My Desert.com: Burglary investigation nets 3 people
BERMUDA DUNES — Three people were behind bars Friday as the result of warrants served in a residential burglary investigation that netted more than $100,000 worth of stolen property, including artwork and firearms, a Riverside County sheriff's captain said.
Philip Sena and Denise Swearingen of Bermuda Dunes and Rick Sena of La Quinta were arrested in a two-day search that netted property stolen from residences throughout the Coachella Valley, Capt. Raymond Gregory said Friday.
“The (recovered) property includes a number of distinctive art pieces, as well as a large cache of firearms,” he said.
Police served search warrants at a residence on Bermuda Dunes Drive in the Bermuda Dunes Country Club and another residence on Avenue 70 in the unincorporated area of North Shore. They found “large quantities” of property stolen from residences in La Quinta, Bermuda Dunes, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and other communities in the Coachella Valley, Gregory said.
Philip Sena, 46, was detained on suspicion of possession of stolen property, being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a silencer, possession of a deadly weapon and committing a felony while on bail.
Rick Sena, 45, was detained on suspicion of possession of stolen property and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Swearingen, 41, was detained on suspicion of possession of stolen property.
The investigation, which is ongoing, was headed by the La Quinta Police Special Enforcement Team and the warrants were served with sheriff's investigators and personnel from other law enforcement agencies, said Gregory, who serves as the chief of police for La Quinta, which contracts for police services from the sheriff's department.
Anyone with information about other burglaries should call the sheriff's Indio station at (760) 863-8990 or email IndioStationriversidesheriff.org.
People also can contact Coachella Valley Crime Stoppers at (760) 341-7867. They can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Suspect Sought in Case of Stolen Renoir Painting
From Sudan Vision Daily: Suspect Sought in Case of Stolen Renoir Painting
HOUSTON -- An armed robber got away with a prized painting during a home invasion in west Houston and police are asking anyone who've seen the artwork to call them.
The Renoir painting was swiped earlier this month during a home invasion near Woodway and Chimney Rock.
Houston police and Crime Stoppers are asking for information leading to an arrest in the case of the stolen Renoir painting. And since thefts of big-time impressionist art are so unusual, they're confident that asking the community for help will turn up some leads.
The burglar took the Renoir painting from a home in the upscale neighborhood around Woodway and Chimney Rock near the Galleria back on September 8. The artwork called 'Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow with Flowers in Her Hair' was painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1918. Today it's valued at around $1 million.
"It's a Renoir painting. It's highly recognizable. Someone who's in possession of that property can easily be identified," said Katherine Cabaniss, Executive Director of Crime Stoppers.
The suspect is described only as a white man wearing a ski mask. He had a black semi-automatic gun and pointed it at the victim and demanded money and jewelry. Then, police say, he pointed at the painting, and demanded it. He left with the painting still in its frame. The victim was not injured.
The Renoir stolen from the house was part of a private collection now housed at the Vaughan Christopher Gallery on S. Shepherd.
A neighboring business owner says there's been an extra constable presence there since the painting was stolen. And Cabaniss is confident that someone knows something about the case.
"It's unusual to see a burglary in which such unique property is stolen," she said.
Anyone with information on the suspect or the painting is urged to contact the HPD Robbery Division at 713-308-0700 or Crime Stoppers.
Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for any information called in to the 713-222-TIPS (8477) or submitted online at www.crime-stoppers.org that leads to the filing of charges or arrest of the suspect(s) in this case. Tips can also be sent by text message.
Ottawa, Canada: Thieves robbing gov't buildings of pricey artwork
From CTV.News: Thieves robbing gov't buildings of pricey artwork
OTTAWA — Some people are stealing more than a just glance at artwork in government buildings.
Records kept by the Canada Council for the Arts show thieves have made off with pricey works of art on display in federal offices, airports and universities.
A list obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act shows more than $80,000 worth of art has disappeared over the years.
Not all of it was stolen.
One piece was sold at auction after someone at Montreal's Mirabel Airport mistakenly put it in the lost-and-found.
The government bought Canadian artist Ann Newdigate's tapestry, "Creatures of Habit," for $5,570. No one knows how much it sold for at auction, or where it is today.
"It was taken down by Transport Canada, and it was placed with goods from the lost-and-found department, and it was sold at auction," said Victoria Henry, director of the Canada Council Art Bank.
"So someone owns it, and has the name of the art bank, the label on it, for sure."
Henry said insurance covered the loss of the tapestry.
Other stolen works include paintings, photographs and soap stone sculptures.
The Canada Council Art Bank is the largest collection of contemporary Canadian art in the world, with around 17,000 works by some 2,500 artists in its working collection.
The entire collection was originally valued at $18 million. Now it is worth $70 million.
Companies and government departments and agencies can rent art from the collection to display in their offices and public spaces. It costs between $120 and $3,600 a year to rent a work of art.
The Canada Council says around 5,000 works are currently rented out to government offices, hospitals, schools and businesses.
The most valuable piece to be swiped was a small floor sculpture by Toronto-based artist Noel Harding. The 16-millimetre film-loop projection with moving props cost the government $13,055.
Henry defended the art bank's track record. She said only 201 works of art have been stolen since the art bank opened in 1972.
"We have rented well over 250,000 art works," Henry said.
"So it's a very limited number of works that have actually been lost or stolen during the 40 years that we've been in existence. So, it's a pretty good record."
Crooks struck CBC buildings most. The public broadcaster has been hit 16 times at its bureaus across the country.
Public Works has been robbed nine times at its Vancouver, Montreal, Gatineau, Que., Halifax and St. John's, N.L., offices. Thieves struck the Finance Department six times and the offices of the taxman five times.
Not even Public Safety Canada was safe. A soapstone sculpture by Inuit carver Enook Manomie and black-and-white photos by Robert Boffa were nabbed at two of the agency's offices.
"The public spaces are public," Henry said.
"I would say in all cases, there's usually in the lobby area some kind of a receptionist, if it's a government building, or a commissionaire in fact.
"So it is a bit of a surprise when a major work like that disappears."
Scenes of some other heists include immigration offices, hospitals, universities and colleges.
Meanwhile, around 100 works of art collectively valued at $413,884 have been damaged beyond repair.
Most of the too-damaged-to-display pieces were heavy fibreglass sculptures. Warehouses and loading docks were where most of the damage occurred.
Henry said many of those works simply deteriorated over time.
OTTAWA — Some people are stealing more than a just glance at artwork in government buildings.
Records kept by the Canada Council for the Arts show thieves have made off with pricey works of art on display in federal offices, airports and universities.
A list obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act shows more than $80,000 worth of art has disappeared over the years.
Not all of it was stolen.
One piece was sold at auction after someone at Montreal's Mirabel Airport mistakenly put it in the lost-and-found.
The government bought Canadian artist Ann Newdigate's tapestry, "Creatures of Habit," for $5,570. No one knows how much it sold for at auction, or where it is today.
"It was taken down by Transport Canada, and it was placed with goods from the lost-and-found department, and it was sold at auction," said Victoria Henry, director of the Canada Council Art Bank.
"So someone owns it, and has the name of the art bank, the label on it, for sure."
Henry said insurance covered the loss of the tapestry.
Other stolen works include paintings, photographs and soap stone sculptures.
The Canada Council Art Bank is the largest collection of contemporary Canadian art in the world, with around 17,000 works by some 2,500 artists in its working collection.
The entire collection was originally valued at $18 million. Now it is worth $70 million.
Companies and government departments and agencies can rent art from the collection to display in their offices and public spaces. It costs between $120 and $3,600 a year to rent a work of art.
The Canada Council says around 5,000 works are currently rented out to government offices, hospitals, schools and businesses.
The most valuable piece to be swiped was a small floor sculpture by Toronto-based artist Noel Harding. The 16-millimetre film-loop projection with moving props cost the government $13,055.
