Catch Gerhard Richter online or before the show finishes

Tate Online offers a range of videos about artists in the 'Tateshots' series. On the occasion of his major retrospective at Tate Modern a lovely video featuring Gerhard Richter talking to Nick Serota (Director of the Tate) has been  linked from the exhibition's webpage  here.

"Spanning nearly five decades, and coinciding with the artist’s 80th birthday, Gerhard Richter: Panorama is a major retrospective exhibition that groups together significant moments of his remarkable career.Since the 1960s, Gerhard Richter has immersed himself in a rich and varied exploration of painting. Gerhard Richter: Panorama highlights the full extent of the artist's work, which has encompassed a diverse range of techniques and ideas. It includes realist paintings based on photographs, colourful gestural abstractions such as the squeegee paintings, portraits, subtle landscapes and history paintings."  from Tate pages for 'Panorama'
Gerhard Richter: Panorama at Tate Modern 6 October 2011  –  8 January 2012

More Tateshots from the Tate Channel can be viewed from here

Steve Jobs- two different viewpoints

I am back after a  long absence but the blog will now be updated regularly as before-spread the word and keep reading!!

BBC 2 screened a documentary on 14th December entitled ' Steve Jobs: Million Dollar Hippy' "a long-haired college dropout with infinite ambition, and an inspirational perfectionist with a bully's temper. A man of contradictions, he fused a Californian counterculture attitude and a mastery of the art of hype with explosive advances in computer technology.
Insiders including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the chairman who ousted Jobs from the company he founded, and Jobs' chief of software, tell extraordinary stories of the rise, fall and rise again of Apple with Steve Jobs at its helm.
With Stephen Fry, world wide web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and branding guru Rita Clifton, Evan Davis decodes the formula that took Apple from suburban garage to global supremacy."

The arts desk an online arts reviews website has published a trenchant reaction to the programme by Jasper Rees in the wake of the BBC documentary.

Enjoy both and think about what Apple means to you (and the world).

Artists’ Books Special Collection in Howard Gardens Library

Some of the items from our 50 new Artists' Books are now on display in a magnificent lighted glass case to be found in the Yellow Room (to the left as you enter Howard Gardens library). Information about the books  can be found by searching LOCATE, the Library catalogue, as normal . The books are for reference only and not kept on the shelves but may be viewed upon request -ask for details at the Library desk. The display in the Artists' Book Collection glass cabinet will be changed periodically to allow the full range of material to be seen.
The collection includes items such as Sioux Bradshaw’s ‘Art Lover Seeks’:  a simple A4 single printed and folded page and Franticham’s Assembling Box of visual poetry and Fluxus inspired works - a set of individual sheets from over 20 contributing artists. Some of Jill Barker’s ‘Somerset Stones’ series include wood engraved prints and house actual stones within the pages, and Jo Wilson’s limited edition ‘Beside the Sea’ is a single scroll contained in a boxed wooded frame. The collection also includes Zines. New artists' books will continue to be added to this new and exciting resource.

Bright Ideas Lighting

Inhabitat (a weblog forum for emerging trends in architectural interior and product design), in partnership with Philips Lighting recently ran a competition called Bright Ideas Lighting. The idea of the competition was to showcase the potential of LED lighting. They were looking for examples of inspiring eco-friendly lamps that make smart use of materials, and are designed to work with low-energy LED replacement bulbs like Philips AmbientLED. (Since LED bulbs are low heat, this was an opportunity to get creative with other materials that might be off-limits with traditional incandescent bulbs). The panel of expert judges selected 20 finalists based upon aesthetics, creativity, sustainability, practicality, and commercial viability. Readers then voted for the winner.

The winner, designer Edward Chew,  cut box drink cartons into hundreds of strips and folded them into pieces to create his Tetra Pak lamp . Along with its retro looks and attractiveness it is also a creative example of upcycled design and craftsmanship – it was even assembled without the use of any adhesives!

Read about the competion and the other winners here

Ted Prize 2011

TED is devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

The TED Prize is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, "One Wish to Change the World."

