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Wednesday
February 28
- CRACKING
DOWN ON ILLEGAL ART IMPORTS: Until now, when the US Customs
Office seized art it suspected was being illegally imported, it
had to prove that the importer was not the real owner. Now, the
US has collaborated with Italy to tighten import laws - from now
on importers will have to prove they own the work, an important
shift in the burden of proof. The
New York Times 02/28/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- BINARY
ART: San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art has opened "010101,"
an exhibit of virtual reality pieces, sculptures of robotic forms,
and computer-animated video screen-based "paintings."
But the museum insists that this is technology in the service
of art, not the other way around. Wired
02/28/01
- TECHNO-ART
HAS A HISTORY: Although advances in computer power have
expanded the range of palettes available to artists, technology-based
art is nothing new. Futuristic exhibits were quite common
even back in the 1950s. Wired
02/28/01
- ARTIST
AS FILM STAR: "No feature film about an artist is likely
to tell us anything new about the artist. This is not to say that
the genre is an unmitigated dud." And the new Jackson Pollock
film is rich in possibility. "The annoying thing is that
this may not be moonshine. Pollock is a great, writhing test case
for a movie, because, for once, so many of the ripest and cheesiest
conventions of the Hollywood bio-pic turn out, disconcertingly,
to be matters of fact." The New
Yorker 02/26/01
- MORE
BEANBAGS AND LAVA LAMPS WOULD HELP: New York's Museum of Modern
Art has unveiled an exciting new exhibit of . . . office furniture.
"Workspheres" purports to bring the future of personal
work space to a cubicle-imprisoned public, but couldn't the designers
have made the whole thing a little more, well, cosy? Newsday
02/28/01
- A
CURE FOR BLOCKBUSTERITIS: If
museums get tangled up in themselves chasing the next blockbuster
show, maybe a New World Order for museums is called for. Maybe
something French perhaps?
ArtsJournal 02/28/01
Tuesday
February 27
- TRAIN-STATION-AS-GALLERY:
Some 14 percent of the artwork in the British national collection
are not on display in the nation's museums or public buildings.
Now a member of parliament proposes that the unseen artwork be
brought out and displayed in train stations and airports.
BBC 02/27/01
- USING
WHAT YOU'VE GOT: Pittsburgh's abandoned steel mills can be
a desolate and depressing reminder of a bygone era of comfortable
employment and worker prosperity. But now, Pittsburgh has carved
out a new era of prosperity for itself, and is turning its attentions
to considering whether its monuments to the steel age can be transformed
into another piece of the city's artistic renaissance. Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 02/27/01
- NAZI-STOLEN
ART IN AUSTRALIA: "The New South Wales Art Gallery, one
of the first Australian institutions to review its collection,
says nine of the gallery's 40,000 artworks could have been among
the many paintings stolen by the Nazis." ABCNews
Online 02/27/01
- DUSTING
OFF THE OLD V&A: London's beleaguered Victoria & Albert
Museum, trying to shore up sagging attendance and public perceptions
of incompetence, has hired a marketing company to work on the
museum's image. A report earlier this month "attributed the
museum's difficulties to poor marketing and an excessively highbrow
image." The Guardian (London)
02/27/01
Monday
February 26
- PROVENANCE
PROBLEMS: Art collections around the world
have taken major strides in the last couple years to repatriate
any artwork plundered by the Nazis. Now Australia is also taking
a close look at its galleries’ holdings and has already found
more than 100 major works with dubious gaps in their ownership.
"It is unlikely that there is any major collection that has
been active in acquiring in the last 50 years that doesn't have
something that came from a [Nazi] source." Sydney Morning Herald 2/26/01
- THE MUSEUM EVERYONE
LOVES TO HATE: A National Audit Office report
announced that London’s V&A Museum receives the lion’s share
of government funding, although its attendance continues to dwindle.
But has the media unfairly trumpeted the negative charges and
overlooked the report’s more balanced claims? The
Times (London) 2/26/01
Sunday
February 25
- SO,
HOW'S THE ART? Lost in the media blitz over Rudy Giuliani's
latest feud with the Brooklyn Museum of Art is the fact that there's
actually a pretty good exhibition going on at BMA. "When
the din dies down and the posturing is played out, what remains
will be a stolid, serviceable exhibit that, without the jockeying
of egos and the meddling of the media, would have remained on
the periphery of public consciousness." Newsday
02/25/01
- WHITNEY'S
TRIPLE THOUGHT: The Whitney Museum's new visionary-for-hire,
Rem Koolhaas, is revolutionizing the architecture of New York's
museums, calling to mind an old catchphrase for historically informed
art. "The triple thought is the realization that beauty is
not some transcendant, eternal abstraction but something that
arises from historical circumstances and that can enlarge the
historical awareness of an audience." New
York Times 02/25/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- MR.
GEHRY GOES TO CLEVELAND: The city by the lake is not what
you would call adventurous in its architectural preferences. Indeed,
Cleveland's skyline, if you can call it that, consists of a few
perfunctory towers and high-rises that seek more to divert the
eye than focus it. So when a Frank Gehry-designed building begins
to rise on a local university campus, it tends to attract attention.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/25/01
- ART
FROM THE LEFT BRAIN: Harvard physicist Eric Heller's new computerized
art exhibit opened this week at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's Compton Gallery. Heller is the latest in a growing
line of scientists who are determined to bring the beauty of their
microscopic and invisible worlds to the museum-going public. Boston
Herald 02/25/01
Saturday
Fenruary 24
- WHAT
WENT WRONG? The Italian avant-garde movement was dominant
in the early part of the 20th Century. Furturism, a preamble of
sorts to the later surrealist fad, was sweeping Europe, and Italy's
artists were right in the middle of it all. But somehow, amid
political chaos and extremist coopting of futurism's ideals, Italy
got shoved to the curb. International
Herald Tribune 02/24/01
Friday
February 23
- THE
MOST EXPENSIVE MUSEUM IN LONDON: London's Victoria & Albert
Museum "received more than £30 million worth of government
funding last year, second only to the British Museum which was
awarded £34.7 million." But attendance continued a slide,
falling by 13 percent. "This represents a cost to the Government
of nearly £24 for each visitor, the highest for any museum in
London in the last seven years. It compares to £5.10 for each
visitor to the National Portrait Gallery, £6.40 for the British
Museum and £7.90 for the Tate Britain." The
Independent (London) 02/22/01
- MAYBE
A REASON WHY? The National Audit Office (NAO), a government
spending watchdog, said most people "have no idea" what is
inside the Victoria & Albert Museum. "The museum,
which once advertised itself as "an ace cafe with a museum
attached", has responded by saying it can redeem itself."