Henry defended the art bank's track record. She said only 201 works of art have been stolen since the art bank opened in 1972.
"We have rented well over 250,000 art works," Henry said.
"So it's a very limited number of works that have actually been lost or stolen during the 40 years that we've been in existence. So, it's a pretty good record."
Crooks struck CBC buildings most. The public broadcaster has been hit 16 times at its bureaus across the country.
Public Works has been robbed nine times at its Vancouver, Montreal, Gatineau, Que., Halifax and St. John's, N.L., offices. Thieves struck the Finance Department six times and the offices of the taxman five times.
Not even Public Safety Canada was safe. A soapstone sculpture by Inuit carver Enook Manomie and black-and-white photos by Robert Boffa were nabbed at two of the agency's offices.
"The public spaces are public," Henry said.
"I would say in all cases, there's usually in the lobby area some kind of a receptionist, if it's a government building, or a commissionaire in fact.
"So it is a bit of a surprise when a major work like that disappears."
Scenes of some other heists include immigration offices, hospitals, universities and colleges.
Meanwhile, around 100 works of art collectively valued at $413,884 have been damaged beyond repair.
Most of the too-damaged-to-display pieces were heavy fibreglass sculptures. Warehouses and loading docks were where most of the damage occurred.
Henry said many of those works simply deteriorated over time.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Artwork stolen from Port Angeles gallery
From ww.peninsuladailynews.com: Artwork stolen from Port Angeles gallery
PORT ANGELES — Art created to honor the Elwha River restoration has been stolen from a downtown art gallery.
It is ironic that the person who took the artwork titled “Raven” chose that particular painting because it depicts a raven stealing the sun, said Gabrielle Glasen, the artist who created the painting.
Several video cameras at the Landings Art Gallery, 115 E. Railroad Ave., caught images of a woman with long black hair taking the artwork, Glasen said.
The Port Angeles Police Department has the gallery’s security tapes and will be reviewing them, said Officer Trevor Dropp.
The suspect is not known to police, Dropp said.
“Raven,” valued at $300, is part of a collection of six similar paintings created to celebrate the Elwha River dam removals and restoration to coincide with last week’s “Celebrate Elwha!” activities.
The collection, painted on log slices, depicts the animals that will most benefit by the return of salmon on the Elwha River, Glasen said.
In addition to the raven, they include a bear, eagle, otter, cougar and an orca, she said.
Since Friday, Glasen re-created “Raven” from a photo and put the replica in the place of the missing one to fill the empty space.
The raven painting “is about coming out of the void,” she said, adding that the raven is the void and the theft of the sun is symbolic of escaping the void.
The person who took the painting is in a similar void, Glasen said.
“She is in a dark place, and needs to come out of that dark place,” she said.
Glasen asked that the painting be returned to the gallery.
The downtown theft is not the first for Glasen.
Last year, the “Unipus,” a metal sculpture of a one-legged octopus, was stolen from its Front Street sidewalk pedestal.
After the theft was reported in the Peninsula Daily News, the “Unipus” was returned.
“It was really nice when the person who took Unipus brought it back,” she said.
“It’s all about giving back,” she said. “Stealing is not positive karma.”
PORT ANGELES — Art created to honor the Elwha River restoration has been stolen from a downtown art gallery.
It is ironic that the person who took the artwork titled “Raven” chose that particular painting because it depicts a raven stealing the sun, said Gabrielle Glasen, the artist who created the painting.
Several video cameras at the Landings Art Gallery, 115 E. Railroad Ave., caught images of a woman with long black hair taking the artwork, Glasen said.
The Port Angeles Police Department has the gallery’s security tapes and will be reviewing them, said Officer Trevor Dropp.
The suspect is not known to police, Dropp said.
“Raven,” valued at $300, is part of a collection of six similar paintings created to celebrate the Elwha River dam removals and restoration to coincide with last week’s “Celebrate Elwha!” activities.
The collection, painted on log slices, depicts the animals that will most benefit by the return of salmon on the Elwha River, Glasen said.
In addition to the raven, they include a bear, eagle, otter, cougar and an orca, she said.
Since Friday, Glasen re-created “Raven” from a photo and put the replica in the place of the missing one to fill the empty space.
The raven painting “is about coming out of the void,” she said, adding that the raven is the void and the theft of the sun is symbolic of escaping the void.
The person who took the painting is in a similar void, Glasen said.
“She is in a dark place, and needs to come out of that dark place,” she said.
Glasen asked that the painting be returned to the gallery.
The downtown theft is not the first for Glasen.
Last year, the “Unipus,” a metal sculpture of a one-legged octopus, was stolen from its Front Street sidewalk pedestal.
After the theft was reported in the Peninsula Daily News, the “Unipus” was returned.
“It was really nice when the person who took Unipus brought it back,” she said.
“It’s all about giving back,” she said. “Stealing is not positive karma.”
East Bay man convicted in Hillsborough $100,000 art theft
From Mercury News: East Bay man convicted in Hillsborough $100,000 art theft
REDWOOD CITY -- An Édouard Leon Cortés painting stolen from a Hillsborough home -- and worth at least $100,000 -- sparked an investigation that has led to felony convictions for an Emeryville man.
Jurors found Robert Alarid, 42, guilty Monday of identity and car theft in connection with a break-in at an Ascot Road home that came just days after the death of its sole occupant, police and prosecutors said. However, the jury deadlocked on one count of second-degree burglary, which prosecutors have since dropped.
Alarid faces nine years, four months in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 4. His co-defendant, Beverly Wilkerson Aldabashi, 43, got three years in prison when she was sentenced in May.
Prosecutors say the pair broke into Lee Kavanaugh's home on Aug. 18, 2010, just nine days after she had died at age 70 from natural causes. Her family discovered the theft upon stopping by the house to pick up some paperwork after her funeral. They realized the painting was missing, along with some antiques and Kavanaugh's 2003 Toyota Camry.
It was the car that eventually led police to arrest Alarid and Aldabashi. Investigators have not recovered the painting.
A member of Kavanaugh's family said it appears somebody read her obituary -- which detailed her birth in Massachusetts, work as an editorial assistant for Holt, Rinehart & Winston in Burlingame, and thousands of hours volunteering for various causes -- and then targeted the house.
Alarid is being held without bail in San Mateo County jail. A phone message seeking comment was not immediately returned by his defense attorney, Linda Bramy.
REDWOOD CITY -- An Édouard Leon Cortés painting stolen from a Hillsborough home -- and worth at least $100,000 -- sparked an investigation that has led to felony convictions for an Emeryville man.
Jurors found Robert Alarid, 42, guilty Monday of identity and car theft in connection with a break-in at an Ascot Road home that came just days after the death of its sole occupant, police and prosecutors said. However, the jury deadlocked on one count of second-degree burglary, which prosecutors have since dropped.
Alarid faces nine years, four months in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 4. His co-defendant, Beverly Wilkerson Aldabashi, 43, got three years in prison when she was sentenced in May.
Prosecutors say the pair broke into Lee Kavanaugh's home on Aug. 18, 2010, just nine days after she had died at age 70 from natural causes. Her family discovered the theft upon stopping by the house to pick up some paperwork after her funeral. They realized the painting was missing, along with some antiques and Kavanaugh's 2003 Toyota Camry.
It was the car that eventually led police to arrest Alarid and Aldabashi. Investigators have not recovered the painting.
A member of Kavanaugh's family said it appears somebody read her obituary -- which detailed her birth in Massachusetts, work as an editorial assistant for Holt, Rinehart & Winston in Burlingame, and thousands of hours volunteering for various causes -- and then targeted the house.
Alarid is being held without bail in San Mateo County jail. A phone message seeking comment was not immediately returned by his defense attorney, Linda Bramy.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
.Philadelphia: Artists love the crowds at the Doylestown Arts Fest
From PhillyBurbs: Artists love the crowds at the Doylestown Arts Fest
It was Pam and Bill Marlin’s first year exhibiting at the Doylestown Arts Festival.
