ABOVE: two of the cars showing at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts as part of the exhibit “Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars from the Ralph Lauren Collection.” Left, a 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa; right, a 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe.

What did we just say? This show, “Speed, Style, and Beauty: Cars from the Ralph Lauren Collection,” at MFA Boston through July 3, appears to be one more assault on a legitimate museum by a deep-pocketed fashion label aiming to buttress its feeble aesthetic foundations by tacking its name onto a poorly-conceived and thinly-veiled exhibit-cum-showroom hosted by a serious but cash-hungry museum. The MFA Boston gets a crowd-pleaser—who doesn’t love fast cars?—that will draw a traditionally non-museum-going demographic, and the Ralph Lauren label gets its name trumpeted about. Everyone wins. Call it an advercuratorial.

There’s not much on the MFA’s website about the exhibit, but it does speak in glowing terms of the artistry involved in designing high-performance cars. In fact, a serious and expansive exhibit on the ignored and underappreciated field of industrial design would be a dream come true—but this isn’t one. “Speed, Style, and Beauty” clearly didn’t spring from an intense curatorial desire to examine the history, evolution, science, and aesthetics of automotive design; if it had, it would be larger, it would include cars from around the world, and in many different forms. It would, above all, include cars from more than one collector. No. This exhibit began with a phone call from a publicist saying that Mr. Lauren had a lovely collection of cars, and wouldn’t the MFA like to show them off (at the fashion company’s expense, of course)? Coming soon: “Sleek, White, Sexy: Consumer Electronics from the Steve Jobs Collection?”

ABOVE: an arial shot of Robben Island, off the coast of South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Mandela has succeeded in winning a preliminary injunction against his former lawyer, Ismail Ayob, from selling any more prints under Mandela’s name.

Look around: if you don’t see any works of art signed by Nelson Mandela, you really don’t need to read on. It’s just that the former South African president’s signature has turned up in some places it wasn’t supposed to, including, allegedly, prints of artworks sold by former Mandela lawyer Ismail Ayob. Now, a high court in Johannesburg has granted an injunction on Ayob selling further artworks bearing Mandela’s name.

In 2002, Mandela went back to Robben Island, where he had been imprisoned for nearly 20 years; while there, he drew 21 sketches of the island. Later, the original sketches, and hundreds of lithographic prints, were auctioned off to raise funds for the Mandela HIV/AIDS charities. Mandela now alleges that Ayob was selling more prints bearing forged signatures. Ayob was fired, everything went rather messily public, and has ended up here, with the first round in what are sure to be a lengthy series of legal wrangling. So if anyone tries to sell you a signed Mandela print out of a briefcase on the street, just keep walking, friend.

LINK: The Scotsman > Mandela wins first round in battle over prison art

PS - missed a day yesterday. We’ll make it up to you with a second post today. Check back around 1 PM. ~ADD