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….

 
Click the image to read the entire post by ArtNow favorite ArtDaily.org

See the rest here:
Secretive Urban Artist Banksy Shows Film in Berlin Film Festival

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……

Read the complete original:
MOCA Board of Trustees Names New York Gallerist Jeffrey Deitch as Museum Director

SHARE

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

This sounds really cool– if you’re a Picasso fan.
 

HELSINKI.- An exhibition space on the third floor of Ateneum has been transformed into Picasso’s Living Room, which was created by the Company design office of Helsinki, consisting of the designer couple Aamu Song and Johan Olin. This interactive space invites you into the world of the master – Picasso was always an inspiration for this space and the objects placed in it. Try out the furniture, read the newspapers and magazines, be happy and inspired. An extensive exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s (1881–1973) work is currently on view at the Ateneum Art Museum. This unique exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation ever seen in Finland of all the different periods of Picasso’s career.

Go here to see the original:
Ateneum Transforms Third Floor into Picasso’s Living Room

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

I am a big Ed Ruscha fan, (and idolized Kerouac in high school) so naturally this drew my attention today from ArtDaily.org:
 

NEW YORK, NY.- In 1951, Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on his typewriter as a continuous 120 foot-long scroll, feverishly recording in twenty days his experiences during road trips in the United States and Mexico, which he began with Neil Cassady in the late 1940s. On the Road was finally published in 1957, and Kerouac was immediately acknowledged as the voice of the Beat Generation, a new group of writers, including Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, who became known for their embracing of radical free-verse style.

Ed Ruscha’s singular art has recorded the shifting emblems of American life in the form of Hollywood logos, stylized gas stations, and archetypal landscapes. His wry choice of words and indirect phrases mines the perpetual interplay between language as a physical thing and language as a transparent medium. During the sixties, he created a series of cheaply printed photographic books as deadpan meditations on the romantic vision of the road epitomized by the Beats. His typologies of the urban environment of Los Angeles included Twenty-six Gasoline Stations (1963) and Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). In Royal Road Test (1967), he brought the word and the road together in a conceptual prank by documenting himself dropping a vintage typewriter from a speeding Buick.

Over the last couple of years, Ruscha has turned his attention to On the Road, resulting in his own version of Kerouac’s Beat bible. Kerouac’s entire text appears accompanied by black and white photographic illustrations that Ruscha has either taken himself, commissioned from other photographers, or selected from found images to refer closely to the details and impressions that the author describes, from car parts to jazz instruments, from sandwich stacks to tire burns on a desert road……

 
Read the complete article here:
Gagosian to Present Ed Ruscha’s Artist Book of a Classic Novel by Jack Kerouac

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

SHARE

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

From ArtDaily.org:

MIAMI, FL.- From December 3 through 6, 2009, Miami Beach, Florida, will be home to the 8th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach , the international art show. More than 250 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa will take part. Chosen by renowned gallerists of the Art Basel Miami Beach Selection Committee, the galleries will show works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centu-ries.
 
Special sectors are devoted to very recent artworks, curated exhibits, perfor-mance, and art in public spaces. This year, the layout of Art Basel Miami Beach will be extensively redesigned, including larger spaces for many galleries, and an innovative floorplan to improve the visitor experience inside the Miami Beach Convention Center…..

See the rest here:
Art Basel Miami Beach 2009: Eighth Edition of America’s Most Prestigious Art Show Opens

From ArtDaily.org:

PALM DESERT, CA.- Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA, has established itself among U.S. and international art collectors as one of the nation’s premier galleries with shows by Monet, Rauschenberg and diverse, up-and-coming young artists. Today it announces a world-class Picasso exhibition that will survey the master’s paintings, drawings and sculptures from several of his major periods, including Cubism, and will highlight an important private collection of 80 pieces….

See the original post:
Major Picasso Exhibition Featuring Unique Paintings at Heather James Fine Art

Food for thought, San Diego. (hint: it doesn’t have to be more museum, though more support for our good ones would help in the light of recent events. consider also the sdspace4art project, the new central library, etc.).

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum ’s summer 2009 opening of its New American Wing, along with the concurrent presentation of three highly acclaimed and widely attended special exhibitions—Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom; Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective; and The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion—generated $593 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York, according to a visitor survey the Museum released today….

See the article here:
Metropolitan Museum Exhibitions Create $593 Million Economic Impact for NY

Apparently, ArtDaily.org likes architecture as much as we do.

BRASILIA (AP).- Famed 101-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer is reportedly back at work just weeks after surgery for gallstones and an intestinal tumor. The daily newspaper ‘O Globo’ reports that Niemeyer is working on a collection of buildings in the city of Niteroi, outside of Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyer designed much of the futuristic Brazilian capital of Brasilia and Rio’s Sambadrome, home of the annual carnival parade. He also helped design the United Nations building in New York City….

Follow this link:
101-Year-Old Brazilian Architect Oscar Niemeyer Back at Work