For various reasons, I haven’t been able to work up a lot of excitement about “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day.” If that’s your cup of tea, let me point you over to Lawrence’s coverage at the Battleswarm blog.
I did want to link back to this thread over at Alan’s blog. Not so much because I posted in it, but because:
…that I find simply irresistible. Call it the hopeless romantic in me. Or perhaps it is the youthful memories of all those movies and TV shows where the “bad” guys engaged in incredibly complicated high-tech schemes to steal diamonds or art or priceless artifacts from heavily guarded museums. (Of course, these days, art thefts involve less high-tech electronics and rappelling from the ceiling, and more brute force and ignorance. But that’s another rant.)
I’ve been tempted from time to time to purchase a bunch of prints of stolen artworks, put them in frames, and decorate my home with them.
Anyway:
In the interest of being a good citizen (think of this as sort of a “Crimewatch” thing), here’s links to images of the stolen works. Links open in a new window.
“Le pigeon aux petits-pois”, by Pablo Picasso.
“La Pastorale”, Henri Matisse.
”L’olivier pres de l’Estaque”, by Georges Braque.
“La femme a l’eventail”, by Amedeo Modigliani.
I believe this is “Nature-mort aux chandeliers”, by Fernand Leger. But I’m not 100% sure; the articles I’ve seen refer to the painting as “Still Life with Chandeliers” (plural), while this is “Still Life with a Chandelier.”
While I was working on this post, I see that the LAT put up a similar slide show; the Leger is missing from theirs.
In order by “Squeee!” factor:
(Hattip to The Rap Sheet.)
Arakawa, of the team Arakawa and Gins, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 73.
I’ve previously linked to discussions and commentary about Arakawa and Gins. Briefly, they were conceptual artists who became obsessed with the idea that they could use architecture to stop or reverse the aging process.
Their most recent work, a house on Long Island, had a steeply sloped floor that threatened to send visitors hurtling into its kitchen. Called Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa), it featured more than three dozen paint colors; level changes meant to induce the sensation of being in two places at once; windows that seemed too high or too low; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an absence of doors that would have permitted occupants even a modicum of privacy.
All of it was meant, the couple explained, to lead its users into a perpetually “tentative” relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.