Welcome to NewsFile, your bi-weekly resource for newsy tidbits and updates from the worlds of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics. We’re sure you’ve noticed some changes around here. We will now be updating our NewsFile regularly throughout the week to bring you the latest happenings. So stay tuned!
Ancient Vase Seized from the Met
The Metropolitan Museum of Art turned over the vase known as a krater to the district attorney’s office in July, after there was suspicion it was looted, The New York Times reports.
Investigators issued a warrant to the Met on July 24 after reviewing photos and other evidence sent to them in May by a forensic archaeologist in Europe who has been tracking looted artifacts for more than a decade.
The 2,300-year-old vividly painted vase depicting Dionysus, god of the grape harvest, riding in a cart pulled by a satyr. had been part of the museum’s Greco-Roman galleries for decades. The Times reports the case is similar to the removal of another vessel from the museum’s collection in 2008 after evidence revealed it had been illegally excavated.
Met officials said they believe, as do law enforcement officials, that both vessels went through the hands of Giacomo Medici, a 79-year-old Italian art dealer who was arrested in 1997 and convicted in 2004 of conspiracy to traffic in antiquities.
3D Metal Printing Coming to an Office Near You
Desktop Metal‘s studio has developed an office friendly 3D metal printer, New Atlas writes.
[The] 3D metal printing system that’s so much faster, safer and cheaper than existing systems that it’s going to compete with traditional mass manufacturing processes.
The company states the printers are 10x cheaper as well as safer because it doesn’t use any hazardous lasers or powder. In fact, it operates similarly to Fused Deposition Modeling, or FDM, printing parts into layers of bound metal and polymer.
Unlike laser-based systems that selectively melt metal powder, the Studio printer extrudes bound metal rods–similar to how a plastic FDM printer works. This eliminates the safety requirements associated with metal 3D printing while opening up new alloys and enabling new features like the use of closed-cell infill for lightweight strength.
The printed parts then go into a de-binding bath that removes most of the binding polymer, and then the parts go into a sintering furnace, New Atlas reports.
Watch the printer in action in this video:
5 Dealers Arrested in Hobby Lobby Scandal
Israeli police arrested five antiquities dealers in Jerusalem Sunday in connection to the Hobby Lobby scandal, Artsy writes. The dealers are linked to Hobby Lobby’s purchase of looted artifacts from Iraq.
Israeli police say the five dealers arrested are suspected of tax evasion, tax fraud, and money laundering in connection with the sale of some $20 million in artifacts to Hobby Lobby.
In July, the company reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department requiring it to forfeit the objects and pay a $3 million fine.
On Death, Julian Stair’s ‘Termini’
Renowned British artist Julian Stair’s upcoming exhibition Termini is a a conversation on death, both symbolic and physical, featuring cinerary jars by Julian Stair, white ceramics by Rob Barnard, and works on paper by Rebecca Cross, Cross MacKenzie Gallery writes.
Stair’s hand-thrown jars bask in the tactile immediacy of their materials, stripping away the garish adornments of modern urns to focus, instead, on the earth from which the clay came, and to which we all return.
The exhibition opens September 8, 2017.
DiCaprio Ceramic Portrait Raises Money for the Environment
ST TROPEZ—A large portrait in paint and crushed-up plates by American painter and filmmakerJulian Schnabel of Leonardo DiCaprio auctioned for $470,000, Vanity Fair writes. The auction was part of DiCaprio’s exclusive annual fund-raiser for his environmental charity in the Riviera.
More than $30 million was raised and guest included Elton John, Naomi Campbell as well as many more of the world’s most rich and famous.
The majority of the sum came from a multi-lot auction that included gifted art works from Richard Prince, Damien Hirst, Jonas Wood, Cecily Brown, and Rudolf Stingel. A large work by Urs Fischer, who was in the crowd, sold for more than $2.5 million.
Barnebys adds, “cars, watches, jewelry, movie memorabilia as well as unbelievable experiences such as a private concert with Elton John and an Arctic Expedition with Prince Albert went under the gavel.”
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was founded in 2008 and strives to implement systems which protect wildlife and their habitats, and balancing damaged ecosystems.
Come back for more NewsFile updates throughout the week.
Do you love or loathe this newsy tidbits from the world’s of contemporary ceramic art and contemporary ceramics? Let us know in the comments.
Add your valued opinion to this post.