Tribal Meddling from Rousseau to Gobineau

Anthropologists' fingers must be just itching to get some ideological spin on this unique opportunity: the discovery of a virgin Amazonian tribe!

The BBC's commentator Fiona Watson, from "Survival International" activist group for the preservation of indigenous tribal peoples (note the collective) doesn't bode well in that respect.

Men flexing bows and a woman who doesn't; females weaving cotton into small skirts as the men are hunting animals; males aggressively body painted with urucum whereas women use genipapo; a black figure not carrying a bow is suggestive of female gender ...?

What's this neo-sexism in a group for racial and cultural isolationism? Whatever happened to sexual equality and multiculturalism? Aren't all races, cultures, men and women 'identical'?

Hadn't behaviorists (the materialist approach to psychology) figured out long ago that gender related games are just socially acquired preferences? That these were forced upon societies by the white, male dominated power structure? That the conclusion was warranted that we might just as well switch tasks, the females of the species doing jobs that require spacial insight, while the males provide communal and domestic 'care'?

Only yesterday I was informed by a feminist there are 'any number of genders!' One wonders what happened to all these?

Since I haven't heard anyone apologizing for the abominations of cultural goulash, the psychological emasculation of boys, and the transformation of girls into sexual-predatory barracudas, we must assume the dogma still stands!

Is "Survival International" sure their spokesperson enjoyed proper conditioning in critical theory and instruction in gender and racial identity?

The Pragmatist approach of activism which is hell-bent on result by whatever means "to raise awareness and money" (whatever for?) would arouse hope to the contrary! Wow, "there are so many different ways" one can meddle in complete strangers' lives, "all of them making a real difference!" But then J.G. Von Herder (1744-1803) proponent "Survival International" is a surprising organization in many respects, the bookshop for the first time in two hundred years giving evidence that "Progress can Kill."

From Rousseau (1712-1778) to Gobineau (1816-1882), in the absence of objective standards (reason, for example) a learning curve - even of sorts - remains sadly beyond the subjectivist's grasp.

- Caption: Tehamana Has Many Ancestors (Merahi metua no Tehamana, 1893)
by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), painted on his first journey to Tahiti in 1891 -

Update:

Pajamas Media: "World’s Scariest Words: ‘I’m an Environmentalist and I’m Here to Help’"

The fact that this tribe chose isolation did not stop the activists from the Brazilian government’s National Indian Foundation from distributing these films worldwide. They deliberately violated this tribe’s privacy because they wanted to use these Indians to prove that logging can be harmful to indigenous people. (...) >>>

Literary Flatulence and Subjectivity

Signandsight: "Inflated Phrases"

Most texts which accompany contemporary art production are so twisted and woolly that they could easily pass for self-parody. Christian Demand takes up a three hundred year old lament. In anticipation of any objections that might follow: I am not an art critic. I am not now and I never was, and I don't intend to become one. When I talk about the crisis of criticism, I am not speaking with the authority of someone who has proved he can do things better.

***

"I am driven by nothing more than the frustrations of a reader who is interested in art and who simply cannot believe the mass of linguistic strutting, moral imposture and lazy thinking that is inflicted upon him by this genre. Take the official exhibition text for the Anish Kapoor show in Munich's Haus der Kunst (2007/08): "In Kapoor's work, material plays a central role, although always in connection with an idea of presence and spirituality that transcends the superficial 'actuality' of the object. In Kapoor's words: 'In a certain way matter always leads to something immaterial.' He sees this as the fundamentally paradoxical yet complementary proviso of the material world. (...) Terms like lightness, slowness and growth seem to be the inspiration and driving force for Kapoor's new kinetic objects and spacial objects shown in this exhibition. At the root of them all is Kapoor's expression of anxiety through unabashed emblems and formal reference to sexuality and violence: the unspeakable is given voice." (...)

"Art" is – and always was – a value judgement, in other words a term whose application reflects the likes and dislikes of the person using it. (...)" >>>

- Caption: Balthus' "The Street" -

Value judgment, by all means - but an objective one, please. In the recent post "Let there be Light" we looked at the Objectivist take on art and what it is meant to be, philosophically ... leaving you with the French painter Balthus, also on Signandsight:

Signandsight: "Nymphs in the Afternoon"

Cologne's Museum Ludwig presents the first solo show of French painter Balthus, the self-styled "King of Cats." That was the first news about him and it was written by a poet, Rainer Maria Rilke - as though there were something to doubt about this existence. (...) >>>

Resist Commie Prop, Support Indy!