BBC 02/23/01
- MUSEUM
DIRECTOR HAULED BEFORE GOVERMENT COMMITTEE: The director of
Australia's National Gallery has been hauled up before a government
committee to answer charges by his former chief of Australian
art that management of the museum is in disarray. The curator
said Brian Kennedy's "management style had resulted in exhibition
planning being in disarray. Art historians were bogged down in
bureaucracy and morale among staff was abysmal." Sydney
Morning Herald 02/23/01
- RUDY'S
MOTIVATION: So what's NY mayor Rudy Giuliani's motivation
for attacking the Brooklyn Museum again? "If this isn't a
media stunt for the exhibition, then it's a media stunt for Giuliani.
What else can it be, when Rudy with a straight face says he is
looking to pack his commission on decency with "decent people"?
Does he mean that only religious leaders need apply? Or that he
wants only people who think exactly like he does, who will vote
the way he tells them?" New York
Post 02/22/01
- TOUGH TALK
ON THE DOME: The man picked to rescue London's Millennium
Dome is skeptical about its chances. Asked if the dome could ever
be a viable attraction again, he said, "What do you mean again?
It never was. It lost £131m as a trading entity in one year....
This place has been a victim of one dud financial estimate after
another." The Guardian (London)
02/23/01
- A GEORGE
THAT COSTS MORE THAN A BUCK: For 33 years, the Gilbert Stuart
portrait of George Washington has been one of the best-known images
at the Smithsonian Institution. But all that time it's been on
loan, and now the owner wants to sell it. He's given the Smithsonian
the first chance, but if they can't come up with $20 million,
it will likely go elsewhere.
Washington Post 02/22/01
- MONUMENT
UNDER GLASS: The 13th Century cloister of St. Michael's in
the town of Hildesheim, about 19 miles south of Hannover, Germany
was declared a World Monument by the UN. But the structure is
falling down, being eaten away by the elements. The solution?
Put the whole thing under glass. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 02/23/01
- ANCIENT
MARINERS WERE BETTER THAN WE THOUGHT: Probing the Eastern
Mediterranean for a lost Israeli submarine, an underwater search
team discovered a 2300-year-old merchant vessel, 10,000 feet down
and 300 miles from the nearest land. The discovery may revise
theories of ancient navigation. "We’d always believed that
ships hugged the coast and stayed in sight of the land. This is
the nail in the coffin on that theory."
MSNBC (AP) 02/22/01
- BARBIE
CAN HAVE A SEX LIFE. SORT OF: An artist in Utah has been using
Barbie dolls "to critique the materialistic and gender-oppressive
values he believes the doll embodies." Specifically, he takes
pictures of the doll, sometimes in sexual positions. Toymaker
Mattel wanted an injunction blocking his pictures, but a US Circuit
Court of Appeals said he can continue, pending a fall trial.
San Francisco Chronicle (AP) 02/22/01
Thursday
February 22
- MONUMENTAL
DISINTEREST: Last December, the Korean government unveiled
plans to build "The Ring of Seoul," a "200-meter-diameter
ring structure made up of steel beams and glass panels. The Ring
was to be erected next to the World Cup main stadium in Sangam-dong.
More than half of the estimated budget was to come from the private
sector. However, not a single corporation formally agreed with
the foundation to provide funds." So the plans may be scrapped.
Korea Herald 02/22/01
- INCHING
TO INFLUENCE: Why did New York mayor Rudy Giuliani attack
the Brooklyn Museum last week? He had to know he couldn't win
his argument, after losing last year in the courts over the BMA's
"Sensation" show. "Giuliani may have lost his lawsuit
over the 'Sensation' exhibition, but the museum lost the war,
so to speak. Its authority, too—I mean as a serious art institution—has
suffered irreparable damage, and its legal victory in the courts
over the Last Supper photograph, if it should come to that, won’t
do anything to save it. And this time around, it is doubtful that
even Mayor Giuliani’s attack will do much for the museum’s box-office
coffers." New York Observer 02/21/01
- TEAMING
UP: Two Connecticut musuems have joined forces to bring together
a unique exhibit of American modernist art. That many of the paintings
and sketches on display take Parisian life as their subject is
a reflection of the global attitude towards American art in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. Still, Childe Hassam and Maurice
Prendergast, the two artists on display, were integral in the
process of gaining respect for serious American artists. Hartford
Courant 02/22/01
- STRUGGLING
BLACK MUSEUMS: There are more
black American museums now than a decade ago, but they're struggling.
"Telling African-American history can often offend donors if they
feel that the history isn't the truth or places a particular person
or group of people in a bad light. If it is perceived that our
museums are becoming corporately run, then the community can often
respond negatively, and this shows in attendance figures. On the
flip side, if a corporation sees that there is no community support,
it may be reluctant to give." New York Times
02/22/01 (one-time registration required
for access)
- A
THANKLESS JOB: A last-minute
appointee of President Clinton is poised to have a tremendous
impact on the way Washington, D.C. looks, architecturally. Richard
Friedman, the new chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission,
will shape the look of any new monuments, have veto power over
major buildings, and will probably find himself smack in the middle
of the controversy surrounding the new World War II Memorial.
Boston Globe 02/22/01
- YOUTH
MOVEMENT: The city of Pittsburgh, in an effort to continue
the architectural and cultural renaissance that has swept over
the city in the last decade, is staging a competition for young
designers. The entrants will be asked to "come up with ideas
for making eight historic public spaces in the city more attractive
and more usable." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 02/22/01
- A
SIDE OF BACON: A large show of the work of Francis Bacon includes
900 items - including paintings, drawings and sketches. But there
is some question whether Bacon made them all. "If a large
number of the works are deemed to be doubtful, then the uncritical
exhibition of this material will muddy our comprehension of Bacon's
achievement. What is at stake is Bacon's artistic identity. For,
until you first determine what is and what is not by an artist's
own hand, you cannot say anything else meaningful about him."
