- Joel Goodman’s photo of drunk New Years Eve revelers in Manchester has been compared to a Renaissance painting. Twitter user Roland Hughes is the man who made it go viral. This is his story. [BBC News]
- Someone stole a plaster study of Abraham Lincoln’s hands by the sculptor George Grey Barnard from the Kankakee Country Museum, about an hour south of Chicago. People are really, really upset about it. [The New York Times]
- Robert Irwin has been making the press rounds in anticipation of the July unveiling of his $5 million “magnus opus” permanent installation at the Chanti Foundation in Marfa, Texas. The 13,000 square foot work, coinciding with the Foundation’s 30th anniversary, will be a C-shaped building with black and white scrim walls and a courtyard with Palo Verde trees and Stonehedge-like basalt columns. According to Irwin, it’ll be “a kind of walk-in Dutch landscape painting.” [New York Times, Wall Street Journal]
- Art dealer/heir Guy Wildenstein went on trial today in Paris for tax evasion. The French-American is accused of hiding assets he inherited from his father in various trusts and holdings around the globe, such as artwork, horses, and a 75,000 acre ranch in Kenya where the film “Out of Africa” was shot. [ABC News]
- NYC canine owners: Laurie Anderson will be giving a concert for dogs in Times Square this evening. [New York Times]
- The recent Consumer Electronics show presented yet another install strategy for video and digital artists: an 18-inch display that rolls up like a newspaper. Turns out LG has been doing a bunch of “OLED” work in bendable, curving displays. [The Verge]
- Coachella will be getting its own art world counterpart in April 2017: Desert X. The biennale will run during the music festival, and is being spearheaded by a non-profit whose board include Ed Ruscha, Coachella art director Paul Clemente, and former Palm Springs Art Museum director Steve Nash. [artnet News]
- The UK government has created a £30 million fund to help preserve antiquities in global conflict zones. [The Art Newspaper]
- On the ephemeral nature of Josh Kline’s 3-D printed sculptures, and how it challenges the work of the Whitney’s conservation department. [The New Yorker]
- Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, on how artists’ foundations offer an important funding alternative to the market or public sector. [Blouin Artinfo]
- Oh no! A homecare worker has been charged with assaulting I. M. Pei last month. [Dezeen]
- Brad Fiore takes a critical look at the paintings of art critic and artist Pedro Velez. He says he felt ambivalence towards the new paintings, now absent of the critical commentary he’s known for, but seems to think they’re more compelling in the context of his twitter feed. [Palliate Blog]