After several months of preparation, the wish is unveiled at an award ceremony held during the TED Conference. Over the life of the prize, wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

This year the prize was awarded to JR

JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world. He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not the museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Act, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.

JR creates "Pervasive Art" that spreads uninvited on the buildings of the slums around Paris, on the walls in the Middle-East, on the broken bridges in Africa or the favelas in Brazil. People who often live with the bare minimum discover something absolutely unnecessary. And they don't just see it, they make it. Some elderly women become models for a day; some kids turn artists for a week. In that Art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators.

JR’s One wish for the World is here. A fabulous talk by the very charming JR and details too on how you can become part of his project Inside Out

The Arts Desk

Anish Kapoor’s Leviathan, a commission for the Monumenta series at the Paris Grand Palais

Here's a great newletter to keep you up with a wide range of items on what's new and good in the media and the arts . Here you will find theatre and film reviews, features on matters of interest such as  'Is Classical music relevant?'or a list of this year's Festivals , and CD, DVD and book reviews and interviews with people from the arts and a comprehensive listing of whats on in cinemas, theatres, galleries and concert halls. Sign up and get a weekly round up of all this in your inbox. As well as seeing  the very latest in the arts you can also view the archives of the newsletter. To subscribe look for the box on the right hand side of this page halfway down

Michael Iwanowski-Photography evening at Chapter

FORUM is an informal, monthly event aiming to develop a core network of emerging artists together with students and graduates. It is co-ordinated by Ffotogallery and WARP for critical discussion and conversation
May's FORUM will be held in Ffotogallery’s meeting space at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff on Thursday 19th May -they will be meeting in the main foyer (box office) from 6.30 to 6.45 – look out for the person with a FORUM sign!
if you arrive later call 02920 668 695 when you arrive and you will be directed to the meeting space.

This Forum will present the chance to hear Cardiff-based photographer Michal Iwanowski talk informally about his practice and projects, followed by Q&A. The rest of the evening will be opened up to the floor for anyone to show and discuss works in progress or forthcoming events or opportunities.No booking necessary. FORUM is a FREE, drop-in event.

If you have any queries or questions please call (029) 2070 8870 or email turnerhouse@ffotogallery.org

Smithsonian Folkways

For access to a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions comprised of an unprecedented variety of online resources go to the Smithsonian Folkways website here. From this webpage you will be able to search and identify recordings of all types of music , or search for recordings of a particular artist or for music using particular instruments. Links from these search results allow you to sample and  if you wish purchase the recordings as digital downloads. The database also includes recordings featuring the spoken word: humour, scientific and historical topics, poetry, birdsong and much more.

For UWIC staff and students: there is a link to this website on  the Subject Guide for  Music Technology

Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951.

The Mapping Sculpture database , the outcome of a major three-year research programme conducted by The University of Glasgow, in partnership with the Victoria & Albert Museum and Henry Moore Institute , delivers the results of the first comprehensive study of sculpture between the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Festival of Britain in 1951.

If you are on a smartphone and would like to access the mobile version, click here

The project  can be summed up as an investigation of sculptural practice that aims to reveal the numerous personal and professional connections underlying the production of sculpture. The project's state of the art database provides the means of searching this complex web of connections.

There are over 50,000 records in the database. This wealth of information can be used to answer many questions and will also suggest many new avenues for further investigation.

autre mers (other seas)

French-born, London-based artist Francoise Dupre makes work that celebrates women's creativity, re-contextualising knitting and stitching activities traditionally associated with domestic space. A new exhibition at the Womens Library in London brings together a series of her installations that use many craft forms to create ephemeral, playful, extraordinary sculptural patterns and objects.

Turner Prize 2011-shortlist announced

The annual Turner Prize has turned its back on London and travelled north to the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead, opening this year on 21 October.

