Having just read about your transvestite triumph at the NPG, I wondered whether your readers might be interested to hear that the gallery is still acquiring pictures of reassuringly tweedy English gentlemen, in this case the only known double portrait (non photographic) of Eric Ravilious (standing) and Edward Bawden (seated) by Michael Rothenstein, dating from 1933.

Interference strategies for art 

Friday 22 – Saturday 23 June 2012

Hosted by the VCA, this Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference takes place over two stimulating days when acclaimed professionals including curators, historians, creative arts practitioners, critics and theorists will explore transdisciplinary imaging. 

Art, Science and Culture The notion of ‘Interference’ is posed here as an antagonism between production and seduction, as a redirection of affect, or as an untapped potential for repositioning artistic critique. Maybe art doesn’t have to work as a wave that displaces or reinforces the standardized protocols of data/messages, but can instead function as a kind of signal that disrupts and challenges perceptions. ‘Interference’ can stand as a mediating incantation that might create a layer between the constructed image of the ‘everyday’ given to us by science, technological social networks and the means of its construction.

The Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference presents speakers from a wide range of disciplines discussing:

• Can art interfere with the chaotic storms of data visualization and information processing, or is it merely eulogizing contemporary media?
• Can we think of ‘interference’ as a key tactic for the contemporary image in disrupting and critiquing the continual flood of constructed imagery?
• Are contemporary forms and strategies of interference the same as historical ones? What kinds of similarities and differences exist?

I had thought that 'interference strategies for art' were mainly undertaken by disgruntled gallery attendants and - as you've recently experienced yourself - cantankerous librarians but it would seem that 'acclaimed professionals' are also at it...

Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont, to give her full name, is one of the most important transvestites in history. She was "a fascinating and inspirational figure", said Lucy Peltz, the gallery's curator of 18th-century portraits.

"We are absolutely delighted to be able to acquire this portrait. D'Eon is a particularly fascinating and important figure from 18th-century British history."

The painting was discovered by the London dealer Philip Mould at a provincial sale outside New York last year. It was being mistakenly sold as a portrait of an unknown woman by Gilbert Stuart, most famous for painting George Washington on the dollar bill.

"Even in its dirty state it was quite clear that this woman had stubble," said Mould, who bought it, brought it to the UK and began further research and restoration.

"Cleaning is always a revelation and on this occasion it revealed that not only was it in lovely condition but, more pertinently, the Gilbert Stuart signature cleaned off revealing the name Thomas Stewart, a theatrical painter working in London in the 1780s and 1790s."

Everything then began to click into place. "What is so unusual about this portrait is that it is so brazenly demonstrative in a period when you don't normally get that type of alternative persona expressed in portraiture," said Mould. There is no attempt to soften his physiognomy – basically, he was a bloke in a dress with a hat."

The discovery was tremendously exciting, said Mould. "We are the main dealers in British portraiture, doing it for something like 30 years and I must have sold two or three thousand British portraits to museums and institutions – but never have I come across something quite so idiosyncratic. I've never had anything which is so off-beam."

Buying art as  a "safe haven"?  Very possibly, if what you have in mind is the idea that art will rise in value more than other sorts of investments these days, or at least not drop in value (like people pulling money out of euros to hold their money in USA dollars).  But there is another take: if directly financial investments are seen as going nowhere, or worse, then maybe some of those with money on hand feel they might as well spend it on something with substance that may provide lasting enjoyment.  From this point of view, those with a great deal of money might buy expensive art -- including from Mould Galleries, and congratulations for that !! -- while those with much less might buy from lesser-known artists they like.  Maybe this view is too optimistic, if that is the right word.  And of course, you know your own buyers!

The matching coat and dress, designed by Angela Kelly, the queen's senior dresser, were made in a cosy wool. It wasn't all pragmatism, though. That single organza frill on her coat was purely decorative, as were the dashing feathers on that hat.

But function is never far away in the monarch's choices. That brim was broad enough to keep the worst of any downpour at bay, but not melodramatically wide.

And, naturally, it was all richly emblematic. The outfit included allusions to her three jubilees as well as a reference to her distant ancestor Elizabeth I, who wore a Tudor, farthingaled version in the Ditchley portrait. Angela Kelly says that over the years the queen has taught her a huge amount about regal symbolism. The outfit was, apparently, a year in the planning.

“There was no particular point to it, I’m not anti-Royal. I just thought it would be funny.”

Was there a greater character in history than Vincent Van Gogh? After all this is a man who chopped off his ear in the name of love. With the Vincent Van Gogh Action Figure, you can see him before and after his self-conducted surgery; with 2 ears or with bandaged head. Place the Vincent Van Gogh Action Figure in front of easel with interchangeable versions of his mini masterpieces. Celebrate one of the world's favorite artists or use him as an inspirational tool. Specs: 5-1/4" inches tall vinyl figure Two interchangeable heads Comes with a paintbrush, palette, an easel, a frame and some mini masterpieces to display. Illustrated blister card.

There are some hopeful signs. Recently, a few museums (The National Gallery of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for example) have begun to offer public domain images for download. We hope more museums will recognize that in the digital era, the old model of controlling and charging for reproductions of public domain work flies in the face of their mission. Museums, and the artists’ rights organizations (such as ARS and VAGA) and the estates they work with, need to do far more to make the shared cultural heritage they hold in trust, accessible. Peter Samis, Associate Curator, Interpretive Media at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently asked, “Are the artworks ours to give? Are they ours to withhold?”

Now that the value of a global art platform is evident, will museums think differently about sharing resources with each other and the public? The Google Art Project shows what can happen when museums work in parallel; now imagine what could happen if museums choose to work together.

Well, that would cause the NG security guards a nervous breakdown!

Balloons? Or a variety pack of condoms?

After the scholarly boycott, the Degas plasters and the resulting bronzes remain in limbo. It is now clear that they are not late 20th-century fakes, but the key question is when they were made. 

The experts believe the plasters were made after the Second World War and are, therefore, fairly far removed from the artist’s intentions, while those who commissioned the casts are convinced that they are much earlier and may well be from Degas’s lifetime. The story began two years ago, when a set of newly cast bronzes was unveiled at the Herakleidon Museum in Athens (The Art Newspaper, March 2010, p29). Earlier bronzes, which are in numerous museums, were cast from 1917 to 1936 and from 1958 to 1964 and were made via the original waxes, which survived after the artist’s death.

Two New York-based dealers discovered the plasters: Walter Maibaum, who runs Modernism Fine Arts and the Degas Sculpture Project with his wife, Carol Conn, and Gregory Hedberg, a consultant at Hirschl & Adler. The plasters were found at the Valsuani foundry, outside Paris, which had taken over the stock of the Hébrard foundry. Hébrard had earlier cast Degas’s bronzes for the artist’s descendants.

Leonardo Benatov, who owned Valsuani, agreed to cast a new set of bronzes for Maibaum. So far, 16 sets have been cast and rights have been acquired to cast a further 13. Their value will depend on whether they are accepted as authentic, but appraisers suggest that a set of 74 could be worth around $20m. On this basis, all 29 sets would be worth more than $500m.