Follow Up Friday
A little summary of the week that’s just been!
Including art history news, DIY tips, exhibition & literature reviews, auction announcements, etc.
Email me with your ideas. I’d love to hear from you.
1. Bern Museum Will Accept Nazi Hoarder’s Collection
It has recently came to light that the sole heir of Nazi collector Cornelius Hurlitt is the Kunstmuseum Bern. After his death in May of this year, the collection was assessed by the Museum to assess whether it was fit for acquisition. The Jewish Voice reports:
He had clandestinely stored hundreds of works including those by such legendary artists as Chagall and Picasso at his apartment and a house in nearby Salzburg, Austria. The Wall Street Journal reported that his health deteriorated after government officials confiscated his collection in early 2012 as part of a tax investigation. The entire collection is estimated to be work $1.26 billion and contains a number of works illegally seized by the Nazis.
It’s been decided that only pieces that have no restitution cases against them will be accepted into the collection. $1.26 billion worth of the world’s best pictures is quite the collection! Read more on this in The Jewish Voice here.
2. Grayson Perry’s Portrait of Chris Huhne
Don’t expect anything ordinary from Grayson Perry. His latest endeavour is a very tongue in cheek depiction of former cabinet minister Chris Huhne, who fell from grace last year when his wife took the blame for a speeding ticket, is described (and depicted) in detail in The Guardian:
It does not take deep art analysis to read the portrait Grayson Perry has made of Chris Huhne: it is a vase with repeated motifs of the politician’s face, his personalised number plate and a penis. “He represents what I call Default Man,” said Perry. “A white, middle-class, middle-aged, heterosexual man, an identity group that hides in plain sight.”
The vase is apart of a new exhibition opening at The National Portrait Gallery featuring Perry’s work intermingled with the existing 19th century portraits. Channel 4 also is following the artist in a documentary series chronicling the process of curating the new exhibition. Read more on The Guardian site here.
3. Tongue In Cheek How-Tos
The New York Times blog T has a weekly feature written by the photo editors that showcase the best visual project they discovered that week. Olivia Locher’s How-To series is up this week. Chronicling a smattering of misguided attempts at achievement she says of her work:
“Around the time I started the project I was looking through a lot of cookbooks,” she says. “After a few cooking disasters, I got inspired by how directions could be easily lost in translation. I started illustrating simple tasks that were a little off.”
See more from the series on T here.
4. Hitler Themed Coffee Creamers a Mistake
Migros has no idea why some of it’s coffee creamers were released with images of Mussolini and Hitler on them, so they say. Thousands of the little cups [that were released as a limited edition for a cigar brand] have hit Swiss store shelves and are being frantically recalled. I recommend you read more about this little snafu on Grubstreet here.
5. DIY Button and String Envelopes
It’s old news that Design*Sponge is one of my favourite corners of the internet and Grace posted a DIY after my own heart this week. I LOVE stationery — and anything erring on the side of vintage is so in style right now. Check out this step-by-step tutorial on how to make your own button and string tutorials, two ways.