The shortlist has just been announced and this year includes two painters, George Shaw and Karla Black, who are joined  by sculptor Martin Boyce and video artist Hilary Lloyd.

some pictures of the nominees work here

Adrian Searle (Guardian art critic) on this year's nominees

Easter in Port Talbot: The Passion

Michael Sheen (famous as the actor playing Tony Blair in 'The Queen' and Frost in 'Frost/Nixon') returned to his hometown of Port Talbot to direct and act in a 3 day play called The Passion  with a cast of over 1000 (14 actors and the rest members of the community in choirs and bands, amateur acting and dancing groups and ordinary people who thronged the streets).  Staging was by  Bill Mitchell and the Cornish site-specific miracle-workers WildWorks, the sound designer Mike Beer, lighting designer Paul Jarvis, and music director Clair Ingleheart. It was a National Theatre Wales , Wildworks production. The project is described here
The 72-hour performance, inspired by the biblical passion play, took place around the town on Easter weekend. During the marathon event, Sheen performed sequences on Port Talbot's beaches, hills and streets, including "The Trial" at Civic Square, "The Procession" at Station Road and "The Cross" on Aberavon Seafront.
There are some images here and here that show key moments from the Passion Play. Watch out for the filmed version on BBC in the future

Freezeframe- 20,000 Polar images searchable in an online collection

Something for a sunny day with thanks to Sarah Williams

The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge owns a vast and much of it fragile collection of polar images dating from the earliest famous days of polar exploration to the modern day. The photographs allow searchers to  trace the history of polar exploration and also that of polar photography and include images of domestic scenes round camp, aboard the polar vessels, animals polar and expeditionary and staggering landscapes made of ice. These images are now searchable online through Freezeframe, a fully catalogued digital image database of polar exploration photographs from 1845-1982 that has been produced by the Scott Polar Research Institute to support learning, teaching and research into topics relating to the history of Arctic and Antarctic history, exploration, and science.

The  images are presented with ancillary material from the collections of the Institute, and critical essays contextualising much of the material.

Festival of Britain 60 year anniversary

The National Archives Image Library has created a little image collection to celebrate the 60 year anniversary of The Festival of Britain . The Festival of Britain took place from May 3rd-September 30th 1951 to celebrate the British contribution to civilisation, past, present and future in the fields of art, technology and science and to encourage a looking forward after the horrors, privations and losses of the Second World War.
The National Archives Image Library contains other interesting image sets  including ones for Crime, Design, Mining and Maps.

Shawn Lovell metalwork sculptor/designer

I have spotted some very gorgeous one off pieces of furniture from Californian based artist Shawn Lovell. The tree and birds nest bed and the scroll fireplace screen are my favourites.

Shawn specializes in making one-of-kind and commissioned work both commercial and residential using both traditional and modern forging techniques. Her work has ranged from large scale railings, gates, and arbors to fire screens and surrounds, lighting, furniture, hardware and much more.

If you are interested in reading about Blacksmithing in the UK then (if you are a registered UWIC staff or student member)-go to the Learning Portal>Electronic Library>Databases> select Design and Applied Arts Index and search for blacksmithing :UK. Your search results will bring up references to 8 journal articles (mostly from Crafts Magazine) . Howard Gardens has back copies of Crafts Magazine going back to 1973.

Three new electronic journals

The library has subscribed to three new E-journals

·     Design and Culture

      'Design and Culture probes design's relation to other academic disciplines, including marketing, management, cultural studies, anthropology, material culture, geography, visual culture and political economy'.  

      

·     Design Journal

      'The Design Journal is an international refereed journal covering all aspects of design'.

.    Fashion Practice

      'Fashion Practice is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to cover the full range of contemporary design and  manufacture within the context of the fashion industry'.

UWIC staff and students can access these journals from
Learning Portal>Electronic Library>Journals A-Z

New York City Graffiti & Street Art Project

From the same people at Lewis and Clark College that gave us AccessCeramics the image database of contemporary ceramics, we now have the New York City Graffitti & Street Art Project. You can search for images of graffitti and street art by location (using their Google map), by technique, by work type and by subject as well as by support (which includes vehicles).

