A new, vividly colored portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has emerged from the windows of Arezzo’s Cathedral in Tuscany, Italy, claims an Italian scholar who has published the finding in a new book, “The Portraits of Leonardo.”
Depicting an amiable, bearded old man wearing a red hat, the portrait is one of many figures appearing in the stained glass on the cathedral’s right wall.
Read the full article over at discovery.com.
NYMag has a nice write up about the new Younger Than Jesus exhibit which highlights a bunch of young–but relatively not-young–artists who have yet to out live Jesus. That really actually isn’t interesting, but the article it’s self does have a few high points, namely:
In the last years of the boom, numerous artists came to the fore who have their aesthetic heads up the aesthetic asses of Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Cady Noland, and Christopher Wool. They make punkish black-and-white art and ad hoc arrangements of disheveled stuff, architectural fragments, and Xeroxed photos. This art deals in received ideas about appropriation, conceptualism, and institutional critique. It’s a cool school, admired by jargon-wielding academics who write barely readable rhetoric explaining why looking at next to nothing is good for you. Many of these artists have sold a lot of work, and most will be part of a lost generation. They thought they were playing the system; it turned out that they were themselves being played.
Finish it up here. Quickly.
The Generational; Younger Than Jesus
The New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002
nr. Prince St. See Map | Subway Directions 
212-219-1222 Send to Phone
Reuben Margolin, a Bay Area visionary and longtime maker, creates totally singular techno-kinetic wave sculptures. Using everything from wood to cardboard to found and salvaged objects, Reubens artwork is diverse, with sculptures ranging from tiny to looming, motorized to hand-cranked. Focusing on natural elements like a discrete water droplet or a powerful ocean eddy, his work is elegant and hypnotic. Learn more about Reuben at http://www.reubenmargolin.com.
According to New York Magazine and anyone who desires to suckle from the tit of Charles Saatchi, “video game artist” Mark Essen (whose games include such masterpieces as PUNISHMENT, wherein you “try to climb to the top of the screen while the game tries to confuse you.”) is the next big thing and there is nothing you or your so-yesterday’s aesthetic can do about it.
At 22, Essen is about to erupt on the art scene. He is the youngest of the 50 artists in the New Museum’s “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus,” the international exhibition exclusively showcasing the work of artists 33 and under (it opens April 8). His medium is as slacker-appropriate as it gets: Essen creates video games that are lo-fi in the extreme, evoking not the elegance of Shadow of the Colossus but dim memories of your old Commodore 64. “We looked at hundreds of portfolios,” says New Museum curator Lauren Cornell. “The way we made the selection was partly through the themes we saw, and one of the themes was obsolete technology. Mark’s working with video games because they’re cheap, available, and outdated, and he’s original in terms of applying his knowledge of avant-garde cinema to their creation.”
All hail the new Art Overlord Jesus King Mark Essen, may his reign be as short and tortuous as his video games.
Nice video of UK artist HUSH getting ready for his recent solo exhibition HYMN TO BEAUTY at the Carmichael Gallery.
For more information on the show go here.
