Faulkner estate sues over quotes in Woody Allen film & Washington Post ad!

 

My Comments:

 

Whether these lawsuits by the heirs of the Nobel Prize for Literature winner and two-time Pulitzer awardee poet/novelist William Faulkner (1897-1961) are legally valid or not is, I believe, besides the point. For a writer like me, what is more interesting is that these news reports will hopefully encourage more people to be curious about the great literary writer William Faulkner and his works.

 

William Faulkner was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, a giant of the U.S. south.

 

Let us read these literary masterpieces:

 

The Sound and the Fury

 

As I Lay Dying

 

Absalom, Absalom!

 

 

 

Here is one of Faulkner's interesting quotes: 
"It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work."

 

– William Faulkner

 

 

 

Here is a news report about the hullabaloo...

 

Oct 30, 2012 3:51 AM Updated: Oct 30, 2012 7:52 AM

 

By JEFF AMY

Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - William Faulkner wrote that the past is never dead. His heirs say their copyright to that phrase is very much alive.

The author's literary estate is suing Sony Pictures Classics for using a paraphrase of the line in Woody Allen's 2011 film, "Midnight in Paris." It's also suing Northrop Grumman Corp. and The Washington Post Co. for using another Faulkner quote in a newspaper ad by the defense contractor.

The first lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Oxford, Miss., says Sony infringed on the copyright when actor Owen Wilson slightly misquoted the line from Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun." He said, "The past is not dead! Actually, it's not even past."

The second lawsuit, filed Friday in Jackson, Miss., makes similar claims about the ad, which used a passage from a 1956 essay Faulkner wrote in Harper's Magazine. The quote, which says in part "We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it," was the conclusion to an essay criticizing the South's response to school integration.

Sony says the quote is "fair use," a legal term meaning the user doesn't have to license or pay for it.

"This is a frivolous lawsuit and we are confident we will prevail in defending it," a Sony Pictures spokeswoman said in a written statement.

Northrop Grumman declined comment. The Washington Post did not return a phone call Monday.

David Olson, a Boston College law professor who specializes in patent law and copyright, said he agrees that the estate is over-reaching legally.

Lee Caplin, who represents the estate, disagrees. He said these are the first lawsuits it has ever filed. Caplin said that the estate recently licensed a quote to the sitcom "Modern Family." He contrasted that to Allen's use of the quote in the movie.

"He just wanted to kind of take it and he felt entitled," Caplin said of Allen.

Caplin said the suit is not a "money grab." He said Sony was dismissive of his attempts to license the quote after the movie came out.

Under the fair use principle, people can take and reuse part of a copyrighted book, song or movie without permission. Generally, excepts can be used if they're short and if they're part of a new artistic work, scholarly work or a parody. Noncommercial uses are generally more permissible, Olson said.

"If it's for a commercial use, they do have to pay for it," Caplin said.

Olson, though, said that's a flawed understanding of copyright law.

"Commercial use isn't presumptively unfair," he said. He said no one watches "Midnight in Paris" as a substitute for buying "Requiem for a Nun."

"The Faulkner estate's interest is not being harmed in any way," Olson said. "If anything it draws a little more interest."

Caplin argued that even though the movie snippet is short, it's a key summing-up of the whole film, and that Allen took it because Faulkner said it better.

"This is Mr. Faulkner's most famous quote," Caplin said.

In the Northrop case, Caplin said he's not sure the heirs would have wanted Faulkner's name to be associated with an arms manufacturer.

Olson said the Northrop case may be stronger, but he fears that authors are using copyright to limit the political context in which works are quoted or used.

Olson said some estates are zealous about enforcing copyright, to increase revenue or limit discussions that

heirs find disagreeable. The suits could just be warning shots by the estate to other users.

"Part of what they could be doing is just trying to get the word out," Olson said.

One reason to visit New York City! One of the exhibits in the Jewish Museum New York titled "Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries" (Sept. 14, 2012 - Feb. 3, 2013)





My Comments:

I'm in awe and very impressed with this exhibit on books, especially in this modern 21st century era when the popularity of ebooks, social media, computer games, 24-hour cable TV channels, online movies, texting and shopping malls try to make reading of books less of a pastime than it used to be. I love books! 

Over 50 manuscripts, many of them illuminated, from the famous Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, highlight "the role of Hebrew books as a meeting place of cultures in the Middle Ages".

