You might not recognize Tom Learner’s name, but he’s the conservator who brought us De Wain Valentine’s sensational Gray Column at the Getty during Pacific Standard Time. He talks with Richard McCoy about paintings conservation, re-making an Eva Hesse from scratch-ish, and of course, Valentine.- Things I did not know: Sol LeWitt made work for synagogues and other Jewish institutions. (One institution even made a LeWitt yarmulke.) Robin Cembalest tells the story in Tablet.
- Don’t miss this really good Chloe Wyma Q&A with Shirin Neshat for Artinfo. (Neshat was the guest on Modern Art Notes Podcast Episode No. 11.)
- Link of the day: Carnegie International curator Tina Kukielski tells a great story about discovering some WPA-era murals made by Maxo Vanka in a Croatian Catholic church just outside Pittsburgh. [Image above. Love the steel mills-ish industry in the background, no?] Fascinating stuff. Also, did you know that CI13 has a blog?
- Two more Mike Kelley remembrances well-worth the read: Walker chief curator Darsie Alexander, artist and Columbia art history professor John Miller.
- JMW Turner’s The Fifth Plague of Egypt at the Indianapolis Museum of Art is plenty famous — and not just for being included in the first MAN Super Bowl Bet.
- Awwww!: Jackson Pollock saved this piece of fan mail, complete with picture and puppy, from a seven-year-old South Carolina boy.
- I hadn’t thought of it myself, but I’m kind of digging this juxtaposition of Larry Sultan and… Thomas Cole?
- Greg Allen reads Benjamin Buchloh so no one else has to — and meditates on how important over-painting is to Gerhard Richter.
- Andrea Zittel’s A-Z West blog is full of beauty and ingenuity. Among my favorite stops.
- Yawwwwwwwwwwn.
- And on the opposite side of the spectrum, this PST-related post from William Poundstone includes “cast a spell to summon a typhoon,” and “Their goal was to produce a Moonchild who would open an interdimensional gateway for the goddess Babalon.” So just go read it. Amazing.
February 8, 2012, 8:02 am
You can read a bit about Sol LeWitt and synagogues in Mass MoCAs semi-catalogue to its LeWittt retrospective. A fine book.