... with a pro human record like the Russian Communist Party's, who wouldn't feel deeply offended at Hollywood's creative license? Everything else aside (!) thanks to their successful agitprop everyone has forgotten they had been secretly wheeling and dealing with their Hegelian brother party - the National Socialists - until Hitler betrayed them. Only then did they come to the Allied side ...

"The 1922 anti-Versailles Rapallo Treaty between the German Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union against the Western Allies is hardly ever remembered, let alone its secret addendum allowing Germany to train their military in Soviet territory. ["(...) the Soviet Union [was] crawling with German engineers, instructing Soviet generals on the uses of poison gas and the intricacies of tank warfare (...)", Tom Reiss, "The Orientalist", Random House, 2006, p. 187]

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 is today a buried public secret. It remained in effect until 1941 when Hitler in Operation Barbarossa invaded the Soviet Union. The treaty foresaw in another secret protocol that divided Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. All were subsequently invaded, or forced to cede territory to Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union. Stalin joined the Allies against Nazism only on 1941 after Hitler treacherously turned his back on his former conspiracy partner. Since then 'Fascist' is the pejorative designation of choice for all opponents of 'progress'".
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Yahoo!News: "Indiana Jones Makes Russian Communists See Red"

Russian Communist Party members condemned the new "Indiana Jones" film on Friday as crude, anti-Soviet propaganda that distorts history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

"What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame," said Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.

The comments were made at a local Communist party meeting and posted on its Internet site www.kplo.ru. The film, the fourth in the hugely successful Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday. Russian media said it was being shown on 808 screens, the widest ever release for a Hollywood movie.

In past episodes Indiana Jones has escaped from Nazi soldiers, an Egyptian snake pit, a Bedouin swordsman and a child-enslaving Indian demigod.

"Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country," said another party member, Andrei Gindos.

Though the ranks of the once all-powerful Communist Party have dwindled since Soviet times, its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.

Other communists said the generation born after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union were being fed revisionist, Hollywood history. They advocated banning the Indiana Jones outright to prevent "ideological sabotage."

"Our movie-goers are teenagers who are completely unaware of what happened in 1957," St Peterburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich told Reuters.

"They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war."

"It's rubbish ... In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the U.S. Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?"

Vladimir Mukhin, another member of the local Communist Party, said in comments posted on the Internet site that he would ask Russia's Culture Ministry to ban the film for its "anti-Soviet propaganda." (...) >>>

- Filed on Articles in "History Compiled" -

The Afghan Treasure Surviving the Dark Ages

Art Daily: "Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul at National Gallery of Art" (Washington)

Extraordinary artifacts uncovered in modern-day Afghanistan — once the heart of the Silk Road linking cultures from Asia to the Mediterranean — long thought stolen or destroyed during some 25 years of conflict until the dramatic announcement of their existence in 2003, begin their United States tour at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 25 through September 7, 2008.

- Caption: Unfired-clay sculpture (second century B.C.)
excavated at the site of Greek city of Aï Khanum -

The exhibition, co-organized by the National Geographic Society (recommended reading) and the National Gallery of Art, will travel to the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, October 24, 2008 through January 25, 2009; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 22 through May 17, 2009; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 23 through September 20, 2009. After its tour through Paris, Turin, and Amsterdam, the show was reorganized for the United States and accompanied by a new catalogue and a video documentary produced by National Geographic and narrated by the celebrated author, Khaled Hosseini.

Revealing Afghanistan’s multicultural heritage are some 228 objects ranging in date from 2200 BC to the second century AD. Drawn from four archaeological sites, they belong to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul and include fragmentary gold bowls with artistic links to Mesopotamia and Indus valley cultures (modern-day Pakistan) from the Bronze Age site of Tepe Fullol; bronze and stone sculptures and a gilded silver plaque from the former Greek colony at Aï Khanum (“Lady Moon”); bronzes, ivories, and painted glassware that had been imported from Roman Egypt, China, and India, and excavated from ancient storerooms discovered in the 1930s and 1940s in Begram; and more than 100 gold ornaments from the “Bactrian Hoard,” found in 1978 in Tillya Tepe, the site of six nomad graves, and revealing a synthesis of Greek, Roman, Persian, Indian, Chinese, and Siberian styles. (...) >>>

Pricked by CassandraTroy with Nomao

Resist Commie Prop, Support Indy! - now updated with historical perspective

... with a pro human record like the Russian Communist Party's, who wouldn't feel deeply offended by the Hollywood creative license? Everything else aside (!) thanks to their successful agitprop everyone has forgotten they had been secretly wheeling and dealing with their Hegelian brother party - the National Socialists - until well into WWII when Hitler betrayed them. Only then did they come to the Allied side ...

