Thursday February 28
TATE
PUTS TURNER ONLINE: "The Tate gallery, with the support
of the Heritage Lottery Fund, opens online access to the entire
Turner Bequest on Friday. The bequest was given to the nation
after the painter's death in 1851 and contains nearly 300 paintings
and over 30,000 watercolours and drawings - normally kept in the
vaults of Tate Britain and seen only on request." BBC
02/28/02
OBJECTING
ON PRINCIPLE: A group in San Francisco has filed suit against
the DeYoung Museum's plans for a new building, designed by Swiss
architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. "The lawsuit
filed by People for a New de Young contends that the new museum
will urbanize Golden Gate Park, hurt its historical value, increase
traffic and cast shadows on a nearby children's play area. The
suit alleges that the project violates the California Environmental
Quality Act, the Golden Gate Park master plan and the city's general
plan." San Francisco Chronicle
02/15/02
ANOTHER
OFFBEAT BIENNIAL: This year's Whitney Biennial is being curated
by the museum's Larry Rinder. His "unabashed enthusiasm for
stuff that’s way outside the fine-arts box mean that this year's
Biennial promises to be one of its strangest manifestations ever,
and perhaps a watershed moment in American art." So what
might it look like? "There’ll probably be a lot more of what
might be called youth culture or even skateboard culture. I’m
really interested in that stuff.” Newsweek
03/04/02
PHILLIPS'
NEW OWNERS: The No. 3 auction house has been bought, and many
changes are in store. But some auction watchers are dubious: "Unless
they have some new and exotic weapon, I cannot imagine how they
will succeed against Sotheby's and Christie's. I can't understand
how someone would put money into Phillips. They don't have the
space or the broad reach to compete." The
New York Times 02/28/02
REBUILDING THE
AMBER ROOM: The Amber Room in St. Petersburg's Catherine Palace,
was once called the eighth wonder of the world - a vast array
of mosaics and art panels was presented to Peter the Great by
Germany, 1n 1716. During World War II it was dismantled by German
troops, and disappeared. Now a team of artists is completing a
multi-million dollar restoration. The
Moscow Times 02/27/02
Wednesday February 27
LIBESKIND
TO DESIGN ROYAL ONTARIO: "A design by the
Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind, 56, was the winner of
a much-scrutinized international competition to revamp the Royal
Ontario Museum, at a cost, initially, of $150-million. Museum
officials hope the plan, called Renaissance ROM, will increase
attendance to 1.6 million a year from 950,000." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/27/02
- WHAT'S
WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Well, even though the plans sound
terrific, the project doesn't have a hope of being built if
the federal government doesn't kick in with major support. And
so far that hasn't happened. Toronto
Star 02/27/02
TRAGEDY
& ARCHITECTURE: "Provoked by the Sept. 11 attack,
the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal has postponed
its regular schedule of exhibitions to sponsor an architecture
lab for much of 2002 inviting research ateliers to respond to
the event... Maybe because they live many miles away from New
York, in another country, in another language, most of the participating
firms have responded to Sept. 11 with architectural metaphor and
cool irony." The Globe &
Mail (Toronto) 02/27/02
CANADIAN
RECORD: The record price for a painting was set Monday night,
when Scene in the Northwest - Portrait, an oil painting
of Captain Henry LeFroy by artist Paul Kane, "was sold at
auction in Toronto for $4.6-million - more than double the previous
record for a Canadian painting." National
Post (Canada) 02/26/02
Tuesday February 26
POLITICIANS
PROTEST ART SHOW: A Birmingham, England city council member
has protested a show at a local gallery that "includes work
from Santiago Sierra in which the artist pays a standard wage
to groups of workers, including prostitutes, to perform 'repetitive
and obtrusive' acts. Birmingham councillor Deidre Alden described
the video as more like pornography than art and is consulting
the police to find out if the exhibition can be stopped."
BBC 02/25/02
EL DORADO WAS
A REAL PLACE. MAYBE: An Italian archaeologist, teaching in
Peru, believes he's found proof of the Incas' fabled city of gold.
Ancient documents refer to "Paititi, a very wealthy city
adorned with gold, silver and precious stones," which missionaries
visited at the end of the 16th century. Thing is, the old documents
don't tell where it was. Discovery 02/25/02
THE
REVISIONISM OF NOSTALGIA: We may have forgotten - and perhaps
it's no longer important - but when the World Trade Center was
first proposed in New York City, a lot of people were against
it. However, "one by one they were bought off or ignored,
and the trade center project proceeded, as projects with the backing
of the Rockefellers and The New York Times ordinarily do.
But to say that the towers were a symbol that New Yorkers were
particularly proud of would be to stretch the point. As is well
known, the World Trade Center was unloved by architecture critics
and by New Yorkers in general." New York Review of Books 03/14/02
Monday February 25
NEW TAX FOR
BRITISH MUSEUMS? British national museums face a new "capital
charge" by the government on the value of their assets (excluding
their collections). The rate is six percent - for the British
Museum, this means a charge of £14 million a year. The
museums are protesting the plan, hoping to get the idea killed
before it "devastates" their finances.
The Art Newspaper 02/22/02
LAST
DAYS OF THE BAMIYAN BUDDHAS: Here's a chilling, detailed
account of the Taliban's efforts last year to destroy the giant
stone Bamiyan Buddhas. "The destruction required an extraordinary
effort, so complex that foreign explosives experts had to be brought
in and local residents were forced to dangle on ropes over a cliff
face to chip out holes for explosives. According to witnesses
and participants, the Taliban struggled with ropes and pulleys,
rockets, iron rods, jackhammers, artillery and tanks before a
series of massive explosions finally toppled the statues."
