4 year old art prodigy? This story below made me think of this quote from the art critic Clement Greenburg..
"In visual arts, prodigies don't count. In music and literature, yes, but not in art."
Clement Greenburg

Child art prodigy wows New York
"A four-year-old girl is wowing the New York art world with paintings that are drawing comparisons with Jackson Pollock and Wassily Kandinsky.
Marla Olmstead, from Binghamton, in New York state, has been painting since just before she was two years old.
Using brushes, spatulas, her fingers and even ketchup bottles, she is creating canvases of six by six foot.
The prodigy has already sold about 25 paintings, raising $40,000 (£22,000) and a new exhibition opens on Friday."
bbcnews

  ¶ 7:44 AM 40 comments

  Visual artists mix paints and prints with politics "From the art capital of New York City to the nation's midsection, visual artists are participating in partisan politics with a vigor not seen since the 1960s."

"While a majority of the activism appears to be directed toward unseating the present administration, there are supporters of President Bush and his administration to be found within the art community.. they're just a little harder to find."
postgazette
  ¶ 6:07 AM 2 comments

  Discount for buying art nude.. "A gallery owner has created a stir by encouraging visitors to an exhibition of nudes to strip off to help them to feel closer to the art, he said today. Kevin Money, 39, is offering 25% off any purchases of works from the Bodyline exhibition at Gallery 39 in Swindon, Wiltshire, to anyone who bares all. But so far, local residents have shown an indifference bordering on hostility to the offer."
thescotsman

(links above removed as they no longer work)
>> Art Exhibitions, Free Art Nudes   ¶ 2:34 AM 9 comments

  BgArt News Blog of Note ArtNewsBlog is the "Blog of Note" for September27.
Big warm welcome to everyone coming here for the first time. Also, thanks to everyone posting comments, they make the news stories so much more interesting.

  ¶ 1:23 AM 2 comments

  You call that art? A chimp could have painted it "It is said that, given enough time, a chimpanzee at a typewriter could produce the works of Shakespeare. So how many years would it take for one with a brush and palette to turn out a Picasso?
Three ground-breaking Canadian artists aim to prove it might not be as long as you might think. The painters - Billy Jo, Tom and Toby - will be showing their work in their first British exhibition next month and won't be offended if critics pronounce their creative sensibility 'ape-like'. For they are all chimpanzees, who have been painting away for several years in a sanctuary just outside Montreal, where they live with 10 fellow chimps."
theguardian
  ¶ 8:15 AM 11 comments

  New York: the new British invasion "This month two more British antique dealers are opening galleries in Manhattan. Carlton Hobbs and Berwald Oriental Art are inaugurating premises in the Upper East Side. Their arrival brings the number of British dealers with New York outposts to 12. Michael Goedhuis, Bernard Jacobson, Littleton & Hennessy, Hazlitt Gooden & Fox, The Silver Fund, Mallett, Frost and Reed, Matthew Flowers and Dickinson Roundell are already established in New York, while Nicholas Hall and Richard Knight, who recently joined Christie's, are maintaining their New York office."
theartnewspaper
  ¶ 1:51 AM 1 comments

  Vatican wants £2m to restore Michelangelo's last frescos "The Vatican is hoping to raise £2m to fund the restoration of Michelangelo's last two frescos, which are hidden from the public in a chapel where the Pope prays and reads mass to private audiences.
The frescos - the Crucifixion of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul - are faded after being exposed to dust and soot over centuries of candlelit prayer in the Pauline chapel, close to the better-known Sistine chapel."
theguardian
  ¶ 2:36 AM 9 comments

  How the Laughing Cavalier keeps an eye on everybody "From second-rate horror films to episodes of Scooby-Doo, ominous paintings whose staring eyes follow a character around the room, no matter where they go, have been used to spooky effect. But now a team of scientists believe they have solved the mystery of how they do it.
A group working on how our brains interpret images found that as long as a character in a painting is looking straight ahead, our brains will perceive they are staring at us, no matter the angle from which we view the painting. A striking example is The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals, the 17th century Dutch painter. "
theguardian
  ¶ 5:44 AM 3 comments

  How Britain tried to use a Persian antiquity for political gain "The Art Newspaper can reveal that the British Museum (BM) is lending one of its famous antiquities to Iran. The Cyrus Cylinder, an inscribed clay drum, has been described as the “first charter of human rights”. Dating from 539 BC, it records Cyrus the Great’s order for the humane treatment of the Babylonians after their conquest by the Persians. As BM director Neil MacGregor points out, the text has “powerful modern resonances in the context of current conflicts in the region”."
theartnewspaper
  ¶ 6:01 PM 0 comments

  Paris means business "The Biennale des Antiquaires is indisputably the art market's grandest fair. Maastricht may pull in more big spenders and major dealers from around the world, but, for good old-fashioned glamour and glitz, Paris is without serious rival."
telegraphUK
  ¶ 5:50 AM 0 comments

  Dalí Foundation: peace at last for the great Surrealist’s estate "Peace has finally been achieved in the bitter battles that opposed the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, and Demart, a company chaired by Robert Descharnes, a specialist and colleague of Dalí who looked after him in his final years."
theartnewspaper
  ¶ 9:35 PM 0 comments

  Rembrandt's self-portraits indicate lazy eye: scientists So that's the secret to becoming a great artist.. get a lazy eye ;-)

"The eye disorder commonly known as lazy eye may have helped Rembrandt produce his masterful portraits and other paintings, say two scientists from Harvard Medical School. "
cbc
  ¶ 11:58 PM 0 comments

  Ramones Guitarist dies at 55 "Johnny Ramone, the guitarist with the eponymous punk group The Ramones, died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday following a five-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 55."
theguardian
  ¶ 11:35 PM 0 comments

  Picasso painting found under Picasso painting! Something many struggling artists resort to.. painting over old paintings.