"The 1922 anti-Versailles Rapallo Treaty between the German Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union against the Western Allies is hardly ever remembered, let alone its secret addendum allowing Germany to train their military in Soviet territory. ["(...) the Soviet Union [was] crawling with German engineers, instructing Soviet generals on the uses of poison gas and the intricacies of tank warfare (...)", Tom Reiss, "The Orientalist", Random House, 2006, p. 187]

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 is today a buried public secret. It remained in effect until 1941 when Hitler in Operation Barbarossa invaded the Soviet Union. The treaty foresaw in another secret protocol that divided Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence. All were subsequently invaded, or forced to cede territory to Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union. Stalin joined the Allies against Nazism only on 1941 after Hitler treacherously turned his back on his former conspiracy partner. Since then 'Fascist' is the pejorative designation of choice for all opponents of 'progress'".
______________________________________________________________

Yahoo!News: "Indiana Jones Makes Russian Communists See Red"

Russian Communist Party members condemned the new "Indiana Jones" film on Friday as crude, anti-Soviet propaganda that distorts history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

"What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame," said Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.

The comments were made at a local Communist party meeting and posted on its Internet site www.kplo.ru. The film, the fourth in the hugely successful Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday. Russian media said it was being shown on 808 screens, the widest ever release for a Hollywood movie.

In past episodes Indiana Jones has escaped from Nazi soldiers, an Egyptian snake pit, a Bedouin swordsman and a child-enslaving Indian demigod.

"Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country," said another party member, Andrei Gindos.

Though the ranks of the once all-powerful Communist Party have dwindled since Soviet times, its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.

Other communists said the generation born after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union were being fed revisionist, Hollywood history. They advocated banning the Indiana Jones outright to prevent "ideological sabotage."

"Our movie-goers are teenagers who are completely unaware of what happened in 1957," St Peterburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich told Reuters.

"They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war."

"It's rubbish ... In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the U.S. Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?"

Vladimir Mukhin, another member of the local Communist Party, said in comments posted on the Internet site that he would ask Russia's Culture Ministry to ban the film for its "anti-Soviet propaganda." (...) >>>

An Extraordinary Icon

Chiesa: "Olympics of the Faith: China Disqualifies the Virgin of Sheshan," by Sandro Magister

Pilgrimages banned to the most important Chinese Marian shrine – on the day of prayer established by the pope. A book by the sinologist Bernardo Cervellera lays bare the contradictions of the regime, on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

During this month of May, in two days, the first of the annual days of prayer for the Church in China will be held, established by Benedict XVI in his letter to Chinese Catholics one year ago.

Traditionally, each May 24, thousands of Catholics from all over China go on pilgrimage to the shrine of Sheshan, dedicated to Mary "help of Christians," located on a lush green hill 30 miles south of Shanghai (see photo in Chiesa site).

Heavier attendance had been expected for the celebration this year, of at least 200 thousand faithful. But it's not to be. And not only because of the terrifying earthquake that in recent days has made countless victims in Sichuan and has created difficulties all over the country.

The main obstacles to the pilgrimage have been deliberately set up by the Chinese authorities, and in particular by the Patriotic Association that regulates religious life. (...) >>>

- Caption: "Our Lady of China" - Hat Tip: In Defense of the Cross -

- Filed on Articles in "China Chill" -

The Injustice of Revisionism

At times it is simply unbelievable where totalitarian criminals and their spin-doctors can get away with! We did some posts recently on deontology: the field of ethics dealing with good-intent-bad-results-never-mind, the Left's permanent get-out-of-jail card.

Below we have another example. Watch the heading: it is gotspe! No one has the advantage of ignorance these days, or it must be due to the dumbing-down that passes for liberal education since roughly 1965.