Los Angeles Times 02/24/02
FLASH
OR FUNCTION? Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum is to pick the
winning design this week for a major $200 million expansion of
the museum. Who will win the commission? Observers expect Daniel
Libeskind's entry will be chosen because of its theatricality
and big statement and potential to draw in the crowds. But some
of the museum's senior staff favor another design they believe
would better show the collection. Problem is, the public presentation
of that entry was poorly done, and failed to fire up anyone's
imagination... The Globe & Mail
(Canada) 02/25/02
A VALENTINE
TO CHRYSLER: "There may be New Yorkers who dislike the
Chrysler Building, but they rarely step forward in public. To
do so would only invite derision and disbelief. The Chrysler Building
is shorter than its fellow art deco triumph, the Empire State
Building (which took its place as the tallest building in the
world only a few months after the Chrysler's completion), but
it looks so much more significant. The Chrysler Building is indisputably
the gem of the city's skyline." Salon
02/25/02
Sunday February 24
SAFETY
SELLS: Americans may not want to hear it, but evidence suggests
that the homegrown works that fetch the highest prices and inspire
the most interested bidding at our auction houses are barely distinguishable
from the old socialist realist art of the Soviet Union. Complex
and beautiful landscapes from the post-impressionist period go
for a song, while generic, dime-a-dozen "American realist"
paintings rake in the big bucks. European collectors have begun
to notice, and are looking to the American auctions as an easy
way to snap up great works that are going unnoticed.
International Herald-Tribune
(Paris) 02/23/02
THE
MODERN CONNOISSEUR: There is a difference between being an
art lover and being a connoisseur. The former requires only love
of art, the latter a deep understanding of what makes art, what
differentiates one artist from another, and the context in which
a given work exists. But "connoisseurship looks at the end
product, while much contemporary art is process-oriented."
A new exhibition in Boston aims to upgrade the art world's concept
of the connoisseur. Boston Globe 02/24/02
DENVER
DONATION: "The Denver Art Museum will have more than
a new wing to offer in 2005. An investment banking family has
donated a collection of 213 contemporary works that was sought
by museums in London and Los Angeles... The gift includes works
by Bruce Nauman, James Rosenquist, Antony Gormley and Francesco
Clemente, as well as sought-after young artists Damien Hirst,
Roxy Paine, Richard Patterson and Cecily Brown." Baltimore
Sun (AP) 02/24/02
HUGHES'
HALLUCINOGENIC REVELATIONS: "IN 1999, a week into filming
[a] television series about Australia, the art critic Robert Hughes
was involved in a near-fatal car crash. During the five weeks
that he lay in a coma in intensive-care, Hughes became intimately
acquainted with the Spanish painter Francisco Goya. He was visited
by a series of powerful hallucinations more concrete than dreams,
more intense than the LSD experiences that he had sampled when
he was younger, in which the Spanish painter appeared to be inflicting
a prolonged torture on him." The
Telegraph (UK) 02/23/02
THAT'S
ALL, FOLKS: "Oscar-winning cartoon animator Chuck Jones,
who brought to life a host of cartoon characters including Bugs
Bunny and Daffy Duck, has died in California of heart failure.
He was 89." BBC 02/23/02
Friday February 22
ARNAULT
BAILS ON PHILLIPS: When Bernard Arnault's LVMH Moet Hennessy
Louis Vuitton acquired Phillips auction house in November 1999,
"reportedly for $115 million," Arnault made an aggressive
play to overtake the larger but troubled Sotheby's and Christie's.
It didn't work, and now the opportunity has apparently passed,
so LVMH is selling its stake in Phillips.
International Herald Tribune
02/20/02
FOSTER
AT THE TOP: Norman Foster is arguably Britain's most-successful
architect ever. "He has achieved this as a modernist architect
in a notoriously conservative country, a mere decade after the
traditionalism of Prince Charles seemed all-conquering and as
an outsider in this allegedly class-ridden land. How? The short
answer is talent and determination. Yet these alone cannot explain
his appeal to institutions as diverse as the British Museum, Wembley
Stadium, Sainsbury's, the Royal Academy and the mayoralty of London.
It would be nice to believe that they have all suddenly converted
to beautiful and radical architecture; nice but, alas, not plausible."
Prospect 023/02
Thursday February 21
STOCKHOLM
ART THEFT: Five paintings, including a Brueghel, were stolen
over the weekend from an arts and antiques fair in Stockholm.
"The paintings, worth over £1.7 million, were part of the
stock of an international art dealer." The
Guardian (UK) 02/20/02
REOPENING
THE MILLENNIUM: More than a year and a half after it opened
and then abruptly closed again when an alarming sway was detected,
Norman Foster's Millennium pedestrian bridge across the Thames
is to reopen this week. "Engineers claim to have cured the
jitter that made the £18.2 million structure, dubbed 'the blade
of light' by its creators Norman Foster and the artist Anthony
Caro, an instant hit." On the day of its first opening, 160,000
people thronged across it. The sway was in part blamed on the
practice of crossing pedestrians to cross in lockstep with one
another. The
Guardian (UK) 02/20/02
THE
MEANING OF TALL: "Though the music, poetry, painting,
discourse, and dance in which cultured New Yorkers take justified
pride are rarely born in skyscrapers, we're forced to ask again
what these steel, glass, and stone behemoths contribute to the
life of this city. The atrocities committed by Al Qaeda magnified
our awareness of the precious contents of what might appear at
first as mere mountains starkly rising from the landscape."