Hidden Picasso goes on show
"A "secret" painting by the young Pablo Picasso was unveiled at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao yesterday after experts found it hidden beneath layers of paint on another of his canvasses.
The 104-year-old painting was yesterday hailed as Picasso's first Paris picture, painted during a visit in 1900 when he was 19."
theguardian
  ¶ 10:50 PM 1 comments

  The Salvador Dalí centenary celebrations reach a peak "In the early 1930s, at a point when Salvador Dalí was still very firmly placed within the Surrealists’ encampment, the Catalan artist devised a stunt—theorists writing now would, using the vocabulary of contemporary performance art, call it a “happening” or an “action”—involving giant baguettes. The idea was to bake huge loaves (special ovens would need to be constructed for the purpose) and deposit them in various spots around Paris. A 15-metre baguette was destined for the gardens of the Palais Royal, a bigger one for Versailles and so on; eventually, in some doughy culmination, a massive 45-metre loaf would appear, as mysteriously as its Parisian counterparts, on the streets of New York."
theartnewspaper
  ¶ 9:50 PM 0 comments

  Clyfford Still’s will fulfilled "The massive estate of the reclusive Abstract Expressionist artist Clyfford Still (1904-80) will at last come to light after two decades locked away in storage, unseen by scholars and the public."
theartnewspaper
  ¶ 6:04 AM 0 comments

  Politics and art make uneasy partners "Two faces dominate "Democracy in America," a show of political art at the Arizona State University Art Museum.Everywhere you turn, there seems to be either George Washington or George W. Bush. In the art in this show, the two faces tend to carry very different meanings."
arizoneRepublic
  ¶ 4:55 AM 0 comments

  Emin makes the Tate "The Tate have dedicated a room to the work of Tracey Emin - bumping her up a place from Young British Artist to a Great British Artist.
And no, the room isn't her bedroom."
megastar
  ¶ 6:58 AM 0 comments

  Michelangelo's David didnt use Pilates.. "Alan Herdman, who brought the Pilates exercise technique to Britain more than 30 years ago, has chosen the 500th anniversary of the statue's unveiling to pronounce David a prime candidate for the fashionable body-conditioning regime."
theguardian

Marketing comes in all forms I guess.. if you can get stories published about your brand in major newspapers (for free), then why not come up with something as zany as giving David some Pilates tips? I can see other potential stories.. Mona Lisa & Revlon .. Weeping Woman & Dr Phil .. the list is endless!
  ¶ 4:15 AM 1 comments

  Chance for visitors to tell the Tate what that splodgy picture means Interesting idea from the Tate.
"Any gallery visitor who has peered, baffled, from the bewildering splodges of colour on the wall to the bewildering splodges of prose on the label, is invited by the Tate to do better."

"Tate Britain's director, Stephen Deuchar, said he would particularly welcome contributions from visitors who may know far more about the subject matter of a painting than his art experts or the artists themselves. "
"The 30 most vivid contributions will go up on the walls, beside the efforts of the curators, in time for British Art Week, starting on September 20. More will be added, and may remain for as long as the paintings stay on display."
guardianUK-arts

  ¶ 1:09 AM 0 comments

  Probably the best collection in the world? "Gauguin hated the Danes – partly because they hated his painting. But a collection put together by Copenhagen's brewing dynasty changed that. As a selection arrives in London, Martin Gayford explains"
telegraphUK
  ¶ 9:21 AM 0 comments

  Scream gallery improves security "The art gallery where thieves stole The Scream last month is to upgrade its security in the wake of the raid."
bbcnews
  ¶ 8:57 AM 1 comments

  Vendors lost $4 million on Audubon sale Perhaps through greed?.. the sellers of "Audubon’s The birds of America" knocked back a pre-auction offer of 9 million. Instead, they took the works to auction and made less than 6 million.
theArtnewspaper
  ¶ 4:55 AM 0 comments

  Art world mobilises against Bush "Art dealers are typically cautious not to offend their clientele by taking strong positions on controversial topics. This year, however, the rules have changed. Dealers and artists in New York have become visibly politicised and have been actively raising funds and campaigning for Democratic candidate John Kerry in the run up to the US presidential election on 2 November"
theArtNewspaper
  ¶ 10:56 PM 0 comments

  Where is the Guernica for Sept. 11? "Where is Picasso now that we need him? Who can express in art the horror and outrage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Where is the Guernica for Sept. 11?"
USAToday

  ¶ 3:37 AM 0 comments

  One-Millionth Visitor to the MoMA in Berlin Exhibition "The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, are delighted to be able to present at the Neue Nationalgalerie some 200 artworks from the MoMA collection, which together offer a superb overview of modern art from 1880 to the present. As one of the most significant buildings of the twentieth century, the Neue Nationalgalerie provides the perfect venue for MoMA’s illustrious collection of modern and contemporary art. "
artdaily
  ¶ 3:30 AM 0 comments

  Hopper is big draw at Tate Modern "Crowds who flocked to admire some of the loneliest paintings of the 20th century have helped to make the Edward Hopper exhibition at London's Tate Modern one of the gallery's most successful. "
theguardian - UK
  ¶ 3:27 AM 0 comments

  Sins of the flesh - François Boucher Interesting read about the art and money relationship...

"The prostituting of talent is something we have come to associate with contemporary art, with its seven-figure prices, its desperately competitive dealers and collectors, and its career-minded, media-savvy artists."

and

"But, in truth, critics have been accusing artists of "selling out" ever since pictures were first exchanged for money."
Telegraph UK

  ¶ 9:03 PM 0 comments