Sotheby’s upcoming book auction in London on May 21, organized with charity English PEN and titled “First Editions, Second Thoughts,” features an eclectic mix of titles from top contemporary authors ranging from heavyweights Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwen, and Tom Stoppard to lighter fare from “Harry Potter” series writer J.K. Rowling and “Bridget Jones” author Helen Fielding. Continue Reading
A death mask cast from the face of former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte on May 7, 1821, two days after his death, will be up for auction at Bonhams’s June 19 sale of books, maps, and manuscripts in Knightsbridge, U.K., with a pre-sale estimate of £40,000-60,000. The piece, known as the “Boys cast,” is one of only two Napoleon death masks still in private hands, and was made for Reverend Richard Boys, the Senior Chaplain on the island of St Helena, where the former emperor died in exile — during his time there, he frequently played chess with the Reverend. Continue Reading
May 15 was to be the final deadline for residents of Portland, Oregon, to pay the city’s new Arts Tax, which is destined to support arts education in the city, but in the final rush to pay online by midnight the city’s website crashed, forcing the municipal government to extend the tax deadline indefinitely, the Oregonian reports. Fortunately for last-minute taxpayers, the debacle means that the $15 the city had planned to charge as a penalty for late payment has been waived. Continue Reading
Join us every Saturday as we re-inflate a week’s worth of posts and bend them into impossible and animal-like shapes, in retrospect. Continue Reading
RH Gallery, which has been operating out of the ground floor and the large basement space at 137 Duane Street in Tribeca since 2010, has closed. “Two weeks ago, RH Gallery closed its doors to the public,” Adam Taki, the gallery’s director, wrote today in an email. “The circumstances required that I act quickly. Though disruptive and unfortunate, terminating operations was the best available option.” Continue Reading
Randall’s Island’s Frieze New York tent isn’t the only place people can see art on the East River anymore. The East River Ferry, which runs a commuter ferry service along the Queens and Brooklyn waterfronts on runs between Wall Street and Midtown, is launching a new exhibition aboard its boats titled “Drawn To Water.” The shows, which officially set sail on May 13, are co-presented by United Photo Industries — of last summer’s Photoville — and will rotate on a monthly basis. Continue Reading
The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has received an enormous and unconventional donation: A slave cabin from the Pines Plantation on South Carolina’s Edisto Island that dates back to the first half of the 19th century. The Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society donated the small weatherboard cabin to the museum after receiving it from the former plantation’s current owners. Continue Reading
The Brooklyn-based Canadian artist Mathieu Lefevre died in October 2011 when he was struck and killed by a truck while riding his bike, leaving behind a studio full of work, some of which has since been included in group shows in New York and Montreal, but most of which has never been seen, until now. The artist-run gallery Regina Rex is mounting a posthumous solo show of Lefevre’s work, which opens Saturday. Continue Reading
After the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has developed City Assisted Evacuation, a plan to evacuate up to 30,000 residents who lack transportation in the event of a category three or higher hurricane. But the 17 evacuation pick-up points are all marked by easy-to-miss signs, so the city’s Arts Council of New Orleans and the non-profit Evacuteer.org teamed up to commission a $200,000 public art project by Massachusetts-based artist Douglas Kornfeld, who created a series of 14-foot-tall sculptures to mark each of the pick-up spots. Continue Reading
Last month security staff at the Louvre, the world’s busiest museum, walked out in protest of the gangs of pickpockets plaguing the institution’s public areas and galleries, forcing the museum to close for a day. France’s minister of culture Aurélie Filippetti promised that new security protocols would be put into place to curb the crime levels at the institution, and now Paris’s police force has announced plans to deploy more officers to key tourist destinations, including the Louvre, Montmartre, Notre Dame, and the Champs Elysées, the AFP reports. Continue Reading