Village Voice 02/20/02
Wednesday February 20
THOSE
KANSANS, ALWAYS STEALING 20TH CENTURY MASTERPIECES: "A
painting found in a Kansas postroom last month has been authenticated
as a Marc Chagall stolen last year from the Jewish Museum in New
York. The Russian painter's Study for Over Vitebsk, is
believed to be worth $1 million." BBC
02/20/02
CLOSE
CALLS: Art historians have weighed in on David Hockney's theory
that great artists used a mechanical device to aid their plotting
of pictures. But Chuck Close, an artist who knows a thing or two
about projecting portraits over large surfaces says: "It
doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or
mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
Susan Sontag said something really funny...she said to find out
that all her art heroes cheated and used aids, lenses and things
like that, is like finding out all the great lovers in history
used Viagra. And you know that doesn't bother me. I don't care
what they used to make whatever they wanted to make." Artzar
02/02
INSIDE
OUTSIDERS: The phenomenon of "outsider" art has
gained traction in recent years, to the point that the definition
of "outsider" has been stretched to the point that no
one seems particularly sure what it means. And in today's media-saturated
world, where self-promotion is as easy as getting a web site,
has the whole concept become outdated, as outsiders in the art
world become the rule rather than the exception? Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel 02/20/02
BRAGGING
RIGHTS: Who invented the postcard? Until this week, "the
world had laboured under the impression that the greeting card
was a German or Austrian innovation, although the Americans had
also claimed to be first. But the postal historian Edward Proud
has finally proved conclusively that the postcard bears the stamp
of British genius."
The Guardian
(UK) 02/19/02
AMBER
FAVES SUSTAIN: It was nearly sixty years ago that retreating
Nazi troops ransacked the Tsar's fortress outside St. Petersburg,
and carted off some of the world's great works of art, as well
as two huge amber panels that adorned the palace's Amber Room.
Now, after much painstaking recreation and bitter feuding between
the German and Russian governments, the panels have been rebuilt,
and the Amber Room is nearly back to its original glory. Nando
Times (AP) 02/19/02
CANADIAN
ARTIST DIES: "The painter Paterson Ewen died [this past
weekend] in his London, Ont., home, his system succumbing at last
to the combined effects of his many years of alcohol abuse and
the heavy medications that kept body and soul together through
decades of emotional suffering and relentless striving... Ewen's
trademark works were large panels of plywood gouged with a router
and then roughly worked over with pigment to describe sweeping
vistas animated by cosmic events." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 02/20/02
Tuesday February 19
BRINGING
HOME THE BACON: When painter Francis Bacon died in April 1992,
"he left everything - an estate valued at some £11 million,
including the mews studio in South Kensington - to John Edwards,
an illiterate East London barman. Why? In the years since, Bacon's
legacy has proven to be complicated. The
Telegraph (UK) 02/19/02
JOAN
OF ARCHITECTURE: Phyllis Lambert's father already had an architect
picked to design New York's Seagram's building. Lambert was 27
at the time, and protested. "She picked Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe instead. His bronze-covered Park Avenue Seagram Building
turned out to be his signature building, an aesthetic triumph
and a world landmark." Some 50 years later, she reflects
on the course of architecture since.
Chicago Tribune 02/19/02
ART
COLLECTING FOR DUMMIES: Putting together a decent art collection
is easier than you might expect, and less expensive. For instance,
consider the pieces currently on sale at Sotheby's in New York.
Selecting judiciously from among them, you could assemble quite
a nice starter set for a quarter-million or so.
Forbes 02/13/02
Monday February 18
CYBER-COLLECT:
The Guggenheim has acquired its first internet art for the permanent
collection. But "how do you collect art that exists everywhere
— and yet nowhere — in cyberspace? What does one acquire when
there is no tangible object to possess? The artists have conceived
two new works, but what they have created is computer code, the
underlying set of software instructions that determine what is
seen on the screen and how it responds to user input. So what
does a museum pay for online art and what does it get?"
The New York
Times 02/18/02
WHAT
BECOMES A MODERN MASTERPIECE? In olden days defining a masterpiece
was fairly easy. Not so today. "A 'masterpiece' - in the
sense of a supremely well-achieved work - of modern or contemporary
art may not look like much. What makes a work great may reside
not in the work itself but in its context and how it marshals
support from its viewers' awareness of life and time."
San Francisco
Chronicle 02/17/02
- IS
THERE ANYTHING LEFT FOR ART TO DO? "Last year at the
Venice Biennale the U.S.A. pavilion featured installations by
Robert Gober, several rooms bare but for a few framed news clippings,
empty gin bottles, and a toilet plunger stationed on a plank.
What happened? How in the name of Art did we get from the rose
window of Chartres Cathedral to Gober's pint bottles?"
But you can't just blame the artists. "As a disheartened
Delacroix complained in his journal in 1847: 'The traditions
are exhausted. All the great problems of art were solved back
in the sixteenth century'." American
Prospect 03/11/02
TEMPLE
TOUTING: The dominant architectural image from the Salt Lake
Olympics? The Mormon temple, which dominates the city's skyline.
Wherever they are built, the temples stand out. "Mormon temple
architecture is most remarkable for its contradictions. The temples
are severe but sugary-sweet, traditional but shiny-new-looking,
prominent but guarded." Slate
02/14/02
THE
BILBAO EFFECT LIVES: The Guggenheim Bilbao drew 930,000 visitors
last year, down just slightly from the year before. "The
museum with its dramatic architecture therefore continues to be
a major draw, attracting people who would otherwise not come to
Bilbao. The museum estimates that its economic impact on the local
economy was worth Pta28 billion last year (up from Pta24.8 billion
in 2000), and it also brought in a further Pta4.5 billion to the
Basque treasury in taxes. This represents the equivalent of 4,415
jobs. A visitor survey revealed that 82% came to Bilbao exclusively
to see the museum or had extended their stay in the city to visit
it."
The Art Newspaper 02/15/02
Sunday February 17
ICA
DEBATE GETS LOUDER: London's Institute of Contemporary Arts
has come in for a great deal of criticism lately, and they're
a bit fed up with everyone else thinking they could do better.
