ArtBistro

For a first-time visitor, the 53rd Venice Biennale is a thrill of traipsing through the city in search of art in churches and palazzos among the tourist throngs. This year there were 77 national pavilions, with some new inclusions from Asia and Africa, but because of the cost, there was still a glaring under-representation of anything in the Southern Hemisphere. ...

CHICAGO, IL - Fashion designer Maria Pinto has been a favorite of first lady Michelle Obama. President Barack Obama has worn suits from menswear maker Hart Schaffner Marx. Both Chicago labels have been chosen to dress members of Chicago's Olympic delegation, along with tiemaker Lee Allison, for outfits debuting at this Friday's International Olympic Committee vote on the 2016 Summer Games. ...

Is it possible today for a country to have its own national graphic design aesthetic? When any designer with a decent internet connection can view work the world over, surely the range of influences will be too great to produce distinct nation-based styles? I'm only asking because I have recently returned from chairing the Kyoorius Designyatra conference in Mumbai (see review ...

The Venice Biennale is a gathering of the current top artists in the world. Each country nominates an artist to represent them in their country's pavilion. ArtBistro writer Asya Geisberg takes you on a tour to see many of these artists works. So if you missed going to the Biennale, here is your chance to see it up close. "Take the ...

A group of arts organizations has approached Congress about the need for better health care for arts professionals.

The controversial artist's latest work shows the actress naked and double-breastfeeding her twins.

  Paris celebrated its eighth annual “Nuit Blanche” festival of contemporary art overnight on Saturday until the early hours of Sunday with riotous displays of cutting-edge art installations across the French capital.  The French capital stayed up until the wee hours of Sunday as Parisians marked “Nuit Blanche” – literally “sleepless night” – an annual nocturnal celebration of contemporary art.    ...

PARIS - Japanese label Issey Miyake sent out a spinning wheel of color for its eye-popping spring-summer 2010 ready-to-wear collection Friday. Models in watercolor print leggings and lightweight shirts shaped like kites traced a dizzying ballet of concentric circles on the extra-wide catwalk. In the collection notes, designer Dai Fujiwara explained he had culled patterns from around the world and mixed ...

His models strutted their high-voltage, rhinestone-covered stuff on the stage of Paris' notorious Crazy Horse cabaret in a show that was every bit as thrilling - if a tad less salacious - than the strip teases usually on offer at "le Crazy," as it's often called here. In keeping with the high hemlines at Balmain and Arora, Belgian-born designer Bruno ...

Now more than ever, it’s important to get the best bang for your buck. And there’s no question about it — when it comes to value, not every U.S. city is created equally. Why chase a great salary if your rent swallows most of it, unemployment is skyrocketing and you spend two hours a day just to get to and from ...

DALLAS, TX- For most people, a word-association game starting with "hospital" would yield few positive adjectives. Bland. Drab. Depressing. Institutional. And studies have found that these aesthetic unpleasantries can affect patients' health. A growing body of research shows that decorating hospitals with specific types of artwork can speed up a patient's healing process, while gloomy walls or the wrong kind of ...

BATTLE CREEK, MI. - A small wood figure hung from a twig. Its painted-on smile and eyes were frozen in a bright expression. The figure's stiff arms held a paintbrush and palate. The artist ornament was a central part of a unique sculpture in Nancy Betts' living room. It hung on one of the branches of what was once a small ...

CHICAGO — In the Depression-era days of Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque dancing was about as naughty, and as nude, as it got in public. The emphasis was on the tease more than the strip, until Playboy and harder-core pornography came along in the 1950s. Now burlesque is back with festivals and club performances, from Amsterdam to Alabama. It's seen as a ...

All kinds of people all over the world are starting their own work from home businesses. Some of them will be successful. Most of them will struggle to make their work from home businesses successful. So what do you do when you first start your business to make sure that you are working your way towards success? First, you need to ...

Font Squirrel When comes to free fonts resources, "dafont" normally will be the first site that comes to mind because of it’s great font library and easy to use interface. However, there are also other alternative font resource sites that showcase top quality free fonts too. They are Font Squirrel and Fontex. Both sites tend to make quality free font searching ...

New York, NY - Gallery magnate Larry Gagosian has expanded his brand once again — though this time it’s not a new gallery space he’s added but rather a retail bookseller on the ritzy corner of Madison Avenue and 77th Street in Manhattan. The sleek, 2,500-square-foot, bi-level space, which opened to the public this past weekend, also inaugurates London import (and ...

In this article, I break down important photography terms so that they are easier to understand.  This is great for the newbie or for an oldie who'd just like a quick refresher course!

All the entries to ArtBistro Couture Challenge are in! It is time for you to vote for the winner. ArtBistro members have a very high caliber of work. Your fashion design portfolios were inventive, creative and put together with an artistic eye. Congratulations to all members who entered. We have narrowed down the entries to 15 finalists. Who deserves first, second ...

MONTAUK, N.Y. — Those who see Bernard Madoff as an evil purveyor of excess might be disappointed by his beach house: It's not that palatial. At 3,014 square feet, the home is cottage-size by superrich standards. Its faded furnishings look as old as Madoff's epic fraud. There's no garage. Not even a walk-in closet. But the 1.2-acre lot sits closer to ...

Profits are down at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but business in their private sales departments has doubled. Selling privately is very attractive now since it is quick, confidential, and avoids the inherent production costs and time delay of selling at auction. Carol Vogel wrote an article in The New York Times,“More Artworks Sell in Private in Slowdown,” that captured this rising trend ...