Final Christie's Report: Detroit Art Worth Up to $867-Million

DETROIT FREE PRESS
By Randy Kennedy

Detail from Michelangelo drawing for design of Sistine Chapel, estimates auction value is $12 million to $20 million

MICHIGAN---The price tags are on the paintings. Detroit’s emergency manager released a report from Christie’s auction house on Thursday detailing market estimates for some of the greatest masterpieces in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art. The estimates – which Christie’s said would total between $454 million and $867 million – cover about 2,800 pieces, or less than 5 percent of the institute’s entire collection because Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn D. Orr, asked Christie’s to focus only on pieces that had been bought with city funds over the years, not ones than had been donated or bought with other funds. The museum and its supporters have vowed to go to court to try to stop any sale. [link]

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Time to Sell the Family Jewels, Detroit

THE DAILY BEAST
By Nick Gillespie

Photo by Joshua Lott/Reuters

MICHIGAN---Saddled with billions in debt, there's no good reason the city shouldn't sell its art collection worth as much as $866 million. If you really want to make jaws drop in polite conversation, don’t waste your time suggesting that bankrupt Detroit merely stiff its pensioners and creditors harder than John Holmes did his costars in 1976’s Tell Them Johnny Wadd Is Here. Instead, suggest that the city unload its little-seen yet high-valued art collection hiding in plain sight at The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). As urban theorist Joel Kotkin has put it, “We get it wrong. We think the cultural amenities drives the prosperity [in cities], when it’s really the prosperity that drives the cultural amenities.” [link]

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U.S. Foundation Buys Sacred Native American Masks to Return to the Hopi Nation

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By David Ng

A Hopi mask that was being sold by the Paris auction house Eve as part of a sale of Native American objects on Monday.

CALIFORNIA---The Annenberg Foundation has revealed that it was an anonymous bidder that paid $530,000 for 24 Native American artifacts that were being sold at a controversial auction in Paris earlier this week. The Los Angeles-based charitable organization headed by Wallis Annenberg said that it will return the artifacts to the Hopi Nation and to the San Carlos Apache tribe. Monday's controversial sale took place several months after another French auction house sold 70 Native American artifacts despite international criticism. Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou sold the objects at an April auction for a total of €930,000 ($675,479). [link]

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Opinion: Satanists Raising Hell to an Art Form in Oklahoma City

THE SEATTLE TIMES
By Lance Dickie

OKLAHOMA---If the Oklahoma Legislature can make room for a monument to the Ten Commandments outside the Statehouse in Oklahoma City, then the Satanic Temple of New York wants an artistic expression of its faith in the same place. The state’s lawmakers brought this on themselves with their pinched view of religious privilege. If Oklahoma chooses to make its Statehouse a prop for religious art, then every faith can claim space. That is how ACLU Oklahoma sees it, and I agree. [link]

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Documentary “Detroit Art City” Highlights Financial Crisis at DIA

THE MORNING SUN

"Annunciatory Angel" (1450/1455) by Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk.

MICHIGAN---While the fate of the art collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts is threatened with sale in the city bankruptcy, a new documentary premiering Wednesday sheds light onto the history of one of the top comprehensive art museums on the country. The Detroit Public Television documentary “Detroit Art City,” premiering at 9 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11, on WTVS-Channel 56, will provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on the museum. The documentary also will stream live at www.dptv.org/dia. The 60-minute “Detroit Art City” takes viewers behind the scenes at the DIA to trace the museum’s triumphs and challenges through the years. [link]

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More Hopi Masks to be Auctioned in France, Despite United States Government Efforts

ARTDAILY

FRANCE---A Paris auction of sacred objects from the Hopi and San Carlos Apache Native American tribes will "probably" go ahead despite US objections, the auctioneer said on Sunday. A number of ceremonial masks and head-dresses are due to go under the hammer at the EVE auction house on Monday after the failure of a legal challenge by advocacy group Survival International. The battle is a rerun of one earlier this year in which French firm Neret-Minet ignored international appeals to halt the sale of some 70 masks that eventually fetched around 930,000 euros ($1.3 million). [link]