One week after a London critic accused the ICA of abandoning its
edgy, avant-garde past, one of its directors fires back: "At
its best, the ICA hasn't simply assumed that it knows what art
and culture are; it asked questions about them - and about their
relationship to the wider world." The
Observer (UK) 02/17/02
NOTHING
SPECIAL: In the age of the blockbuster traveling exhibit,
museums draw in visitors by declaring nearly every new collection
of pieces as a "special" exhibition. But what's so special
about them? "Today's special exhibitions are much less special
than they ought to be: They often consist of nothing more than
a grab bag of pieces pulled out of some other institution's permanent
collection." Washington Post
02/17/02
AFRICAN
ART FINALLY GETTING ITS DUE? "Up to the late 1980's,
almost nobody in the West knew, or wanted to know, about modern
and contemporary art from Africa, meaning art that wasn't 'tribal,'
that was maybe conversant with Western trends and styles. Then
came an exhibition titled "Magicians of the Earth," in Paris in
1989, which mixed young African artists with some of their hip
Western and Asian counterparts. Whatever its shortcomings, the
show put contemporary African work on the postmodern map and opened
a dialogue." A new exhibition in New York attempts to paint
the continent with one brush, never a good idea, but also opens
the door to American appreciation of African art a bit wider.
The New York Times 02/17/02
OPEN
PROCESS: "Tuesday night... the Cleveland Museum of Art
presented an event that might have been called 'The Mystery of
Rafael Vinoly.' The renowned New York architect stood at a drafting
table onstage in front of an audience of 1,000 and sketched his
initial concept for the expansion and renovation of the museum's
cramped and confusing 86-year-old complex. A camera captured every
line as it appeared, and the result was projected on a large screen."
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/17/02
DIVERSIFYING
THE DOCENTS: American museums have long had a tradition of
docents, volunteers who lead tours, answer questions, lick stamps,
and generally give the place an extra shot of personality. Traditionally,
these docents tend to be gentle retirees, soft-spoken and aged.
But now, several museums are making a distinct effort to broaden
the pool, including younger and more diverse voices in the ranks
of these über-volunteers. Los
Angeles Times 02/17/02
ART-HOPPING
ON THE RISE ACROSS THE POND: With low airfares, free museum
admission, and no shortage of high-profile exhibits, cultural
day-tripping is becoming a habit for many in the UK and Europe.
"Cultural tourism has always existed, of course. The Grand
Tour was just an excuse for a lot of well-to-do young people to
wander round art galleries, and many travel companies have long
placed cultural packages on their books. The permanent collections
of galleries such as the Hermitage, Louvre and Prado form a natural
part of any artistic itinerary." The
Telegraph (UK) 02/16/02
AND
NO JUDGING CONTROVERSIES! "One and a half million visitors
are expected to flock to Salt Lake for the XIX Winter Olympics
to see the world's elite athletes compete in events that include
skating, snowboarding and skiing. But organizers of the 2002 Olympic
Arts Festival hope that while they are here, many of them will
dip into museum exhibitions, dance performances, concerts and
theater assembled—and in some cases commissioned—to complement
the Games." Los Angeles Times
02/16/02
Friday February 15
THE
STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING CHAGALL: A painting found in an
undeliverable package in a post office in Topeka Kansas has been
authenticated as a Chagall stolen from New York's Jewish Museum
last June. Oddly, the painting had been the subject of a letter
"received by the museum and postmarked in the Bronx on June
12. It was signed by an organization called the International
Committee for Art and Peace that claimed to have played a role
in the painting's disappearance. The letter said the work of art
would not be returned until peace came to the Middle East. The
F.B.I. said it had no knowledge of such an organization."
The New York Times 02/15/02
FOSTER'S
BOSTON: The director of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts yesterday
unveiled the design for a massive expansion, as envisioned and
executed by British architect Norman Foster. First impressions
have been favorable, with one local critic gushing that the "brilliant
proposal... promises to produce the first great Boston public
building of the 21st century." Boston
Globe 02/15/02
- DON'T
BUILDINGS COST MONEY? One question
that keeps dogging the Boston MFA expansion process still does
not have an answer, even after lavish plans for the future of
the building have been unveiled: who's paying for all this?
But expected opposition to the expansion
as a whole from neighborhood activists and preservationists
has failed
to materialize, largely because the plans do not include
any addition to the size of the museum's basic "footprint."
Boston Globe 02/15/02
SO
IS THIS MUSIC OR ART? OR BOTH? "Sound art" is still
a fairly controversial and largely unknown concept, and the fact
that it takes place in traditionally silent museums and galleries
rather than concert halls probably isn't helping its image. But
a new travelling exhibit aims to unravel some of the confusion
surounding the medium, and mainstream it as well. "Visitors
will witness both the work of artists who create 'instruments'
they play during live performances and the work of those who build
soundscapes from abstract environments." Wired
02/15/02
POP
GOES THE IMAGINATION: Archigram, a group of British pop architects,
"never built so much as a kitchen extension, but yesterday
the surviving members of the band - Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton,
David Greene and Mike Webb - were awarded the Royal Gold Medal
for Architecture. A gift of the Queen, the award is made by the
Royal Institute of British Architects."
The Guardian (UK) 02/14/02
A
MODEST PROPOSAL: There have been many ideas about what kind
of memorial for the World Trade Center ought to be erected. One
artist is floating an idea that is "simple, straightforward,
meaningful, and accessible" writes Timothy Noah. In fact,
you have to go to the designer's own website even to see a picture
of it. Slate 02/13/02
MORE
THAN JUST MECHANICS: Yet another whack at David Hockney's
theory about device-assisted painting. "The larger question
raised by the conjunction of optical technology and art (and one
that both Hockney and Falco should perhaps be addressing with
more urgency) involves identifying what precisely it was that
lenses enabled early modern eyes, and not only those of artists,
to see, both physically and in the imagination."