There is even the "Mishneh Torah" of Maimonides written in his own hand! Egypt, circa year 1180, found in the Cairo Genizah, 9 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches (23.5 x 16.5 centimeters), MS. Heb. d. 32, fols. 53b-54a.

This is a draft of a portion of the Book of Civil Laws, a section of the "Mishneh Torah" of Maimonides (1135– 1204), written in his own hand. The philosopher and royal physician wrote his masterpiece on rabbinic law in Hebrew, whereas his earlier works had been composed in Judeo-Arabic (Arabic in Hebrew characters). Maimonides’s cursive Sephardic script is similar to contemporary Arabic script. The pages seen below deal with the laws of hiring (right) and the laws of borrowed and deposited things (left). See image below:





Many of these amazing and ancient books are on exhibit in the United States for the first time.



Address of Jewish Museum: 1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street, New York City, New York 10128, USA 

Free entrance on Saturdays because of the Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest and a special time for spiritual enrichment free from the concerns of schedules, everyday work and commerce



(Below) Kennicott Bible, scribe: Moses ibn Zabara, artist: Joseph ibn Hayyim, commissioner: Isaac, son of Solomon di Braga, Corunna, Spain, 1476.Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS.
Kennicott 1, fol. 7b

 

The New York Times newspaper's Exhibition Review

What Books Said to One Another

‘Crossing Borders’ Opens at the Jewish Museum

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Crossing Borders A 15th-century book showing the Virgin riding a unicorn in this show at the Jewish Museum.

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

Published: September 14, 2012

If you listen closely at the subtly startling new exhibition at the Jewish Museum, “Crossing Borders: Manuscripts From the Bodleian Libraries,” you can hear manuscripts murmuring across millenniums.

Enlarge This Image

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

Books of many eras displayed in vitrines at the exhibition “Crossing Borders: Manuscripts From the Bodleian Libraries,” at the Jewish Museum.

Enlarge This Image

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

A page from the Kennicott Hebrew Bible.

 

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

A miniature of Thomas Bodley painted by Nicholas Hilliard.

 

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

The Virgin Mary with a unicorn in a 15th-century Italian manuscript.

Some defer to others: they are commenting on sacred texts. Some supplant others: sacred texts of one faith argue against those of another. But, as presented here, many also engage in unexpected dialogues, emulations, even dissections. Scripts imitate one another, even if they are in different languages; images and designs recur in manuscripts from different conceptual worlds. Some texts remain unflustered while everything changes around them. And all of this takes place among just 52 works, some of which are astonishingly ancient, many of which are beautifully illuminated, and most of which are written in Hebrew.

It would be a challenge just to give individual items the attention they demand, let alone attend to their interactions: a third-century fragment of papyrus with Philo of Alexandria’s interpretation of scripture; a fifth-century codex of the Four Gospels written in the ancient Aramaic dialect Syriac; a 12th-century autograph manuscript of legal commentary written in Arabic by the Jewish scholar Maimonides using Hebrew letters; a 16th-century Persian Koran with exquisite decoration; a 16th-century Hebrew poem written for Queen Elizabeth I, urging her to support Hebrew scholarship at the University of Oxford, as had her father, King Henry VIII.

It all comes from the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, which has one of the world’s most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts. These examples were first gathered in 2009 for an exhibition at Oxford called “Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Culture.” Its curators, Piet van Boxel and Sabine Arndt (who also edited an informative catalog), suggested that as exiled Jews established communities in vastly different cultures, their manuscripts both reflected the world around them and influenced it in unusual ways. Even when the texts themselves were relatively unchanging, their script and illumination testified to a dynamic, shifting relationship to the dominant cultures and religions of Christianity and Islam.

The curator at the Jewish Museum, Claudia Nahson, uses most of the same material but organizes it slightly differently to highlight the multilingual conversation, forming a capsule history of a people’s textual sojourn. The manuscripts have also been hauntingly mounted by the exhibition designer, MESH Architectures, in vitrines, each illuminated by beams from LEDs projected down, so that when a visitor looks across the galleries, the open codices seem to hover against the deep red walls, a sensation at once reverential and elevating. (MESH also designed the show’s rich Web site: bodleian.thejewishmuseum.org.)