And even though they didn’t sell as much of their art — clocks and plaques with detailed images of people and scenes from Philadelphia carved out of wood — as they had hoped to, the Bryn Mawr couple said they had a good time.
“It was only our first show,” Pam Marlin said. “We didn’t know what to expect.”
The Marlins, who do business as ABI Woodworking, have been working on their art for a little more than a year. Pam Marlin said she and her husband went to several different arts festivals last year to see where they might want to set up shop this year, and the Doylestown Arts Festival was at the top of Pam’s list.
“The people were great. They had a lot of stuff,” she said.
Bill said, “It’s crowded. And it stays crowded.”
Artists John Mertz and Margaret Almon said the crowd generally seems very enthusiastic about the art.
“It feels like there’s a true appreciation,” said Almon, of Lansdale, who sells stained glass and mosaics under the name Nutmeg Designs.
Mertz, an oil painter from Bedminster who has shown his art at the festival for seven or eight years, said he’s reached a point where “a number of folks that I know expect me to be here year after year.”
The arts festival, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, draws thousands of visitors every year; organizers estimate that 10,000 to 20,000 people come to town.
“The weather’s been fantastic and that makes a difference,” said Donna Goetz, of Yardley, who makes and sells jewelry under the name Gypsy Jewels.
Goetz said she thinks Doylestown is an attractive town and she loves that the streets are closed and the artists’ tents are set up right in the middle of town. The shop and restaurant owners in town were very kind, Goetz said.
Bill Marlin said he likes that the tents are set up on only one side of each street. In some other festivals nearby, he said, tents are set up on both sides of the street and it “feels like you’re being funneled through” and “you’re going to be swept past booths.”
The Doylestown Business and Community Alliance, the local group that organizes the festival, gives “ample room for people to walk,” Bill Marlin said.
Goetz said the different musical acts and entertainers, who included this year popular Beatles cover band Almost Fab and “The First Lady of Musical Fitness” Miss Amy, seem to draw a lot of different groups of people.
Doylestown Township artisan Amy Turner said she loves seeing all the dogs people bring with them.
“That might seem silly, but I really love it,” she said.
Turner hand-weaves scarves from yarn made of dog hair, as well as more traditional materials like cotton, rayon and wool yarn.
Turner’s booth was set up in front of Finney’s Pub on South Main Street — in the middle of the main stages for musical performances — and she said it gets a bit loud when two musical groups are performing at the same time.
Turner and Mertz didn’t like that they had to take down their art and tents and put them away Saturday night, and then set them up again Sunday. Mertz said: “I’m getting too old to set up stuff all the time.”
Mertz and Almon said it was difficult to get set up Sunday morning — the day of the Univest Grand Prix.
“Everything was barricaded before we got here,” Almon said. Her tent was set up on Hamilton Street near the Plaza West parking lot.
Mertz said: “It was very difficult for vendors to come in, unload, then find a place to park. ... They could have done a better job on traffic control.”
It was Pam and Bill Marlin’s first year exhibiting at the Doylestown Arts Festival.
And even though they didn’t sell as much of their art — clocks and plaques with detailed images of people and scenes from Philadelphia carved out of wood — as they had hoped to, the Bryn Mawr couple said they had a good time.
“It was only our first show,” Pam Marlin said. “We didn’t know what to expect.”
The Marlins, who do business as ABI Woodworking, have been working on their art for a little more than a year. Pam Marlin said she and her husband went to several different arts festivals last year to see where they might want to set up shop this year, and the Doylestown Arts Festival was at the top of Pam’s list.
“The people were great. They had a lot of stuff,” she said.
Bill said, “It’s crowded. And it stays crowded.”
Artists John Mertz and Margaret Almon said the crowd generally seems very enthusiastic about the art.
“It feels like there’s a true appreciation,” said Almon, of Lansdale, who sells stained glass and mosaics under the name Nutmeg Designs.
Mertz, an oil painter from Bedminster who has shown his art at the festival for seven or eight years, said he’s reached a point where “a number of folks that I know expect me to be here year after year.”
The arts festival, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, draws thousands of visitors every year; organizers estimate that 10,000 to 20,000 people come to town.
“The weather’s been fantastic and that makes a difference,” said Donna Goetz, of Yardley, who makes and sells jewelry under the name Gypsy Jewels.
Goetz said she thinks Doylestown is an attractive town and she loves that the streets are closed and the artists’ tents are set up right in the middle of town. The shop and restaurant owners in town were very kind, Goetz said.
Bill Marlin said he likes that the tents are set up on only one side of each street. In some other festivals nearby, he said, tents are set up on both sides of the street and it “feels like you’re being funneled through” and “you’re going to be swept past booths.”
The Doylestown Business and Community Alliance, the local group that organizes the festival, gives “ample room for people to walk,” Bill Marlin said.
Goetz said the different musical acts and entertainers, who included this year popular Beatles cover band Almost Fab and “The First Lady of Musical Fitness” Miss Amy, seem to draw a lot of different groups of people.
Doylestown Township artisan Amy Turner said she loves seeing all the dogs people bring with them.
“That might seem silly, but I really love it,” she said.
Turner hand-weaves scarves from yarn made of dog hair, as well as more traditional materials like cotton, rayon and wool yarn.
Turner’s booth was set up in front of Finney’s Pub on South Main Street — in the middle of the main stages for musical performances — and she said it gets a bit loud when two musical groups are performing at the same time.
Turner and Mertz didn’t like that they had to take down their art and tents and put them away Saturday night, and then set them up again Sunday. Mertz said: “I’m getting too old to set up stuff all the time.”
Mertz and Almon said it was difficult to get set up Sunday morning — the day of the Univest Grand Prix.
“Everything was barricaded before we got here,” Almon said. Her tent was set up on Hamilton Street near the Plaza West parking lot.
Mertz said: “It was very difficult for vendors to come in, unload, then find a place to park. ... They could have done a better job on traffic control.”
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Fact-check fears
From Guardian.co.uk: Fact-check fears
I am just starting a book about lost works of art, called Lost Stolen or Shredded, or Has Anyone Seen the Mona Lisa? a few sections of which once formed a series on Radio 4. So extending and fleshing them out shouldn't be too hard? But it is. There is something about the process of starting a new piece of work that I find paralysing. It helps me, sometimes, to begin at the beginning, though every writer knows that you only write the beginning at the end, once you know what you have done. I have provisionally drafted a couple of opening paragraphs intended to pique interest, and signal what I am (probably) going to be doing later.
In first draft, my opening reads like this:
I'm not sure how much of this will survive into my final text, or indeed, how much of it works. There is something a little audacious – and unconvincing, I fear – about animating the figures of Max Brod and Franz Kafka beyond what the bare facts will allow. Never mind, all of this will be revisited at the appropriate time.
Checking through these paragraphs what astonishes me is not that they are not yet fully realised, but how many errors have crept in. How did that happen? Well, I'm still trying to unravel it, but the major mistakes are as follows: (1) Brod and Kafka arrived in Paris from Milan on September 8, not "in late August"; (2) they did not "rush" to Paris to see the empty space. They came to Paris on the way home to Prague, after a visit to Italy, because of "fear of the cholera," and to save time and money; (3) they did not go to the cinema before visiting the Louvre, they went to the Opéra Comique; (4) the Louvre was closed for nine days, not "a week".
In fact, there is little evidence that their visit to the museum was prompted by the theft of the painting, or that they were particularly struck by seeing the spot where the Mona Lisa used to hang. If you consult Kafka's travel diaries for the period, he notes the visit to the Louvre, and a "Crowd in the Salon Carré, the excitement and the knots of people, as if the Mona Lisa had just been stolen," but makes no further comment, devoting more attention to the Venus de Milo and the Borghese Wrestler.
