Art Links

-First, the Louvre is launching an English version of their online database, Atlas, today. I think I'm probably going to spend the rest of the day just browsing the high-res images.

-The Courtauld Institute in London is considering some major cost-cutting strategies that will affect 3 of their image archives, almost cutting off access to them completely and ceasing to collect new items.

-The Hague's Gemeentemuseum is commencing their restoration plans for their collection of Mondrian paintings.

I just found my next degree program

There's an article in the Times today about an association called the Association for Research into Crimes against Art that offers an MA in Art Crime. Is this the coolest thing ever? Yes.

The 9-month long program covers all aspects of art crime, from forgery to art theft, and is geared toward post-graduate students from all fields--lawyers, security professionals, students of art history, criminology, and conservation. All this, and the schooling takes place in Amelia, Italy, in Umbria, as if it could get any better.

Check out the ARCA's website for more information. Who's in?

Contemporary art meets reality TV

I'm not sure if this is going to be great, or if Bravo's finally taken reality competition shows to the limit: Bravo is producing a new TV show that's basically the Project Runway of the contemporary art world. 13 finalists from all over the country will compete for a gallery show, a cash prize, and a national museum tour.

However, it is unclear exactly what format the show will take as far as challenges go. Will Bravo use a similar "quick-fire" challenge like on Top Chef? As Kennedy brilliantly asks: "Best postironic conceptual gambit in under a minute?" How will the show be received by "art world people"? So far, Simon de Pury of Phillips de Pury auction house has been revealed as a judge, and I'm really curious as to who else they're going to get. Will top galleries be represented? So many questions!

What do you guys think about the new art reality show?

Christie's Embraces the iPhone

Christie's, ever at the forefront of online-auction technology, has developed an iPhone app that allows users to browse catalogs, zoom in for close-image analysis, and check sales results. You can also get directions to Christie's salerooms and decorate your iPhone with downloadable wallpapers.

For the truly serious Christie's enthusiast who's in it for much more than just a couple of Impressionist wallpapers, iPhone users can also use their camera function to submit items for appraisal, and eventually the app may have a live bidding function as well.

Users can already live-bid through the internet on Christie's Live, which offers real time video of the saleroom (which is fun just to watch sometimes, especially at big evening sales, more exciting than a courtroom drama!).

Check out Christie's On the Go page for an assortment of widgets, podcasts, an iGoogle auction calendar, and of course, the new iPhone app.

In a total art-world turnaround, the Old Master paintings summer sales at both Christie's and Sotheby's did far better than expected, even beating out the dismal totals from the recent impressionist, modern, and contemporary sales.

Big-ticket items included a Willem Heda still life that went for 1.38 million pounds, a newly attributed Frans Hals, and Fra Bartolommeo's Madonna and Child. Could these auction results be evidence of a shift in popularity in favor of Old Master works and away from the modern and contemporary that's dominated the art scene of late? Given the current economic climate, collectors are increasingly careful with their purchases, and Old Masters tend to be a better, more solid investment than whatever is currently hot in the contemporary market.

Interestingly though, as Souren Melikian recently observed regarding the modern art sales, there seems to be a lack of quality art to go around at auctions lately, leading major houses to pad their catalogs. This last round of Old Masters included 19th century works and drawings. Apparently the rush to buy up the last of the "good art" is on.

(And for a little fun, check out these incredible modern "Old Masters")

St. Paul's Cathedral to Get Video Altarpieces

St. Paul's Cathedral, built in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in London, is getting some very unique new altarpieces.

Multi-screen video installations by contemporary artist Bill Viola will be installed in the cathedral in 2011, and are expected to be a huge tourist draw, especially given that the Tate Modern is just across the river. The treasurer of the cathedral, Canon Warner, hopes that in the future St. Paul's will be able to host other contemporary art installations as well.

I'm interested in the progressive attitude and willingness to include new art in old places, but this feels more like a publicity stunt primarily to raise funds for the cathedral instead of an artistic statement. What do you think?

Oldest Christian Bible to be made available online

In what is probably the coolest Bible-related news in recent memory, the remaining 800 pages of the 1600-year old Codex Sinaiticus will be put online:

LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - The surviving parts of the world's oldest Christian bible will be reunited online on Monday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.

The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.

Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by four of the Apostles: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments -- it was originally some 1400 pages long -- also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost.

"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library.

"This 1600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the bible was transmitted from generation to generation," he said.

The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages.

"The Codex ...is arguably the oldest large bound book to have survived," said McKendrick, pointing out that each page is 16 inches tall by 14 inches wide.

"Critically, it marks the definite triumph of bound codices over (papyrus) scrolls - a key watershed in how the Christian bible was regarded as a sacred text," he said.

FOUR-YEAR PROJECT

The ancient parchments, which appear almost translucent, are a collection of sections held by the British Library in London, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, the National Library of Russia and Leipzig University Library in Germany.

Each institution owns different amounts of the manuscript, but the British Library, which digitised the delicate pages of the entire book in London, holds by far the most.

The four-year joint project, which began in 2005 with the aim of "virtually reunifying" and preserving the bible, as well as undertaking new research into its history, has shed new light on who made it and how it was produced.

Importantly, experts at the British Library say, the project has uncovered evidence that a fourth scribe - along with the three already recognised -- worked on the texts.

The assembly and transcription of the book includes previously unpublished pages of the Codex found in a blocked-off room at St. Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Moses, Sinai, in 1975, some of which are in a poor condition and have been difficult to study.

But there are still many unanswered questions about how the book came to be, said the British Library's Juan Garces, project manager of Greek manuscripts, who worked on the digitisation. For instance, where was it made? which religious order commissioned it? And how long did it take to produce?

"The limits on access to this manuscript previously have meant that people (academics) have tended to dip, so that they have seized on particular things" to advance theories, McKendrick told Reuters in an interview.

He said the website will enable research to be carried out in a holistic way for the first time, forcing top scholars to view their theories in context.

A good example, he said, was evidence advanced by some academics pointing to the theory that it could have been made in the ancient city of Cesarea in Israel.

"It is our hope this will provide the catalyst for new research and it is already creating great interest," Garces told Reuters.

The bible, which can be viewed online free from Monday, includes modern Greek translations and some sections translated into English.

The British Library is expecting massive interest from believers around the world as well as the academic community.

"When 25 percent of the images were made available online last July we had 3.5 million hits in the first day (a record), and it crashed the site," a spokesman said.