New York Review of Books 02/13/02
111-YEAR
OLD NYC ARTIST DIES: "Theresa Bernstein, an influential
painter and writer whose career spanned nearly 90 years, died
Wednesday. She was 111. Bernstein gained recognition in the early
1900s as one of the first female realists, a school of art that
depicted often gritty portrayals of people living everyday lives...
Also an activist, Bernstein was a founding member of the Society
of Independent Artists, a group begun in 1916 to sponsor regular
exhibits of contemporary art without juries or prizes." National
Post (CP) 02/15/02
Thursday February 14
SMITHSONIAN
LAYOFFS: The Smithsonian has laid off 45 employees because
of declines in visitors and a $9 million budget shortfall. "The
45 employees all work in administrative areas for the Smithsonian's
central offices. This is the second time in five months that the
Smithsonian has dismissed workers in the face of declining revenues.
In October and November, the institution's business office laid
off 60 people who worked mainly in the Smithsonian's gift shops
and theaters." Washington
Post 02/14/02
JEWISH
MUSEUM BOYCOTT: Some Jewish leaders are urging a boycott of
New York's Jewish Museum over an exhibition that presents work
related to the Holocaust. "The show includes such works as
a 'Lego Concentration Camp Set'; a 'Giftgas Giftset' of poison-gas
drums bearing the designer logos of Chanel, Hermes and Tiffany;
a photograph of emaciated Buchenwald inmates into which the artist
digitally inserted himself holding a Diet Coke; and the series
of starkly handsome Mengele busts. Some critics have called the
artwork "not merely tasteless but morally repugnant." Washington
Post 02/14/02
ATTACKING
THE V&A: London's Victoria & Albert Museum has come
under attack in a report by a parliamentary committee for not
attracting enough visitors. "The committee reported that
between 1995 and 2000, visitor numbers declined by 22%, and half
of those who did attend were from overseas." But the museum
says that since admission charges were removed in December, attendance
has soared. "Nearly 175,000 people passed through the V&A's
doors in December 2001, compared with 43,000 for the same month
a year earlier." BBC
02/14/02
THE
LONELIEST GALLERY: Years ago Canadian billionaire Ken Thomson
opened a gallery on the top floor of a Toronto department store.
He's an expert collector of Canadian art, and his collection has
important work from the 18th to the 20th Century. If you happen
to go, however, you will likely be alone - practically no one
visits, and even critics seem to have forgotten it's there. "These
paintings leave a melancholy impression. Down below, Bay Street
bustles on, but on the ninth floor, time has stopped, art has
frozen." National
Post 02/14/02
WHEN
YOU'VE DESTROYED EVERYTHING, THEN WHAT? A year ago artist
Michael Landy set himself up in an old London department store
and systematically destroyed all of his physical possessions.
He destroyed 7,226 items, including other artists' work and his
most prized belongings, and more than 45,000 people came to watch
along the way. So what's he up to a year later? "Landy has
made little art since Break Down. 'I didn't want to make
any work. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't feel the need
to." The Guardian (UK) 02/13/02
Wednesday February 13
HIGH
COST OF ONLINE ART SALES: Sotheby's says it has lost $150
million in the past two years trying to make a go of an online
business. "Now, as part of a continuing effort to slash the
mounting costs and increase its range of potential customers,
Sotheby's is about to begin a joint venture with the giant American
web-based company eBay." The
Age (Melborune) 02/13/02
PITTSBURGH
CUTS: The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts has laid off its
exhibitions curator and canceled all exhibitions after May, including
the 2002 Pittsburgh Biennial. Officials blame the cutbacks on
a drop in fundraising since September 11 and a looming cash shortfall.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/13/02
A
MATTER OF SUSTAINABILITY? An Australian artist's average income
in 1996-97 was $15,300. A group of 18 cultural institutions yesterday
called for an increase in funding for visual arts to $15 million
a year. "We have come to a critical point where the sustainability
of Australia's visual culture is in serious jeopardy."
Sydney Morning Herald 02/13/02
WHAT'S
WRONG WITH THE GUGGENHEIM: Some have gone so far as to say
that director Thomas Krens 'articulated a vision of the art museum
in the 21st century.' But this isn't 'a vision,' it's a ruse masquerading
as a wow. The only thing Krens did was cross Museum Mile with
Broadway: He created glitzy palaces and high-concept productions
dependent on onetime, out-of-town visitors. Now that the museum
has fired 90 people and postponed or canceled the Kasimir Malevich,
Douglas Gordon, and Matthew Barney surveys (Barney's would have
opened next week), the Guggenheim looks a lot less "visionary"
and a lot more dubious, with each branch set up to support another
branch. The business world calls this leveraging. The street calls
it a shell game. I think we can call it reprehensible." Village
Voice 02/12/02
THE
ART OF THE ART MUSEUM: People have been talking for years
about how the modern art museum building has become art itself.
Now the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has put together a show
that "tracks the dramatic shifts in museum architecture from
the mid-1980s to the present. It features icons such as the Guggenheim
in Bilbao, Spain, and the Getty in Los Angeles; mainstream modernist
designs by Norman Foster and Renzo Piano, both now working in
Dallas; an indecipherable deconstructivist art center by Zaha
Hadid; and a strangely compelling blue box by Peter Zumthor in
Bregenz, Austria. 'Such an exhibition would have been impossible
in the 1960s and '70s, when most museums looked alike; today there
is an idiom and an 'ism' for every taste and budget."
