Leonardo da Vinci’s rediscovered painting of Christ as the world’s savior, “Salvator Mundi”—auctioned last year for a record-setting $450.3 million—has been owned by British kings and Russian oligarchs. But until now no one knew much about the nearly half-century it spent lost in obscurity in the U.S — in the home of a Louisiana family. Too bad “Antiques Roadshow” didn’t come to their town! Details here.
Following the release of her new song “Mariners Apartment Complex” last week, Lana Del Rey has shared another new track. Check out the the nine-minute “Venice Bitch” (produced by Jack Antonoff) and its accompanying music video here.
It is one of the most famous images in the history of art, capturing Vincent Van Gogh’s view of the night sky from his room at the asylum at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Provence, southern France. But what did the sky actually look like on the night of 14-15 June 1889, when Van Gogh conceived of the painting, just a month after he had entered the institution? And did Van Gogh capture the Milky Way as well as the moon and stars? Find out here.
I find the Emmys the most boring of the major awards shows: they lack the performances of the Tonys and especially the Grammys and the select nature of the Oscars’ acting awards. So I barely tuned in last night (hosted by Colin Jost and Michael Che. Am glad I didn’t: most observers thought the broadcast lackluster. For the record, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Game of Thrones” scored big. Meh.
Andrew Dickson writes about an artist unknown to me: ‘It has been a remarkable summer for Tacita Dean in Britain. This versatile, genre-defying artist has enjoyed three concurrent retrospectives at the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Royal Academy, three of the biggest art museums in the UK. It is an honor not merely unusual for an artist still in her mid-fifties, but apparently unprecedented. Although a celebration, these shows also had the feel of a disquisition or investigation: a 360-degree examination of her three-decades-long career, as well as an exploration of the genres of painting codified in the eighteenth century.’
Each week, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in its archives is eligible. Here the site revisits PJ Harvey’s monumental album from 1993.
…read another “bombshell story” (the latest is here) about this eternally squabbling Woody Allen/Mia Farrow clan. My friend Hal Rubenstein adds: ‘Please all of you. Buy an island in Fiji and have it out with your weapons of choice but shut up already and stop bugging us with your relentless need to explain, accuse, and exonerate.’
