Tullio Lombardo’s Renaissance statue of Adam, which famously fell from its pedestal at The Met and was smashed to pieces, is back on view after a lengthy restoration, accompanied by a digital video project and performance that gives the work a multi-faceted, occasionally irreverent voice.  The project is a continuation of The Met’s ongoing emphasis on direct engagement of visitors with its collection through performance and new technology. (more…)

Manchester’s Whitworth Museum has been awarded the UK’s annual “Museum of the Year” award, recognizing the institution’s impressive new expansion project, unveiled this past February. (more…)

Artist Cady Noland has repudiated another one of her past works this month, sabotaging a $1.4 million sale for Log Cabin Blank with Screw Eyes and Cafe Door, a work which she denounced after learning of the new owner’s plans to restore the piece’s rotted wood.  “Noland angrily denounced the restoration of the artwork without her knowledge and approval,” a complaint collector Scott Mueller filed in New York Federal Court this Monday. “She further stated that any effort to display or sell the sculpture must include notice that the piece was remade without the artist’s consent, that it now consists of unoriginal materials, and that she does not approve of the work.” (more…)

Market Watch has an interesting article this week on the tax status of Nazi-looted paintings returned to their rightful owners, noting the tax-free status of reparations payments from the German government, particularly in the case of Maria Altman’s reception of the Gustav Klimt masterwork Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I, and attorney Randol Schoenberg’s move to get sales proceeds from the work equal status.   (more…)

A thorough forensic study dating Francisco Goya’s private series “Witches and Old Women” has resulted in an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London, showing the works in chronological order for the first time.  “His work is all about capturing that human spark,” says Goya scholar Juliet Wilson-Bareau.  “From his youth onwards, he observed everything that life had to offer. He was utterly fascinated by the human animal form from the word go.” (more…)

Writer Louis Menand is in this week’s issue of The New Yorker, reviewing the recent restoration of Mark Rothko’s Harvard Murals using a specially designed lighting system, and the small crowd that gathers each day to watch as the murals’ lights are turned off.  “You can still see the bones of the murals, the formal architecture—Rothko’s floating blocks, made to resemble portals in these pieces—but the glow is gone,” he writes.  “As one observer put it, when the lights go off, comedy turns into tragedy.” (more…)

A number of works which were damaged during a massive fire in Berlin’s Friedrichshain bunker, including pieces by Caravaggio, Rubens and Donatello, are on view at the Bode Museum in Berlin, showcasing the immense restorations done on some works while exploring the ethical and historical implications of their damage.  “We will be showing a number of horrendous-looking pieces—works that are so badly damaged that they haven’t been displayed in generations,” says Julien Chapuis, the museum’s deputy director and show curator. “We want to be brutally honest about the condition of these works so that we can start a dialogue as to how they can be presented in the future.” (more…)

A recent chemistry study by scientists at the University of Antwerp has uncovered evidence showing that the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh have slowly but surely been changing colors over the course of a century due to a rare lead pigment used for red paints that gradually fades when exposed to light.  “Normally, the idea is these paintings are there for a hundred years, or five hundred years, and they’re static – nothing really changes,” says researcher Koen Janssens. “But the opposite is actually true when you look in detail.” (more…)

Francesco Vezzoli, Teatro Romano, all images courtesy MoMA PS1

On view at MoMA PS1 in New York is an exhibition of 5 new works by Francesco Vezzoli – ancient Roman busts painted in the manner in which they were probably originally decorated. Entitled Teatro Romano,” the exhibition, which saw delays after a church Vezzoli had intended to export to the country was blocked by customs, will continue through March 9th, 2015.

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Artist Theaster Gates is interviewed in the most recent edition of BOMB Magazine, talking about his influences, his work at the University of Chicago, as well as its surrounding communities.  “One of the advantages that I have, being embedded in this Washington Park community and as an administrator at the University of Chicago, is that I come with a certain amount of cultural, intellectual, and political empathy,” Gates says. “This empathy allows me to feel more like an insider, and to experience a win for this community as a win for me too. It’s not just a political win, it’s also a “way-of-living” win.” (more…)

The Victoria and Albert Museum is preparing to unveil a cast of Michelangelo’s David, which was given to Queen Victoria in 1857, after a lengthy restoration.  The 16-foot statue will go on view November 29th inside the the newly renovated Weston Cast Court.  (more…)

An article in Barron’s this week charts the instability and unpredictability of various materials in contemporary art as a considerable liability towards a work’s valuation and security as an investment.  “A great deal of art being sold today may deteriorate quickly and cause the monetary value to decline – precipitously in some cases,” says Emily MacDonald-Korth, founder of Longevity Art Preservation LLC. (more…)

James Turrell’s Meeting, permanently installed at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, is currently closed, as the museum seeks out a strategy for its restoration.  Commissioned in the late 1970’s, the work has remained opened to the public for over 40 years, but needs touch-ups to the walls, flooring and benches surrounding the open air in the middle of the space.  “We are going to get it back as close as we can to the original state, but we want it to be easier to maintain and use less power,” Turrell has said. (more…)