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Christie’s Reveals Detroit Art Appraisal: $866 Million

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Randy Kennedy

“Death on a Pale Horse” (1796) by Benjamin West; Credit 
Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund

MICHIGAN---The heart of the world-class collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts would raise somewhere between $452 million and $866 million if sold to help the City of Detroit dig its way out of bankruptcy, Christie’s said Wednesday, announcing the results of a highly anticipated appraisal. Christie’s examination was limited to works that were bought entirely or in part with city funds, because those works could be sold more easily than donated works, for example, whose sale could generate legal challenges. So the appraisal covers only a small part of the collection in terms of numbers — less than 5 percent of the museum’s 66,000 works — but many of the works are among the most important in the collection, by artists like Bruegel, Matisse and van Gogh. While Christie’s did not release estimates for individual works, it did note that 11 works — which it did not name — accounted for 75 percent of the total estimate in its report. [link]

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The Christian Art Debate: Sugar-Sweet, Ironic, Naïve, and Talented

CHRISTIANITY TODAY
By N.D. Wilson

Art exhibition explores creation and new ideas of expression

For most people, Christianity and art no longer resonate as a glorious pairing. It's a sad and sorry truth that even as Christians, we've largely lost our respect and reverence for "Christian art." Everyone is insecure about the branding of Christian art. Everyone worries about being labeled cheesy—even the cheesiest people I know. Some artists delude themselves into thinking that they aren't, and others attempt to divorce their faith from their creations with a secular firewall. I come to you with strange news. Brace yourselves. Did a culture of atheism bring us Handel's Messiah? What faith fed the Dutch masters? Now before you start pointing to some of the unbelieving masters, watch me cheat: all beauty is God's. Even those who hate him are made in his image, and if they, by grace, craft glory, we should thank them very much for their contribution and swipe it. [link]

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French Fall-Out Over Restoration of Isenheim Altarpiece

THE ART NEWSPAPERBy Vincent Noce

The Isenheim Altarpiece has been dismantled and moved because work is being carried out on the museum’s chapel

FRANCE---The unorthodox and unauthorised restoration in 2011 of a 16th-­century masterpiece, housed until recently in Colmar’s Musée Unterlinden, has divided experts and highlighted some glaring gaps in France’s management of its art treasures. The debate revolves around Mathias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, which has been compared to the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Created in the 1520s for the Antonite monastery, a ­hospice in nearby Isenheim for plague victims and sick peasants, the altarpiece is formed of seven painted wooden wings, folded around a gilded reliquary carved in Strasbourg by the sculptor Niclaus of Haguenau. [link]

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Gap Praised for Quick Response to Racist Graffiti Against Sikh Model

NEW YORK DAILY
By Carol Kuruvilla

NEW YORK--- Images of Sikh Model Waris Ahluwalia in Gap’s new “Make Love” campaign are still being defaced in New York City. A vandal apparently tried to rip Ahluwalia out of a Gap ad inside the Christopher St. station. Evidence of racist graffiti against the Sikh actor and designer started appearing online on Tuesday. Journalist Arsalan Iftikhar alerted his social media followers to a subway ad that compared the 39-year-old Ahluwalia to a terrorist. The vandal replaced “Make Love” with “Make bombs,” then wrote, “Please stop driving taxis.” [link]

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Francesco Vezzoli’s Italian Church Art Is Halted on Its Way to NYC's PS1

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ted Loos and Gaia Pianigiani

The church packed for its planned trip to New York.

