Gomez-Prince collaboration: At last month’s Eyekons conference, artists Sergio Gomez and Steve Prince participated in a live drawing performance on the theme “Who Is My Neighbor?” They started drawing from opposite sides of an eight-by-thirteen-foot piece of paper and then crossed over into each other’s work after reaching the middle. Follow the link above to see the final work, including detail images, and watch the time lapse video below.

New Viola video installation at St. Paul’s Cathedral: Last month I wrote about a piece from Bill Viola’s Passions series. Well, last week a new work of his was unveiled, this time on a patch of prime real estate: the east end of the Dean’s Aisle in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Its title is Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), and it is configured like a four-paneled altarpiece. Viola said he hopes that it and its companion piece Mary (to be unveiled in 2015) will function as “practical objects of traditional contemplation and devotion.” He describes the work as follows: “As the work opens, four individuals are shown in stasis, a pause from their suffering. Gradually there is movement in each scene as an element of nature begins to disturb their stillness. Flames rain down, winds begin to lash, water cascades, and earth flies up. As the elements rage, each martyr’s resolve remains unchanged. In their most violent assault, the elements represent the darkest hour of the martyr’s passage through death into the light.”

Photograph by Peter Mallet of a video installation by Bill Viola: Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), 2014. Color high-definition video polyptych on four vertical plasma displays, 140 x 338 x 10 cm. St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Duration: 7:15 minutes.

“Covering a City’s Potholes with Art” by Kate Sierzputowski: This article from Hyperalleric profiles the public-works project started by Chicago artist Jim Bachor: filling the city’s potholes with mosaics. At first fearful of legal repercussions, Bachor has since been awarded a commission by the Chicago Transit Authority!

Digitization initiatives: The Vatican recently announced that it has partnered with a Japanese IT company to digitize all 82,000 manuscripts in its collection, in an effort to expand access to its holdings. The first phase, which includes a batch of 3,000 manuscripts, is slated for completion by 2018. On another note, the Morgan Library and Museum has just completed its digitization of its almost five hundred Rembrandt etchings, many of which depict biblical subjects. Check it out!

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus: The Larger Plate (detail), ca. 1632. Etching, 36.7 x 25.8 cm.