Reverse image searching with TinEye

TinEye is a clever new search engine that does reverse searching to help you find duplicates or better copies of an image.  This means that you can upload the image you are looking for, or paste in the image URL, and it will find all other versions (duplicates and variations) of that image on the internet – no text searching involved.  You can find out more and watch a very helpful three minute tutorial here.

Berlin’s Free University launches “Degenerate Art” database

The “Degenerate Art” Research Center, Art History Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin now hosts a database that documents the fate of over 21,000 works of art deemed “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) and confiscated by the Nazis in 1937. The database is searchable by artist, title, object type, current repository and specific Nazi-era exhibitions. Many records have images and extensive information about each work of art, its provenance and related literature.  The database, which went live on April 21, is only in German but it appears the Research Center is working on an English version.

also via Bloomberg.com

Art History and the movies

Several websites have compiled lists of films on art, or that feature art historical figures or themes.  Here are just a few:

• The Ultimate Art History Guide to Cinema
• Art Historians’ Guide to the Movies
• Art History in the Movies
• Dr. Cheney’s Art History Films (includes links to video clips)
• A libris’ list of art history films (for sale)
• Amazon’s list of art history films for sale

Oakland Museum of CA “mixing it up”

After an extensive two-year renovation, the Oakland Museum of California will reopen its doors with a Weekend Celebration 1-2 May to show off the museum’s new, brighter galleries. They have also been redesigned so installations can be more conceptual — objects from history and natural science collections share spaces with works of art and design. “We’re mixing it up,” said senior curator of art Rene de Guzman.

via SFGate

Fallingwater in LEGO

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater has been replicated in LEGO blocks – 15,000 of them.  It took the creator seven months to complete it.

In other Wright-LEGO news, the LEGO company is introducing the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection, which includes instructions for building six of his iconic designs.  These won’t take seven months or 15,000 blocks, however; they’re much smaller.  You can buy a set here.

And for you die-hard LEGO fans, check out Art Craziest Nation from Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery. This 2006 exhibition, curated by The Little Artists (John Cake and Darren Neave), recreated some of the last century’s iconic works of art (and some of the artists) in LEGO.

Bill Viola + USC Game Innovation Lab = The Night Journey

Video artist Bill Viola has teamed up with the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Interactive Media Division (that houses the Game Innovation Lab) to create an experimental video “game,” but not one with high-speed chases nor increasingly effective weaponry. The Night Journey “[is] a game that rewards you for slowing down and for introspection,” said Viola, who has been working on the project since 2005 and plans to complete it later this year. The look of the project is meant to mimic Viola’s 1994 installation Pneuma, which was also featured in last year’s exhibition Bodies of Light at the James Cohan Gallery.

Hilarie M. Sheets

New Sistine Chapel QTVR, courtesy of Villanova

For the last two years, students and faculty from Villanova University have had rare clearance to photograph a new state-of-the-art Virtual Reality Tour of the Sistine Chapel. The “tour”, a beautiful QTVR panorama with a classical music accompaniment, is on the Vatican website.

Getty offers free access to the BHA

The Getty Research Institute announced today that the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) is available free of charge on the Getty website. The database also includes the International Bibliography of Art (IBA), which covers the years 2008 and part of 2009. Next phase: the Répertoire de la litterature de l’art (RILA), one of the predecessors of BHA and with records that cover 1975–1989, will be online by 1 May.