Reference to Max Brod's biography of Kafka, too, casts serious doubt on the notion that the Mona Lisa, or rather the loss of the Mona Lisa, had a serious imaginative impact on Kafka. Brod never mentions the visit to the Louvre at all. Nor can I find the source of the notion that Kafka collected "invisible curiosities", though I am still looking.
My story is starting to unravel, alas. I rather liked it. How did I manage to get so much wrong in such a short passage? The answer, frankly, is that I don't entirely know. My normal method of composition, particularly when it involves a degree of research, is to read a lot of books, underlining passages that may be useful, and then to trawl the internet, cutting and pasting information into a file that I can then use for reference when I get down to work.
Everything in my first-draft opening passage was acquired in this way, and then put together so that the "research" doesn't stick out, and the reader is led easily into what is, after all, a fascinating story. But when I go back to all those notes, it is unclear what came from where, much less how and when. I simply cannot reconstruct my sources, and what I had taken to be accurate turns out to be embarrassingly sloppy.
Fortunately, I know I can be slapdash, and need to check and recheck my sources. I am at my most vulnerable when I believe I know what I am talking about. So I did what I should have done in the first place, and went back to the primary material. Kafka's Travel Diaries and Brod's Franz Kafka: A Biography are more reliable, for sure, than stuff one can cut and paste from the net. I should know better, but the temptation is considerable. I am not, after all, a historian doing original research. I am much more engaged by the construction of a lively narrative than by the methodical presentation of facts.
This overreliance on unreliable or unacknowledged sources is a common problem, and an increasing one, and can have dreadful consequences. A recent example in New Zealand concerned that excellent novelist Witi Ihimaera, best known for Whale Rider, which was made into a terrific film starring Keisha Castle-Hughes in 2002. In 2009, Witi, a man of considerable imaginative power and charm, published a novel called The Trowenna Sea, an account of Maori convicts transported to Tasmania in the 1840s. He – and his many readers in New Zealand – were soon astonished, and appalled, when Jolisa Gracewood's review of the book in the Listener, accused the author of plagiarism from a number of different sources, and cited 16 damning examples.
Witi Ihimaera could only own up, in the mitigated sense to which I have been alluding. He had been sloppy, got his notes mixed up, and eventually confused material emanating from others for his own work. He was nevertheless guilty, and happy – if that is the right work – to acknowledge it: "I am deeply sorry and take full responsibility for this oversight…. The authors I have managed to contact understand how it occurred and have accepted my apologies. The passages in question will be fully acknowledged in a future edition of the book." The book was withdrawn by Penguin, and Ihimaera vowed to buy up all available copies. (The few surviving copies are now uncommon and collectible, and the book has not been reprinted).
Ihimaera was roundly, and widely, and rightly, condemned, but I felt a distinct fellow feeling with him. His plagiarism emanated from the same slackness as my initial failure to check my sources, though I located my errors before going to print, and he did not. That is, of course, a major distinction: I know how sloppy I can be, and am duly vigilant, and Witi Ihimaera (was has had a problem with plagiarism once before) apparently does not. But ours are the sorts of mistake that are too easy to make. I expect we will see more and more of this, as the seductive but not entirely trustworthy world of information on the internet expands, and our habits of research and self-scrutiny contract.
I am just starting a book about lost works of art, called Lost Stolen or Shredded, or Has Anyone Seen the Mona Lisa? a few sections of which once formed a series on Radio 4. So extending and fleshing them out shouldn't be too hard? But it is. There is something about the process of starting a new piece of work that I find paralysing. It helps me, sometimes, to begin at the beginning, though every writer knows that you only write the beginning at the end, once you know what you have done. I have provisionally drafted a couple of opening paragraphs intended to pique interest, and signal what I am (probably) going to be doing later.
In first draft, my opening reads like this:
He collected absences. For him they were as intense, haunting and real as the presences that they shadowed. And so, on this day late in August of 1911, he had intentionally arrived that little bit late to join the queue, this slight boy-man of 28 with his friend Max, heightening the anticipation. They had rushed to Paris from Milan as soon as they heard the news, and as they attended the Omnia Pathé the previous night, noted with delight the way in which the film, like the ubiquitous newspapers, advertisements, candy wrappers, and postcards, proclaimed and even gloated over the hot topic of the day.
When they eventually entered the Louvre's Salon Carré, senses heightened by the delay, they approached the spot where the Mona Lisa had been displayed for generations. The crowd – all of whom had come on the same pilgrimage – pushed forward, and the little man, jostled, could hardly see. Taking his friend by the shoulder Max pushed to the very front, and they gazed at the wall in astonishment, as other onlookers paused to deposit flowers on the floor beneath, with notes of remembrance tied in silk ribbons.
He stood in front of the wall, rapt, those obsidian eyes staring. The painting, of course, was gone. That's why he was there. It had been stolen a week before, and the Museum had only just reopened to the public. The crowd had come expressly to see where it used to be, and now wasn't. For Franz Kafka, the Mona Lisa was in the process of joining that internal collection of what he called his "invisible curiosities:" sights, monuments, and works of art that he had missed seeing.
I'm not sure how much of this will survive into my final text, or indeed, how much of it works. There is something a little audacious – and unconvincing, I fear – about animating the figures of Max Brod and Franz Kafka beyond what the bare facts will allow. Never mind, all of this will be revisited at the appropriate time.
Checking through these paragraphs what astonishes me is not that they are not yet fully realised, but how many errors have crept in. How did that happen? Well, I'm still trying to unravel it, but the major mistakes are as follows: (1) Brod and Kafka arrived in Paris from Milan on September 8, not "in late August"; (2) they did not "rush" to Paris to see the empty space. They came to Paris on the way home to Prague, after a visit to Italy, because of "fear of the cholera," and to save time and money; (3) they did not go to the cinema before visiting the Louvre, they went to the Opéra Comique; (4) the Louvre was closed for nine days, not "a week".
In fact, there is little evidence that their visit to the museum was prompted by the theft of the painting, or that they were particularly struck by seeing the spot where the Mona Lisa used to hang. If you consult Kafka's travel diaries for the period, he notes the visit to the Louvre, and a "Crowd in the Salon Carré, the excitement and the knots of people, as if the Mona Lisa had just been stolen," but makes no further comment, devoting more attention to the Venus de Milo and the Borghese Wrestler.
Reference to Max Brod's biography of Kafka, too, casts serious doubt on the notion that the Mona Lisa, or rather the loss of the Mona Lisa, had a serious imaginative impact on Kafka. Brod never mentions the visit to the Louvre at all. Nor can I find the source of the notion that Kafka collected "invisible curiosities", though I am still looking.
My story is starting to unravel, alas. I rather liked it. How did I manage to get so much wrong in such a short passage? The answer, frankly, is that I don't entirely know. My normal method of composition, particularly when it involves a degree of research, is to read a lot of books, underlining passages that may be useful, and then to trawl the internet, cutting and pasting information into a file that I can then use for reference when I get down to work.
Everything in my first-draft opening passage was acquired in this way, and then put together so that the "research" doesn't stick out, and the reader is led easily into what is, after all, a fascinating story. But when I go back to all those notes, it is unclear what came from where, much less how and when. I simply cannot reconstruct my sources, and what I had taken to be accurate turns out to be embarrassingly sloppy.
Fortunately, I know I can be slapdash, and need to check and recheck my sources. I am at my most vulnerable when I believe I know what I am talking about. So I did what I should have done in the first place, and went back to the primary material. Kafka's Travel Diaries and Brod's Franz Kafka: A Biography are more reliable, for sure, than stuff one can cut and paste from the net. I should know better, but the temptation is considerable. I am not, after all, a historian doing original research. I am much more engaged by the construction of a lively narrative than by the methodical presentation of facts.
