Whitehot Magazine

The Gardner Museum art heist remains a mystery today & Jeff Wall survey

Johannes Vermeer, The Concert, c.1664.

The Gardner Museum art heist remains a mystery today. Three decades later, the largest art theft in US history remains unsolved, despite a $10m reward. No one has been charged and none of the artwork has been recovered.

Read more via MSN: 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/more-than-30-years-later-a-tantalizing-clue-in-the-gardner-museum-art-heist-surfaces/ar-AARizyv#new_tab  

And The Boston Globe: 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/24/metro/gardner-museum-art-heist-remains-mystery-today-heres-look-back-saga/  

Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room, 1978. Transparency in lightbox, 62 5/8 × 90 1/8 inches. © Jeff Wall. 

"...the largest US survey of JEFF WALL's career in almost 15 years — compare your first impression with the photographs as they were meant to be seen, often reproduced as transparencies illuminated from behind and spanning 10 feet wide.

Once you see these details, you can’t unsee them. But once you do, the photographs become much more about the games we play with images and photography, and much less about their ostensible content. Their “meta” value goes up, while their documentary value may seem to collapse like a house of cards. That is surely the intent. Wall wants to seduce you, and then undermine first and second impressions, often leaving a sense of tension between the title of the image — “An Eviction,” “Boy falls from tree” — and its larger complexity."

Read more via The Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/jeff-wall-photo-exhibit-glenstone/2021/11/09/f6572296-417e-11ec-9ea7-3eb2406a2e24_story.html WM

Wesley Yuen

Wesley Yuen is a collector based in Vancouver BC.

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