There are some problems that come up, but the overall impact is powerful, with each display creating a miniature colloquy among texts. In some of the earliest material, for example, we see a vertical Hebrew scroll (a “rotulus”) of the 10th or early 11th century. But by that time, we learn, another form of textual presentation had become dominant: the codex, which is close in form to our printed books. And, indeed, the other items in the case, though older than the rotulus, are from codices.

Why were Hebrew codices so late in appearing? In the catalog the scholar Anthony Grafton suggests it may have been deliberate, perhaps to emphasize religious differences, particularly since the codex had become widely used as a portable means of proselytizing for Christianity.

But elsewhere in the exhibition, imitation is more the rule than rejection. Biblical commentary by the 11th-century Jewish scholar Rashi influenced Christian texts, and we see a 13th-century Hebrew Psalter extensively annotated in Latin and French. We also see how Islamic decorative style affected Hebrew scripts and influenced illuminations of both the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible.

One of the most beautiful objects here — the show’s centerpiece — is the 922-page Kennicott Bible, “the most lavishly illuminated Hebrew Bible” to survive from medieval Spain. It was completed in 1476, less than 20 years before the expulsion of the Jews, and is so elaborate it almost undermines itself, a sacred text more enticing for its decoration and its encyclopedic embrace of Islamic, Christian and folk styles than for its content. Its entire text has been scanned and put online by the Jewish Museum; each of its pages can also be examined at the exhibition on a sequence of mounted iPads.

Other examples of transformations of religious symbols are fascinating. Three manuscripts here display a common Christian motif in 15th-century Italy: the Virgin with a unicorn on her lap, defending it from a hunter.

The unicorn had become a symbol of Christ, so the image was an allusion to the Incarnation. But even seemingly secular images of unicorn hunts could be seen as allegories of persecution. With its status as a targeted innocent, the unicorn also became a Jewish symbol, the hunt invoking another kind of persecution.

So when the first page of an elaborately illustrated 1472 Hebrew Bible from Italy includes an image of a woman with a unicorn, as well as an image of Adam and Eve about to eat from the forbidden tree, how is this to be interpreted? This is a manuscript with a considerable scholarly “apparatus,” including commentary and readings, meant, we are told, for a synagogue. Was a Christian illustrator of the Hebrew text engaging in a subtle polemic? Or had the symbols become so bipolar they could sustain incompatible meanings?

These are difficult matters, but the currents of cultural influence run through these texts. We see a 15th-century book of fables in Hebrew that is a 13th-century translation of an Arabic translation of a 4th-century Sanskrit source: a collection of stories about scheming jackals. It is adjacent to a 14th-century Arabic version of the fables from Syria, and a 15th-century printed book from Strasbourg that is a Latin translation of an early Hebrew translation of the Arabic. We learn, too, that such texts led to the development of original Hebrew stories during the same period.

And while examples of the transmission of knowledge during this era have become more familiar in recent years, there is still something uncanny about seeing three examples of Euclid’s “Elements” open to the same diagrams and proofs in 13th-century Arabic, 14th-century Hebrew and 13th-century Latin.

The final gallery here also begins to put the collection itself in context, another astonishing phenomenon: how English Protestants in the late 16th century established Hebrew as a central subject for study. Thomas Bodley, a Hebraist and humanist, re-established a library at Oxford that had been plundered and provided the foundation for its renowned holdings.

There is one issue that is missing here, though it would have been difficult to explore it without considerably more explanation (and perhaps other manuscripts). In the early examples of the influence of Hebrew commentary on Christian scholars, we see a bit of what was at stake in these cultural and religious interactions: religious reinterpretations had to be grounded in a thorough understanding. But then the show ends up paying very little attention to substance, focusing instead on similarities of style, script and image that lie more on the surface of these texts.

Such cosmetic resemblances encourage a sense of vague ecumenism. The interactions among the three religions were described as “practical cooperation” at Oxford and here as “intellectual exchange,” but we don’t really understand much more about the content behind the form.

When stylistic influences were present, for example, were there intellectual or religious transformations that accompanied them? Did beliefs change along with textual styles? What was the nature of the relations among these communities? Even the rise of Protestant Hebraism might have been explored more deeply. In a way, we are its heirs: early Puritan settlers imagined the New World’s possibilities through the imagery of the Hebrew Bible.