The Telegraph (London) 02/22/01
Wednesday
February 21
- NEW
STORIES OF AUSTRALIA: After two decades in the planning, the
new National Museum of Australia will soon open. It will be Australia's
first "cultural history" museum and pledges to portray
the stories of the Australian people. The
Age (Melbourne) 02/21/01
- A
COMPLICATED JOB:
The new National Museum of Australia is "a sort of satirical
embodiment of Australia - a comfortable collection of the
past, a cynical view of the present, and a closed view of
the future - and maybe that's what museums should do."
The Age (Melbourne) 02/21/01
- BLOCKBUSTERITIS:
Museums are more and more obsessed by the blockbuster show, the
need to program "event" exhibitions designed to pull
in the crowds to prove their success. It's long been debated whether
such shows serve art. But do they even serve the institutions
themselves?
ArtsJournal
02/21/01
- LIKING
THE ODDS: A slug of National Lottery arts funding in the past
five years has resulted in a wealth of projects in Scotland. "A
total fund of just under £85 million has been spent on 83 building
projects to March 2000," and the diversity and scope is remarkable.
The Scotsman 02/21/01
- THE
PROPER CONTEXT: Should "indigenous art, once removed
from the context of its making, should be assessed within the
dominant Western canon of art history? While the sway between
ethnographic and imperialist positions still exists, the primary
emphasis in critical visual assessment now comfortably rests on
surface quality." Sydney Morning
Herald 02/21/01
Tuesday
February 20
- URBAN
RENEWAL? One of Boston's most heavily-traversed bridges -
the Longfellow, spanning the Charles River - has come in for some
unsolicited visual upgrades recently. Specifically, someone is
slowly covering it with multi-hued paint splotches. Vandalism?
Maybe. "But let's imagine, for a minute, that it was meant
as something bigger. A statement of rebellion. An artistic expression.
Imagine that these splotches, love or hate them, have some meaning."
Boston Globe 02/20/01
-
200 OTHER PHOTOS: Giuliani’s latest run-in with the Brooklyn Museum of Art
has drawn visitors and media attention to Renee Cox’s "Yo
Mama’s Last Supper" - but what about the hundreds of
other interesting photographs on display, and the lost significance
of the fact that "it’s the first ever large-scale museum
exhibition devoted solely to the work of African-American
artists"? Newsweek 2/17/01
-
THOROUGHLY
MODERN MET: In the midst of all the controversy surrounding
The Whitney's "American Century" exhibition, MOMA's
reshuffling of it's collection, and the Guggenheiming of the
world, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has quietly offered
up an extensive, if somewhat conservative, collection of 20th
Century art. Arranged chronologically and presented as being
basically no different from art of any other era, the Met's
"Development of Modern Art" exhibit is perhaps the
most accessible collection currently on the scene. New
York Press 02/20/01
-
SNICKERING FROM THE GRAVE: The French painter Balthus, who
died Sunday - and spent a good portion of his career defending
his own work against charges of pornography - would likely
have relished the recent dust-up between Giuliani and the
Brooklyn Museum of Art. "Balthus's American legacy is
one illustration of how our puritanism and hypocrisy get us
into cultural binds. Like many Europeans, Balthus found ridiculous
the American assumption that art is a moral occupation."
New York Times 2/20/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
-
COULD BE FRAUD: Scotland Yard has begun a fraud
inquiry into the British Museum’s purchase of the wrong, cheaper
kind of limestone for its new #1.7 million South Portico in
1999. "The council could now order the portico to be
pulled down and rebuilt using the right stone [or prosecute
for a breach of planning laws." The Independent (London)
2/20/01
-
THE EROS PERIOD? Three hundred of Picasso’s most
graphically erotic paintings, drawings, and engravings are
going on display this week at the Picasso Museum in Paris.
Many of them have been hidden in cellars and bank vaults and
never before publicly exhibited. The show will travel to Montreal
and Barcelona, but "the brothel scenes, rape and voyeurism
are considered indecent in countries such as the United States,
where there are no plans to stage the exhibition." The Times (London) 2/20/01
Monday
February 19
- MASSIVE
ART SWINDLE: It's looking like Michel Cohen's multi-million-dollar
swindle of Sotheby's and several of the world's top art dealers
isn't $50 million as previously reported. "Now it looks like
even that record figure will go higher considerably. One dealer
in the know even pegs the figure at potentially double that amount."
Forbes.com 02/19/01
- THE
USUAL SUSPECTS WEIGH IN: Vistors packed the opening of the
Brooklyn Museum of Art's photography show attacked by New York
mayor Rudy Giuliani last week. Reverend Al Sharpton defended the
controversial photo attacked by the mayor: "This has nothing to
do with Jesus. This has something to do with censorship."
New York Post 02/18/01
- THE
NEW VICTIMS: New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's attack on
Renée Cox's "Yo Mama's Last Supper," a 15-foot photograph
patterned after Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper," in
the new Brooklyn Museum photography show uses the language
of victimhood. "It's become increasingly common for those
who resent criticism of Christianity and the Catholic Church
to play the victim, portraying themselves as targets of hate
speech and even hate crimes." Salon
02/18/01
- THE
LANGUISHING FRENCH ART MARKET: France is one of the great
storehouses of great art. Yet its sales of art at auction are
small - about 13 percent of the world trade. "France is continuing
to haemorrhage art to overseas salerooms, while its bureaucrats
twiddle their thumbs over reforming its protectionist art market."