The trick is reframing. Not only must we live with the false Left and Right dichotomy (which should read Left and Right Socialism), also they managed to emerge from history as the 'good guys'. This is done by inserting small snippets of text into articles such as the present:

"[they] ... founded the group at the beginning of the twenties after experiencing the horrors of war and revolution." They were the self-same people who were responsible for 'the horrors of war and revolution,' so that their vision of the collective may be build on its ashes. Instead the suggestion is dropped that these sons of peace were the actual victims of the opponent's wars!

It is unimaginable there would be such an exhib on Adolf Hitler's artistic efforts. Picture the outrage! And rightly so. Yet the crimes as a result of the central 'philosopher' of the Cologne exhibit are ongoing to this day!

Here we also have a splendid example of the Postmodern literal use of the metaphor. An entire blog dedicated to 'art as a weapon' (since 1990).

The picture is a work by Franz-Wilhelm Seiwert. Who knows what triggered his outrage of Chicago in 1887 is kindly requested to enlighten us. The Encyclopedia of Chicago surely has no idea! It cannot have been anything as bad as the Russian gulags, or the Great Leap Forward, or Cambodia's killing fields, to name but a few instances. A humane world for all, indeed ...!


Art Daily: "A Humane World for All: The Rhinelandish Artist Group the Cologne Progressives 1920-33

Thinking of the Cologne carnival and Karl Marx doesn´t come into mind immediately. Rhinelandish life style and Marx´s philosophy by Marx don´t have much in common. But the [German] philosopher published a paper in Cologne and the artists which are now on exhibition at the Museum Ludwig were both Marxists and followers of carnival.

"Progressive Cologne 1920-33. Seiwert – Hoerle – Arntz“ presents paintings and prints created by three of the most important representatives of the Cologne Progressives. Their pictures have an exceptional position in German art between World War I and II. The painters Franz W. Seiwert and Heinrich Hoerle and the printer Gerd Arntz founded the group at the beginning of the twenties after experiencing the horrors of war and revolution.

They dedicated their art to the fight for a better society. Painting was for them a "weapon". Art and politics were very closely related. The Progressives´ realism didn´t portray the world at its surface but exposed its inner structures and mechanism. With reduced forms the Progressives give a constructed view of the world and their main theme is the working class. Although rooted in expressionism the pictures don´t depict man in general but the individual as a concrete social subject. After being persecuted by the national socialists the Cologne Progressives fell (...) >>>

Of Creation and a Work of Art

Can we please enjoy this on a hat tip from the doc and leave the collective out of it?

Hail, details of Caesar!

EURSOC: "Bust Of Caesar Fished Out Of Rhône"

France's cultural minister has announced an "archaeologist's dream" - a marble bust of Julius Caesar, sculpted in the Roman's lifetime, has been found in Arles, several metres below the surface of the Rhône river.

It is thought to be the oldest portrayal of Caesar yet found, and as it dates from a period when realism was prized by sculptors and their clients, it may give the closest portrayal yet of the great man.

Caesar himself is said to have founded Arles in 46 BC; the bust is believed "undoubtedly" to date from this time. It shows Caesar aged, with visible wrinkles, though his hairline is rather more flattering, as contemporary reports claim that he was bald. Caesar was assassinated just two years after - French archaeologists believe that the bust may have been dumped in the river after news emerged of his death.

The same excavation also found a later 1.75m marble statue of Neptune and two Hellenic Greek satyrs.

Fragments of mosaics and columns were also fished from the river, in what the French ministry is calling a revelation of the richness of Arles' culture and history. (...) >>>

Halcyon Days of Photography

The period in which artistic photography came into its own was undoubtedly from the interbellum until reconstruction after World War II. The attic is overflowing with photo magazines and stashes of photographs left by my father, a staunch amateur whose black and white products of the time are an artistic marvel compared with later color slides.

Maybe the atmosphere, or the fashion of the days were of a style that suited the particular black and white grainy prints of the time. Those who know more about the discipline, please don't hesitate to fill me in.

Sotheby's London yesterday auctioned off a copy of one of the finest icons of the period, "The Kiss" by Robert Doisneau ("Le baiser de l'hotel de Ville").

There are several prints about. One last year did a whopping $ 26,174 or EUR 16,900! Some did even better than that.

There are plans to scan the artistic and historic family collection at some point and post them here, but this may take some time. In the meantime, enjoy The Kiss ...

Let There Be Light ...

Ayn Rand gives the following definition of art: "Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments."

"To acquire the full persuasive, irresistable power of reality, man's metaphysical abstractions have to confront him in the form of concretes, i.e. in the form of art."(double click any word for an explanation.)