This overreliance on unreliable or unacknowledged sources is a common problem, and an increasing one, and can have dreadful consequences. A recent example in New Zealand concerned that excellent novelist Witi Ihimaera, best known for Whale Rider, which was made into a terrific film starring Keisha Castle-Hughes in 2002. In 2009, Witi, a man of considerable imaginative power and charm, published a novel called The Trowenna Sea, an account of Maori convicts transported to Tasmania in the 1840s. He – and his many readers in New Zealand – were soon astonished, and appalled, when Jolisa Gracewood's review of the book in the Listener, accused the author of plagiarism from a number of different sources, and cited 16 damning examples.
Witi Ihimaera could only own up, in the mitigated sense to which I have been alluding. He had been sloppy, got his notes mixed up, and eventually confused material emanating from others for his own work. He was nevertheless guilty, and happy – if that is the right work – to acknowledge it: "I am deeply sorry and take full responsibility for this oversight…. The authors I have managed to contact understand how it occurred and have accepted my apologies. The passages in question will be fully acknowledged in a future edition of the book." The book was withdrawn by Penguin, and Ihimaera vowed to buy up all available copies. (The few surviving copies are now uncommon and collectible, and the book has not been reprinted).
Ihimaera was roundly, and widely, and rightly, condemned, but I felt a distinct fellow feeling with him. His plagiarism emanated from the same slackness as my initial failure to check my sources, though I located my errors before going to print, and he did not. That is, of course, a major distinction: I know how sloppy I can be, and am duly vigilant, and Witi Ihimaera (was has had a problem with plagiarism once before) apparently does not. But ours are the sorts of mistake that are too easy to make. I expect we will see more and more of this, as the seductive but not entirely trustworthy world of information on the internet expands, and our habits of research and self-scrutiny contract.
Aboriginal artist Adam Hill's milk crate street art protest
From Blogs.Mirror.Co.Uk, The Ticket: Aboriginal artist Adam Hill's milk crate street art protest
Proof that street art doesn't just come from a spray can, here is Aboriginal artist Adam Hill's work The Crate Land Grab which sprang up in a Sydney street recently.
The painter and cartoonist first exhibited the piece in the Black(s)town Cultural Initiative in 2009, in western Sydney.
My sister snapped this in Addison Road, Marrickville, in the NSW capital's inner-west, where it appeared temporarily one afternoon in the middle of August.
Using a very simple medium it carries a powerful sledgehammer commentary - 'Stolen'.
It is both confrontational and lyrical - a flimsily constructed but unignorable billboard to loss, an accusation left like a giant Postit note or a break-up letter too painful to be read aloud by the aggrieved.
In the block construction of The Crate Land Grab there is too, a vague parallel with the digitised graffiti of French street artist Invader, and of using street art as a means of rebellion.
Made up of 154 'borrowed' black and green milk crates you can read a lot into it.
A comment on Aboriginal land rights or the stolen generation of Aboriginal children perhaps? Or maybe on the Australian fixation with owning a home in the suburbs at the expense of the environment, an encroachment on the land that is sacred to the indigenous population?
Perhaps it's just about nicking milk crates... but I don't think so.
As a medium the milk crates represent both a commonly stolen item (popular with students and DJs) and also an everyday link to the home, the morning milk run and the consumer trappings of a happy life - things many Australians take for granted, but most black Australians don't.
Hill is an advocate of social justice, an inescapably confronting problem if you happen to be born an Aboriginal in Australia.
The 41-year-old once said: "It's really not important what we've done, rather, what is important is what we haven't done."
A Koori (east-coast urban Aboriginal) artist who says he relates to the Yolngu of North East Arnhem Land, Hill has held 14 solo shows, many in his hometown Penrith, and lived in various Sydney art studios for the past decade.
Adam Geczy from Sydney's Harrison Gallery wrote of the artist: "Hill's work is all oriented around land and place, above and below, and especially the way in which Australia has been defiled, and the ancient mores of Aboriginal peoples transgressed."
Keep fighting the good fight Adam.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Crimes of passion?
From the Trinitonian: Crimes of passion?
by Michael Schreyach
The history of art is full of heists. A crafty theft captures the imagination. An evasive thief can even become a kind of counter-cultural hero, like Vincenzo Peruggia, the Italian handyman who nicked the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 and was on the lam for two years before being caught. Apparently, he wanted to repatriate Leonardo da Vinci’s masterwork to the painter’s native Italy. (Tidbit: Picasso was hauled in by the police for questioning about the case due to his association with another shady art thief).
Some thefts disappoint both the thieves and–obviously–the victims of their crime. The drawing recently stolen from an upscale hotel in Los Angeles may or may not be the authentic Rembrandt it was assumed to be. (Note to self: Make sure artwork is real before stealing it.)
These events bring to my mind other sorts of actions directed at artworks, particularly abstract ones. A few years ago, a woman planted a lipstick kiss (in homage, she claimed) on a painting by Cy Twombly. (If you haven’t been to Houston to see the Menil’s gallery of his works, go ASAP.) The woman was charged with vandalism, but only required to pay Twombly the symbolic sum of one euro in damages.
There are more extreme cases. A man slashed a large abstract painting by Barnett Newman in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in 1986. (Check out his paintings on the Coates Library database, ARTstor.) The man returned in 1997 and knifed a second Newman painting. Why? Maybe he found the paintings threatening in some way, and his attacks were–in his mind–self-defense.
Newman often told a story to illustrate the intense effects his paintings could have on viewers. A painter friend of his got terribly agitated in front of Newman’s work. The man was so upset that he had tears in his eyes. Newman said: “What’s the trouble?” The friend responded: “You made me aware of myself.” Self-awareness, apparently, can be terrifying.
As an assistant professor of art history who teaches abstraction, I’m often asked: “But what does it mean?” I doubt I’ve ever given a satisfactory answer. I’ve never found it very useful to approach abstract artworks like I’m decoding a message. But I do think that abstract paintings can have a profound effect on those who view them.
In Newman’s story, it seems that coming to understand an abstract painting is a lot like coming to understand another person, or even oneself: it can be difficult. But what the process seems to involve is open acknowledgement, not cynical avoidance. Perhaps a painting by Newman asks viewers to acknowledge that to understand it (to understand its otherness), they must simultaneously come to know themselves in relation to it.
Newman’s “message,” if we decide to call it that, is that we don’t have to assume a skeptical position when it comes to the unknown, whether it’s the meaning of abstraction, ourselves or another person. If you don’t like that message, please–please!–don’t attack the art. But even if you do like it, don’t steal the painting.
Stolen Rubens Will Be Returned To Owners
Caledonian Bear Hunt
Sky News HD: Stolen Rubens Will Be Returned To Owners
An oil painting by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens will be handed back to its rightful owner in Belgium after being recovered in Greece - 10 years after it was stolen.
Greek police retrieved the 17th century work, called The Calydonian Boar Hunt, on September 1 after a tip-off.
"It is a huge success," said Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos.
"Our dogged pursuit of art thieves and looters of antiquities will continue.
"The message is that art thieves should take their business elsewhere - not Greece."
Mr. Geroulanos said experts at the Culture Ministry had authenticated the artwork and verified it was the painting snatched from the walls of Belgium's Museum of Fine Arts, in Ghent, in 2001.
"The painting was purchased as a Rubens, it was recorded as a Rubens in the catalogues and it was stolen as a Rubens," he said.
But questions about its authenticity have remained.
Since it was recovered art critics, including its Belgian owners, have suggested the unsigned oil sketch may be the work of one of Rubens' protégés and not the celebrated master.
During the theft, robbers also attempted to steal another work of art called The Flagellation of Christ.
Two Greek nationals, a 65-year-old art dealer and a 40-year-old television presenter, have been arrested and charged in connection with the case.
Police caught the suspects by posing as potential buyers.
Authorities in Athens have declined to give details of how the painting ended up in Greece.
"We believe that there are more (people) involved in this operation," said a senior police official.
Belgian diplomats in the Greek capital said they would be pursuing the "swift" return of the artwork to its rightful owners
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Inaugural Houston Fine Art Fair attracts global galleries
From YourRiverOaksnews.com: Inaugural Houston Fine Art Fair attracts global galleries
The Houston Fine Art Fair will be the first international fine art fair to be held in Houston, the third largest art market in the United States.