Product information for architecture and construction

Just added to the Subject Guide for Architecture and Construction on the UWIC Learning portal (for staff  and students at UWIC only) are links to two websites offering free product information for architects and the construction industry.
These are the websites (everyone can view these)

• RIBA Product Selector offers a  database with information about building products , NBS specification information and RIBA CPD providers with free access to product catalogues, technical documents and contact information of 10261 UK manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, trade associations and construction service providers.
• Barbour Product Search  offers an extensive and up-to-date database of manufacturer and product profiles, with images, case studies, technical data and catalogues.

Mission Gallery website launch

If you go to the Mission gallery in Swansea between 11am – 5pm on Saturday 19^th March 2011 you can join in celebrating the launch of its brand new website designed by Cardiff based company Spindogs.

http://www.missiongallery.co.uk/

There will be light refreshments and also a last chance to view the exhibition ‘Hawk and Helicopter’ by Osi Rhys Osmond.

The new website contains information and images on exhibitions past, present and future, the artist residency scheme, events, education outreach and the craft space exhibition area.

Mission Gallery

Gloucester Place

Maritime Quarter

Swansea SA1 1TY

 01792 652016

The BBC Archive contains the equivalent to 600,000 hours of TV and about 350,000 hours of radio-nearly a million hours of material, and a record of the BBC's websites are being added to a New Media archive. The archive is organised into 'Collections' here. The Art and Artists Collection includes archival material on British Sculpture that has recently been augmented with a selection of programmes on major British sculptors such as Epstein Moore and Whiteread- prefect timing for the interest that will be generated by the Royal Academy show on British Sculpture which opened 22nd January . The archive also offers print archival material. Read the history of Dr Who through audience reports, Radio Times interviews and BBC memos in the Collection entitled 'The Changing Face of Doctor Who | How to regenerate a Time Lord'.

Ecobuild-the future of design,construction and the built environment

Ecobuild is the world’s largest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. Starting today and running until 3 March the conference features more than 600 speakers, 1300 exhibitors, 130 seminars and a packed programme of live demonstrations. If you can't make it to this free event (it's at the ExCeL exhibition and conference centre at the heart of the new Green Enterprise District in London’s Docklands) you can still explore the website and read the  Ecobuild blog on which  a panel of leading thinkers and doers, from around the industry share their views on the latest news and events every week.

Plans for Stonehenge

It has long been a common complaint that a visit to Stonehenge is not as soulful an experience as it should by rights be. The best view was always from afar. As one drew near the stones lost their aura and became somehow disappointing, sat by the side of the road and the visitor centre as they were. The architectural practice Denton Corker Marshall, which won the competition to build a new centre , proposes to construct a building 2 km from the Stones that will not be visible from the monument. This webpage features a video which with the magic of digital editing literally wipes away the roads currently near it and leaves Stonehenge to once more impose itself on the landscape. This webpage as well as relating the travails of funding such a large project also posits a new theory on how the stones were moved 150 miles from the Preselli hills to Wiltshire.

Transformation and Revelation: UK Design for Performance 2007 – 2011

 Transformation and Revelation opens in Cardiff at the Welsh College of Music and Drama on March 18th. The exhibition is the work of The Society of British Theatre Designers and is a preview before it travels in part to represent the UK at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial International Exhibition this summer. A selection of designs will be on display at the V&A from 17th March – 30th September 2012.
Designs on display will range from Antony Gormley’s Sutra with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and the Shaolin Warrior Monks for Sadlers Wells to Es Devlin’s designs and projections for the Lady Gaga Monsterball Tour. The exhibition will include drawings, paintings and photographs, 3D artefacts, scale models, specialist props, costumes and puppets, and there will be interactive exhibits from Lighting, Video and Sound designers, Theatre Consultants and Theatre Architects.
The exhibition also offers  the first chance to see inside the new RWCMD building currently under construction which is due to open later this year. The exhibition will take place in a number of spaces including the newly built Richard Burton Theatre.
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, The Castle Grounds, North Rd, Cardiff, CF10 3ER

Monday – Friday 9.30am to 8pm
Saturday and Sunday10am to 5pm
Entrance to this exhibition is free to the general public.

