BERLIN (REUTERS).- Banksy, the secretive British artist whose work has appeared on city streets around the world, said on Sunday he hoped his documentary film “Exit Through The Gift Shop” will raise the standing of urban art. But the anonymous graffiti artist with a cult following said in a shadowy video message to audiences at the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday before the screening of his film that it was possible it could have the complete opposite effect.
 
“I guess my ambition was to make a film that would do for graffiti art what ‘The Karate Kid’ did for martial arts — a film that would get every schoolkid in the world picking up a spray can and having a go,” Banksy said of his first film. “As it turns out, I think we might have a film that does for street art what ‘Jaws’ did for waterskiing.”
 
Banksy’s voice was altered and his face concealed, as in the documentary….

 
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Secretive Urban Artist Banksy Shows Film in Berlin Film Festival

Thank you again, Los Angeles Times Culture Monsters:

Here's the latest installment in the courtship of Eli Broad — and the art museum he aims to plunk somewhere in the Los Angeles Basin, complete with big-name architecture, a spiffy $200 million endowment and the 2,000 works of contemporary art held by his Broad Art Foundation.

Downtown L.A. is officially making a play, courtesy of the Grand Avenue Authority, which today authorized negotiations with Broad toward a possible deal that would wrest the museum from Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, which are also in the running.

After a closed session today of the Grand Avenue Authority, L.A. City Councilwoman Jan Perry, a member of the joint city-county authority that's overseeing development of vacant land and parking lots in the heart of downtown's arts district, said it will deploy a negotiating team “to proceed with discussions with the Broad Foundation to consider his proposal and reach a mutual agreement.”

The Grand Avenue project, of which Broad himself has been a leading advocate, is considered the centerpiece of downtown's revitalization. Designed by Frank Gehry, it includes two towers, condos, hotel rooms and a shopping center….

Thank you again, Los Angeles Times Culture Monsters:

Several museums and art institutions, including the Orange County Museum of Art, are saying that the Judith Rothschild Foundation has failed to make good on 17 grants awarded for 2009.

The total amount of money in question reportedly amounts to more than $100,000. Some of the arts organizations have filed a formal complaint to the New York attorney general’s office.

A spokeswoman for OCMA said today that it has received a letter from the foundation stating that the grant money will be paid. The museum added that its grant from the foundation was for $4,000 and is intended to go toward costs associated with the works of Florence Miller Pierce in an exhibition titled “Illumination”…..

Read the rest online at LA times Culture Monsters

The report from ArtDaily.org

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Following a worldwide search, the Board of Trustees of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), announced today it has voted unanimously to appoint Jeffrey Deitch as the museum’s new director, effective June 1. Deitch [DIEtsch], 57, is one of New York’s leading gallerists, specializing in modern and contemporary art, and he has a 30-year career as an independent curator who has produced innovative exhibitions at museums and galleries around the world. As an art advisor to some of the world’s leading institutional and private collectors, he has helped build a number of major international contemporary art collections……

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MOCA Board of Trustees Names New York Gallerist Jeffrey Deitch as Museum Director

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Thank you again, Los Angeles Times Culture Monsters:

Orchestras and choirs used to reach out to children with concerts that were basically junior versions of the adult experience. A grandfatherly conductor would address a sea of little faces and then turn away to lead his ensemble in a variety of classics. The experience was meant to be edifying and educational. For many in the audience, however, it proved to be pretty boring.

Times have changed.

Fascinating from ArtDaily.org.

NEW HAVEN, CT (AP).- The ownership of tens of billions of dollars of art and other goods could be thrown into doubt if a lawsuit seeking the return of a famous Vincent Van Gogh painting is successful, according to a court filing by Yale University. The Ivy League university sued in federal court in March to assert its ownership rights over “The Night Cafe” and to block a descendant of the original owner from claiming it. Pierre Konowaloff is the purported great-grandson of industrialist and aristocrat Ivan Morozov, who bought the painting in 1908. Russia nationalized Morozov’s property during the Communist Revolution. The painting, which the Soviet government later sold, has been hanging in the Yale University Art Gallery for almost 50 years……

The rest is here:
Yale University Says Suit Over Vincent Van Gogh’s Work Imperils Other Art

ArtKnowledgeNews on the Getty in 2010.
 