ITALY---It was a typically elaborate, provocative move by the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli in a career full of them: He had contracted to buy the ruins of an old deconsecrated church in the southern Italian town of Montegiordano and had planned to ship them to New York, brick by brick, for exhibition in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. But “The Church of Vezzoli,” as the exhibition was to be called, was canceled Monday in the midst of a legal imbroglio in Italy. The MoMA PS1 show was meant to be the third leg of “The Trinity,” a multicity retrospective of Mr. Vezzoli’s work. [link]

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Gap's Ad With Sikh Model Waris Ahluwalia Defaced With Racist Graffiti, Drawing Incredible Response From Company

THE HUFFINGTON POST

NEW YORK---This is how the Internet is supposed to work. Arsalan Iftikhar, senior editor at The Islamic Monthly and founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, posted a picture to his Twitter and Facebook wall of a defaced subway advertisement for Gap featuring Sikh actor and jewelry designer Waris Ahluwalia. He told The Huffington Post, "I wanted the world to see how millions of brown people are viewed in America today." The next day, Gap tweeted back at Iftikhar to find out the location of the ad, which is part of its holiday "#MakeLove" campaign featuring a wide variety of diverse models. But that wasn't all. The company proceeded to change its Twitter background to the picture of Ahluwalia, to show solidarity and support.[link]

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Vatican Unveils Frescoes In Catacombs of Priscilla With Images Some Say Show Early Women Priests

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Nicole Winfield

A fresco adorns the Catacombs of Priscilla, a labyrinthine cemetery complex that stretches for kilometers underground, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013.

VATICAN CITY---The Vatican on Tuesday unveiled newly restored frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla, known for housing the earliest known image of the Madonna with Child — and frescoes said by some to show women priests in the early Christian church. More controversially, the catacomb tour features two scenes said by proponents of the women's ordination movement to show women priests: One in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist. The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, which includes women who have been excommunicated by the Vatican for participating in purported ordination ceremonies, holds the images up as evidence that there were women priests in the early Christian church — and that therefore there should be women priests today. [link]

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Learning from President Lincoln to Build a Team of Rivals: Art + Religion

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS 
By Ernest Disney-Britton

"Birth of Jesus" (2010) by Tom Torluemke

On Monday, I gave a tour to the Regional Board of Directors of the Disciples of Christ of the A&OPrize exhibition, "Religious Risks" at Indiana Interchurch Center. The experience reminded me of the book "Team of Rivals", where Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote about Abraham Lincoln's brilliant ability to bring together rivals as part of his administration. Isn't the conflict between the worlds of art and faith simply a rivalry between two great powers of influence?

In the newest issue of SEEN, Taylor Worley wrote: "Is moving beyond this conflict even possible? Can the rivalry be resolved?" Many artists, and clergy, make the argument that the rivalry is good. "Our job as artists is not to seek the easy way but to challenge society and open up some wounds, so that they can be cleaned rather than allow them to fester," said American Theatre director Peter Sellars. If this rivalry is a good thing, and that was the consensus amongst the Disciples on Monday, what should we be doing about it? I suggest we keep pushing engagement, and rejecting avoidance. We need to be more like Lincoln and bring the rivals together. It will benefit us all.

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Restored Rome Catacomb Frescoes Add to Debate on Women Priests

RUETERS
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY---Proponents of a female priesthood say frescoes in the newly restored Catacombs of Priscilla prove there were women priests in early Christianity. The Vatican says such assertions are sensationalist "fairy tales". Art lovers and the curious around the world who cannot get to Rome can join the debate by using a virtual visit to the underground labyrinth by Google Maps, a first-time venture mixing antiquity and modern high technology. The Catacombs of Priscilla are also famous for a fresco which experts believe is the oldest known image of the Madonna and Child, dating to about 230 AD. Lost for centuries after its entrances were sealed in ancient time, the catacombs were re-discovered in the 16th century and plundered of many gravestones, sarcophagi and bodies. Excavations in modern times began in the 19th century. [link]

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Does 'Ender's Game' Tell the Bible Story of Joseph?