The Telegraph (London) 02/19/01
- TOO
MUCH LOVE? It takes some kind of balls to bring the life of
the genius behind that painting to the screen, and Ed Harris'
directorial debut, 'Pollock,' is clearly a labor of love, tempered
with a healthy amount of respect - perhaps too much. Yet there's
so much measured delicacy to "Pollock" that it's almost the antithesis
of who and what Pollock was." Salon
02/18/01
- READING
POMPEII: When Vesuvius erupted on Pompeii, it reduced libraries
of documents into lumps of undeciperable charcoal. Now "American
scientists have developed a technology for reading the carbonized
papyri excavated in the 18th century from the magnificent seafront
villa owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law." It could be
"the most significant rediscovery of classical literature
since the Renaissance." Discover
02/18/01
- WHAT
IF IT WERE MINE? Artist Michael Landy's project in which he
systematically destroys everything he owns has captivated British
critics. "I began to imagine what would happen if this was
everything I owned. Everything I had ever written. Every photo
of a loved one. Every work of art on my walls." Sunday
Times (London) 02/18/01
- BALTHUS
DEAD AT 92: French-born painter Balthus, considered one of
the 20th century's finest realist painters, has died in his home
at Rossiniere in Switzerland." The
New York Times 02/19/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- SHOE-IN:
Former Philipines first lady Imelda Marcos has opened a museum
to showcase her shoe collection. She's gathered "220 of her
finest sets of footwear to be resurrected and turned into a tourist
attraction, prompting a remarkable change in Mrs Marcos' fortunes."
The Independent (London) 02/18/01
Sunday
February 18
- MUTED
OPENING: Plain old curiosity and not moral outrage appeared
to have brought a stream of retirees, tourists and art enthusiasts
to the Brooklyn Museum. No protesters screamed to be heard like
the ones who lined up by the dozens two years ago, some to chastise
the mayor's stand and others to protest the artwork itself."
The New York Times 02/17/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- YO!
FAME: Renée Cox, the 43-year-old artist who has drawn the
mayor's ire, has been a minor artist. "She has courted attention
before, and she knows a thing or two about the celebrity business,
having been a fashion photographer." The
New York Times 02/17/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- ART
AS SHOW BIZ: "Artists agree that they are no longer content
to be recognized only by their peers and a small circle of critics,
curators, collectors and dealers; rather, they want to participate
in a larger cultural arena. Looking at art is no longer a private
elite event. It has a huge public audience. After all, the Phillips
Collection is going to Las Vegas! The audience for modern art
has multiplied, and people like spectacle. Art has become part
of popular entertainment." The
New York Times 02/18/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- LIFE
LITE: Artist Michael Landy's art project destroying all of
his possessions systematically has stirred up an enormous reaction
in Britain. "When I told people about 'Break Down' some laughed
and a few were angry. 'Anger? That's good.' There is no end product,
for the artist or the art market. By February 24, Landy will have
nothing left but his memories, and the ladder to the gantry which
he bought himself for a little more than £400." The
Guardian (London) 02/17/01
- WHITNEY
TO CLOSE OUTPOST? The Stamford branch of the Whitney Museum
will likely shut its doors after 20 years on March 31. "The
Stamford branch's fate has been in question since Champion International,
which gave the Whitney a free lease in its building for 18 1/2
years and funded museum programs, was acquired by International
Paper last summer." Stamford
Advocate 02/16/01
- BUILDING
BUILDING BUILDING... The arts building boom isn't over in
London, where the plans keep on coming - here's a list of another
couple-hundred-million-pounds worth of projects this year. The
Sunday Times (London) 02/18/01
-
MICHAEL
GRAVES WINS GOLD MEDAL: Architect Michael Graves wins the
coveted Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects.
"Graves is a ranking member of an exclusive club of famous
architects whose services are in constant demand. There is no
definitive membership list, nor an established set of standards
to get in. It takes a combination of talent, vision, ambition,
discipline, savvy, a sense of timing, and sheer luck."
Washington Post 02/17/01
Friday
February 16
- ANOTHER DECENCY DEBATE? New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
has once again denounced an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of
Art as "disgusting," "outrageous," and "anti-Catholic."
Giuliani has declared that he would appoint a commission to set
"decency standards" and keep such work out of museums
that receive public money. "That sounds like Berlin in 1939." New
York Times 2/16/01
(one-time
registration required for access)
- DRAWING FIRE: The Brooklyn Museum of Art was
the site of last year’s "Sensation" show, which led
the mayor to freeze the museum’s city subsidies, a decision
which was later overruled in federal court. The current artist
in the mayor’s sights is Renèe Cox, whose photo of a nude black
woman as Christ at the Last Supper is part of the current exhibit
of contemporary black photographers. Giuliani has threatened
to take his complaint all the way to the Supreme Court this
time. Cox says, "Get over it. I don’t produce work that
necessarily looks good over somebody’s couch." Yahoo! News 2/15/01
- COX
RESPONDS: "There's nothing sexual about it. If we are all
made in God's image, why can't a woman be Christ? We are the
givers of life!" Salon 02/16/01
- CANALETTO TO THE RESCUE: Climate-change specialists and
preservationists hoping to save Venice from damaging floods and
sinking are studying Canaletto’s 18th-century paintings
for clues to what the city’s sustainable water levels should be.
Canaletto painted his cityscapes using a camera obscura, and thus
they are a remarkably accurate measure of optimal flood levels. BBC 2/15/01
- WHEN IS BIG TOO BIG? Berlin’s colossal new Chancellery
building, more than 1,000 feet long and the brainchild of former
Chancellor Helmut Kohl, raises questions about how the city should
best rebuild and reinvent its civic identity. "With the reconstruction
of a united Berlin now about half complete, the city is still
enmeshed in debate over whether the capital should exercise dutiful
restraint or is now free to give exuberant expression to German
power, as this Chancellery might suggest." New
York Times 2/16/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- GIANTS
IN THE EARTH: Archaeologists have found extraordinary treasures,
and perhaps a medical mystery, in the tombs of an extinct Peruvian
culture. The Moche, who thrived between 100 and 800 AD, were artistic,
scientific, and - some of them at least - uncommonly tall.
National Geographic 03/01
Thursday February
15
- EDIFACE
COMPLEX: What do large buildings say about their owners?
"Great buildings seem linked to the faltering fortunes of
overweening egos. The pattern: Giant buildings go up, markets
go down. The Singer (1908) and Metropolitan Life (1909) buildings
marked the depression of 1907-1910. Three of Manhattan's greatest
corporate landmarks – 40 Wall Street (1929), the Chrysler Building
(1930) and the Empire State Building (1931) – coincided with the
beginning of the Great Depression."