Held Sept. 15-18 at the George R. Brown Convention Center, the upcoming event’s 80 galleries from 13 countries will offer contemporary and modern masters, emerging artists and today’s art stars. Works will include painting, drawing, print, editions, installation, sculpture, and photography. This inaugural fair is designed for both novice and experienced collectors and will include seminars, artist and collector interviews.
“Houston’s thriving art scene offers a wide range of styles, from the hottest contemporary art stars, to blue chip artworks, big-name photographers, and the best national and regional artists working today,” said Fair Organizer Rick Friedman, President of Hamptons Expo Group Management. “Clearly the city’s collectors, institutions and art patrons are serious in their commitment to making Houston one of the major art centers in the country today.”
Cultural partners supporting the city’s first international fine art fair include The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Center for Photography, Fotofest International, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, DiverseWorks, Project Row Houses, Art League Houston, Houston Museum of African American Culture, The Orange Show for Visionary Art, the McNay Art Museum and Artpace San Antonio.
“Based on the enthusiasm and incredible support we have received from the sophisticated art community here, we anticipate 10,000 visitors to the fair, with as many as 2,000 coming from outside of Houston,” says Fran Kaufman, Director of the Houston Fine Art Fair.
The fair will kick off with an Opening Night Preview Party on Thursday, Sept. 15th to benefit Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Glassell School of Art Core Program. The program awards one-year residencies to exceptional, highly motivated visual artists and critical writers who have not yet developed professional careers. The eight current and four new fellows will have their work shown at the fair, with all sale proceeds going directly to the individual fellows.
“Houston is an amazing city with a vibrant cultural community, says Pavel Zoubok, owner of New York’s Pavel Zoubok Gallery. “We are delighted to support this exciting new fair and look forward to expanding our circle of collectors, curators and friends there.”
Tickets include an on-site program of panel discussions on thought-provoking art-market topics featuring invited curators, critics and collectors. During the fair, the first annual Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to internationally known and critically-acclaimed artist Donald Sultan.
The fair is organized by Hamptons Expo Group Management, which also produces the annual art fairs ArtHamptons, ArtAspen and the San Francisco Fine Art Fair. For more information contact, www.houstonfineartfair.com or info@houstonfineartfair.com.
The Houston Fine Art Fair will be the first international fine art fair to be held in Houston, the third largest art market in the United States.
Held Sept. 15-18 at the George R. Brown Convention Center, the upcoming event’s 80 galleries from 13 countries will offer contemporary and modern masters, emerging artists and today’s art stars. Works will include painting, drawing, print, editions, installation, sculpture, and photography. This inaugural fair is designed for both novice and experienced collectors and will include seminars, artist and collector interviews.
“Houston’s thriving art scene offers a wide range of styles, from the hottest contemporary art stars, to blue chip artworks, big-name photographers, and the best national and regional artists working today,” said Fair Organizer Rick Friedman, President of Hamptons Expo Group Management. “Clearly the city’s collectors, institutions and art patrons are serious in their commitment to making Houston one of the major art centers in the country today.”
Cultural partners supporting the city’s first international fine art fair include The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Center for Photography, Fotofest International, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, DiverseWorks, Project Row Houses, Art League Houston, Houston Museum of African American Culture, The Orange Show for Visionary Art, the McNay Art Museum and Artpace San Antonio.
“Based on the enthusiasm and incredible support we have received from the sophisticated art community here, we anticipate 10,000 visitors to the fair, with as many as 2,000 coming from outside of Houston,” says Fran Kaufman, Director of the Houston Fine Art Fair.
The fair will kick off with an Opening Night Preview Party on Thursday, Sept. 15th to benefit Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Glassell School of Art Core Program. The program awards one-year residencies to exceptional, highly motivated visual artists and critical writers who have not yet developed professional careers. The eight current and four new fellows will have their work shown at the fair, with all sale proceeds going directly to the individual fellows.
“Houston is an amazing city with a vibrant cultural community, says Pavel Zoubok, owner of New York’s Pavel Zoubok Gallery. “We are delighted to support this exciting new fair and look forward to expanding our circle of collectors, curators and friends there.”
Tickets include an on-site program of panel discussions on thought-provoking art-market topics featuring invited curators, critics and collectors. During the fair, the first annual Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to internationally known and critically-acclaimed artist Donald Sultan.
The fair is organized by Hamptons Expo Group Management, which also produces the annual art fairs ArtHamptons, ArtAspen and the San Francisco Fine Art Fair. For more information contact, www.houstonfineartfair.com or info@houstonfineartfair.com.
Wynwood art walk revs up for Art Basel
Miami New Times Arts: Wynwood art walk revs up for Art Basel
The new art season is upon us. Wynwood art dealers, wringing their sweaty palms, are in a sniff over who did or didn't make the cut for Art Basel.
The galleries are cranking out dozens of fresh shows like the conveyer belt at Krispy Kreme. The food trucks will be out in droves this weekend, eager to feed the throngs to the delight of starving culture vultures and the dismay of dealers tired of choking on exhaust fumes, sweeping chicken and rib bones off their stoops, and flushing the drunks from their bathrooms.
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Location Info
Venue
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
Map
Large Map
Map data ©2011 - Terms of Use
Find nearby:
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2247 NW 1st Pl
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
3550 N Miami Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
David Castillo Gallery
2234 NW 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Alberto Linero Gallery
2294 NW Second Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Stop complaining, folks. You've got it made in a floundering economy. Selling art when the average mook can't pay for a tank of gas is a sweet deal. For us average drones living paycheck-to-paycheck, we depend on you for the monthly ration of free booze and entertainment.
After all, that's why the Second Saturday Art Walk has turned into the one night of the month when South Floridians of all strata turn out for the big show.
Beginning at 6 p.m. this Saturday, Wynwood galleries are back to the full-time business of elevating our city's cultural eminence, and business is booming. Here are our picks for this month's edition of the rollicking affair.
Borrowing its title, "Regular Lovers," from a Philippe Garrel flick, Sunny Suits's solo at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery (2247 NW First Pl., Miami) transports viewers into the private world of her friends and paramours.
Her photographs are cinematic in nature, convey a depth of authenticity, and bring to mind Nan Goldin's visual diaries. And not unlike the work of Garrel, Cassavetes, or even Fassbinder, her intoxicating oeuvre features the same characters making regular appearances.
In these works, she levels an unflinching gaze on her subjects, seeming to freeze fleeting moments of shared intimacy before they are lost.
Suits's photographs are unstaged. Even when her subjects glance at the camera, it is in direct response to her presence rather than a pose for the lens.
Like a director, keenly in tune with her cast of actors, she exudes a lingering out-of-frame presence that one can't help but experience.
Her engagement with her friends and lovers, and comprehension of the dynamics of the relationships between her subjects, lends the exhibit its true narrative. Suits presents an uncommonly frank and self-reflective window into the intimate world of her subjects in unguarded moments that results in starkly compelling works of a personal nature.
A soundtrack of music that Suits selected especially for the show will play throughout her exhibit. Call 305-448-8976 or visit snitzer.com.
Most people familiar with Karen Rifas's work recognize the South Florida artist for her beguiling site-specific installations employing thousands of stitched leaves cascading in curtain-like waves from a ceiling or arranged in web-like patterns engulfing entire rooms. Alluding to humanity's relationship with the environment, these charming, cerebral works evince Rifas's explorations of the rhythmic and chaotic changes that occur in nature.
In "Strung Out," her new show at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery (3550 N. Miami Ave., Miami), Rifas continues her exploration of geometry through various colors of cords to create unique geometric patterns, forms, and spaces.
At times appearing not unlike cat's cradles stitched into corners of the gallery walls or cutting through large swaths of space in bold compositions, her daring pieces invite viewer interaction while questioning notions of perspective.