Protest as seen on Flickr

Flickr is a database full of photographs made by both amateurs and professionals, containing both archival and completely contemporary images. There are currently over 5 billion images in a database that is growing at a rate of about 3,000 images every minute according to the Flickr blog.
From Friday till  the end of Sunday night over 9,512 images with the word protest in the title had been posted to Flickr (Last weekend there were only 2,261.) Protests ocurred  in Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Libya, Taiwan, Poland, Germany, the U.K., the U.S., and there are other sympathetic protests in other places in the world.
To see these images go to Advanced Search and enter the word 'protest' and the name of the place.

Beautiful Buddhist figures

The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff  is showing a small but quite wonderful collection of stone carved figures.
This is a lovely little band of musicians I saw on Saturday. There is a Flickr set showing many of the sculptures here

"From Steep Hillsides: Ancient Rock Carvings from Dazu, China" has brought to Cardiff a selection of  sculptures that have become detached from their original setting, along with accurate replicas of some of the most important sculptures still in situ . There are also large panoramic photographs to give some idea of what it is like to visit these spectacular places (staggering) I am going to go-definitely!!
Dazu in Southern China  is a world heritage site and on the steep hillsides there are over 50,000 carved figures . Although they are very old many retain trcaes of colour. Many of the figures of Buddhist monks and bottisivas make you feel calm just to look at them. One of the photos shows a section of the rock carvings that portrays the Buddhist way of 'Parental Love'that stretches for 500metres. At the lower level are the devils (there's a 'knee chopping hell'-not nice), the central segment depicts ordinary people where delightful children are tenderly looked after by loving parents) and buddhas and bodhisattvas (enlightened beings)-larger than humans and godlike sit imposingly over all, on the highest level of the hillside
The sculptures have never before been seen outside China. Don't miss them!!

exhibition runs 26 Jan–3 Apr ( Open Tuesday–Sunday and bank holiday Mondays)http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/whatson/?event_id=4672

Textile Trends

Two free resources offering insight into future trends in textiles

Cosmoworlds 
COSMOWORLDS provides access to information for the international trade community. Contains  trade data, international fashion week and trade show dates as well as information on global trends and lifestyle events

Textile Source blog
A blog created by Textile Source which is an international directory of fabric suppliers, textile companies  textile designers, plus chemical, machinery, fiber, yarn, finishing, printing and dyeing companies involved in the textile supply chain

Masses of Magrittes

If Magritte interests you then you might check out Bridgeman Education which you get to through the Electronic Library>Databases on the UWIC Learning Portal (UWIC staff and students only sorry!) There are now 199 images of Magritte's work there including well known works from the Menil Collection and others from Private Collections like this one called 'The Open Window'

For those who are interested in Russian art and history

The Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies (SCRSS) promotes knowledge of the culture, language and history of Russia and the former Soviet Union through its activities and unique library and archive. Their Centre is in London on the Brixton Road .The Library  is a collection of over 35,000 books, journals and pamphlets in English and Russian relating to Russia and the former Soviet Union  covering  its literature, theatre, music, dance, history, art and architecture. There is also a photo library of  60,000 photographs, slides and realia covering all aspects of social and cultural life in Russia and the former Soviet Union from pre-1917 to the present, of interest to picture researchers, set dressers, designers and drama students.
Go to their website to read the fascnating history of the Centre and how to visit-go perhaps on April 14th when they will have a special exhibition and celebration of Yuri Gagarin's flight into space. First time visitors must make an appointment and there are charges for using the library, events (they screen films from the 30's-70's) cost £5

Les Sylphides by the actual Ballets Russes!

Sometimes film can seem as magical today as it must have seemed when film was a new and astounding medium. This is certainly the case when a film clip shows you something you never thought it would be possible for you to see. The Ballet Russes formed by Diaghelev was never filmed (at his insistence) but here a clip which was recently found to great excitement in the British Pathe News archive has been identified as such. It shows a male lead doing some mean Grand Jetes in a blond wig once worn by Nijinsky, in front of  the froth of the Corps de Ballet in an open air performance during the annual Swiss La Fête des Narcisses at Montreux.

