The opening of a 12-acre Cars Land expansion at Disney California Adventure Park fueled big crowds and long lines at the Anaheim park this weekend.
Disney officials declined to disclose attendance numbers for the park, but Al Lutz, founder of the online Disney blog Miceage.com, reported Monday that California Adventure drew a record 43,000 visitors Friday, opening day for Cars Land.
Lutz, who has a long history of disclosing behind-the-scenes information on Disney's two parks in Anaheim, said attendance hit 45,000 on Sunday.
Cars Land's most popular ride, Radiator Springs Racers, broke down twice Friday, pushing the wait time for riders to 51/2 hours at some points. "During the initial opening period for a new attraction, it is not uncommon to experience more down times than with other attractions while we are testing and adjusting," said Suzi Brown, a Disney spokeswoman.
On Thursday night, at least 500 people camped outside of the park to be among the first to see Cars Land on its official opening day. For the opening weekend, officials hired traffic control officers from the city of Anaheim and freed up additional parking. Despite the big crowds, Brown said, the flow of visitors into the park went smoothly.
The new attraction had already been visited by numerous invited season pass holders and by media representatives.
Cars Land is part of an estimated $1.1-billion overhaul of California Adventure aimed at boosting sluggish attendance numbers that have plagued the park since it opened in 2001 adjacent to Disneyland. Cars Land's rides and landscape were inspired by the 2006 animated Pixar studios movie "Cars."
In 2010, California Adventure drew slightly more than 6 million visitors, while neighboring Disneyland welcomed about 17 million, according to estimates by the Themed Entertainment Assn. and the AECOM engineering and consulting firm.
Source: www.latimes.com
Sotheby's sale sets Miro record, others disappoint - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Sotheby's set a new auction record for Spanish artist Joan Miro on Tuesday when his 1927 painting "Peinture (Etoile Bleue)" fetched 23.6 million pounds ($36.9 million), but elsewhere the sale failed to meet expectations.
Overall, the auctioneer raised 75.0 million pounds ($117.7 million) at its impressionist and modern art evening sale in London, just beating the low estimate of 73 million pounds but falling short when buyer's premium is taken into account.
The auction was the first in a busy season of sales of fine art in London which, if the highest expectations are met, could raise up to $1 billion.
But it painted an uncertain picture, with the New York Times describing proceedings on the night as "lackluster" and "bumpy."
Confidence in the art market has been sky high in 2012 despite broader economic concerns, with emerging collectors from Russia, China and the Middle East helping push values to record highs as they seek to snap up the most coveted works.
On offer at Sotheby's was one of Miro's most important paintings, and the previous auction record for the artist of 16.8 million pounds was comfortably eclipsed.
"His works from this period are supremely modern, timeless and of great universal appeal, making this precisely the type of painting that today's international collectors are prepared to lock horns over, as they did this evening," said Helena Newman, head of Sotheby's impressionist and modern art in Europe.
The next highest price went to Pablo Picasso's "Homme Assis" which sold for 6.2 million pounds, again just above the low estimate but falling short after the buyer's premium is subtracted.
A Henry Moore sculpture, "Mother and Child With Apple", was one of the few star performers on a night when 15 of the 48 lots on offer went unsold. It raised 3.7 million pounds, well above pre-sale expectations of 1.8-2.8 million.
The London summer sales continue on Wednesday with the equivalent sale at Sotheby's rival Christie's. There, the 71 lots on offer are expected to raise between 86.5 and 126.7 million pounds.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Jill Serjeant and Todd Eastham)
Source: uk.reuters.com
Houston cops hunting for vandal caught on video spray painting priceless Pablo Picasso painting (VIDEO) - New York Daily News
Houston cops are hunting for a dapper art vandal who was caught on video spray-painting a priceless Pablo Picasso painting at a museum last week.
Cell phone video shot by a visitor at the Menil Collection Wednesday showed a suave hoodlum in a dark suit jacket and sunglasses spray-painting a stencil over the Spanish master's "Woman in a Red Armchair."
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW
The vandal then tears the stencil off and strolls casually out of view of the camera.
Museum security quickly realized what had happened — but not before scolding the witness for breaking the museum's no filming policy — and rushed the work to the conservation lab, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Museum officials said Monday they were able to fully restore the 1929 masterpiece.
The brazen graffiti writer sprayed a picture of a bullfighter slaying a bull and the word "Conquista" on the painting.
The witness who shot the video told KPRC television that he confronted the well-dressed vandal afterward.
The vandal said he was an up-and-coming artist and desecrated the artwork in order to honor Picasso, the witness, who didn't want to be identified, told the station.
