Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962. He’s a contemporary Japanese artist. About the Mushrooms:

For me they seem both erotic and cute while evoking – especially for the Western imagination – the fantastic world of fairy tale. I thought that, by uniting the eroticism and the magic side of mushrooms, I could use them as motifs in my work. (read more)

Some of Murakami’s work is being exhibited in the palace of Versailles and it’s creating something of a controversy: see “Takashi Murakami takes on critics with provocative Versailles exhibition” (by Lizzy Davies, The Guardian, September 10th, 2010) and “Murakami’s Creations Invade Versailles” (by Rooksana Hossenally, The New York Times, September 13th, 2010. Visit the Chateau de Versailles official website for more info on the exhibition.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles paid Sotheby’s in London GBP 29.7 million ($45 million) on Wednesday for a sweeping, hazy view of 19th-century Rome by British master J.M.W. Turner.

The sale broke the auction record for Turner four years after the artist’s Venetian seascape “Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio” sold for $35 million at Christie’s.

The Getty beat out five other bidders for “Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino.” The auction house had priced the painting sell for between $18 million and $27 million.

Turner, a Romantic artist known for painting wispy clouds and roiling waves, painted “Modern Rome” in 1839, a decade after he visited the city for a final time. Eschewing any telltale signs of modernization, Turner presents an ethereal view of the Italian capital as seen from atop Capitoline Hill. Women in blue and yellow skirts herd goats in the rocky foreground as the city’s ruins fan across the sun-drenched expanse below. The Coliseum, painted in cappuccino colors, even appears to glow. (more)

Previously on Skandalon

“Bill Jacobson is an American photographer who was born in 1955 in Norwich, Connecticut. He earned a BFA in art and American studies from Brown University in 1977 and an MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1981. […] Since 1989, he has been making diffused out-of-focus photographs that negate (through the application of a defusing lens) the specificity of photographic vision in favor of an immateriality of light and form. His black and white pictures of isolated subjects suggested actions, moods, even narratives that were ethereal, haunting, and momentary.” (Wikipedia). More at The Museum of Contemporary Photography

About Ketter’s art: “Ketter constructs flat sculptures, installations and three-dimensional paintings – or a compound of all three categories. His striking painting-cum-sculpture-cum-installations principally recall interior design. They capture moments in condemnation or rebuilding usually of limited duration but here freeze-framed in art. The walls exist in a permanent limbo between the presence of demolition and the eternity of art.” (read more over at Arken Museum of Modern Art).

Shorpy explains: “May 9, 1960. A landmark image in the history of modern architecture: Julius Shulman’s nighttime shot of Ann Lightbody and Cynthia Murfee in Case Study House No. 22, the Stahl residence in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking Sunset Boulevard. Architect: Pierre Koenig. The photo, taken with a Swiss-made Sinar 4x5 view camera, is a double exposure: Seven minutes for the background, then a flash shot for the interior, the house lights having been replaced with flashbulbs. There’s a fascinating account of the image at Taschen, where you can order a book on the Case Study houses.”

See another version of this shot by Julius Shulman.

About the Book: “It now is becoming very clear that a body of life sciences information is needed not only to determine the best way in which to utilize man in complex systems, but to assess the impact of system operation on man. In this latter sense, we refer to impact on all mankind and not just to effetcs on humans working within a system. […] This revision of Bioastronautics Data Book was prepared in order to bring together the essrntials of the large body of human research information generated in recent years and to present it in a form suitable for engineers and others concerned with the develepment and evaluation of modern system.” (Preface)

About NASA ADS: “The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 7.8 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints. The main body of data in the ADS consists of bibliographic records, which are searchable through highly customizable query forms, and full-text scans of much of the astronomical literature which can be browsed or searched via our full-text search interface. Integrated in its databases, the ADS provides access and pointers to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles, data catalogs and archives. We currently have links to over 8.4 million records maintained by our collaborators.” (read more)

Julius Shulman died Wednesday July 15, 2009 in California at age 98 : “Julius Shulman (October 10, 1910 – July 15, 2009) was an American architectural photographer best known for his photograph “Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, 1960. Pierre Koenig, Architect.” The house is also known as The Stahl House. Shulman’s photography spread California modernism around the world. Through his many books, exhibits and personal appearances his work ushered in a new appreciation for the movement beginning in the 1990s. His vast library of images currently reside at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. (Wikipedia).

The story behind another version of the photo over at the Los Angeles magazine

Learn more about the Case Study House Program over at the Art & Architecture Mag (PDF of case study #22: a free registration is needed)

Emmanuel Polanco: “L’Homme moderne”, poster.