Her use of color and installations of nylon cord, stainless steel, or stitched leaves enables the artist to create volume with a spare amount of material. At times straight lines appear to be curved, while at others the cords oscillate and colors intensify almost as if twanged by an unseen harpist's hand.
For the opening, Rifas has invited dancers under the direction of the New World School of the Arts teacher Dale Andree to move within her ethereal structures.
Her work and the dance troupe's interaction with the individual installations are designed to heighten the sense of both the reductive and explosive nature of the forces at play.
Don't miss Rifas's new thought-provoking installations that often reference the spare and poetic work of Agnes Martin and the rhythmic lines and pulsating color of Piet Mondrian. Call 305-573-2700 or visit bernicesteinbaumgallery.com.
David Castillo, one of two Miami art dealers chosen to represent the 305 at Art Basel Miami Beach this year — the other dealer is Fredric Snitzer — has plenty of reason to rejoice.
The David Castillo Gallery (2234 NW Second Ave., Miami) is celebrating its sixth anniversary in Wynwood with "Crushed Candy," a group show featuring top talent from Castillo's stable of artists.
The exhibit includes work by Jonathan Ehrenberg, Shara Hughes, Meredith James, and the TM Sisters (Tasha and Monica Lopez de Victoria).
Castillo says the works displayed "test their mettle against the sweet ease of perception" and that their premise is "a studio practice as steadfast as iron and finished forms as urgent and fantastical as the future state of candy."
We're not sure what that means, but it's evident that Castillo is gearing up for his season-opening bash with a head of steam and that he gives good press release.
Ehrenberg, a contemporary fabulist, parlays his interests in set design, still life, pantomime, and Noh theater into videos and works on paper.
Reveling in color, texture, and pattern, Hughes's mixed-media-on-canvas works tinker with notions of the Theory of Relativity, says Castillo. The dealer adds that "her visual vocabulary is as tight as Etch A Sketch and Keith Haring" before concluding that "all Hughes's world is an imaginative holodeck, and her subjects and viewers equal players." Sounds like a shindig worth crashing. Call 305-573-8110 or visit davidcastillogallery.com.
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Location Info
Venue
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
Map
Large Map
Map data ©2011 - Terms of Use
Find nearby:
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2247 NW 1st Pl
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
3550 N Miami Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
David Castillo Gallery
2234 NW 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Alberto Linero Gallery
2294 NW Second Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Another space ready to pop champagne corks is the newly minted Alberto Linero Gallery (2294 NW Second Ave., Miami), where folks are salivating to roar into high season with a show called "September."
If you can navigate the rolling greasy spoons fuming the environs outside the door, pop in and check out the group show organized by art collective Pink Bastard.
It features the work of seven locals and is one of the few places still doing the free wine-and-cheese thing.
Curated by Adriana Carvalho, the show is meant to inform gallery crawlers about the artists' view of day-to-day vagaries of life in the Big Mango.
Participating artists include Eddie Arroyo, Adriana Carvalho, Charles Falarara, Kevin Foltz, Cory Foote, Kathy Kissik, Franklin Sinanan, and David Zalben.
Take a gander at Foote's black-and-white portrait and landscape snaps, which exude undertones of melancholy.
Zalben, who uses metal wire to animate life's simplicities, has created a collection of evocative wire poems.
And Carvalho transforms items such as metal and cloth products into enticing pieces that represent her dreams and fears and are freighted with social commentary. Look for her new series of works, including her Insomnia installation, which highlights the poetry of everyday life using a pillow and a rug. Call 305-587-0172 or visit albertolinerogallery.com
The new art season is upon us. Wynwood art dealers, wringing their sweaty palms, are in a sniff over who did or didn't make the cut for Art Basel.
The galleries are cranking out dozens of fresh shows like the conveyer belt at Krispy Kreme. The food trucks will be out in droves this weekend, eager to feed the throngs to the delight of starving culture vultures and the dismay of dealers tired of choking on exhaust fumes, sweeping chicken and rib bones off their stoops, and flushing the drunks from their bathrooms.
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Location Info
Venue
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
Map
Large Map
Map data ©2011 - Terms of Use
Find nearby:
Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2247 NW 1st Pl
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
3550 N Miami Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
David Castillo Gallery
2234 NW 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Alberto Linero Gallery
2294 NW Second Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Stop complaining, folks. You've got it made in a floundering economy. Selling art when the average mook can't pay for a tank of gas is a sweet deal. For us average drones living paycheck-to-paycheck, we depend on you for the monthly ration of free booze and entertainment.
After all, that's why the Second Saturday Art Walk has turned into the one night of the month when South Floridians of all strata turn out for the big show.
Beginning at 6 p.m. this Saturday, Wynwood galleries are back to the full-time business of elevating our city's cultural eminence, and business is booming. Here are our picks for this month's edition of the rollicking affair.
Borrowing its title, "Regular Lovers," from a Philippe Garrel flick, Sunny Suits's solo at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery (2247 NW First Pl., Miami) transports viewers into the private world of her friends and paramours.
Her photographs are cinematic in nature, convey a depth of authenticity, and bring to mind Nan Goldin's visual diaries. And not unlike the work of Garrel, Cassavetes, or even Fassbinder, her intoxicating oeuvre features the same characters making regular appearances.
In these works, she levels an unflinching gaze on her subjects, seeming to freeze fleeting moments of shared intimacy before they are lost.
Suits's photographs are unstaged. Even when her subjects glance at the camera, it is in direct response to her presence rather than a pose for the lens.
Like a director, keenly in tune with her cast of actors, she exudes a lingering out-of-frame presence that one can't help but experience.
Her engagement with her friends and lovers, and comprehension of the dynamics of the relationships between her subjects, lends the exhibit its true narrative. Suits presents an uncommonly frank and self-reflective window into the intimate world of her subjects in unguarded moments that results in starkly compelling works of a personal nature.
A soundtrack of music that Suits selected especially for the show will play throughout her exhibit. Call 305-448-8976 or visit snitzer.com.
Most people familiar with Karen Rifas's work recognize the South Florida artist for her beguiling site-specific installations employing thousands of stitched leaves cascading in curtain-like waves from a ceiling or arranged in web-like patterns engulfing entire rooms. Alluding to humanity's relationship with the environment, these charming, cerebral works evince Rifas's explorations of the rhythmic and chaotic changes that occur in nature.
In "Strung Out," her new show at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery (3550 N. Miami Ave., Miami), Rifas continues her exploration of geometry through various colors of cords to create unique geometric patterns, forms, and spaces.
At times appearing not unlike cat's cradles stitched into corners of the gallery walls or cutting through large swaths of space in bold compositions, her daring pieces invite viewer interaction while questioning notions of perspective.
Her use of color and installations of nylon cord, stainless steel, or stitched leaves enables the artist to create volume with a spare amount of material. At times straight lines appear to be curved, while at others the cords oscillate and colors intensify almost as if twanged by an unseen harpist's hand.
For the opening, Rifas has invited dancers under the direction of the New World School of the Arts teacher Dale Andree to move within her ethereal structures.
Her work and the dance troupe's interaction with the individual installations are designed to heighten the sense of both the reductive and explosive nature of the forces at play.
Don't miss Rifas's new thought-provoking installations that often reference the spare and poetic work of Agnes Martin and the rhythmic lines and pulsating color of Piet Mondrian. Call 305-573-2700 or visit bernicesteinbaumgallery.com.
David Castillo, one of two Miami art dealers chosen to represent the 305 at Art Basel Miami Beach this year — the other dealer is Fredric Snitzer — has plenty of reason to rejoice.
The David Castillo Gallery (2234 NW Second Ave., Miami) is celebrating its sixth anniversary in Wynwood with "Crushed Candy," a group show featuring top talent from Castillo's stable of artists.
The exhibit includes work by Jonathan Ehrenberg, Shara Hughes, Meredith James, and the TM Sisters (Tasha and Monica Lopez de Victoria).
