In the air: Postscript to open and other news

Opening tomorrow at MCA Denver is Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art, a wide-ranging exhibition that features the work of over fifty artists and writers including Carl Andre, Fiona Banner, Erica Baum, Christian Bök, Marcel Broodthaers, Ryan Gander, Michelle Gay, Dan Graham, Sol LeWitt, Glenn Ligon, Gareth Long, Michael Maranda, Seth Price, Kay Rosen, Dexter Sinister, Andy Warhol. Presenting works from the 1960s to the present, the exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, installation, video and works on paper which explore the artistic possibilities of language.

Co-curated by Nora Burnett Abrams and Andrea Andersson, Postscript will be accompanied by a major publication, featuring both scholarly essays and contributions by select writers and artists featured in the exhibition. Postscript will be traveling to The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Canada, in June 2013 — and we are very much look forward to seeing it.

The above has been excerpted from MCA Denver’s website. Read more on the exhibition here


In a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture can put up a resistance, counteract the waste of forms and meanings and speak its own language.

— Peter Zumthor

In recent news, Peter Zumthor has been awarded the 2013 Royal Gold Medal for lifetime achievement in architecture by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). As RIBA President Angela Brady, states, “Peter Zumthor’s work renews the link with a tradition of modern architecture that emphasizes place, community and material practice. His writings dwell upon the experience of designing, building and inhabitation while his buildings are engaged in a rich dialogue with architectural history. I will be delighted to present him with the Royal Gold Medal.”

We are delighted as well — Zumthor’s 2011 Serpentine Pavilion was one of our favourites. See our post featuring his and all the other pavilions here
Read more about Zumthor’s award and achievements on the RIBA website
Pictured above is Zumthor’s amazing Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, Germany. See more photos and information here


The Mona Lisa mystery continues, with experts now arguing over whether the Isleworth Mona Lisa is an authentic da Vinci, painted ten years earlier than the version in the Louvre and representing a that much more youthful Gioconda.

Read more on the debate at Discovery News

The Isleworth version is owned by the Mona Lisa Foundation, a Zurich-based consortium founded exclusively to research and analyze the painting, ostensibly to prove its authenticity. Their website is a visually rich, fascinating look at how art historians analyze and compare works of art in order to gauge not just authenticity with regard to artist, time period, materials, techniques, and provenance, but even the artist’s intent with respect to originality v. duplication, and response to the subject.

See detailed critical comparisons between the Isleworth Mona Lisa and the Louvre’s version (including an approach using age regression techniques!) on the Mona Lisa Foundation’s website

See our own post on the multiplicity of Monas here
The Mona Lisa Foundation has a comparison page here


images:
Erica Baum, Examined, 2009, archival pigment print from the Dog Ear series, 9 x 9 inches, courtesy the artist and Bureau, New York
Peter Zumthor, Kolumba Art Museum, photo © Jose Fernando Vazquez
Side-by-side comparison of the Isleworth Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa Foundation and Mona Lisa – Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, Musée du Louvre 

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