After much discussion, Pablo Picasso’s famed Le Tricorne will leave its place in the lobby of the Four Seasons New York this Sunday, traveling to a new home at the New York Historical Society.  In the meantime, the Hotel is encouraging visitors to come and see the work one final time.  “We’ll enjoy it and give it the standing ovation it deserves after nearly six decades as the backdrop of wild parties and quiet moments when families celebrate life’s milestones,” says Four Seasons co-owner Julian Niccolini.  “Everyone is welcome to stop in and see it before it leaves.” (more…)

The Winged Victory of Samothrace is back on view at The Louvre, following an extensive 8-month cleaning and restoration project.  Experts noted that some lost parts of the statue had been replaced with plaster, but also restored these pieces, maintaining evidence of the statue’s history. (more…)

The Atlantic documents a conservation approach pioneered in the 1980’s by Raymond Lafontaine, using color and lighting theory to hide fading and prevent having to tamper with the surface of the work.  “In human color perception you have a light source, a surface, and a viewer, and the three interact,” says Jens Stenger, a conservation scientist who is using the technique to work on six murals by Mark Rothko at Harvard.  “If you can’t change the surface, you can change the light source to change the color.” (more…)

More than 100 conservators have volunteered to aid in the restoration of the Glasgow School of Art building destroyed by fire late last week, coming from across the UK and abroad to answer a call for help from the school.  “We have people offering to source freezers, drying facilities and secure storage for collections,” Alison Richmond of Conservation Organization Icon adding that some volunteers are familiar with the building and its collection. “We have this small army of expert helpers and are standing by.” (more…)

Portrait of Dirck van Os, a 1658 painting long discredited as a Rembrandt copy, has been returned to public view at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha as an officially authenticated portrait by the Dutch master.  “People here sensed the underlying quality,” says Joslyn executive director, Jack Becker, “but you need the scholarly community to rehabilitate a picture like this.” (more…)

A Picasso tapestry currently hanging at the Four Seasons Restaurant on Park Avenue is facing a dangerous removal from its current installation.  The work is being removed following a contractor’s estimate that the wall behind it is at risk of collapse, but the fragile nature of the work could make it difficult to remove.  “No matter how cautious they are, the work is so brittle and fragile that it could, as one of them put it, ‘crack like a potato chip,’ ” said Peg Breen, President of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. (more…)

Theaster Gates is profiled in the current issue of the New Yorker, talking about his work, his life in Chicago, and his current project working with the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator to renovate and develop an artistic community on Chicago’s South Side.  “I told the artists, ‘We need to make the building work’… That was wrong. We don’t need to make the building work. We need to support you.” (more…)

The Louvre’s iconic Greeks sculpture, Winged Victory of Samothrace, is set to begin a 9-month restoration process next month, the Wall Street Journal reports.Covered in years of dust and grime, the statue will be cleaned to return it to its original white color, and minor repairs will also be made to the statue itself.  “It’s not only a Hellenistic masterpiece, it is also a historic example of 19th century art”says Ludovic Laugier, who heads the project for the Louvre. (more…)

The Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles is nearing completion on a yearlong restoration of Jackson Pollack’s Mural.  Using new technologies and approaches on the $140 million work, the work has been analyzed by a series of noninvasive x-rays and other approaches to determine not only the original composition of the work, but also other efforts in doctoring or restoring the work in the past.  “From the chemical composition and buildup of paints, we are unlocking evidence of Pollock’s creative process, his choice of materials, and any alterations through time,” says conservation analyst Alan Phenix. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on the long, convoluted journey of a 63-year old mural painted by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  Originally created outside of Paris by the well-known Austrian, Paradise: Land of Men, of Trees, of Birds and Ships has since moved from Paris to Switzerland to Long Island, before coming to rest in a Brooklyn warehouse.  The work’s long history and current restoration needs illustrate the challenges facing the preservation of such large-scale works, particularly given its 10 x 16 foot size and its weight of over 3,000 pounds.   The move to its current location “took me two days with six guys and heavy equipment and a tow truck,” Says current owner Chris Muth. “If it fell in the process it would have been destroyed, and if it we had been under it we would have been dead.” (more…)

When the Whitney Museum set out to restore artist Douglas Davis’s early collaborative, online art piece the World’s First Collaborative Sentence, few could foresee the challenges that digital and internet-based art posed for repair and maintenance.  Based on constantly shifting programming languages and operating systems, digital art often offers complex restoration problems, forcing curators and experts to evaluate the degradation of web sites, coding and software updates against the original authenticity of the piece to properly exhibit it.  “We’re working on constantly shifting grounds,” said Rudolf Frieling, of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “Whatever hardware, platform or device we’re using is not going to be there tomorrow.” (more…)