More insights are given in this article from the The Atlas Society at the Objectivist Center by William Thomas, "What does Objectivism Consider to be Art (Aesthetics)." Well, it isn't blots on the landscape! More in "Why Man Needs Art" by William Thomas and David Kelley.

Art Daily: "Palazzo Strozzi To Open "Painting Light: The hidden techniques of the Impressionists"

An exhibition of major works by Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters reveals the secrets behind some of the world’s best-loved paintings. Painting Light: The hidden techniques of the Impressionists will be staged at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from 11 July to 28 September 2008. The exhibition comprises over sixty works including masterpieces by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Caillebotte and Signac which will be shown alongside such evocative objects as one of Monet’s palettes as well as technological images of the pictures themselves. This juxtaposition of art and extensive research produces a fascinating insight that will take visitors by surprise. (...) >>>

Palazzo Strozzi: "Painting Light - Hidden techniques of the Impressionists"

How did the Impressionists paint? (...) The Impressionists were not only pioneers in style, they were first and foremost innovators in technique. This interactive exhibition (...) explores such as aspects as how the artists conveyed the quality of light at different times of the day and which conditions inspired them the most, what materials and work methods they used (...) >>>

The Art Daily article is illustrated by a work showing a surprising technique by Gustave Caillebotte (1848-94), "Laundry Drying on the Bank of the Seine" (c. 1892). Secretly I've been waiting for an opportunity to show this remarkable Caillebotte, "Les Raboteurs de Parquet" from 1875. It might well have been titled 'an ode to workers of the world.' Have a look at that light!

Modern Clutter

Art Daily: "National Gallery of Ireland will present Impressionist Interiors"

The National Gallery of Ireland will present Impressionist Interiors, on view 10 May – 10 August 2008. Millennium Wing. This summer, the National Gallery of Ireland will present an exhibition highlighting the intimate observations of the Impressionists and their contemporaries. Featuring many wonderful, well-known paintings by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, Gauguin, Vuillard and Morisot, the exhibition will explore how these artists created a strikingly modern vision of the world around them.

Rejecting the narrative conventions of academic art, Impressionist artists chose deliberately informal interior scenes for many of their compositions. Impressionist Interiors will include 40 paintings on loan from important European and US collections as well as works from the Gallery’s own collection. (...) >>>

This is recommended viewing, if only for the ‘The French Breakfast’ (1910), by Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Collection Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza - From the exhibiton: ‘Impressionist Interiors’, National Gallery of Ireland, Millennium Wing.


- Caption: Edgar Degas (1834-1917), "La Famille Bellilli" (or "Portrait de Famille) (1858) -

Hidden Ideas Behind the Politics: Ideological Causality

My correspondent says that philosophers merely explain things after the fact. But what comes first, I ask? The event, or the idea? Do ideas not have consequences?

What comes first? B. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, or subjectivism? The Sokal hoax, or the notion that the senses are an unreliable source of knowledge because they can be tricked? Immanuel Kant or Massimo Vignelli's CuboSeat? The exception taken for rule, or malignant Narcissistic egocentrism.

In all the above it's the idea that has consequences in the physical world.

Surrealists and abstract artists are plain: they go straight to the subjective universe. But are we aware of the hidden political message behind works like Vignelli's, or for example Escher's?

The optic husslers come before the surrealists, telling us from an objective place that what we see is an illusion. They produce artistic renditions of the notion that our senses cannot be trusted. These eye-trick artists are the foot soldiers in the battle against reality. They 'prove' to us through their art that our senses are so dumb, they even fall for cheap parlor tricks like theirs.

And if that is the case, then objective knowledge is for ever beyond our grasp. What we take for real are actually subjective, personal versions of reality. Or per Kant - we create our personal universes in our heads, isolated forever from the illusion we take for reality.

Nor is it possible to have an opinion on one another's universes. Because by whose standards would we make such an objective judgment? This is impossible. There are no bad universes, or ugly universes, just different universes which perhaps we don't understand, coming from another universe as we do.

So here we can see that ideas have consequences. Kant's and Hegel's subjectivism is the cause of B. Barack Obama. Long live 'change' to 'progress,' the battle against reality goes on ... and half the world is buying ...