The Standard 02/12/01
- CALDER - HANGING AROUND: The family of sculptor Alexander
Calder has chosen the late artist's birthplace, Philadelphia,
as the site of a museum dedicated three generations of the Calder
family of artists. "Although the three Calders will be represented,
the new museum is expected to focus largely on the most important
of the sculptors, Alexander "Sandy" Calder, inventor of the mobile."
The $50 million project will be designed by Japanese architect
Tadao Ando and is scheduled to open in 2004. (Calder Foundation: http://www.calder.org/). Philadelphia
Inquirer 2/15/01
- BREAKDOWN PALACE: Artist Michael Landy’s "Break
Down" show, in which he invites visitors to witness the "public
destruction" of his life ("feeding his clothes, furniture,
love letters, car, artwork, passport, etc, into an industrial
granulator") "certainly engenders a good debate in the
pub afterwards. One mover in the art world told me: ‘We've just
seen the death of British art.’" The Guardian 2/15/01
- A WALKING
CONTRADICTION: Arthur Erickson has been hailed as a visionary,
and derided as pompous and out-of-touch. He has lived high on
the hog, and lost everything. He has built architectural wonders
for use as low-income housing, and designed a grand concert
hall widely considered to be the ugliest and most acoustically
inferior in North America. In fact, it is the inconsistency
of the man that makes him so interesting.
The Globe & Mail (Toronto)
02/15/01
Wednesday
February 14
- THE
GREAT GRECO: Worldwide, which artist drew the biggest crowds
last year? Cézanne? Van Gogh? Nope, it was El Greco. At the National
Gallery in Athens, he drew 7000 people a day. The Met, Guggenheim,
and Whitney drew the biggest US crowds; in the UK, it was the
National Gallery. The Art Newspaper
02/14/01
- DECONSTRUCTING
MY LIFE: Artist Michael Landy is deconstructing his life.
Literally. "First, he's made an inventory of the 7,006 things
in his possession - everything from his car and fridge to his
bed, CD player, art works, records, clothes, personal papers,
toothpaste, soap . . . everything. Once listed (the mind-boggling
inventory hangs on one wall of the store), each item is placed
in a clear plastic bag, which is then numbered and put in a yellow
tray. In due course, the tray is placed on a moving conveyor belt
which snakes and loops around the department store like a miniature
roller coaster. What with the blue uniforms and yellow trays,
the whole scene really looks rather festive. But it's not. The
ultimate destination of the conveyor belt is a machine that grinds
anything put in it into fine powder." The Telegraph (London)
02/14/01
- WHAT
HAPPENS IF NOBODY WANTS THE JOB? Before London's Victoria
& Albert Museum selected its new director last week, headhunters
had offered the job to several international candidates, but had
been turned down. "It is known they encouraged quite a number
of people to apply from all over the world. It subtly undermines
the candidature in the end." The Independent (London)
02/11/01
- JONESING FOR
THE V&A: Many believe that the Victoria & Albert
Museum needs a charismatic figure to pull it out of a prolonged
slump. But Mark Jones, named last week as new director, "is
seen as a subtle networker, a scholarly figure, adept at behind-the-scenes
politicking but unlikely to stamp his personality on the V&A
in a radical shake-up. Yet that is exactly what some critics
claim is needed to save the 149-year-old museum from dwindling
attendances and a nightmarishly bureaucratic way of working."
The Guardian (London)
02/13/01
Tuesday
February 13
- ONBOARD
AUCTIONS: "Art auctions, once a rarity on the high seas,
are finding a berth on most every cruise line these days. In an
era of fare slashing, art sales have become an on-board profit
center. On some ships, you can't walk down halls without tripping
over easels of works for sale." USA
Today 02/12/01
- PAINTIN'
PUTIN: Russian president Vladimire Putin has become an object
of art. "It's a cult of personality. Indeed, the paintings are
similar to the hagiographic works of socialist realism that proliferated
in the Soviet era. Although Putin has publicly asked not to be
immortalized in works of art, he has inevitably become the object
of eulogistic pop culture since becoming president — and the forms
have been as varied as a children's book, plaster busts and even
a nature walk in the northwestern town of Izborsk that traces
every step he made on his short visit there."
Moscow Times 02/13/01
- CASTING
A BACKWARDS GLANCE: There was a time when plaster casts of
art objects were a big thing. Artists learned from them, collectors
prized them. Then they went out of fashion, as the art world prefered
to collect only originals. Now "there is renewed interest
in plaster cast collections. Their historical and aesthetic value
have been rediscovered. Collections that were destroyed or heavily
damaged during World War II are being restored and enlarged in
Berlin and Munich." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 02/13/01
- IN
THE PUBLIC INTEREST: The debate over the worth, or lack thereof,
of public art (murals, outdoor sculptures, etc.) is not easily
resolved. Even in a city like Philadelphia, which is swimming
in such art, there is little evidence either way on whether the
culture boosting has any effect on the public. Nonetheless, the
experimenting continues... Philadelphia Inquirer 02/13/01
Monday
February 12
- WHAT
IF THEY GAVE AN AWARD AND NOBODY CAME? Canada's Millennium
Prize for visual art offers a $50,000 award, and, hopefully, some
attention for the artists who compete for it. But the exercise
has received scant attention at home, even though the homegrown
artists chosen for the shortlist have acheived more attention
outside the country than in it. The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/12/01
- FINDING
RELIGIOUS ART: A new cathedral in Los Angeles faces a problem
- where to find artists who can make the religious images for
the project. "These artists were not selected for their connection
with the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, most of the nine commissioned
to date say that although they consider themselves to be religious,
or spiritual, they are not church-going."
Los Angeles Times 02/11/01
- MELBOURNE
MUSEUM STAFF UPSET: Workers at the new Melbourne Art Museum
are angry about news Legionella bacteria was found in the museum's
air systems. The workers' union says the museum "had mishandled
news of the discovery - the latest in what it said was a long
line of problems involving working conditions." The
Age (Melbourne) 02/12/01
- A
FAIR SETTLEMENT? Experts are endorsing the recent $512 million
settlement in the Sotheby's/Christie's lawsuit. "The structure
of the settlement, the experts concluded, would help to stave
off the risks of insolvency for both companies, especially the
publicly held Sotheby's, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange.