Dallas Morning News 02/13/02
A
SURREAL TIME: "In the United States, Surrealism has always
had an imported aura, like fabulously smelly French cheese. The
reason is the Surrealists' particular brand of subversion. They
were anti-rational Cartesians and atheistic Catholics. They were
thrilled by cultivated absurdities and blasphemies—kicks that
tend to be lost on pragmatic Americans." The
New Yorker 02/11/02
THE
ART HOTEL: "The latest hotel amenity is a no-tech one:
a serious art collection. It's not a new idea, but an increasingly
popular one. The phenomenon is global: The five-year-old Merrion
Hotel, the poshest digs in Dublin, even puts out a color catalog
of its extensive holdings dating from the late 17th century to
now, more than 90 percent of it by Irish artists." Boston
Globe 02/13/02
Tuesday February 12
OUTSIDER
ART: Documenta is one of the artworld's most important shows
of contemporary art. This year it's being curated by Okwui Enwezor,
"a man who never set out to be a curator, who never studied
art history and whose own talents are more drawn to the written
word than to any other form of expression. But then, many now
argue that the art world of today needs curators like Mr. Enwezor
who come from outside the field and see art as a reflection and
expression of political and social changes now under way around
the world." New
York Times 02/12/02
CROSS-TOWN
MOVE: San Francisco's Asian Art Museum is packing up its collection
for a move to a new home across town. "Comprising 13,000
works valued at $4 billion, it's San Francisco's greatest art
collection and, after real estate, the city's second-most valuable
asset." San Francisco Chronicle
02/12/02
Monday February 11
RECORD
WEEK AT THE AUCTIONS: Christie's Auction House has had a record
sales week. "A series of 19th and 20th century sales made
a total of £73.1 million, and record prices for six artists were
established. BBC
02/10/02
PARIS'
NEW CONTEMPORARY SPACE: The Palais de Tokyo, Paris' new contemporary
art space, has opened. The city "has been waiting two years
for this new kind of space, its own version of the 'Factory' for
the 21st century. From an architectural point of view, the building
is unusual, flexible, minimalist, authentic, and it does not try
to hide the scars of the past." The
Art Newspaper 02/08/02
THE
ENRONIFICATION OF MUSEUMS: Raising money for art is good.
But the $385 million that Smithsonian chief Lawrence Small has
raised in the past two years has "come at a price. Parts
of the Smithsonian have been named after Orkin, Kmart, Fuji Film
and General Motors. The National Museum of American History is
now the Behring Center, after a benefactor's $80 million donation.
No fewer than five museum directors have chosen to leave or retire
since Mr. Small took office, some in response to the secretary's
unscholarly priorities." OpinionJournal.com
02/08/02
- SELLING
YOUR SOUL: Friends of the Smithsonian should cheer the institution's
loss of $38 million from a donor last week. "The plain
fact, though, is that the deal should never have been done in
the first place. Leaving aside the merits of the Spirit of
America proposal, it is self-evident that this was bad curatorial
policy, pure and simple. In his eagerness to raise cash for
his underfunded institution, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence
M. Small made the mistake of transferring basic curatorial responsibilities
to someone whose only apparent qualification for assuming them
is a well-padded bank account." Washington
Post 02/11/02
NAPOLEON
IN VENICE: A statue of Napoleon taken from St. Mark’s Square,
Venice, is being returned to the city after almost 200 years—
"to the outrage of some Venetians who still smart at the
memory of Napoleon’s invasion of their city in 1797 and the subsequent
fall of the Venetian Republic."
The Art Newspaper 02/08/02
CLASSIC
LONELY HEARTS: Classical architects are a lonely lot in a
world dominated by internationalism and modernism. But a group
of architects has formed a "club" to further the cause
of classicism. They claim that "traditional and classical
architecture has a wide global base of support. It's time for
these architects and lobby groups, whatever their backgrounds,
aspirations and politics, to stop feeling that they're alone."
The Guardian (UK) 02/11/02
Sunday February 10
THE
IRRELEVANCE OF A FORMER TEMPLE OF THE AVANT GARDE: Time was
when London's Institute for Contemporary Art was a hotbed of creative
tension and outrageous experimentation. No longer - "It has
become more of a drinking club with a cinema." When the ICA's
chairman got removed last week for denigrating the current state
of the "avant garde" more than few observers wondered
that the ICA still had any relevance in a discussion of contemporary
art... The Observer (UK) 02/10/02
- WRONG
MAN, WRONG ROLE: Why did the ICA have someone like Ivan
Massow as its chairman in the first place? "Inviting a
publicity-seeking self-made millionaire whose views are so out
of sympathy with the anti-establishment iconoclasm the ICA supposedly
represents is patently absurd. With the best will in the world,
a fox-hunting ex-Tory candidate for Mayor of London who once
wrote 'there's something about old buildings that makes me want
to own and restore them' was never likely to be a convincing
champion of the avant-garde." The
Observer (UK) 02/10/02
- Previously: CONCEPTUALLY
CONTROVERSIAL: Did Ivan Massow engineer his own sacking
as chairman of London's Institute of Contemporary Art? He suggested
in an article in the New Statesman that "the British arts
world - and conceptual art in particular - was in danger of
disappearing up its own arse". He also noted that conceptual
art was largely about controversy (and he was being controversial).
But maybe he wanted to be fired to hide his failure as a fundraiser...
The Scotsman 02/07/02
REATTRIBUTING
THE MASTERS: Berlin's Kupferstichkabinett Museum has a prestigious
collection of 15th Century Dutch drawings. The museum has recently
taken a hard new look at its collection and decided on some surprising
reattributions. Interestingly, in the process, copies and copyists
are finally getting some new respect. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 02/09/02
PORTRAIT
OF A QUEEN: Has any living person sat for as many portraits
as has Queen Elizabeth? There have been dozens, hundreds even.
Certainly they chronicle her life. But they also reveal society's
changing sense of what a portrait painting can do or convey.
