beyond the superficiality of appearance.” Beginning January 22, 2010, visitors to Firestone Library’s Main Gallery will have the opportunity to look for that “something” in more than 100 portraits of poets, novelists, and essayists, pulled from the holdings of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections for the exhibition “The Author’s Portrait: ‘O, Could He But Have Drawne His Wit.’” Paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, marble sculptures, and plaster death