They calculated the chance of a default by Sotheby's over the
next five years at 9.16 percent, a probability that would more
than double if the company's bonds, now rated at junk status,
were downgraded further." The
New York Times 02/12/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- AFGHANI
ART DESTROYED? Afghanistan's National Museum lost much of
its art during the country's civil war. But now reports say the
ruling Taliban have destroyed more than a dozen ancient statues
in the museum. "The Taleban minister of information and culture
has denied the reports but has refused to allow journalists to
enter the museum to check them. Reports started to circulate last
week that the Taleban were destroyed non-Islamic artefacts in
the museum, including statues of the Buddha dating back nearly
2,000 years." BBC 02/12/01
- GREEK
ARTIFACTS RETURNED: In 1990, 274 ancient Greek artifacts were
stolen from the Corinth Archaeological Museum. They later found
their way to the United States, where some of them were sold by
Christie's auction house in 1997. That Christie's "failed
to recognize immediately that the antiquities they were dealing
with were stolen is surprising because the theft was widely publicized."
Now the pieces have been recovered and returned to Greece.
Archaeology 02/01
Sunday
February 11
- ART
DAMAGED IN QUAKE: Some of India's monuments and historic sites
have been damaged in last week's earthquake.
Los Angeles Times 02/10/01
- HOPE
FOR THE V&A? London's Victoria and Albert Museum has been
a mess for decades. Now "the reliably clumsy V&A trustees
have finally announced the name of the new director. The result
could be good news. It could be terrible news. Who knows? Mark
Jones may not be an entirely unknown quantity - he has been running
the National Museums of Scotland since 1992 - but he is untested
at the highest level and was certainly the darkest of the three
horses in the race." The Sunday
Times (London) 02/11/01
- THE
NEW ATHENEUM: Hartford's Wadsworth Athenium Museum has chosen
Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos of UN Studio, based in Amsterdam
as architects for its ambitious new makeover. "Van Berkel,
an architect with an eye for seamless, flowing lines and modernist
geometric patterns, and Bos, an art historian and writer and the
articulator of the firm's working philosophy, will design the
plans for a new building and for the extensive renovations of
the museum's five contiguous, historic buildings on its scenic
but crowded downtown campus. Confusing internal geography has
become a quirky trademark of the Hartford museum, America's oldest
public art museum in continuous operation." Hartford
Courant 02/11/01
Friday
February 9
- $50
MILLION SWINDLE: A New York dealer may have swindled Sotheby's
and several of the art world's most savvy art dealers for as much
as $50 million, which would be one of the greatest art swindles
of all time. The auction house loaned Michel Cohen millions of
dollars to buy blue chip art, but Cohen evidently got behind in
the stock market and was unable to pay back the money.
Forbes.com 02/08/01
- SO
MUCH FOR THE FREE MARKET: Until now, Austrian museums were
taken care of by the state - "the state distributed budget
money and each year collected the income earned by the museums,
instead of leaving it to the institutions themselves for subsequent
projects. Now it is the museums' turn to prove that they are successful,
to overcome antiquated forms of organization, to show entrepreneurial
imagination and successfully come to grips with the ever greater
need for financing in the art world." And they don't appear
to be succeeding at it. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 02/08/01
- AUCTIONEERS
ALARM AUSTRALIAN DEALERS: Auction houses in Australia have
moved into contemporary art sales in a big way. "The latest
move by the two international salerooms to seize another slice
of the Australian art market, however, has alarmed some dealers.
With the auction rooms now acting increasingly as retailers of
art, their impact on commercial dealers has in some cases been
catastrophic." Sydney Morning
Herald 02/08/01
- WHITNEY
BIENNIAL CHOOSES ORGANIZER: For the first time in its history
the last Whitney Biennial chose a group of curators outside the
museum to put together the show. For the next biennial, Larry
Rinder, the Whitney's curator of contemporary art, has been appointed
chief organizer for the next Biennial, set to open in March 2002.
New York Times 2/08/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- STRUGGLING
TOWARDS SOLVENCY: The Barnes Collection is one of those museums
that seems destined to spend eternity fighting for its financial
life. Based in a small suburb of Philadelphia, and displaying
an extensive collection of American impressionist art, the Barnes
has been near death recently. But a series of grants, all announced
in the last four months, promises new life for the foundation.
Philadelphia Inquirer 02/09/01
- ART OR SCHADENFREUDE?
fAMOUS is the title of a new exhibition in San Francisco
that is made up entirely of defunct dot-coms. Screens show abandoned
web sites, and sculptures represent the decline of the dot-com
culture. There's a certain sick voyeurist feel to it all,
but it's kind of fun, too.
NPR's Morning Edition
02/08/01 (RealAudio file)
-
CH-CH-CH-CHIA! The hottest new
thing in New York hotel architecture? Grass. Inside. Seriously.
Not to mention bamboo, ficus, and ferns, all of them carefully
planted and maintained not as decorative add-ons, but as an
integral part of the building design. In a city with precious
little greenery outside, an architect is leading the movement
to bring nature into new construction.
USA Today
02/09/01
Thursday
February 8
- "ROSEBUD
IN WINTER"? Los Angeles' Latino Museum has restructured
in an attempt to revive itself. "The financially strapped
institution, which opened its doors in 1998, has not mounted an
exhibition or presented other public programming since August,
when claims surfaced indicating that the museum was out of money
and owed nearly $500,000 to creditors and employees."
Los Angeles Times 02/07/01
- "UNRATIONALIZING"
THE HOLOCAUST: Berlin's new Holocaust memorial will consist
of 2700 gray stone pillars, scattered over a a four-and-a-half
acre site. Architect Peter Eisenman says he wanted to do something
"that was not either kitsch or nostalgia or representational.
I hated Schindler's List.... I hated any of these things that
attempt to sort of make a theme park out of the Holocaust."
