Monday Links! Ilness, Wealth, and Reversals of Fortune

by Reid Singer on December 19, 2011 Massive Links

  • Kim Jong-il, the character treated to a stunningly accurate portrayal in Team America: World Police, has died. The sexagenarian  was best remembered for his height, his fondness for looking at things, and the threat he posed to global security. [NYT]
  • Street art blogger RJ Rushmore has published a compilation of photographs from ABMB. Our hats are off to Mr. Rushmore for bringing some street art to the fore that we don’t absolutely hate. [Vandalog]
  •  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has extended a hand to Google Goggles, The Shazam of the visual world. Visitors carrying a mobile device can now point it at thousands of objects in the Met’s collection and gain access to the wealth of information available about the work online. [Bloginity]
  • Collectors buy art for “emotional value” at the same rate that men read Playboy “for the articles.” This, at least, was the assumption among art investment firms that has been very much rebuked by a new study published by Deloitte Luxembourg. For their part, art speculators are more active and powerful than they used to be, and will likely contribute to an increase in trading that could potentially drive prices up and out of the reach of museums. [Real Clear Arts]
  • So yeah, you might be wondering if museums are depending too much on private donors. Are the bad guys really winning? Today, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and the Tate announced plans to renew their sponsorship deals with British Petroleum through 2017. Citing the “extraordinary” support of the oil company, the institutions made their move in the face of severe criticism from environmental groups, including a molasses-spilling ceremony conducted by protestors last spring. [Guardian]
  • While it may be old news by blog standards, AFC wishes to pay our respects to John C. Wessel, the New York art dealer who died on Friday. The St Louis native will be remembered as one of the first and most strident supporters of LGBT artists, offerring solo exhibitions to Mike Bidlo, Walter Robinson, Donald Moffett, Rhonda Zwillinger and George Platt Lynes in the ’80s and ’90s. [Gallerist NY]

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