A caption on the YouTube video identified the artist as Uriel Landeros, "a young Mexican-American artist."
Museum officials wouldn't comment on the vandal's identity.
A Facebook page for a Houston man named Uriel Landeros showed several photos of him spray-painting and creating artwork, contained a clip of KPRC's report about the crime and had a painting of the word "conquista" in an old profile photo.
Conquista means “conquest” in Spanish.
The Daily News sent the man a Facebook message, but didn't hear back.
"Woman in a Red Armchair" has been hanging in the Menil Collection since 1987.
The museum took it down after the incident, but said it would put it back up this week.
"How sad that someone would enter and do something like that to a work of art that should be enjoyed by everybody," Vance Muse, the museum's communication's director, told KPRC.
Picasso works have been under siege over the past year.
Earlier this month, a $30,000 Picasso lithograph that was snatched from the California home of a former Ukrainian prime minister was found ditched on the side of the road in Marin County, north of San Francisco.
In January, two Picasso works were stolen from the National Art Gallery in Athens, Greece.
They have not been found.
Last July, a thief waltzed into a San Francisco art gallery and swiped a $200,000 Picasso pencil drawing.
Mark Lugo, A serial art thief from New Jersey, later pleaded guilty to stealing the sketch.
Source: www.nydailynews.com
Museum: Fast action may help save Picasso painting - The Guardian
JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press= HOUSTON (AP) — Within minutes of a vandal spray painting a Pablo Picasso painting, Houston museum officials had rushed the valuable artwork into their onsite conservation lab as if it was an injured patient in need of emergency surgery.
"I think that's a dramatic analogy, but I think that's apt," said Vance Muse, a spokesman for the Menil Collection, which owns the more than 80-year-old painting.
The fast action increased the odds of saving the painting, Muse said. The museum's chief conservator has been working on it tirelessly since it was damaged June 13, and the restoration is going very well, he added.
The act of vandalism was caught in a 24-second video posted on YouTube. It shows a man dressed in black holding a stencil up to the work of art and then spray-painting the stencil before ripping it away and walking off. An image of a bullfighter, a bull and the word "conquista," which is Spanish for conquest, is left behind.
Once the man walks away, the person taking the video walks up to the painting, recording the damage. This, plus the fact that the witness happened to film the vandal at the moment he damaged the painting, has some speculating whether the two were working together.
"People have wondered if this YouTube (video) was shot by a bystander who just happened to be there at that moment or if it's more akin to perpetrators, plural," Muse said. "I just don't know. But I hope we find out."
Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said investigators are reviewing both surveillance video from the museum and the video posted on YouTube. When asked if police think the vandal and witness were working together, she said, "We're taking all the information and we're looking at all aspects of the incident."
She would not say whether police have spoken to the witness who shot the video.
Muse, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from Berlin, said he didn't have specific details about the restoration process because he was out of the country. However, he believed it was going well.
"Most of the damage, virtually all has been taken care of," he said. "But you have to wait and see."
He also didn't know when the painting, "Woman in a Red Armchair," would return to display.
"Even if the treatment is completed, it would need rest for quite a while," he said. "We would not want to bring it out of the conservation lab prematurely."
The museum's chief conservator Brad Epley wasn't available for questions Tuesday because he was working on the painting.
The key thing in restoration probably would be identifying what chemicals are in the spray paint to determine which solvent would be best to remove it, said Jennifer Logan, a chemistry professor who has taught courses on art conservation at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pa.
Logan theorized a range of solvents were probably tested to determine which one was strong enough to remove the spray paint without also dissolving the work's original paint.
"It was most likely a tedious process," she said. "If they have the motivation and the skill and ability to carefully remove the spray paint, that's not surprising to me (that most of the damage has been fixed). I've read about much more drastic restoration cases. In the art world, this doesn't seem as bad."
This is not the first time one of Picasso's works has been vandalized. In 1999, an escaped mental patient in Amsterdam cut a hole in the middle of his "Woman Nude Before Garden," a 1956 painting.
Other works of art have also been the target of vandals. Rembrandt's "Night Watch" masterpiece has been slashed twice and sprayed once with sulfuric acid. The "Mona Lisa" has been attacked several times, including with acid, a rock and even a teacup.
The Menil, which opened in 1987 and is free to the public, will review its security measures, which include surveillance cameras and two dozen guards, Muse said. But he didn't anticipate major changes, such as placing paintings behind protective glass or keeping visitors farther from the works of art.
"I think a museum-goer always appreciates it when a work of art seems more accessible than that. You don't have all those layers," he said. "And I think the Menil loves the fact the art there is very accessible. It's almost like entering someone's wonderful house."
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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