Update:

Want more subjective news? Here it is. And apparently it's not just that left people are nicer, subjectvists are beyond nice, "they are the nicest, most intelligent people we've found" >>>

N.B. It would seem that the message changes. It's getting easier by the minute: independent thinking isn't even a requirement anymore: "It's free, it's easy and everyone's doing it!" Ah, it's okay then ...

The Price of an Industrial Revolution Railway Bridge

Art Price: "Test Sale in New York"

In a few days, Sotheby’s and Christie’s will hold their prestigious New York sales with works by the leading artists in impressionism and modern art up for auction. Tension is running high one week ahead of these major sales since they will effectively test the confidence of collectors in the face of the current economic uncertainty.

Of course, dollar weakness may provide a fillip for this blue-chip market, but it could be that caution carries the day and a brake is put on price rises at the high end. Impressionism and post-impressionism did disappoint last November, particularly at Sotheby’s, when a Van Gogh was bought in whereas it had been expected to achieve more than USD 28 million and on which the auction house had agreed a guaranteed price. This mistake was sanctioned as of the following day, with a collapse in the Sotheby's share price. One week later, the success of the contemporary art sales again underpinned collector confidence in proving that the market had remained strong.

For its Impressionist and Modern Art sale, Sotheby’s, whose stock price is trading at below USD 30 on Wall Street compared with above USD 57 in October 2007, is focusing more on modern art. (...) Christie's headline lot, a Monet painting entitled Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil which is expected to raise close to USD 35 million. Even if these works have not come up for auction for decades, competition is pushing the two auction houses to again take significant risks. (...) >>>


Meanwhile at Bloomberg's: "Monet Sells for Record $41.5 Million at Christie's N.Y. Auction"

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Claude Monet's cerulean blue painting of the French countryside bisected by an iron railway bridge sold for a record $41.5 million tonight at a Christie's International auction in New York.

The sale suggests that $318 billion of credit losses and writedowns reported by banks linked to U.S. subprime loans haven't derailed the international art market. The 1873 painting was sold early in the evening's impressionist and modern art auction, the first of two weeks of bellwether sales projected to total $1.8 billion. Four of the evening's first 21 lots didn't sell.
Christie's estimated that "Le Point du Chemin de Fer a Argenteuil'' would fetch as much as $40 million. It was sold to a telephone bidder.

New York art adviser Cristin Tierney said that while buyers of impressionist and modern art aren't as plentiful as contemporary art devotees, they remain loyal and rich. (...) >>>

iArt: Pangaia or Transnational Progressivism?

Art Daily: "Google Teams Up with Leading Artists to Create New Themes for iGoogle"

Google launched a collection of new themes created by leading artists for iGoogle, Google's personalized homepage. With iGoogle, users can access and arrange the content they want on their homepage to personalize their web experience. Google has collaborated with almost 70 artists from around the world, inviting them to use iGoogle as their canvas by creating unique, dynamic themes for users to personalize their pages. In honor of this, celebrated pop artist Jeff Koons created a special Google doodle, which appeared on Google's homepage. Participating artists in this collection (...) >>>

Here's the Google Page.

- Caption: Yves Behar's "Fuse Project", an artist's retrospect on Pangaia, or a vision of Hegelian Transnational Progressivism? -

Toulouse-Lautrec - Paris, Athens: extended

- Continued from part I: Objective Art: Toulouse-Lautrec - Paris, Athens -

A newsletter from the museum organization at the Herakleidon: "Toulouse-Lautrec and the Belle Epoque in Paris and Athens" today proudly announces that the exhibition will be extended until 5th October!

Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is best known for his works depicting scenes from cabarets, theaters, dance halls, and brothels. These were themes that the artist lived, beginning in 1885 when he moved to Montmartre and immersed himself in its nightlife. He wanted to show life as it is, not as it should be, but this objectivity was not without empathy or humor. (...)

The newsletter goes on to explain that "at the center of this exhibition is a rare collection of approximately 100 original works on paper by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which the organizers have placed in the historical, social, artistic, and aesthetic context of the time (1800 to the beginning of the 20th century). Furthermore, there has been an effort to approximate the prevailing historical and artistic conditions of urban Athens of the same era, with the goal of revealing the influence of the French Belle Epoque on the social and artistic life of Athens and to establish a number of obvious parallels.The new acquisitions include but are not limited to the posters "Babylone d'Allemagne" 1894), "May Belfort" (1895) and "Divan Japonais" (1893) which are extremely rare and characteristic for their vibrant and distinctive colors.

