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Category: Fontana Mix

Fontana Mix for late February

I really want to see a Richard Prince/Lana Del Rey collaboration right now. The above image is from the video for Blue Jeans. I mean it’s practically a Richard Prince artwork already. I really wanted to dislike her songs – but I don’t. The music snob in me died just a little bit there.

CRYSTAL DAYS – new and recent work from Douglas Witmer and Timothy Buckwalter with Michael Macfeat opens march 3rd at a new space called Sugar in Philadelphia. (12 W Willow Grove Avenue in Philadelphia) Expect this to be good show. Buckwalter’s Sometimes The Things You Learned From Demonstration Stuck With A Fierceness That Could Not Be Matched. is below.

While you are there don’t miss Jon Poblador’s show at Larry Becker.

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Fontana Mix for February 2012

Tad Spurgeon – Living Craft
Tad Spurgeon’s book is an instant classic – if you are a painter and have any care about the craft of your work, you need his book. It is without a doubt the most comprehensive collection of serious information about (oil) paint and materials I’ve ever seen written. Don’t even bring up Ralph Meyer – this is the next level.

Available via  http://www.tadspurgeon.com

Moss is closing in NYC
This sucks – although Moss isn’t really closing, it’s transforming. But basically it’s closing. The most amazing design goods store in the world has had a great run of almost 20 years. That has to be some kind of lifetime in SOHO.

I’ll forever be grateful for the Moss store if for nothing else introducing me to Tejo Remy’s You Can’t Lay Down Your Memory. (pictured)

Chris Burden – Beam Drop
Made by a friend of mine here in the city. Spend the five minutes and watch this. It’s a quick Document about the making of the Beam Drop in Antwerp.

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Fontana Mix for Mid November

“Salvator Mundi” is the story that been on my mind the most this month – It’s about all I’m really interested in right now (I’m not even going to start on the “La Bella Princepessa” story nor the search for the “Battle of Anghiari”). It’s been an incredible year for Leonardo historians. Here’s a few links to share the wealth.

Three Pipe Problem has a summary of iconographic and provenance details

Here is a great video from CNN (I’m pretty sure). An interview with the conservator – Dianne Modestini

At the LA Times Christopher Knight weighs in with a small article (the likes of which you are going to start finding everywhere) asking the question, if DaVinci did in fact paint the “Salvator Mundi”. We know he painted one it has been copied by a number of artists over time – but is it this one?

In answer to the LA Times article Art Daily provides a good (if general) resource – here’s a snippet addressing Knights question. “Leonardo’s painting of the Salvator Mundi was long known to have existed, but was presumed to have been destroyed. The composition was documented in two preparatory drawings by Leonardo and more than 20 painted copies by students and followers of the artist, as well as a meticulous 1650 etching made after the original painting by the Bohemian artist Wenceslaus Hollar.”

Here are a couple of terms you might need to brush up on – since they are not really used in conversations about contemporary art, but I’ll assure you they are used in discussing Leonardo:
Pentimento (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentimento)
Sfumato (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato)

Also Art Basel Miami Beach starts right after the holiday – hope to see you there. Here’s a pretty good map to everything you need to know and see from Boyd Level.

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Fontana Mix for May 2011

Calvin and Hobbes” Creator Returns With Painting: Sixteen years after ending his comic strip, saying he had “done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels”. Bill Watterson has debuted his first artwork since that time, a painting of Richard Thompson‘s character Petey Otterloop. Being sold to benefit the Parkinsons charity Team Cul de Sac (Thompson suffers from Parkinsons). It’s pictured above.

Massive Statue Found in Egypt: A nearly 43-foot likeness of Amenhotep II, grandfather to Tutankhamun, has been unearthed in Luxor, where it is believed to be one of a pair that flanked the entrance to the grand funerary temple. The country’s antiquities authority has stated that the headless statue was originally found in the ’70s but was re-hidden.

I have a hard time believing the antiquities authority….

Caravaggio’s “The Fortune Teller” to Tour the unites States.U.S. The painter’s circa 1594 masterpiece will be traveling from Rome’s Capitoline Museums to the U.S., first at New York’s Italian Cultural Institute on May 11-15 and then going on view at Kentucky’s Speed Art Museum until June 5. To coincide with the early painting’s New York stay, Hunter College will hold a Caravaggio symposium on May 13.

Syd Barrett‘s ex-girlfriend offered an emotional plea and a £2,000 reward for the return of of of his works that was stolen from a London art gallery over the weekend, the self-portrait was mailed bak to the gallery undamaged. FYI Syd Barrett is a legendary musician, see Floyd, Pink, and Casualty, Acid for more details.

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Fontana Mix (short summer edition)

Dia Beacon News

Susan Sayre Batton has been appointed managing director of Dia:Beacon. Batton will succeed Steven Evans, who left Dia in July to become the executive director and curator of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas.

John Connelly to close his gallery…

and will become director of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.

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