More wondrous peeps into the past from British Pathe include Hitler ranting and a Picasso show in 1966 with paintings being hung and Paloma Picasso , and Picasso himself in his studio-wondrous! At British Pathe you can view and buy films and still photographs from the archive of 90,000 videos covering newsreel, sports footage, social history documentaries, entertainment and music stories from 1896 to 1976.

Google Art Project

I have a tendency to walk into walls  by mistake-Google Street View makes it inevitable. I just can't get the little man to walk a straight line.
 Google have a new project-'The Art Project'-like Tesco they get everywhere and try most things. Today it's taking you on a tour of the World's museums (well some of them). As well as being able to view some lovely quality artworks -you can zoom in to see minute details, you can elect to walk around the Museum they are hung in using Google Street View technology. The only trouble is that (due to Copyright restrictions) as you walk (if you can manage to not start walking up walls by mistake or keeling over at odd angles (me) most of the paintings appear 'blurry' (as Google puts it). This makes the experience of visiting the Tretyakov Gallery similar to how it would be after some Black Market home brewed vodka. It's safer to navigate via the floor plan feature. Certainly there is a wealth of information tucked into this website including Youtube videos, audio tours and text information about the works. You can also search for more works by a particular artist across all the museums.
(thanks to Gina for this one)
Google Art Project contributing museums (so far)

• Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Germany
• Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC - USA
• The Frick Collection, NYC - USA
• Gemäldegalerie, Berlin - Germany
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC - USA
• MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC - USA
• Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid - Spain
• Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza, Madrid - Spain
• Museum Kampa, Prague - Czech Republic
• National Gallery, London - UK
• Palace of Versailles - France
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands
• The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg - Russia
• State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow - Russia
• Tate Britain, London - UK
• Uffizi Gallery, Florence - Italy
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands

Patricia Johanson landscape architect, artist, designer and ecologist

'For over twenty years Patricia Johanson has patiently insisted that art can help to heal the earth. For the last ten years she has been creating large-scale projects that posit a radical, yet utterly practical vision. She works with engineers, city planners, scientists and citizens' groups to create her art as functioning infrastructure for modern cities'. you can borrow the book by Kelley from Howard Gardens Library.

Here is a Youtube interview with Patricia Johanson  discussing her recently completed biosculpture installation in Finland and talking about her approach to what she does. The video was created for Remediate/Re-vision at Wave Hill in New York, an exhibition curated by Jennifer McGregor in August 2010. Follow the Wave Hill  link for a downloadable catalogue of the exhibition so that you may read about  the work of 15 major art & ecology artists . I met Patricia in Turkey many years ago at an art and ecology conference. She is articulate and pioneering. She describes her position as 'working at the cutting edge of what is known and what is just hoped for'.

Ffotogallery Forum -TONIGHT!!!

FORUM
Thurs 27 Jan AND Thurs 24 Feb 2011, from 6.30pmFREE, drop-in
FORUM is an informal, monthly event aiming to develop a core group of emerging artists in South Wales together with students and graduates. It is a platform for practitioners from various disciplines to exchange ideas, experience and opinions on visual culture.

This month photographer Tim Freeman (Welsh Artist of the year 2009) will talk about some of his recent projects. As usual they will have an open floor, for artists who bring recent work or work in progress to discuss on the night.

 

Refreshments will be available throughout the evening. There are no booking requirements. If you have any questions please call (029) 2070 8870 or email turnerhouse@ffotogallery.org

The Design and Artists Copyright Society want to hear your views on artists' rights

The survey below was sent out yesterday by DACS

and is publicised on their website. It seeks the views of artists to

help DACS decide on their response to the UK government's independent

review of copyright.

DACS is currently participating in two important consultations which

affect visual artists: the UK government's independent review of

copyright and the European Commission's consultation on the

implementation and impact of the Artist's Resale Right.