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 02/07/01
- SANTA FE SHAMS: Georgia O’Keeffe’s reputation has
waxed and waned for decades, yet last year’s discovery that 29
of her "Canyon Site" watercolors were actually fakes
wrought greater havoc on her legacy than anything ever had. Herewith
a detailed look into the mystery of the false attributions. The Telegraph (London) 2/08/01
- THIRD AND RISING: In an effort to rival the major
players in the highly competitive auction business, Phillips -
the third-largest auction house - has bought a prized collection
of 19th-century paintings and drawings that includes Cézannes
and van Goghs. The seven works (including Cézanne’s signature
"Montagne Ste.-Victoire") are expected to bring more
than $80 million at auction this spring. New York Times 2/08/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- WHAT'S
A MUSE WORTH? PICASSO'S DRAWS £3M: A 1942 Picasso portrait
of Dora Maar sold at auction for more than £3 million, about £1
million more than had been expected. Maar, an established artist
herself, was for nine years Picasso's lover and muse. The painting,
called "Buste de Femme", was one of those about which
the artist said, "I have no doubt that the war is in these
paintings." BBC 02/07/01
- BRITISH
MUSEUM MIGHT CHARGE: The British Museum has warned the government
it might start charging admission for the first time in its history
if the museum doesn't get some help with a large VAT tax bill.
London Evening Standard 02/08/01
Wednesday
February 7
- THE
MODERN MUSEUM...ER, FUN HOUSE: Time was when art museums were
temples of decorum, staid, stately and places in which to be contemplative.
"But the “blockbuster” mentality that began developing in
the 1960s helped to transform many art museums into all-purpose
cultural emporia. Increasingly, success is measured by quantity,
not quality, by the take at the box office rather than at the
bar of aesthetic discrimination."
New Criterion 02/01
- THE TASK OF REINVENTION: Mark Jones, director of the National
Museums of Scotland, was appointed Monday to head London’s Victoria
& Albert - a museum with flagging admissions, a stalled £80
million redesign, and an obvious need for artistic leadership.
"His next task is to polish this Victorian jewel and make
it appeal to the modern eye. A museum cannot ossify and be left
to decay. It has to reinvent itself." The Herald
(Glasgow) 2/07/01
- END OF THE BOOM? The Australian art market experienced
an unprecedented boom in 1999, with paintings, prints, and drawings
selling for more than $90 million. But as a slowdown is already
being felt in the economy this year, perhaps the swell has passed?
"The big question is what will happen to the Australian economy,
and how the art market will stand up to a general downturn." The Age (Melbourne) 2/07/01
- WHAT
LIES BENEATH: A bomb in 1998 at a Sri Lankan Lankan temple
called the Temple of the Tooth unexpectedly uncovered some priceless
murals which scholars say change the understanding of Sri Lankan
art. "The Temple of the Tooth is the final resting place
of the Buddha's tooth, which was first brought to Ceylon in the
fourth century AD." BBC 02/07/01
- MORE
THAN POSIES FOR THE PROM: The annual orchid festival starts
Saturday at Kew Gardens in London, with very tight security. Some
of the blooms are worth thousands; to some people, worth even
more. An orchid hunter who had been kidnapped for nine months
by South American guerrillas insists, "I thought we were going
to die but it was worth it." National
Post (Canada) 02/07/01
Tuesday
February 6
- INVITATION TO FRAUD: A
series of 29 paintings attributed to Georgia O'Keeffe that were
shown last year to be fake after being acquired by the Kemper
Museum, have an odd and tangled history. Moreover, they reflect
some of the inherent flaws in the art market where provenance
is not always what it purports to be. The Kansas City Star puts
together a 13-part investigation of the O'Keeffe fiasco and
looks at larger artworld problems that allowed it to happen. Kansas City Star 02/04/01
- UPPING THE ODDS OF SURVIVAL: Battered by the financial markets
and dwindling online art sales, companies are banding together
to stay afloat. Online fine-art retailer NextMonet.com announced
its merger with competitor Visualize, an online seller of limited
edition art prints. The new company will be based in San Francisco. CNET 2/05/01
- THE ARTIST AS ASPARAGUS:
The French painter Edouard Manet was, at heart, a populist, using
his talent to turn common aspects of life into profound allegories.
The curator of a new Manet exhibit in Baltimore thinks that the
work that best demonstrates this technique is "Bunch of Asparagus."
NPR's Morning Edition
02/05/01 (RealAudio file)
Monday
February 5
- LOOTERS
RUIN AFGHANI ART: International concern is growing for the
safety of artwork in Afghanistan. "The frescoes behind the
Great Buddha at Bamiyan are being hacked from the walls by locals
living near the site. Although it is doubtful whether any reputable
Western dealer would risk purchasing such well recorded frescoes,
these unique paintings have been irretrievably damaged. They now
risk disappearing forever into the hands of individuals who have
few scruples about owning such artefacts." The
Art Newspaper 02/02/01
- BASQUE
BOOST: The Bilbao Guggenheim has transformed Bilbao since
it opened three years ago. The museum has had 3,625,000 visitors
to the museum since October 1997, while 5,000 jobs were created
and $600 million’s worth of economic activity was generated."
The Art Newspaper 02/02/01
- TO
PAINT YOU IS TO LIKE YOU? Is it true that to paint a woman
you have to like her? But "for millennia, men have grown
used to working for other men for whom they have scant affection.
Their behavior is governed by a common understanding that they
have to get along for the purpose in hand. A man can paint another
man in a state of emotional indifference. However, most male artists
would find it difficult to paint women in this unmoved state."
The Age (Melbourne) 02/05/01
- ONLINE
ART SALES: Cyber art sales in the UK seem to be going well,
even as prominent online art sales ventures such as NY-based E-artgroup
fold owing creditors money. "A new breed of cyberspace art
dealers is fuelling a huge upturn in sales of contemporary work,
slashing the cost of famous artists’ products and earning attention
from millions of people who would never have ventured into a gallery.
One gallery, Eyestorm, has sold almost its entire collection of
500 prints of Damien Hirst’s Valium at £1,700 a piece, little
more than a month after they went on sale, while rival site Britart.com
took 100 orders for prints by his contemporary Gary Hume the first
day they went on sale." The Scotsman
02/04/01
- COLLUSION
QUESTIONS: As lawsuits against auction houses Sotheby's and
Christie's are settled and "lawyers begin winding down their
work, questions remain, particularly in the criminal investigation,
about the collusion between Sotheby's and its competitor, Christie's."
