Arts Roundup: As One Woman ‘Rapes’ a Twombly, Are Churches Once Again Embracing Artists?
July 25th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
“Although it has become a somewhat sappy and romanticized notion, the individual artist really does pose a threat to all totalitarian regimes,” writes Santiago Ramos in First Things on Why Dictators Fear Artists. “The romance should not take away from the reality of the artist’s power.” Perhaps that’s why a Spanish court is censoring an unruly caricature, as Al Jazeera reports.
Art News Blog posts on the magazine’s article on the top 200 art collectors worldwide. The list seems to include a good deal of folks interested in religious art.
(Right) A Twombly, though not The kissed one, looks like it might have gotten some action from a lipstick-covered maiden.
Seattle’s Good Shepherd Center chapel now houses music shows, reports the Post-Intelligencer. This might be part of a larger movement of churches and artists collaborating, as IHT reports. Whereas recently, collaborations between churches and artists “has waned somewhat, partly because religious sanctuaries were not always thought to be the most appropriate settings for modern art,” a new “wave of contemporary art installations is being unveiled in cathedrals, churches and chapels across Europe, religious spaces are once again becoming showcases for many artists.”
In other news, Dubai is building a very tall tower, a woman has kissed a a Cy Twombly painting, rubber ducks are becoming charitable and Asian art curator (soon to be retired) Emily Sano talks to the SF Chronicle.