To help inform our response to these consultations we are surveying

artists on these issues.

It is important that the voices of individual artists are heard!

We would really appreciate your help by completing this survey yourself,

and forwarding the link to other artists (and estates of artists) you know.

The survey can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VZ9HLKL

Royal Academy Winter loan Exhibition catalogues 1870 to 1913

The Royal Academy Winter loan Exhibition catalogues (1870-1913 ) have been digitised and are now available online via the RA Collections section of the Royal Academy Website. http://www.racollection.org.uk/

In 1870, coinciding with its move to Burlington House, the RA began organising an annual loan exhibition of Old Masters and works by recently deceased British artists, known from its inception and for many years as the Winter Exhibition.

Go to the  RA Collections page  . This website contains images of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, historic books, archives, historic photographs and plaster casts owned by the Royal Academy. A special section on Constable includes a video on his treatment of weather and light.

For the Winter Loan catalogues click on the Exhibition Catalogue  link (in a list top right) to view thumbnail images of the title pages of each catalogue. Click on a thumbnail image to display a large image of the title-page. Use the Next & Previous buttons to browse through the catalogue. You can also enter search terms in the Search within the catalogue box to search for artists, titles and lenders within the catalogue. This will display a list of the pages on which your search terms were found.

Below the catalogue pages you will also find thumbnail images of some of the works that were exhibited in the exhibitions. Clicking on a thumbnail image will take you to a page displaying a larger image and more information about that work.

Is the CD dying?

PITMAN, N.J

(Credit: Sony Corp.)

Pitman, which has 9,365 residents and is about 17 miles southeast of Philadelphia, is home to one of Sony's two remaining U.S.-based CD-manufacturing plants--until it closes on March 31. A longtime employee said  "The CD is dying." The first album released on CD and offered to the public was Billy Joel's "52nd Street" in October 1982.
The compact disc--the dominant music-distribution format for nearly three decades can compete no longer  with the portability of the ipod and similar devices that can store 2000 discs worth of  and after a decade of rampant illegal file sharing, , the plant closure is a also sign that the CD just couldn't compete with free music. (when)"they stopped putting CD players in cars I knew things were bad," the worker said. The CD was once a staple of a car's dashboard but the past several years, car manufacturers have searched for ways to tap into Web-distributed music.

Images of Nature

Images of Nature is a new permanent gallery at the Natural History Museum in London showcasing its world-famous collection of natural history artworks. The Gallery contains 110 images that span 350 years to the present.
Prints, watercolours and paintings from eminent natural history artists such as the prolific bird illustrator, John Gerrard Keulemans and accomplished botanical artist, Georg Ehret, feature in the collection.
Alongside this historic body of work are modern images created by scientists, imaging specialists, photographers and micro-CT scanners.
The gallery includes a temporary display of works that changes annually. This year's theme is Chinese watercolours featuring botanical and zoological watercolours from the collection of 19th-century amateur naturalist, John Reeves.
The BBC has producd an audio slideshow showcasing some of the works  here (thanks Helen!)
 Entrance to the gallery is free.
Also on show in the Museum until 11th March 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year'

Fashion Doll Guide (yes it's Barbie)

This work should not go unacknowledged. Suzanne Prochaska the website owner says "My goal is to provide a comprehensive resource to vintage Barbie dolls, clothing, accessories and other collectible fashion dolls, beginning with Barbie's debut in 1959".
http://blog.fashion-doll-guide.com/

Siobhan Davies-Dance -'Rotor' at the Whitworth Art Gallery

This spring Siobhan Davies Dance presents ROTOR, an inter-disciplinary ensemble of installations and live works by award-winning artists based on ideas generated by dance, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester on from 28th January to 6th February-entrance is free.

There will be live performances including  A Series of Appointments by Siobhan Davies plus Installations including  Stuck by Angela de la Cruz and I’m Going to Show You by E V Crowe .ROTOR has also prompted a selection from the Whitworth’s own art collection, including works by artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Albrecht Dürer, which will be presented in dialogue with live, dynamic performance.