The Globe & Mail (Canada)
02/09/02
Friday February 8
BRITISH
MUSEUM REFUSES ANOTHER RETURN: Hot on the heels of its refusal
to repatriate the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, the British Museum
is declining to even consider returning a set of looted religious
artifacts to Ethiopia. The artifacts, mainly tablets representing
the Ark of the Covenant, were nabbed by marauding British troops
in 1868. Nando Times (AP) 02/08/02
THE
ART OF ENRON: Enron was a major donor to arts causes - particularly
to museums in Houston and the Guggenheim in New York. The company
also amassed an expensive contemporary art collection. Auction
houses are vying to sell it off. Nando
Times (UPI) 02/07/02
MAYBE
HE COULD'VE SOLD 'EM TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM: Antiquities dealer
Frederick Schultz is on trial in New York, accused of trying to
sell stolen property belonging to the Egyptian government. The
larger subtext of the trial is the desire of international regulators
to shut down the segment of the antiquities trade that operates
like a cross between Indiana Jones and the characters in The
Maltese Falcon, appropriating objects in dubious legal circumstances
and reselling them for huge profit. NPR's
Morning Edition (RealAudio file) 02/07/02
Thursday February 7
HOW
MONA GOT HER SMILE: In 2000, 85 percent of Italians asked
what was the most famous painting in the world answered the Mona
Lisa. But fame didn't come all at once to Leonardo's masterpiece.
For a couple hundred years she was considered just another painting
in the Louvre. Building a legend takes time, a series of cultural
building blocks that help create an aura.
Washington Post 02/07/02
CONCEPTUALLY
CONTROVERSIAL: Did Ivan Massow engineer his own sacking as
chairman of London's Institute of Contemporary Art? He suggested
in an article in the New Statesman that "the British arts
world - and conceptual art in particular - was in danger of disappearing
up its own arse". He also noted that conceptual art was largely
about controversy (and he was being controversial). But maybe
he wanted to be fired to hide his failure as a fundraiser... The
Scotsman 02/07/02
Wednesday February 6
LOUVRE
THEFT: Two candlesticks (worth 30,000 euros) have been reported
stolen from the Louvre. The pieces were reported missing in December
and after the museum searched through its store rooms the loss
reported to police in late January. BBC
02/05/02
- Previously: BROKEN
LOUVRE: The Louvre Museum is a mess, says a new French government
audit report. The museum "does not know how many paintings
it has, how many staff it employs, or how much time they spend
on the job, the report says. It blames the mess on the fact
that two-thirds of the 1,800 staff are civil servants. It says
the museum is strapped for cash because the state takes nearly
half its earnings." The
Guardian (UK) 02/01/02
WEARING
DOWN BRITISH CATHEDRALS: British cathedrals get more than
19 million visitors a year. But the crush of tourists is damaging
the buildings, says a new study. But "although heritage groups
are naturally concerned about the negative impact of tourism,
the religious community is much more tolerant, arguing that cathedrals
are part of living religion and some wear and tear is inevitable."
The Art Newspaper 02/02/02
THE OLD GRAY
SQUARE AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE: In previous times, New Yorkers
would gather in Times Square when important events affected the
city or country. But now that the area has been spiffed up and
saved from its formerly seedy self, the urge to congregate there
is gone. "What once made the neighborhood appealing to New
Yorkers and visitors is gone - that combination of large and small
businesses, rehearsal studios, musical instrument stores, photographers,
costume makers, and scenery designers that were part of the surrounding
theater district. The remaining historic theaters--saved from
demolition only a few years ago - are the only things left there
that are truly New York, and even they need a scheduled event
to bring people together. Indeed Times Square is no longer an
authentic New York place, even if all the digitally dazzling lights
and signage give the impression from a distance that it is."
Metropolis 02/02
Tuesday February 5
CRITIC
HUGHES TO DIRECT VENICE BIENNALE? The Venice Biennale president
and the Biennale committee unexpectedly resigned last week. That
should clear the way for Time Magazine critic Robert Hughes to
be director of the visual arts show (he's reportedly been asked
and says he's interested). Meanwhile, director Martin Scorsese,
who was asked to direct the biennale's film exhibition, has declined
the invitation. The
Age (Melbourne) 02/05/02
DONOR
TAKES BACK $38 MILLION FROM SMITHSONIAN: Catherine Reynolds,
who last year announced a donation of $38 million to the Smithsonian
for an exhibit on "individual achievement" at the National
Museum of American History, has canceled the gift. The idea had
been loudly protested by curators at the museum, who questioned
Reynolds' involvement with the project and questioned whether
the "Smithsonian hierarchy was putting fundraising ahead
of scholarly integrity." Reynolds said, in taking back the
offer, that the criticism had changed her mind. "Apparently, the
basic philosophy for the exhibit - 'the power of the individual
to make a difference' - is the antithesis of that espoused by
many within the Smithsonian bureaucracy."
Washington Post 02/05/02
DON'T
TOUCH THAT LEONARDO: Experts have ruled that restoration of
the Ufizzi's The Adoration of the Magi, Leonardo da Vinci's
unfinished masterpiece, would damage the painting and shouldn't
be carried out. "Critics of the proposed restoration, which
was to have begun last spring, see the decision as a moral victory
and a personal vindication. More than 30 Renaissance scholars
signed a petition just before the work was to begin, pleading
that the painting, commissioned in 1481, was far too fragile to
be overhauled." The
New York Times 02/05/02
ART
TO HELP THE POOR: Monks selling three valuable Impressionist
paintings donated to them by an anonymous European collector have
made £11 million, about £3 million more than pre-auction estimates.
"The pictures were given to the St Francis of Assisi Foundation
by an anonymous European art collector. Money raised from the
sale at Christie's in London will go towards aid projects run
by the monks in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Brazil."
