Saturday, August 29, 2015

Does Looking at Art Make You Smarter?

Is it possible that when your teachers and parents forced you to go to museums, they were actually doing something good for you? Author and art historian Jonathan Fineberg says they were. In fact, he argues that looking at visual images can supercharge your brain’s creativity. Mr. Fineberg, who is well-known in the art world for his dozen-plus books on art, spoke to Jeremy Hobson of the public radio program “Here & Now” about his newest tome: Modern Art at the Border of Mind and Brain, (currently number one in “Neuroscience” on Amazon.com). He explained why he believes that looking at art is more or less like sending your brain to the gym...

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Simchowitz Lawsuit

Jute Sack Artworks Are at the Center of Simchowitz Lawsuit Against Venice Biennale Artist

By Sarah Douglas and Andrew Russeth Posted 08/25/15 1:58 pm

Installation view of ‘Ibrahim Mahama: Civil Occupation’ at Ellis King, Dublin, December 2014.

COURTESY ELLIS KING

Los Angeles dealer and artist agent Stefan Simchowitz and Dublin dealer Jonathan Ellis King have filed suit against the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama, alleging that he breached a contract between them by, among other things, declaring hundreds of signed works inauthentic, potentially costing the dealers $4.45 million in work they own by him. The suit, which was filed in federal court in June but which seems to have gone unnoticed until now, sheds light on how the controversial Simchowitz conducts business with artists, some of whom he has helped propel to fame.

Mahama, 28, is responsible for one of the largest artworks in the current Venice Biennale, a sprawling tapestry-like installation made up of jute sacks used to transport coal in Ghana, where he lives. The youngest artist in Okwui Enwezor’s Biennale group exhibition “All the World’s Futures,” Mahama has recently been in two exhibitions at London’s Saatchi Gallery surveying art from Africa and Latin America....

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