Tag: art

Never forget

The disappearance of the Cornelius G. Kolff remains both one of New York’s most horrific maritime tragedies and perhaps its most intriguing mystery. Eye witness accounts describe “large tentacles” which “pulled” the ferry beneath the surface only a short distance from its destination at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan

Human Pigments

see also, human skin used for book bindings.

Eugene Delacroix’s most famous painting, “Liberty Leading the People,” hangs in a revered spot in Paris’ Louvre Museum. Inspired by the 1830 Paris Uprising, it has been held up as an embodiment of the French national ethos, and most recently as a justification for the country’s controversial burkini ban.

But “Liberty Leading the People” may also have been literally painted with people.

From at least the 16th century until as late as the early 1900s, a pigment made from mummified human remains appeared on the palettes of European artists, including Delacroix. Painters prized “mummy brown” for its rich, transparent shade. As a result, an unknown number of ancient Egyptians are spending their afterlife on art canvases, unwittingly admired in museum galleries around the world.

Kebab

NYC is getting its own kebab:

Heatherwick Studio revealed the first renderings of “Vessel,” a 15-story tall occupiable sculpture comprised of 154 intricately interconnecting flights of stairs that will serve as the centerpiece of the new Hudson Yards development in west Manhattan.

Mafia Art World

Step inside a world of high art, low cunning and prices beyond your wildest imaginings. The Banker’s Guide To The Art Market is a revealing, wry and rare look behind doors that are closed to most of us. Propelled by the newly rich of the financial world, London’s art market has soared to historic highs.

The film deconstructs this extraordinary phenomenon and looks back over a century of the market’s twists and turns to try to explain it, talking to outspoken collector Jeffrey Archer – ‘I couldn’t afford to buy my own pictures’ – maverick dealer Kenny Schacter – ‘when money is introduced it brings out the worst in people’ – and gallerist Nicholas Logsdail – ‘You’ll never go wrong, if you buy from a good gallery’. We don’t think you will look at a painting in quite the same way again.