Now available: Contemporary architecture in Mexico from Art on File

Fernando Romero, Soumaya Museum; overview, 2011, Mexico City, Mexico. Image and original data provided by Art on File; artonfile.com

Artstor Digital Library and Art on File are now sharing more than 1,500 new direct-digital capture photographs of architecture, built environment projects, and landscape architecture in Mexico City.

The focus of this release is on the most recent developments in the architectural evolution of the city, as well as modernist buildings, UNESCO world heritage sites, iconic murals, historic parks, monuments, and colonial edifices.

Sites and locations documented include the Museum of Memory and Tolerance, Arditti + RDT Architects; the National Museum of Anthropology, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Jorge Campuzano, and Rafael Mijares; Soumaya Museum, LAR + Fernando Romero; Plaza Juarez Complex, Legorreta + Legorreta Architects; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro Gonzales de Leon; Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez; XXI Century National Film Archive, Rojkind Arquitectos; Arcos Bosques, Teodoro Gonzales de Leon; Escuela Nacional de Arte Teatral; Spain’s Cultural Center, Javier Sanchez; and Museo Estudio Diego Rivera, Juan O’Gorman.

Additional contemporary Asian Art from the Asia Art Archive

Artstor and the Asia Art Archive (AAA) are now sharing approximately 9,900 images of contemporary Asian art in the Digital Library. The AAA’s extensive collection of material includes contemporary artists in several Asian countries, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, India, and Pakistan, as well as artists of Asian descent active worldwide and artists of non-Asian descent living in Asia. Selections from the portfolios of individual artists will be included, materials from personal archives donated by artists, art historians, and critics, as well as documentation of contemporary art installations and art events (exhibitions, biennials, triennials, etc.) from across Asia.

Based in Hong Kong, Asia Art Archive is a non-profit organization and registered charity dedicated to the documentation of the recent history of visual art from Asia within an international context. Initiated in 2000, AAA’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make information on contemporary Asian art easily accessible in order to facilitate understanding, research and writing in the field. Over the course of ten short years of collecting and documenting, AAA has amassed the world’s most comprehensive collection of primary and secondary source material on contemporary Asian art in the field.

In the news: #thatdress

Georges Lepape (illustrator); Paul Poiret (costume designer), “Les Jardins de Versailles – Costume de Paul Poiret dans le goût Louis XIV”, 1913. Image and catalog data provided by Allan T. Kohl, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Lepape: © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris, Poiret: © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

A poorly taken photograph of a dress and the simple question “what color is it?” spread all over social media and was picked up by several news outlets. Some people in our office saw black and blue, others white and gold, but we all agreed—enough is enough with #thatdress! The Artstor Digital Library offers you thousands of more interesting dresses from collections like Museum at FIT, Gazette du Bon Ton (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Brooklyn Museum Costumes.

Friday links: Portland style, tell-tale ears, LED Northern Lights

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org

Some stories we’ve been reading this week:

• The Portland Art Museum is giving its artworks a makeover, “Portland Style.”
• Why did Donatello bother to carve a realistic sandal when nobody would be able to see it?
• Archaeologists came up with a novel way to determine whether the warriors in the famous Chinese terracotta army were based on individual people: by looking at their ears.
• And speaking of funerary art, the frescoes of the Santa Priscilla catacombs in Rome bring up a lot of interesting questions.
• A sad sign of the times: Researchers have launched a project to record and map ancient sites in the Middle East before they are destroyed by warfare, looting, and urban expansion.

The secret names of Italian Renaissance artists

Rosso Fiorentino (Giovanni Battista di Jacopo), Angel Playing a Lute; detail, 1521, Galleria degli Uffizi. Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.; artres.com; scalarchives.com; (c) 2006, SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y.

Have you ever wondered why you rarely see the names of the greats from the Italian Renaissance reoccur in art history?  Why do we not see more than one artist with names such as Ghirlandaio, Masaccio, or Tintoretto? It’s because a lot of these were not really names, they were nicknames! Some, like Verrocchio (“true eye”), were flattering, while others, like Guercino (“squinter”), not so much.

Here’s a list of some of the most memorable names from the Renaissance and what they really mean:

New agreement: RISD Museum

Artstor and the RISD Museum are collaborating to share 3,200 images from the Museum’s permanent collection in the Digital Library.

The RISD Museum is an internationally renowned art museum distinguished by its relationship to one of the world’s leading colleges of art and design. Founded alongside the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1877, the Museum houses seven curatorial departments and approximately 100,000 objects dating from 3700 BCE to the present day, and featuring major figures in the history of visual art and culture. Highlights include one of the nation’s finest collections of costume and textiles, with more than 26,000 objects created since 1500 BCE; the world’s largest collection of Gorham silver, housed in the first museum wing devoted to American decorative arts; a 12th-century seated Buddha, one of the largest Japanese statues in the United States; and significant collections of ancient Egyptian objects, Impressionist paintings, contemporary British art, 20th- and 21st-century design, and more.

Friday links: Japanese cats, the Banksy of money, and Warhol eats a burger

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org

Some stories we’ve been reading this week:

• Next month, the Japan Society is presenting “Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection,” featuring 90 woodblock prints and related objects. We. Cannot. Wait.
• A new computer program can distinguish real Jackson Pollocks from fakes. If only it would also spell-check to make sure he’s not called “Pollack,” as in the article’s sub-headline.
• Have Giotto’s fourteenth-century frescoes in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi been damaged by over-ambitious restorations?
• What if Banksy painted on money instead of buildings? A shadowy Greek artist is drawing politically-inspired images on Euro bills.