But this is also asking for far too much, as if we were seeking elaborate discourses instead of appreciating the muted conversations. An acknowledgment of the complexities would have sufficed. As for inspiring deeper inquiry, that, after all, is a measure of the exhibition’s success.

“Crossing Borders” is on view through Feb. 3 at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street; (212) 423-3200, thejewishmuseum.org.

Impressive! Ingriguing! Late Richard Hamilton, Late Works exhibit at London National Gallery (Oct. 10, 2012-Jan. 13, 2013)

My Comments:

Intriguing, fascinating, enigmatic, witty, beautiful and thought-provoking works of art by pioneer in pop art the late British painter Richard Hamilton at an on-going exhibit at London National Gallery. He created and meticulously prepared this exhibit, which he knew he couldn't see.

This is an article about this art exhibit:

Nude Model Meets Blond Sprouting Wings in Hamilton Show: Review

By Martin Gayford, Bloomberg -  Oct. 17, 2012

Richard Hamilton, who died last year at the age of 89, was known as a witty and cerebral precursor of British pop art.

Even the title of the London National Gallery exhibition of his final pictures, “Late Works,” is a black joke. Hamilton may have guessed he would be a late artist by the time the exhibition opened).

"FlorVence" (2004 - 2005) by Richard Hamilton. The scene appears to be the interior of the convent of San Marco, Florence. Source: National Gallery via Bloomberg

'The Passage of the Angel to the Virgin'

National Gallery via Bloomberg

"The Passage of the Angel to the Virgin" (2007) by Richard Hamilton. The work is based on an Annunciation by the Florentine painter Zanobi Strozzi (1412-14680), a pupil of Fra Angelico.

"Descending Nude" (2006) by Richard Hamilton. The work is a take on Marcel Duchamp's ''Nude Descending a Staircase'' of 1912. Source: National Gallery via Bloomberg

'Le Chef d'oeuvre innconnu'

National Gallery via Bloomberg

"Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu" (2011) by Richard Hamilton. This is one of three versions shown of Hamilton's last, unfinished picture based on a short story by Balzac.

'An Annunciation'

National Gallery via Bloomberg

''An Annunciation'' (1994 2004) by Richard Hamilton. The annunciation may be coming via a telephone call.

Admittedly, in late years his work became not cool but heated and politically engaged. Nonetheless, it’s unexpected to find him turning in these “Late Works” to that venerable theme in western art, the nude.

Not all feature naked young women, but most include an unclothed blond or brunette taking the viewer on a sort of naturist tour through highlights of art history.

For example, “FlorVence” (2004-5) presents an unclothed blond stepping out of a monastic cell in the friary of San Marco, Florence (erstwhile residence of the 15th-century hellfire preacher Savonarola). On the wall beside her are graffiti-style sketches of the Stations of the Cross.

“The Passage of the Angel to the Virgin”(2007) finds the same blond, sprouting wings, blurred with movement and equally undressed, playing the part of the angel of the annunciation; the Madonna is a nude brunette.

Fra Angelico

The entire image is quotation of a 15th century altarpiece in the manner of Fra Angelico, the painter/monk who frescoed the cells in San Marco.
Hamilton was a great admirer of Marcel Duchamp, to whose work he also tips his hat here. “Descending Nude” (2006) is a clever inversion of Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” (1912).

The original depicts one nude in a sequence of different positions as she walks down the steps. Hamilton’s picture consists of three walking downstairs, and another surveying the scene in a mirror.

He referred to all these works as “paintings,” but in fact they often consist of photographic imagery, edited and collaged on a computer screen, which was then sometimes painted over in oils.

Appropriately then, his last unfinished work presents three great painters contemplating a photographic nude. It took its theme from “Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu,” (The Unknown Masterpiece), a short story by Honore de Balzac about the ultimate failure of an elderly painter.

Convincing Nude

Balzac’s artist Frenhofer spends decades attempting to paint a nude so convincing that looking at it would be like being in the presence of a real woman.

When younger painters come to visit him, all they see is “a mass of strange lines forming a wall of paint” from which one female foot can be glimpsed emerging.

In “Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu” (2011), Hamilton collaged self-portraits by three great masters of the nude -- Titian, Poussin and Courbet -- into a studio setting.