The New York Times 02/05/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- CORCORAN
EXPANSION: Two America Online execs give $30 million for the
Corocoran Gallery's new Frank Gehry extension. The
New York Times 02/05/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
- SPENDING
THAT MERGER MONEY: Two America Online executives have pledged
$30 million to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., a record
donation for the 132-year-old museum. The money virtually assures
construction of the Corcoran's new Frank Gehry-designed addition,
expected to cost $120 million.
Washington Post 02/05/01
- RESURRECTING
A FORGOTTEN MUSEUM: Albert C. Barnes was the collector responsible
for creating a gallery of impressionist art in suburban Philadelphia
that has gained international fame. But Barnes was equally proud
of his "second collection," an impressive accumulation
of antique furnishings and artwork from all around rural Pennsylvania,
housed in a long-forgotten farmhouse called Ker-Feal.
Philadelphia Inquirer 02/02/01
Sunday
February 4
- VIVA
KITSCH: "Today, many of those who label anything they
don't like as kitsch don't understand what the term means, which
leads to problems, especially since so much of the best art of
our time takes kitsch or the products of popular culture as its
starting point." San Francisco
Chronicle 02/04/01
- GOYA
REGROUPED: Goya made close to 600 drawings. "This month,
London's Hayward Gallery will exhibit nearly 120 of these drawings,
more than one fifth of this large but little-known part of the
artist's production. Astonishingly, this will be the first time
that so many have been seen together since Goya's death in 1828."
The Telegraph (London) 02/03/01
- HATING
THE TATE: "Oh dear. The first exhibition at Tate Modern
is a disaster. But in keeping with the gallery's innovative display
policies, it is, at least, a new kind of disaster, a progressive
disaster." Sunday Times (London)
02/04/01
Friday
February 2
- WARNING
SIGNS: "Art experts at auction powerhouse Christies failed
to spot two warning signs that a 15th century painting might have
been stolen from a famous Dutch art dealer by Nazi air minister
Herman Goering, according to the Art Loss Register."
Iwon Money (Reuters)
02/01/01
- CRACKING DOWN
ON SMUGGLING: The U.S. is the latest in a long line of countries
to agree to restrictions on imports of certain Italian archeological
artifacts. It seems that the U.S. has become the world's leading
market for stolen Italian archeological material, which is often
laundered first in Switzerland. U.S. Customs officials will be
adopting tough new regulations for importers in an effort to stem
the tide. The Art Newspaper 02/02/01
- THE
GREAT LABEL DEBATE: "Do you arrive at a ballet, ready
to be lectured on the ideas behind the choreographer's working
methods? With the exception of TS Eliot, has any poet ever published
notes to accompany and explain their verses? So why do the visual
arts so often insist on these Coles Notes to steer your path through
their creations, indeed to explicate them at all? And does it
matter if they do?" The Independent
(London) 02/02/01
- CREATING
ART UNDER FIRE: Hot on the heels of two 1998 exhibitions that
aimed to break down the cultural wall between China and the West
comes a new exhibit that examines the progression of Chinese painting
in the last century. The paintings on display, and the biographical
sketches of their creators, offer a rare glimpse of the
experiences of artists attempting to navigate an era of seemingly
endless turmoil.
New York Times 02/02/01
(one-time
registration required for access)
- THE HOLY
GRAIL OF HARPSICHORDS: In 1774, the Russian empress Catherine
the Great commissioned a harpsichord from renowned British architect
Robert Adam. The resulting instrument was a work of visual as
well as musical art, like nothing designed before or since, but
no one has seen it for over a century. The famous instrument has
taken on mythical proportions over the years, and its legend has
sparked considerable interest in other unusual harpsichords of
the period, one of which goes on auction this week.
New York Times 02/02/01
(one-time
registration required for access)
- DON'T
TRY THIS AT THE MET:
Two Philadelphia curators have created an exhibit that they hope
won't last long. "Steal This Art" asks the visitor
to, well, do just that. Patrons who see a piece they'd like to
own are permitted to make off with it (as covertly as possible),
on condition that they later send a postcard "confession"
to the gallery.
Baltimore Sun (AP) 02/01/01
Thursday
February 1
- FAKIN' IT: A controversial
new book charges that many of the most treasured items in the
collections of the world's museums are forgeries. The author,
an employee of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, claims that
museums are co-conspirators in "the forgery culture,"
and are willing to allow fakes to hang on their walls in order
to save themselves, and their rich benefactors, public humiliation.
New York Post, 02/01/01
- HOT FOR
HAVANA: Americans flooded Cuba for
the recent Havana Bienal. "There was the sense that the Bienal,
which featured mostly installations by artists from more than
90 countries, wasn't what the Americans had come to see. They
wanted Cuban art, which has been enjoying an international vogue
lately. The real action was not in the exhibition spaces, but
rather in the studios. American businessmen may fret about being
excluded from the bandwagon, but art collectors have no such problem.
In Havana, an American can pay for a $5,000 drawing with the wad
of bills in his sock, roll it up, and carry it home. It's perfectly
legal-art is exempt from the U.S. embargo." ArtNews 02/01
- ON THE RISE: Photography
may finally be getting the respect it deserves. After decades
of playing second fiddle to the more "traditional" fine
arts, photographers are commanding top dollar for their work,
and collections of photo art are selling like hotcakes as the
medium continues to evolve.
Village Voice, 01/30/01
- TELL
US ABOUT OURSELVES: An Australian ad agency is launching
a $1 million campaign to attract visitors to Sydney’s new National
Museum of Australia, set to open in March. Television and print
ads will "show Australians that they really don't know a
lot about themselves." Sydney Morning Herald 02/01/01
- TOP-TEN
LIST: A look at 10 of the best paintings
up for sale in next month’s London auctions. "It appears
that last year's flight to quality - the trend where a few top
paintings sell for record sums while many others fail to find
a buyer at all - is set to continue." Forbes 01/31/01
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