LOS ANGELES, CA.- On view at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center, February 2 through June 6, 2010, “Urban Panoramas: Opie, Liao, Kim” brings together bodies of work by three contemporary photographers that recently entered the Museum’s collection. Each artist explores a specific city and how various modes of transportation define the urban infrastructure. Selections from Catherine Opie’s “Mini-malls” series, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao’s “Habitat 7″ series, and Soo Kim’s “Midnight Reykjavík” series will be on display. This exhibition will run concurrently with A Record of Emotion: The Photographs of Frederick H. Evans.

Based in Los Angeles, Catherine Opie used 7×17-inch film negatives to document the mini-malls that are ubiquitous in a city traversed by automobiles. To trace the route of the number 7 subway line connecting Queens and Manhattan in New York, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao used digital technology to combine multiple 8×10-inch negatives into seamless prints. Working with a 2¼-inch format camera in Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, during the summer solstice, Soo Kim cut and layered the resulting chromogenic prints to suggest the transparency of a city characterized by pedestrian accessibility.

“This exhibition highlights three distinctive bodies of work, each of which explores a specific aspect of urban architecture to capture the essential rhythm of a city,” says Virginia Heckert, associate curator of photographs and curator of the exhibition. “Paired with photographs by Fredrick Evans, who worked in England from 1890–1910, these two concurrent exhibitions provide a wonderful opportunity to compare and contrast changing approaches to photographic documentation of architecture over the course of a century….”

Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao at the Getty Center

Thank you again, Los Angeles Times Culture Monsters:

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Arts groups large and small were the recipients of nearly $27 million in grants announced today by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In California, 189 grants totaling $4,295,000 were awarded to major institutions like the Los Angeles Opera (which got $120,000) and smaller ones, like the 18th Street Arts Complex in Santa Monica (which got $25,000).

Other winners included the Hammer Museum, which received $75,000 to support the touring exhibition of “Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980,” and the Craft & Folk Art Museum, which won $10,000 to fund a show called “Race, Gender and Globalization.”

The Deaf West Theatre Company in North Hollywood was awarded $30,000 to produce a play, Friedrich Dürrenmatt's “The Visit.” South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa received $40,000 to help put on its annual Pacific Playwrights Festival.

The Center Theatre Group of Los Angeles received $35,000 to help produce the Lisa Kron play “Five Questions.” The theater will co-produce the play in partnership with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which won its own grant from the NEA. The Berkeley Rep was awarded $30,000 to produce “Concerning Strange Devices From the Distant West,” a new play by Naomi Iizuka.

Nationwide, the NEA will distribute $26,968,500 to support 1,207 projects. For a state-by-state list of the grants, click here.

– Kate Linthicum

Photo: Shoshannah Stern and Matthew Jaeger star in “Children of a Lesser God” at the Deaf West Theatre in North Hollywood. Credit: Michael Lamont

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California arts groups will receive more than $4 million in NEA grants

Thanks, Max.

Talented designers from Nissan Design America in San Diego were honored as world leaders in automotive design at the sixth annual Design Los Angeles Conference on December 3. The winning entry was for the design team’s “V2G” Vehicle to Grid concept cars optimized for the next generation of drivers.

The contest put the Nissan Design America team in competition with teams from Toyota, Mazda, Honda, General Motors and Audi. A key component of the challenge was to adapt to the way drivers like to relate to their cars as a means of self-expression.

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San Diego team wins international design competition

I am fascinated with Rome and Roman history back through her many incarnations, and having travelled there briefly a couple of times for glorious days loaded with art, architecture and fabulous food, I get excited about stories like this.

ROME (AP).- Italian officials unveiled new discoveries Thursday in an ancient Roman luxury complex filled with priceless mosaics, elegant porticos and thermal baths. The 1,800 square-meter (2,000 square-yard) complex, dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries, has been excavated intermittently since 2004, when the ruins were accidentally discovered during the renovation of a Renaissance palazzo that stands above them. In the latest excavation, which began in March, archaeologists uncovered a palatial room decorated with precious marble and a colorful mosaic made with half a million tiles brought from all over the Roman Empire….

Roman discovery from ArtDaily.org

Go read the complete original here! (thanks again, ArtDaily.org)

Rome Unveils Ancient 1,800 Square-Meter Luxury Complex

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