In the foreground reclines a naked woman, actually taken from a 19th-century photograph. Titian and Courbet seem to be discussing her, looking slightly anxious. They could well be debating the eternal and insoluble problem of how to capture a living, breathing 3D world on a two-dimensional sheet of canvas or paper.

I wouldn’t say that Hamilton’s work, like Frenhofer’s, was a failure. It’s far too intelligent for that. Nonetheless, to my mind, there’s often an ingredient missing, which was -- ironically given the amount of flesh on display -- a sensuous feeling of reality.

To see the way a great painter of the past could create poetry in surfaces and color even while presenting a grimly funereal theme, pop into Room I, where Poussin’s “Extreme Unction” (1638-40) is on show as part of a public appeal to buy it for the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

“Richard Hamilton: The Late Works” is at the National Gallery, London, until Jan. 13, 2013. Information: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk or call +44-20-7747-2423.

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” - Pablo Picasso

My Comment: Pablo Picaso is one of the best artists in the world whom I admire!





Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, more well-known worldwide as Pablo Picasso, was an outstanding Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

(Image below of the art work "Yo, Picasso" by Pablo Picasso)

Though not easily recognizable like his other works, Picasso’s 1901 self-portrait is highly prized on the fine art market. 

The painter's full name  is “Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso”. 

• Artist: Pablo Picasso
• Year: 1901
• Year of Sale: 1989
• Sale Price: $47.85 million
• Currency Adjusted: $83.2 million

Congratulations to Saatchi Gallery's New Sensations 2012 & Absolut Blank Commission!

Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4 Announce the Winners of

New Sensations 2012 and the Absolut Blank commission
Plus Resounding Sales Success

London, 18 October 2012

The Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4 are delighted to announce the winner of the 2012 New Sensations Prize, Nicolas Feldmeyer.

The judges have also awarded a Special Commendation to Steven Allan.

The winner of the ABSOLUT Blank commission, a new element of this year’s Prize, is Antonio Marguet.

Nicolas Feldmeyer’s work opens a contemplative perspective onto the world. Inspired by archaic monuments, the Sublime and Taoism and working in a wide range of media, his work articulates "a quiet quest for what lies beyond or before words".

He was born in 1980 in Switzerland, and after completing an MSc in architecture in Zurich, studied Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute on a Fulbright Grant. He graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, this year with an MFA with distinction.

 Nicolas Feldmeyer, Untitled (Woven Portico), 2012

Steven Allan completed his MA this year at the Royal College of Art in London. He was born in Scotland and has spent the last 8 years living and painting in London.

(Steven Allan, Peely Wally, 2012)

(Antonio Marguet, Untitled, 2012)

Much of Steven Allan’s work contains biographical references or layers of meaning gathered from everyday imagery. His recent paintings have explored the humanisation of objects such as bananas, tea bags and paint tubes.

Antonio Marguet, originally from southern Spain, creates “object-sculptures” which he photographs, and it is only the image that lasts in his exploration of our fetishisation of objects.

For this year’s ABSOLUT Blank commission he made a work inspired by the distinctive shape of the ABSOLUT bottle.

The works of these three winners were shown at the New Sensations exhibition, along with works by 17 other shortlisted artists.

The exhibition, which was on during Frieze week at Victoria House in Bloomsbury, was a huge success with over 70% of works sold.

New Sensations was launched in 2007 to find and support the most imaginative and talented artists graduating in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

This year’s ABSOLUT Studio Fund, with works donated by Mat Collishaw, Chantal Joffe, Hew Locke and Yinka Shonibare, raised prize money to help fund studios for the winners.

The judges for this year’s New Sensations Prize were the artists John Stezaker and Richard Wilson; Shonagh Manson, Director of the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Jerwood Visual Arts; Jake Miller, founder of The Approach, London; Nancy Durrant, arts commissioning editor of The Times; Tabitha Jackson, Commissioning Editor, Arts, Channel 4; and Rebecca Wilson, Director of the Saatchi Gallery.

New Sensations 2012 Shortlisted Artists:

Steven Allan Alex Ball Bartosz Beda Olivia Poppy Coles Nicholas Dedics Amanda Doran Nicolas Feldmeyer Eimear Friers Rachel Hunt Hyojun Hyun

Jin Han Lee Antonio Marguet Aileen McEwen Claire Moore Natasha Peel Eoghan Ryan Amba Sayal-Bennett Rafal Topolewski Aleksandra Wojcik Tereza Zelenkova

SAD & SHOCKING NEWS! 7 Stolen paintings from Dutch museum Rotterdam City included Monets, Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin!
The Kunsthal Rotterdam in the Netherlands lost seven valuable paintings in a theft at about 3:00 a.m. on October 16, 2012.