Castillo says the works displayed "test their mettle against the sweet ease of perception" and that their premise is "a studio practice as steadfast as iron and finished forms as urgent and fantastical as the future state of candy."
We're not sure what that means, but it's evident that Castillo is gearing up for his season-opening bash with a head of steam and that he gives good press release.
Ehrenberg, a contemporary fabulist, parlays his interests in set design, still life, pantomime, and Noh theater into videos and works on paper.
Reveling in color, texture, and pattern, Hughes's mixed-media-on-canvas works tinker with notions of the Theory of Relativity, says Castillo. The dealer adds that "her visual vocabulary is as tight as Etch A Sketch and Keith Haring" before concluding that "all Hughes's world is an imaginative holodeck, and her subjects and viewers equal players." Sounds like a shindig worth crashing. Call 305-573-8110 or visit davidcastillogallery.com.
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
Adriana Carvalho's Insomnia
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Fredric Snitzer Gallery
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Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2247 NW 1st Pl
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
3550 N Miami Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
David Castillo Gallery
2234 NW 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Alberto Linero Gallery
2294 NW Second Ave
Miami, FL 33127
Category: Galleries
Region: Midtown/Wynwood/Design District
Another space ready to pop champagne corks is the newly minted Alberto Linero Gallery (2294 NW Second Ave., Miami), where folks are salivating to roar into high season with a show called "September."
If you can navigate the rolling greasy spoons fuming the environs outside the door, pop in and check out the group show organized by art collective Pink Bastard.
It features the work of seven locals and is one of the few places still doing the free wine-and-cheese thing.
Curated by Adriana Carvalho, the show is meant to inform gallery crawlers about the artists' view of day-to-day vagaries of life in the Big Mango.
Participating artists include Eddie Arroyo, Adriana Carvalho, Charles Falarara, Kevin Foltz, Cory Foote, Kathy Kissik, Franklin Sinanan, and David Zalben.
Take a gander at Foote's black-and-white portrait and landscape snaps, which exude undertones of melancholy.
Zalben, who uses metal wire to animate life's simplicities, has created a collection of evocative wire poems.
And Carvalho transforms items such as metal and cloth products into enticing pieces that represent her dreams and fears and are freighted with social commentary. Look for her new series of works, including her Insomnia installation, which highlights the poetry of everyday life using a pillow and a rug. Call 305-587-0172 or visit albertolinerogallery.com
Monday, September 5, 2011
Van Gogh to Go
From Sabotage Times: Van Gogh to Go
Earlier this autumn an exhaustive undercover police operation recovered five small 17th century masterpieces stolen to order six years ago from the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Holland.
The paintings, collectively worth millions of dollars, were subject to an extraordinary criminal supply chain that involved not just the thieves, but a Dutch lawyer, a businessman and two further shady characters, as well as, of course, the buyer, who has not been uncovered. Sue Eades-Willis is perplexed why they bothered: she could have provided all five paintings in a couple of months for a few hundred pounds.
Eades–Willis is no criminal mastermind, but rather her studio of in-house painters and expert art restorers are very handy with paints and brush. Her company, Ruby Cavalier, is one of a growing number specialising in producing legitimate reproductions (which is to say unsigned and, to avoid copyright issues, by artists now dead for at least 70 years) of famous art works – not screen-prints or laser copies, but actual oils on canvas, “as close to the original as you can get, using the same materials, techniques and brushstroke,” as Mike Mitchell, marketing director for art repro service 1st Art, puts it. “These reproductions are produced by very good artists in their own right but those who, crucially, are able to put away their egos and leave their own artistic input out of the work. And they each specialise in a style or painter – we have one artist who just does the Mona Lisa.”
“I have Monets, some Renoirs and a Degas. You can see the disbelief on people’s faces. The first question they ask is ‘are these real?’”
One wonders whether he still finds that smile quite so enigmatic. After all, the process behind creating a reproduction takes, depending on the complexity of the original painting, anywhere up to eight weeks full-time and results in a work of art that, to all but the most highly-trained eye, is indistinguishable from the original. While fashion plays its part – Mitchell notes how a major exhibition or world-record auction often prompts high demand for a particular painting, while the Vermeer biopic Girl With a Pearl Earring led to countless orders for the work of the same name – Van Gogh and Monet remain the big sellers. Ruby Cavalier, in contrast, specialises in works by lesser known artists such as John William Waterhouse, Gainsborough and Singer Sargent, “paintings that, hung over one’s mantelpiece, invariably come across as being originals,” says Eades-Willis, revealingly.
All that may give the game away would be the small likelihood of the buyer actually owning a priceless masterpiece or perhaps the size of the painting: philistine though it may be, buyers are not above having their famous artwork resized to suit their decor. “Though we draw the line at anything that distorts the ratios of the original image,” says Eades-Willis. “Some people do say, ‘can’t you just cut a bit off?’ But that is to disrespect the original art.”
Such companies will see their demand spike in the run-up to Christmas – receiving a Da Vinci is hard to top. But the more typical reasons for using such services are simple: for those who love a particular painting, it is probably as close as one can get to owning it without being fantastically well-off; and in most cases, even that won’t buy what is invariably not for sale – many of the most famous or seminal works of art are owned by the state or by public museums that very rarely sell them, and usually only then to other museums rather than into private hands. “Buyers tend to be that passionate about a painting but, like most people, don’t realise that an oil reproduction is possible,” says Paul Williams, owner of repro company, the Impressionist Art Gallery. “I have several at home, mostly Monets, but some Renoirs and a Degas. You can see the disbelief on people’s faces. The first question they ask is ‘are these real?’”
“If it’s acceptable for music, literature or images on a movie screen to be endlessly reproduced, why is it unacceptable for a museum to hang such precise copies of masterpieces?”
But making an impression with your impressionists is not the only reason why a copy may be desired: period country houses like them to add to the atmosphere, while Paris and New York-based copyists Troubetzkoy Reproductions scored a good deal when commissioned to provide over 200 masterpieces for the remake of The Thomas Crowne Affair, which became necessary when the director’s request to film inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art were turned down. Work for the productions of Meet Joe Black and Mickey Blue Eyes, among other movies, has followed.
More seriously, global companies the likes of J P Morgan and Deutsche Bank, the latter of which has, with 50,000 works, the world’s largest corporate art collection, often commission reproductions for insurance purposes: known to own prestigious art pieces but unable, for security reasons, to display them in the headquarters lobby, a copy is a suitable stand-in. Private individuals may do the same. “They have these wonderful paintings in a vault and, ironically, can’t afford the risk to hang them,” says Eades-Willis.
In other words, you may be looking at a copy more often that you realise. Indeed, arguably the spread of such quality art copyists raises fundamental questions about the value of reproductions. If it is acceptable for music, literature, lines from a play or images on a movie screen to be endlessly reproduced without diminishing the quality or substance of their content, why is it culturally unacceptable for a museum to hang such precise copies of masterpieces for many more people to then enjoy?
The insistence on original specimens not only limits the public’s exposure to art – seeing a great work as a print or on a PC is not the same experience – but means many museums, unable to afford the original, are left full of second-rate or provincial work. Arguably, the art world’s argument that the only the single work that was handled by the original painter holds value is more a means of justifying the ticket prices or auction figures that such reverence brings – it makes little difference to the artistic communication of the work.
“It’s tragic that art has become so expensive. Art should be appreciated as widely as possible,” says Eades-Willis. “The problem is that there is, now more than ever, an element of snobbery in the art world – ‘I’ve got it and you can’t have it’. But that’s wrong. Everybody has a right of access to great art. Reproductions are one way to make that happen.”
Friday, September 2, 2011
CW Peale: The Staircase Group
English: The Staircase Group (1795) (Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale)
Thursday, September 1, 2011
CW Peale: George Washington in the Continental Army
Portrait of George Washington. Oil on canvas, 1779
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