Daily art news

MEXICO CITY.- In relation to the auction of archaeological pieces held in Paris, France on Monday, March 21, by the Binoche–Giquello auction house, the National Institute of Anthropology and History and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores) informed the following: The piece attributed to the Maya culture and that, according to several news reports, achieved the highest price in the auction, was manufactured recently and in no way belongs to any of the Prehispanic Mexican cultures. This information was determined by INAH experts, after a thorough archaeological examination that was made before the auction and that included 203 images of the 207 lots that were auctioned. INAH experts established that 140 pieces are Prehispanic and 67 others were recently made, as is the case of the figure mentioned before. 

MAASTRICHT.- Exhibitors at TEFAF Maastricht put their finest works of art to one side to bring to the world’s most influential art and antiques fair. Sometimes tracking them down has involved specialist knowledge and skilled detective work while in other cases their recent history has been more straightforward. But the one unifying factor at The European Fine Art Fair is quality. At the 24th edition of TEFAF, which takes place at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre) in Maastricht in the southern Netherlands from 18 – 27 March 2011, the standard of the exhibits is breathtaking. Visitors to the Fair will see one of the last jewels created by Salvador Dali, a pair of porcelain leopards almost certainly made for a Chinese emperor, the only suit of late 15th-century German jousting armour still in private hands and an entire room devoted to the painter Joan Miró. 

RENNES.- From 18 March to 17 April, as part of Le Sténopé, un procédé photographique – Le Monde par le trou d’une aiguille ("Pinhole Photography: An Original Look at the World"), American artist Jeff Guess looks into the pinhole concept via a three-part presentation: an installation comprising two video projections – Disambiguation (2004 [2011]) and Addressability (2011) – and the photographic object Partially Instantiated Object (2011). The two latter pieces have been specially made for the exhibition. Jeff Guess’ practice is pervaded by consideration of the processes at work in the creation of technical images and the way such images continuously interweave with language. His early work resulted in the making of optical devices drawing directly on photography’s technical and historical principles, notably the pinhole camera. His experiments then gradually moved towards information technology. His most recent work centres on the specific character of computer programming as a form of writing which, once activated by a machine, can generate moving images and texts.