Required Reading

The “new” Caravaggio, “Saint Augustine” (1600) (via walrusmagazine.com)

This week, how a Caravaggio becomes “discovered” and evaluated, Christo gets the green light for Colorado, artists who seek out their harshest critics, Terence Conran, erasing a Chris Martin, escaping the digital world, Occupy Miami art schools, street art in Iran and is politics performance art?

The story of a newly discovered Caravaggio that debuted at the National Gallery of Canada’s Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome show this past summer. According to the author, the painting demonstrates a “serene side to art history’s rebellious rock star.”

Christo’s “Over the River” project in Colorado has been approved. It will include “eight suspended panel segments totaling 5.9 miles along a 42-mile stretch of the river, about three hours southwest of Denver.”

Every artist deals with critics differently, but this novelist decided to seek out his harshest critic and interviews him.

Take a look at the Guardian’s interview with famed British designer Terence Conran, who has been a big influence on modern interior design and was the man who created and endowed London’s Design Museum. Conran played “a leading role in the transformation of postwar British taste.”

The Republican presidential primaries have already started off to a bizarre start. MSNBC news personality Rachel Maddow has been so confused by the Herman Cain campaign that she has started calling it the Herman Cain Art Project, as if it was some sort of performance art work.

The Bushwick-based nonprofit Norte Maar wasn’t sure what to do with a small wall doodle by well-respected painter Chris Martin. They finally decided to invite artist Man Bartlett to erase the work in the spirit of Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased de Kooning” (1953).

Incidental comics explores how to escape the digital world.

Street art and graffiti is evolving quite nicely in Iran — don’t be surprised — just check out these videos from A1one, one of the country’s leading street artists. Here is my interview with A1one from 2008.

The Occupy Movement is targeting art schools in Miami. According to the Huffington Post article:

“More than fifty protesters gathered to protest a particular instance of a general discontent: the art world’s dependence on financial powers.”

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning-ish, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links (10 or less) to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth a second look.