Those paintings were part of a special exhibition of 150 works in the Triton Foundation's collection as part of the museum’s 20th anniversary celebration.

After the thieves had set off an alarm and the police came within 5 minutes, but the art works and burglars were gone.


My comments:

How will these shameless---but definitely not tasteless!---thieves resell or financially benefit from stealing these 7 high-profile, well-documented art works by famous painters?

It seems there are more brazen art thefts in Europe nowadays?

Why was this museum so lax or careless in its security precautions? Will this incident alerts other museums and galleries worldwide?

Let all of us use the far-reaching power of the Internet and social media to spread the words as well as the images of these stolen art works, so no gullible or clueless people out there shall be victimized. Look at the 7 images below, do not forget them, do not buy them and report if seen...


(Matisse’s “La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune")




(Monet's “Charing Cross Bridge, London”)



(Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge, London”)




(Gauguin’s “Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite la Fiancee” )



(Lucian Freud's "Woman With Eyes Closed")



(Meyer de Haan’s “Autoportrait”)



(Picasso work“Tete d’Arlequin )




Below, I share one of the news reports about this art theft:


Thieves Exploited Security Flaw to Steal Monets, Picasso

By Catherine Hickley of Bloomberg. Oct 23, 2012

The thieves who stole seven paintings including works by Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet from the Rotterdam Kunsthal on Oct. 16 probably exploited a flaw in the locking security system, the museum said in a statement.

The museum said it has an electronic locking system that responds to the alarm. After some time, the electronic system deactivates automatically, although the doors remain mechanically locked, according to a Kunsthal e-mailed statement sent today.

“The investigation into the theft that took place on Monday evening has revealed that the burglars probably forced the locks” after the electronic locking system automatically deactivated, the Kunsthal said. Camera images show the burglary took just two minutes, the museum said.

Seven paintings, including works by Picasso, Monet, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Lucian Freud were stolen from the Kunsthal in the Dutch port city. The combined value may be as much as $130 million, making the burglary one of the most spectacular art heists of the last few decades.

The paintings stolen were Picasso’s “Tete d’Arlequin”, Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London;” Freud’s “Woman with Eyes Closed;” Matisse’s “La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune;” Gauguin’s “Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite la Fiancee,” and Meyer de Haan’s “Autoportrait”.

Fire System

The museum has since made adjustments to its locking system, according to the statement. Its alarm, camera and entrance control systems were all inspected in the past months and a new fire alarm and smoke detectors were installed earlier this year, it said.

The theft took place at about 3.15 a.m. on Oct. 16, the Rotterdam-Rijnmond police said. Investigators have released camera pictures on which the faces of the thieves are unidentifiable. They are hoping that people may recognize the combination of two or more figures and their distinctive bags, a statement on the police website said. Investigators have received 60 leads so far, it said.

CONGRATULATIONS to writer Craig Davidson, to literary arts & the written word!               

2012 London Film Festival "Best Picture" award goes to French-Belgian movie Rust and Bone  based on the short story collection of the same title as the movie and authored by Craig Davidson


(Photographs of the writer)



Craig Davidson is a Canadian writer of short stories and novels.

His first book, The Preserve, was a horror novel written under a pseudonym.

Craig's first short story collection, Rust and Bone, was published in September 2005, by Penguin Books Canada.

(Below is an image of Canadian edition of the book, plus another picture of the author on the right)




Here, a poster of the award-winning French-Belgian movie...





(an old photograph of the writer)

Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard's soaring French-language movie about love, loss and killer whales, won the best picture award at the London Film Festival on October 20, 2012.

This cinematic thriller/melodrama tells the story of a boxer (played by actor Matthias Schoenaerts) and a whale trainer (played by Oscar Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard), how the guy fells in love even as the woman suffers a tragic accident at work.

Rust and Bone (French language: De rouille et d'os) is a French-Belgian film based on Craig Davidson's  short story collection with the same name. The tale is of an unemployed 25-year-old boxer in love with a killer whale trainer.

