Marc Gauthier

* The exhibit Le Louvre à Québec [The Louvre Museum in Quebec City] now has a microsite.

* Claude Monet’s The basin of waterlilies sold for 80.5 million Canadian dollars this week. In an AFP article, printed by several newspapers across the world, the conversion from British pounds to Euros is completely crazy. Forty million pounds is equivalent to about 50 million, not 80… Jeers go to Montreal daily Le Devoir for reproducing the mistaken conversion while cheers are in order for Cyberpresse. Perhaps the agency issued a correction that was not published? More details at Le Figaro.

[newyorkcitywaterfalls.com]

* Waterfalls will flow under the Brooklyn Bridge and three other spots the East River this summer. [article]

* How to detect forgery? Easy: you just have to check for the presence or absence of nuclear isotopes caused by nuclear explosions. [article]

* Who knew that John McEnroe and Tatum O’Neal had been captured by Andy Warhol? The double portrait is on sale in London on 1st July. [see the work]

* A new copyright law could see the light of day in the USA. It would allow the reproduction of works whose authors can not be traced. In Canada, you have to go through the Copyright Board when such a case occurs to fill out an application. Board then possibly delivers a license.

* Always the same debate: one commentator finds that art is empty.

[City of Shadows, Alexey Titarenko]

* I’ve been observing these pictures from Alexey Titarenko and I don’t get tired. In his serie City of Shadows, he stretched the exposure time of his camera to catch the passage of people on his film prints. The result provides ghostly photographs where passerbies seem to leave parts of themselves behind them… [see all images]

* In computer news, Carnegie-Mellon (PA) has developed software to determine the most likely place where a photograph was taken. An algorithm is looking for similar photos on Flickr… One step closer to the recognition of images by computers. [article]

Half of Quebec museums operate with a budget of less than $ 123,000.

Manif d’Art 4 draws to its end - we’re in the final sprint until Sunday.

The Museum of French America [Musée de l’Amérique-Française] presents Forgotten Presence: The Huguenots in New France until March 22, 2009.

[photo credits: Idra Labrie, Musée de l’Amérique-Française]

This week is also the good time to visit the archaeological area of the Palais in Quebec City. It is open to the public until June 13. It is on this location the Palace of the Intendant of New France was located. It is also where the first brewery operated in Quebec. The Côte du Palais draws its name from the building.

The Visionaries’ Garden [Le Potager des Visionnaires] was inaugurated this week. Charming - but I didn’t take my breath away.

Another week, another grandiose architectural project for Dubai. This week: a new amphitheatre for the opera, designed by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher. It must be where all that money from oil is spent. [Other photos]

[Draft of a cultural centre and an opera, Dubai; Source: Dezeen Blog]

A museum guard who did not like a painting by Vija Celmin decided to cut it with a key. The act of vandalism has proved fatal to the work. The painting Night Sky # 12 was exposed in the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

Some gold artworks stolen from the Museum of Anthropology at the University of BC are back.

In 1957, an art gallery in California is closed by police in Los Angeles. The exhibition by Wallace Berman is considered obscene. It will be the only solo exhibition of the artist.
In 1962, Andy Warhol presents his first solo exhibition at the same place: Andy Warhol: Campbell’s Soup Cans. Five cans were sold at $ 100 each, but the owner of the gallery bought the lot to keep it intact.
Both events took place in the Ferus Gallery. Its story is told in the documentary The Cool School, which was broadcasted this week by Independent Lenses. It reruns on Vermont Public Television (WETK) (Thursday 12, 3:00; Friday, 13, 22.00) and PBS Mountain Lake (WCFE) (Sunday 15, 23:30). Set your VCRs!

The photographer Claude Dityvon died in La Rochelle.

The exhibition of contemporary art Art Basel ended with a massive crowd success: 60,000 people have passed through the doors.

A Russian billionaire decides not to sponsor a retrospective devoted to Kabakov. The event will take place anyway.

Tate Britain asks the public to help it buy an oil sketch by Rubens. The work in question, The Apotheosis of James I, is a study of the ceiling of the Banqueting House in London. It is important for some English people.

[Banqueting House; source: wikimedia.org]