Pennsylvania Excavation, 1907, by George Wesley Bellows, recently acquired by the Smith College Museum of Art. Sorta related, in a dystopic-industrial way: WNYC has added audio to the slideshow and essay I did on my father’s mining images. Please give it a read/listen if you can. (Image courtesy of the Smith College Museum of Art.)
- Herman Melville, on surfing.
- There are 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico. (BLDGBLOG.)
- Newsweek has a fascinating story on the decline of American creativity. (@juliaxgulia.)
- Infinite Judd. (16 Miles.)
- Is Louise Blouin Media stiffing its freelancers?
- Brandeis to pimp out lease its art collection through Sotheby’s to raise money.
- Stories that make me snort-laugh: Pot smoke seeping into the VAG. What’s more amazing here? The fact that a museum reputedly wants to move because of a bunch of potheads or that the Vancouver Art Gallery is casually referred to as “the VAG?” (Arts Journal.)
- Found: One possible Veláquez, in a closet at Yale. Now where oh where did I put that El Greco?
- At the Getty: Conserving the Ghent altarpiece.
- England’s National Gallery is trying to buy the first known European portrait of a named African sitter. (Arts Journal.)
- El Saltzino says that the Whitney’s new downtown building design needs to dedicate more room to the art.
- Sorta related: Artist Jennifer Dalton talks about charting El Saltzino’s Facebook page.
- Work of Art guest judge Richard Phillips gives Work of Art a thumbs up.
- From the Department of Socialite Affairs: W Magazine has a story on the art patrons of Dallas. Unfortunately, the text is not available online, but this slideshow should give you a visual taste. Makes me want to get a blowout.
- Andrew Russeth is digging Justin Lowe’s faux CBGB’s bathroom at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum.
- Frame, a trippy-geometric installation by Jordan Tull.
- Japanese constructivist posters from the ’30s.
- Today’s Graff: Getting geometric with Zedz, Graphic Surgery and Late, in Amsterdam.
- On the Detroit ruins-porn aesthetic. (@artnetdotcom.)
- Speedos.