THE CHRISTIAN POST
By Tyler O'Neil

HOLLYWOOD---The new film "Ender's Game," based off the book by Mormon writer Orson Scott Card, may carry some Christian themes, and one reviewer claims it mimics the biblical story of Joseph. The film "parallels directly Joseph's dealing with this brothers," Robert Hamel, assistant professor of Theatre Arts at Westmont College and a Lutheran pastor for 29 years, told The Christian Post in an interview on Thursday. Hamel compared the character Ender's crisis of conscience to Joseph's decision to feed the very same brothers who once sold him into slavery. "In a creative way, the movie uses Ender's family dynamic to show how the character of a leader is shaped," Hoose writes. In a society where families are only allowed to have two kids, Ender is the third – but his parents still value him deeply. [link]

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Bishop Thomas Olmsted Is Pursuing a Vendetta Against the ADL

PHOENIX NEW TIMES

Bishop Thomas Olmsted kicked the ADL out of Phoenix Catholic schools and
continues to pursue a hard-line stance even as Pope Francis softens the church's tone.

ARIZONA---With the challenges and dangers that young students face today (online bullying, offline bullying, gossip, hate, and the increasingly common school shooting) programs like the Anti-Defamation League's "World of Difference" has arguably never been more important. But Phoenix Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted disagrees. In this week's cover story, "Bishop Thomas Olmsted Expels the ADL's Sensitivity Training from Catholic Schools," Michael Lacey details how Olmsted has clung to outdated church doctrine in his vendetta against the ADL. [link]

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Hindu Goddesses Mix With Mortal Art and Activism

WOMENS E-NEWS
By Reshmi Kaur Oberoi

A wounded goddess Lakshmi from the Abused Goddesses campaign.

INDIA---The subject of who can tap Hindu goddess imagery and for what reasons has been stirring rising discussion, particularly in India, where some female artists are invoking goddess power in a year of notoriously brutal gang rapes. In India, taking such artistic license can stir controversy over crossing a religious line. When the Indian ad agency Taproot released an "Abused Goddesses" campaign in India in September, Jasmine Wahi, an American artist of Indian descent, had a two-part reaction. First she liked it; then she didn't. [link]

In two recent gallery shows in New York female artists of Indian heritage emphasized the universal appeal and power of female Hindu deities.

• Jasmine Wahi's exhibit: "The Least Unorthodox Goddess," at Gallery 151 in Manhattan from July 18 through Sept. 22, featured white walls dotted with contemporary paintings, word-art and a solid white box with a hole, that if looked into, revealed an old-fashioned Hindi film actress, mid-song, with a cathedral in the backdrop. 
• Manjari Sharma's exhibit: "Darshan," at the ClampArt gallery, showcased a very different atmosphere in her Sept. 12 to Oct. 12 show to describe a connection between a deity and a mortal. Vedic verses, texts extracted from Hindu holy scriptures, permeated the air and were punctuated by the anecdotal crackling of oil lamps.

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Rihanna Asked to Leave Mosque in Abu Dhabi

ARTS BEAT | NYT
By Dave Itzkoff

Rihanna posed for a photo in front of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

ABU DHABI---Rihanna was asked to leave the site of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi after posing for photographs there over the weekend that the shrine’s overseers said had violated the “sanctity” of the site. In photos that Rihanna posted on her Instagram and Twitter accounts, she is seen posing at the mosque site, in the United Arab Emirates capital city. Though she is fully covered in the photographs, with only her face, hands and painted fingernails visible in some of the shots, these images drew some negative responses from online commenters, like one who responded with an obscene word, adding: “Leave our holy place and keep your filth away from it. We don’t need you.” [link]

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Legal Fight Swirls Over 'Recommended' N.Y. Museum Charges

THE CRHONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY 

NEW YORK---Two lawsuits working their way through New York State courts seek to address the confusion experienced by many visitors to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art—especially those from abroad—in determining what to pay to enter, writes The New York Times. The Met has operated under a “pay what you wish” policy since 1970, when the museum struck a deal with city officials it says supersedes its original 1876 lease with the city, which mandated free entry on most days. Signs above cash desks at the entrance state charges in bold type, topping out at $25 for non-senior adults, with the word “recommended” below in smaller type. [link]

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