Fine Arts News

Artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff attends the presentation of his installation The Floating Piers on June 16, 2016, in Sulzano, Italy. He died Sunday at age 84.

Artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, who was known for creating monumental works of art that played off of their environment in cities across the world, died Sunday at his home in New York City, according to the artist's representatives. He was 84 years old.

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Visitors wearing face masks wait to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum on Monday. The most visited museum in the world reopened to the public after closing in March.

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It's the base of a hookah. A water pipe that can bring peace of mind after just a few puffs. Do yourself a favor. Watch the video below. It'll take less than a minute and a half. C'mon! You can spare that tiny bit of time to get calm.

The narrator, Forrest McGill, is a curator at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Knowing the pandemic would close its doors, the museum asked him to pick a favorite object in their collection for an online video — something that, as he puts it, would let viewers "dream of a benign, well-ordered world."

McGill didn't want to choose something obvious - a Buddha, say. There are loads of Buddhas around. And so he selected the hookah base, with its inlays showing a Paradise Garden.

"Master metal workers transmuted silver, brass and zinc alloy into art for the centuries," McGill says. Benign wild animals — tiger, deer, peacocks — live there (I loved in the video the slow wagging of the tiger's tail, the way the deer nods his head.) "Even the wild beasts seem peaceful," McGill adds.



The museum's Creative Media Producer added soft music and bird sounds, and had the camera move at such a sloooow pace. You need to look at the video to see and hear all that. (I know, I'm nagging, but if you scrolled past the video above, I'll give you another chance and post it here a second time. Really. Press play this time.)

Here's the last thing. I asked Forrest McGill what it is about so much Asian art that makes it so soothing. He demurred. The curator said he could put together an exhibition of Asian works that was as fierce as the serene ones. And to prove it, he sent this 2-inch treasure.

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The intersection between art and technology has been shared throughout history.
Whether it is using technology to make art, using technology as art, or using it to improve upon art, these two industries mix incredibly well together.
Articcio aims to bring together this cross between art and technology by providing you with beautiful augmented reality renderings of paintings.
With the right art and the right app, you can enjoy exploring a variety of amazing opportunities with art pieces that truly come to life.
You will love exploring the possibilities that come with this amazing new form of futuristic art.

The Rodin Museum in Paris is selling sculptures to pay the bills — and that's exactly as the artist intended. When he died in 1917, Auguste Rodin left the museum plaster casts for just this purpose. Above, The Thinker (Le Penseur) is pictured ahead of the Musée Rodin's reopening in November 2015.

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A guy in his 30s, handsome behind his mask (this is pre-pandemic), carries a chisel, drills, jigsaws, sometimes explosives, and walks up to a dilapidated wall. Looks like trouble. What's going on? Is he on a march toward destruction? Yup. Sorta. About to create graffiti? Nope. Make something beautiful? Yup.


He's a Portuguese street artist named Alexandre Manuel Dias Farto. His street name is Vhils. (Portugal Confidential says the tag Vhils "has no meaning, except that V-H-I-L and S are his favorite and fastest letters to write with paint.") He works all over the world — Europe, Asia, in this country Las Vegas, Chicago, Miami, San Diego — and Cincinnati. The Contemporary Arts Center there is giving him a big exhibition. They re-opened July 1, but their extensive and impressive online show is still up, and it gives you a sense of his amazing work.

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Manuel Mathieu named his 2017 painting of his grandmother Self-portrait because of the role she played in making him who he is. It was purchased by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2018.

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The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

This year's MacArthur Fellows — recipients of what's commonly known as the Genius Grant — are engineers and writers, scientists and musicians, artists and scholars and filmmakers. They've mapped the universe and the human brain, created new worlds and picked apart what makes our own world tick.

Among the honorees is speculative fiction writer N.K. Jemisin, who won back-to-back Hugo Awards for every book in her Broken Earth trilogy, about the struggle to remake a world wracked by exploitation and geological upheaval. "I am writing the stories I wish someone had written for me when I was younger," she said in a short video.

Also on the roster is dancer and choreographer Ralph Lemon, who's at work on a piece called Saturnalia, which will grapple with grief, violence and power structures in today's culture. And singer and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant, who brings a global Black feminist sensibility (and a nearly four-octave vocal range) to her interpretations of both jazz standards and her own original works.
"In the midst of civil unrest, a global pandemic, natural disasters, and conflagrations, this group of 21 exceptionally creative individuals offers a moment for celebration," MacArthur Fellows managing director Cecilia Conrad said in a statement. "They are asking critical questions, developing innovative technologies and public policies, enriching our understanding of the human condition, and producing works of art that provoke and inspire us."

In honor of their talent and creativity, each Fellow gets an award of $625,000, paid in quarterly installments over five years. On its website, the Foundation describes the award as "no-strings-attached;" there are no expectations, and Fellows may do what they wish with the money.

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At the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., the new exhibition, "Silk and Steel: French Fashion, Women and WWI" does not, alas, include any Chanel (not even a sock). But Madeleine Vionnet, a major French designer of the day, is elegantly represented.

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The National Museum of Mexican Art is paying tribute to those who have died of COVID-19 in its yearly exhibit for the Day of the Dead. A counter displays the number of people who have died.

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