Art Students Hit Hardest by Loan Debt, Medieval LOLcat Goes Viral, and More

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Erik Kwakkel via Twitter

by BLOUIN ARTINFO

Published: February 20, 2013

– Art School Grads Have More Debt: Graduates from schools specializing in art, music, and design have the most student-loan debt, according to a new report. Art school graduates are saddled with an average debt of $21,576 while earning $40,000 a year in starting salary. That's well above the average debt carried by students from liberal arts schools ($19,445) and research universities ($18,100). But hey, at least you're doing what you love? [MSN Money, WSJ]

– Medieval Cat Has Viral Moment: Proving that cats have the power to make even ancient manuscripts popular, Leiden University book historian Erik Kwakkel's recent photo of a 15th-century manuscript marked with medieval paw prints from an errant pet has gone viral, eventually earning a mention from TV vet Dr. Marty Becker. Ancient texts weren't the only beneficiaries of the feline-derived attention. "That cat is a saint to me," Kwakkel tweeted. "200 new manuscript lovers in 24 hours." Is this the world's first LOLcat? [TAN]

– Dali Thief Collared at JFK: Athens resident and former fashion publicist Phivos Lampros Istavrioglou was arrested as he arrived at New York City's JFK airport on Saturday. He stands accused of stealing a Salvador Dalí painting from Adam Lindemann's Upper East Side gallery Venus Over Manhattan last June, which he eventually mailed back. Before he dabbled in art theft, Istavrioglou was detained by the NYPD on January 9, 2012 for allegedly stealing a steak from a Whole Foods supermarket in Tribeca. He was drawn back to New York by a fake consultant job offer from an investigator posing as a gallery owner, and is now being held on $100,000 bail for second-degree grand larceny. [NYPost]

– Dinos Chapman Drops Debut Album: One half of the artist-brother duo Jake and Dinos Chapman has released his first album, which is an odyssey of layered electronica titled "Luftbobler" — a Norwegian word to describe the air bubbles trapped in an Aero chocolate bar. "I can't hide behind my brother. Jake and I do this thing where I can blame it on him or he can blame it on me. This is just me," Dinos said, though he hasn't ruled out recording with Jake. "He plays guitar, he makes music. It's poles apart from what I do. It's noisy, rock'n'roll. He's got to grow his hair though. He's not being in my band with that hair. I told him he's not allowed to stand at the front of the band either — he's got to stand at the back. But we might work together." [Guardian]

– Midsize Galleries Flee Chelsea: Postmasters is just one of dozens of art galleries moving out of Chelsea to avoid rising rents. Landlords are asking from $80 to as much as $120 per square foot for a ground-floor space in the area, compared with $55 to $75 in 2010. The most established players in the neighborhood — David Zwirner and Gagosian among them — own their spaces, but smaller galleries do not. "You won’t find much experimentation if the rents continue to escalate, because those kinds of galleries won’t be here," said Chelsea gallerist Casey Kaplan. "They’ll be priced out." [Bloomberg]

– Artist Releases 10,000 Balloons in Kabul: New York-based artist Yazmany Arboleda is preparing to release 10,000 pink balloons in the streets of war-torn Kabul. "The actual date will be a surprise. Once people will wake up, they will see an explosion of colours," Arboleda said. He has previously launched balloons in India (where "people thought it was a national day they didn't know about"), Japan ("some people thought we were selling balloons"), and Kenya ("some of them thought we were having a job fair"). Arboleda says the project is all about "simple happiness." Each balloon was purchased for $1 by online donors at www.webelieveinballoons.com. [AFP]

– Mass MOCA's First Deputy Curator: The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art has named one its former staffers, Larry Smallwood — who was a consultant, production manager, and eventually technical director at Mass MOCA before becoming an independent curator in 2006 — as its first-ever deputy director. "Larry brings exacting standards, technical chops, institutional knowledge, and great design talent," said founding director Joseph Thompson, "plus classic hands-on MASS MoCA energy and an innate knack for triage, which is vital for a place that thrives on biting off just a bit more than it can chew." [Artforum]

– Putin Aims to Defuse Manuscript Fight: Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has stepped into the ongoing conflict between the Brooklyn-based Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic group and Russian authorities over a cache of books and manuscripts known as the Schneerson Collection. Though he stressed that the collection "belongs to the Russian state," Putin offered to transfer it to a new Jewish center in Moscow, which is run by a Russian Chabad group. [NYT]

– Out-of-Copyright Art Finds New Life Online: Artworks whose copyright protection has expired are being parsed, collected, and curated by a new class of website specializing in arcane and oft-forgotten art. A leader in the field is Public Domain Review, whose recent selections include engravings of medieval witches, 18th-century Japanese anatomy diagrams, a forgotten Eadweard Muybridge nude tennis photo series, and more. "We showcase material from institutions that have already decided to openly license their digitisations," says PDR co-founder Adam Green. "We're also working behind the scenes to encourage more institutions to do the same and see free and open access to their holdings as part of their public mission." [Vice]

– The Missing Billion-Dollar Art Collection: Swiss heiress Aspasia Zaimis is fighting a legal battle in Switzerland to determine the whereabouts of her late uncle's billion-dollar art collection, which she claims should be part of her inheritance. Zaimis's uncle, shipping magnate Basil Goulandris, accrued at least 11 Picasso paintings, three Braque paintings, five Cezannes, two Monets, three Renoirs, and more. [Bloomberg]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Trailer for Yazmany Arboleda's "We Believe in Balloons"