The week in review I’ve been asked a few times about the painting that the National Gallery in London has recently cleaned and put back on display as Titian’s portrait of the physician Girolamo Fracastoro, as mentioned by Vasari in his Life of Titian of 1568. It’s a difficult one. The argument, as presented in…
The week in review On Christmas eve, 18-year old Joshua Davis was shot dead in the West Englewood section of Chicago. He was an aspiring rapper, going under the name Jayloud. He was killed in an altercation, allegedly because he was wearing a hoodie bearing the name of his close friend, the rapper Lil Jojo,…
Over at Hooded Utilitarian, the latest installment of my very irregular column, DWYCK, focuses on recent media controversies in Sweden over representations of race: Stina Wirsén’s empoyment of pickaninny stereotyping for her childrens book and film character Lilla Hjärtat and Makote Aj Linde’s infamous cake installation at Moderna Museet in Stockholm earlier this year. The…
The week in review So, the Raphael drawing I mentioned back in September was sold at Sotheby’s London this week for a whopping £29.7 million, breaking even the astonishing record set by the previous Raphael drawing sold at auction, back in 2009. This is the highest sum ever paid at auction for a work on…
The week in review Another great drawing by Raphael is coming up for sale. Like the Female Head, which broke all records when it sold for £29 million in 2009, it’s a so-called auxiliary cartoon for his last great, large-scale work, the Transfiguration (begun 1516, finished after the master’s death in 1520) now in the…
Yesterday’s sale at Bruun Rasmussen here in Copenhagen featured (for the second time) an extraordinary painting by Vilhelm Hammershøi. Reproduced above, it is a small, rather atypical painting, but one that adds to the picture of just how original and modern painter he was. I was happy to learn that it was acquired for a…
I’ve already mentioned it in passing here on the blog and on Twitter, but this is sufficiently important to warrant its own post. There are currently plans to refurbish the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin to the tune of a government grant of €10 million to make space for the Pietzsch Collection, a large and significant collection…
Robert Hughes 1938–2012
The week in review Look! Stengade 30, the by now legendary Copenhagen club, locus of Rubadub Sundays for the past decade, has new facade decoration. Executed by SOFLES, it’s perhaps somewhat tacky, but certainly spectacular, fitting the club well. Imagine it nightlit in a haze. Flix courtesy of Frederik Høyer-Christensen, full set here. Robert Fisk…
I know, it’s been ages, but I’ve finally written a new installment of my column DWYCK over at The Hooded Utilitarian. This time, I draw upon the great Degas exhibition at the Royal Academy last year to discuss the artist’s inquiry into time, space, and movement and its relation to comics. Go, read. Above: Edgar…
The week in review James Holmes who killed 12 people and wounded 58 last Friday at the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado was quickly christened the ‘Batman Killer’ in Danish media. Just one of those shortcuts the tabloids trade in, I suppose — it’s far from clear whether the gunman…
The latest issue of Print Quarterly (vol. XXIX, no. 2) features an article by yours truly on the Titian’s woodcut St. Roch (above). I went full retard on this, getting my fingers dirty in the Venetian State Archive and such. You should check it out. Here’s the opening paragraph: Titian’s designs for woodcuts of the…
The week in review Vacation and work have kept me away for a while, a will probably continue to do so for a little while yet. While in Boston, I checked back on one of the city’s premier cultural institutions. The new wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is emblematic of museum…
Gitte Broeng and Mikkel Damsbo at the Charlottenborg Spring Show opening. Their comic “Relocating Mother” shines next to a full-size plush shark. Bringing comics to the mount. Read “Relocating Mother” in KOLOR KLIMAX. Available now.
På torsdag åbner Charlottenborgs forårsudstilling, i år med 70 kunstnere fra hele verden, deriblandt danske Gitte Broeng og Mikkel Damsbo, der udstiller originalsiderne til “Relocating Mother,” deres bidrag til den store nordiske antologi KOLOR KLIMAX, redigeret af undertegnede. King ind forbi til ferniseringen og hils på kl. 19-22!