Friday's Art Notes

Less than a week after "Superman broke the record price":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/02/tuesdays-art-notes-11.html for a comic book's sale at auction, Batman set the new high. A 1939 issue of Detective Comics No. 27, in which Batman makes his debut, sold Thursday for $1,075,500, "Heritage Auction Galleries":http://www.ha.com/ said. A copy of the first comic book featuring Superman, a 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, sold Monday for $1 million. * The "New York Times reviews":http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/arts/design/26biennial.html the "Whitney Biennial":http://preview.whitney.org/Exhibitions/2010Biennial, and writer Holland Cotter is left underwhelmed: "The show lives up -- or down -- to its billing. It has no theme; its catalog is slight; its installation, spartan." "Slate ponders":http://www.slate.com/id/2245768/ why the Whitney Museum chose George Condo to represent the state of art in 2010, "WNYC recommends":http://culture.wnyc.org/blogs/whitney-biennial-2010/2010/feb/25/whitney-biennial-three-must-sees/ that you see at least three of the 55 artists, while we also recommend seeing "this one.":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/02/portraits-of-the-face-of-war.html * "President Barack Obama awarded medals":http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022504028.html for the arts and humanities Thursday. Among the winners of the "National Humanities Medal":http://www.neh.gov/news/archive/20100225.html were recent NewsHour guests "Annette Gordon-Reed":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june09/hemingses_02-17.html for her research on Thomas Jefferson's slaves and the life of Sally Hemings, and "Elie Wiesel":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/04/conversation-elie-wiesel.html, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. "National Medal of Arts":http://www.nea.gov/news/news10/Medals.html recipients included Bob Dylan, Clint Eastwood, Jessye Norman and "Maya Lin":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/05/maya-lin-extended-interviews.html, who was also recently on the NewsHour. * An interesting "story in the Los Angeles Times":http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-hurt-locker26-2010feb26,0,6078776.story about "The Hurt Locker," the film many have favored to win the Oscar for best picture, looks at why "some soldiers and veterans say the movie ... portrays them as renegades and doesn't depict combat accurately," even while Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and many critics have praised the film.