BBC 02/04/02
- Previously: MONKS PUT IMPRESSIONISTS
ON THE BLOCK: Christie's will auction three Impressionist
paintings February 4: Vlaminck's La Seine a Chatou, Renoir's
L'Estaque, and Monet's Golfe d'Antibes. They are
expected to bring in about $20 million (CDN) for their owner,
the Franciscan order of monks. The paintings were donated to
the Franciscans anonymously; the auction money will fund projects
in Africa and Latin America. CBC
01/31/02
SO
QUIT IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT: Ivan Massow has quit as chairman
of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts after publicly denigrating
the state of contemporary art last week. "The businessman
said he was stepping down after losing the support of the board."
BBC 02/05/02
- Previously: APPARENTLY
HE DOESN'T LIKE CONCEPTUAL ART: Ivan Massow, chairman of
the Institute of Contemporary Arts, says the British art world
is "in danger of disappearing up its own arse ... led by
cultural tsars such as the Tate's Sir Nicholas Serota, who dominate
the scene from their crystal Kremlins. Most concept art I see
now is pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat that I wouldn't
accept even as a gift." The
Guardian (UK) 01/17/02
Monday February 4
BROKEN
LOUVRE: The Louvre Museum is a mess, says a new French government
audit report. The museum "does not know how many paintings
it has, how many staff it employs, or how much time they spend
on the job, the report says. It blames the mess on the fact that
two-thirds of the 1,800 staff are civil servants. It says the
museum is strapped for cash because the state takes nearly half
its earnings." The
Guardian (UK) 02/01/02
NO
9/11 IMPACT: Despite anecdotal evidence, a survey of 134 American
museums by the US Association of Art Museum Directors shows that
80 percent have had no drop in attendance since September 11.
The Art Newspaper 02/01/02
MOST-VISITED:
What show drew the most visitors last year? "Vermeer and
the Delft school at the Metropolitan Museum in New York was
the most highly viewed show last year with 8,033 visitors a day
(554,287 total)." In second place, Jacqueline Kennedy:
the White House years at the Metropolitan Museum. The Art
Newspaper ranks the most-visited art exhibitions worldwide.
The Art Newspaper 02/01/02
DEFENDING
THE SMITHSONIAN: Last week Milo Beach, the former head of
the Sackler and Freer Galleries in Washington added his voice
to those criticizing the Smithsonian's new directions under controversial
chief Lawrence Small. Now, Thomas Lentz, the current head of the
Freer and Sackler, rebuts Beach. "Many of us who worked with
and admire Milo Beach find his recent remarks about the allegedly
decreased role of research at the museum puzzling."
Washington Post 02/03/02
- Previously: MAKING
THE SMITHSONIAN SMALL: Milo Beach, former director of the
Freer Gallery, joins the growing chorus of those who believe
that Smithsonian chief Lawrence Small has ruined the Smithsonian:
"Judging from recent words and deeds, the present administration
of the institution views the life of the mind with astonishing
indifference. The secretary, for example, spoke to the assembled
staff of the National Museum of American History and left the
distinct impression with many that the day of curiosity-driven
research was over at the Smithsonian." Washington
Post 01/27/02
Sunday February 3
MAKING
SCOTTISH GALLERIES WORLD CLASS? Scotland is spending £26 million
to refurbish the National Gallery of Scotland and Royal Scottish
Academy. The Playfair Project has been "heralded as the country’s
most important visual arts event for years," intended to
ensure that the galleries "achieve an international status
on a par with the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York." So why has the ambitious project polarized
Scotland’s artistic community? The
Scotsman 02/02/02
DUTCH
TREAT: What is it about Dutch Master paintings of 3 1/2 centuries
ago that has us so besotted? Could it be that we see something
of ourselves in the canvases? The
Telegraph (UK) 02/02/02
Friday February 1
CRITICAL
WRECKAGE: The wreckage of the car art critic Robert Hughes
was driving in Australia when he had an accident, has been put
on display in an art exhibition at the Perth International Arts
Festival. "The car, reduced by wreckers to a block, is being
displayed in a perspex box littered with fishing lures, lines
and hooks, a crushed pair of spectacles, brake-light fragments
and a crumpled beer can. Also in the box is a mangled copy of
Hughes' most famous work, The Fatal Shore, as well as a
battered edition of The Cooking of Japan, a Time Life book."
The Age (Melbourne) 02/01/02
MONKS PUT IMPRESSIONISTS
ON THE BLOCK: Christies's will auction three Impressionist
paintings February 4: Vlaminck's La Seine a Chatou, Renoir's
L'Estaque, and Monet's Golfe d'Antibes. They are
expected to bring in about $20 million for their owner, the Franciscan
order of monks. The paintings were donated to the Franciscans
anonymously; the auction money will fund projects in Africa and
Latin America. CBC
01/31/02
AT LAST, GOVERNMENT
FUNDS FOR KELVINGROVE: Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow is the
most popular British museum outside London, but it had never received
any direct government money. Now the Heritage Lottery Fund is
contributing £12.7 million ($18 million) to Kelvingrove, part
of a £25 million ($35 million) funding plan to renovate the 101-year-old
institution. The
Times (UK) 02/01/02
BEGIN
BY DREAMING: An exhibition of architects' dreams for what
should replace the World Trade Center "does not, on the face
of it, have much to do with real-world architecture." On
the other hand, the process of erecting something on the site
will be long and difficult. So starting with imagination (no matter
how impractical) is a good way to begin.
Washington Post 01/31/02
CHARLES
AS GEEK: In 1969, artist David Hockney drew a series of sketches
of Prince Charles. They were put away. Now we know why: "They
show Charles, then just shy of his 21st birthday, as a gauche,
oddly proportioned geek." The
Guardian (UK) 01/31/02
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