The original works of Lautrec that are being exhibited (publicity posters, prints, and drawings) draw their inspiration from everyday life and entertainment. Advertisements for cabarets and periodicals, which are some of the best-known images of the great French artist, are shown next to portraits of famous actors and singers of the time, as well as sketches and caricatures. The works of Lautrec are accompanied by appropriate passages from French literature, photographs, and other objects, in order to help the viewer better understand the atmosphere of that time.

This parallel between the Belle Epoque in Paris and the corresponding one in Athens is drawn in order to present the apparent influence of the first on the second. The urban way of life and the means of entertainment in Greece during the last two decades of the 19th century have been re-created with the help of rare archival material, mainly from the collections of the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archives (E.L.I.A.), the Benaki Museum Photographic Archive, Alpha Bank and Mr. Petros Vergos.

The extension will include further works from the Petros Vergos collection as well as photographs and material from Mr. J.Spandonis. Publicity posters, often created by important Greek artists such as Gyzis and Galanos, calendar and journal covers, photographs and postcards, theatrical programs with emphasis on French repertoire, and literary passages invite the visitor to become acquainted with the flavor of that era.

During the exhibition, visitors will also be able to purchase the exhibition catalogue, a bilingual edition (Greek-English) which is a publication of our museum.

Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was born on November 24, 1864 in the family home, Chateau du Bosc, in Albi, France. His father, Comte Alphonse was an eccentric aristocrat, who loved to dress up and whose main interests were hunting and falconry. His mother, Comtesse Adele was a reserved and cultivated woman to whom the artist remained close to the end of his life.

Toulouse-Lautrec was not to enjoy his family's country lifestyle of riding and hunting. Due to a genetic bone condition and following a fracture of his left leg at age thirteen and his right one the following year, his legs stopped growing while his torso developed normally. He had to use a cane when walking and only grew to 1.52m tall. Comtesse Adele encouraged her son's interest in drawing and his first subjects were his family, their horses and hounds.

The artist's first painting lessons were with a friend of Comte Alphonse, the animal painter Princeteau, who convinced his parents to allow Lautrec to study art. After succeeding his baccalaureat in Paris, he joined the studio of Leon Bonnat for a few months in the spring of 1882 and later moved to the one run by Fernand Cormon, a history painter interested in the ancient world. The mornings were spent at his teacher's studio practicing academic drawing, but in the afternoons Lautrec visited the Salons and exhibitions, where he discovered the big divide between academic art and the new artistic movements of the time, notably that of the Impressionists. He was most influenced by Degas and the Japanese printmakers.

In 1891 he produced a color poster for the Moulin Rouge, which made him famous overnight. Lautrec made 30 posters in his lifetime, but also illustrated theater programs, book covers, menus, invitations, and sheet music. His expressive use of line found the perfect medium in lithography. He never made a distinction between commercial and fine art.

In 1898 the artist's health began to deteriorate, due to alcohol abuse and syphilis. In 1899, after an attack of delirium tremens, he spent several months in a clinic, but started drinking again upon his return to Paris. Consequently his work suffered. In August of 1901 Lautrec suffered a paralytic attack and was taken to his mother's country house in Malrome, where he died on September 9th.

The Herakleidon Museum is open from Tuesdays to Saturdays from 13:00-21:00 and on Sundays from 11:00 - 19:00. It is located on 16 Herakleidon Street 16, Athens, near metro station Thission. Groups are kindly requested to call to make arrangements: tel. 210 34 61 981, email: info@herakleidon-art.gr

The Old Bailey Goes Public

Yorkshire Post: "Global witness: Grim classics of Old Bailey go on Internet"

When murderers from years gone by killed their unfortunate victims they could never have imagined that, centuries later, the gory details of their misdeeds would be on show to the world.
But that's now the case, thanks to university researchers who have put true tales of crime and punishment dating back to 1674 on the Internet for all to see.

The Old Bailey Proceedings Online website has been doubled in size by researchers from the Universities of Sheffield, Hertfordshire and The Open University, who have expanded its coverage to include details of criminal trials from 1674 to 1913 – just after the Great Fire of London to just before the First World War.

The website, which has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), details crimes committed by the likes of Irish terrorists, train robbers, suffragettes and the infamous wife killer Dr Crippen.

It provides valuable insights into everything from pick-pocketing and robbery to abduction and murder. The website details over 197,000 of the trials held at London's central criminal court. (...) >>>