My Recommendation
I highly recommend that we all read the book first before watching the movie adaptation.

Impressive new art center for Asia! On Oct. 6, 2012 afternoon, I made my first visit to Singapore's Gillman Barracks art area and spent over 3 hours there.






This art lover is so very impressed with the visionary, entrepreneurual and cultured government of Singapore for this new project to convert the former British colonial era Gillman Barracks into a complex for international and Singaporean art galleries and other artistic establishments.

Economic progress indeed isn't enough without cultural and spiritual renaissance!

This city-state of Singapore is serious about its bid to outshine Hong Kong an d others to become the arts hub of Asia.

Not all the art galleries and facilities have opened, but from what I have already seen during my October 6 afternoon visit, this Gillman Barracks will be a great success!

By the way, not many Singaporeans know yet the exact location of this place whether young or old, because it is a new redevelopment. But I was lucky to ride a taxi with a middle-aged driver who knew exactly the address I gave him, when I asked why he knew the place, he replied that he used to be a soldier and those were their military barracks! :)



Gillman Barracks
Address: 9 Lock Road, Singapore 108937
Opening Hours: 11:00-20:00 (Sunday until 18:00)
Closed on Monday
http://www.gillmanbarracks.com








Here are some of the galleries and works I saw in the Gillman Barracks complex (I went to all!):


This is a work by a Japanese artist inside a hall, all by itself....

Space Cottonseed

Address: 47 Malan Road, #01-24, Singapore 109444

This South Korean gallery has an on-going exhibit titled "Prelude" and will last up to today October 21, 2012. One of the artists I admire there based on his beautiful works is that of Lee Sea Hyun. Below is one of his works:

LEE SEA HYUN
Betweenn Red-84, 2009

Sundaram Tagore Gallery Singapore

Address: 5 Lock Road, #01-05, Singapore 108933

New York's Sundaram Tagore Gallery has numerous impressive works in Singapore, like some works below from "The Big Picture" photography exhibit now on-going up to Nov. 10, 2012. The photographs range from images of Hollywood and other celebrities to landscapes of various places worldwide, etc. Astounding variety, range and quality of works!

Photograph by SEBASTIÃO SALGADO
Sahara, Algeria (Man Praying), 2009




Photography by ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
David Bryne, Los Angeles, 1956





Hiroshi Senju at Sundaram Tagore Gallery Singapore
Photo below of his work by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop




ROBERT LIDORI
Salle de Crimée Sud, (99) ANR.02.036, Salles de I'Afrigue, Aile du Nord - 1er étage, Château de Versailles, France, 1985

Mizuma Gallery

Address: 22 Lock Road, #01-34, Singapore 108939

This Tokyo-based gallery's Singapore branch in Gillman Barracks was showing a Korean artist Hyung Koo Kang's works when I visited, and I lingered on for quite a while to admire the paintings. I even bought an autographed book! Titled "Crossing Gazes", the solo exhibition of the newest pieces in Korean painter Hyung Koo Kang’s series of huge bigger-than-life portraits was quite impressive. Among my favorites were the paintings of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and others.

HYUNG KOO KANG
Audrey Hepburn, 2012

HYUNG KOO KANG
Gandhi, 2012

Partners & Mucciaccia

Address: 6 Lock Road, #02-10, Singapore 108934

From Picasso to the New Roman School The never-ending cult of beauty in contemporary art

This exhibit of European works awed me not only with the beauty of the paintings, but also due to such world-famous names as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. The show is up to Nov. 30 2012

GIORGIO DE CHIRICO
Italian Square, 1947/1972

The Drawing Room

Address: 5 Lock Road, #01-06, Singapore 108933

Exhibition

Short Memory

Now - 24 Oct

This event surveys most of the artists exhibiting with The Drawing Room, and gathers major works that represent dynamic inquiries into artistic formats and practices that happen within the mingling of cosmopolitan and arcane cultures in Manila. The artists' critical and experientially-grounded methods portray a specific Philippines in constant flux.

KAWAYAN DE GUIA

Self and the Other (2012)

Silverlens

Address: 47 Malan Road, #01-25, Singapore 109444

Silverlens' first art exhibit, which I was able to see on my visit, was that of Philippine artist Luis Lorenzana.
Photo below of his work by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop




Other Gillman Barracks images below...