Monday
April 30
PAINTING
FOR NATIONAL PRIDE: The National Gallery of Australia has
bought a Lucien Freud painting from the artist for $7.4 million.
"The significance of Freud's gritty figure painting After
Cezanne is being compared by some to the gallery's 1973 purchase
of Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles." The
Age (Melbourne) 04/30/01
- PRIDE
GOETH BEFORE A FREUD: Is the world indeed made up of museums
that have a Lucien Freud and those which don't (and it matters
that much)? Clearly the Aussies take their acquisition of a
Freud as a matter of national pride.
The Age (Melbourne) 04/30/01
RUSSIAN
ART THEFT: "Relatively rare during Soviet times, thefts
of art, manuscripts and antiquities now bedevil Russian authorities.
They occur not only at museums, such as the theft last month of
a $1 million painting from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, but
also at churches, government buildings and private homes across
the country. Organized criminal groups adept at extortion and
prostitution have added art theft to their repertoire."
Chicago Tribune 04/29/01
GOOG
ONLINE: In an attempt to combine art and e-commerce, the Guggenheim
is planning to open a Web site this fall that will offer a range
of cultural content and services — some of it free — in a visually
exciting environment that is said to go well beyond most conventional
museum sites. The New York Times 04/30/01
(one-time registration required for access)
REBUILDING
AFTER THE WAR: Beirut is being rebuilt at an astonishing pace
- and by a single company. "The real fight, the real battle, is
one of identity: the identity of modern Lebanon. All this has
crystallized in the excavations of downtown Beirut because this
is the first time after the war that the people were faced with
their own history." Feed 04/28/01
NOT
ENOUGH PRESERVATIVES: "Like everything in the real world,
digital art decays. The cave-paintings at Lascaux have lasted
some 16,000 years but today’s electronic media will be lucky to
enjoy a 1,000th of that longevity. The shelf-life of magnetic
tape is about 20 years; digital recording media such as floppy
discs and CDs fare little better." Computerized art's got
even bigger problems. The Scotsman 04/28/01
IN
BENEFIT OF MUSEUMS: The widow of Henri Matisse's youngest
son has left a will that "stipulates that a Fellowship in
foreign affairs be set up at a European university in memory of
her diplomat father, who was assassinated. A Chair in art history,
in memory of Pierre Matisse is to be created at a US university,
and the rest of the estate, barring a few personal bequests is
to be used to benefit museums anywhere in the world."
The Art Newspaper 04/28/01
Sunday
April 29
ALL
ABOUT THE MARKETING? Almost 5.5 million people jammed into
the new Tate Modern in its first year of operation (busting the
2-2.5 million pre-opening projections). "Ironically, being
such a success has brought Tate Modern problems. Queues 200 deep
for food; lavatories stripped of paper; grubby marks on the chic
white walls; people saying you can't move, you can't get in."
Just why are people so keen to get inside? The
Telegraph (UK) 04/29/01
TIME
FOR A CHANGE? "The time is certainly right for one of
contemporary art's lurches into fresh aesthetics: it's been a
while. And something ultimately convincing about the new selection
at the Saatchi Gallery persuades me that a proper force for change
is at work here. Let's get in there and identify its breezes."
Sunday Times (UK) 04/29/01
NO
BARE BREASTED VIRGIN: LA artist Alma Lopez's "digital
photo collage Our Lady, which depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe
clad only in flowers and held aloft by a bare-breasted female
angel" has aroused complaints. "Archbishop Michael Sheehan
of New Mexico has accused the artist of portraying the religious
icon as a 'tart' and insisted the work be pulled from Santa Fe's
Museum of International Folk Art. Hundreds of Catholic protestors
have mounted prayer vigils against the photo they view as a desecration."
SFGate 04/27/01
CENSORSHIP?
Curators of a show chronicling the "20-year record of the
Gay Men's Health Crisis in educating people about AIDS and combating
the epidemic" are claiming censorship because officials of
the Museum of the City of New York wouldn't let them include some
sexual images. New
York Post 04/29/01
ADDING
UP BILBAO'S GOOG EFFECT: Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum has transformed
the city. The city's investment has been reouped already, and
"the regeneration of Bilbao and its hinterland reads like
a Who's Who of modern architecture. Sir Norman Foster has designed
Bilbao's new metro. Cesar Pelli, who built New York's World Financial
Centre, has been put in charge of a 35-storey office tower on
the banks of the river Nervión. Santiago Calatrava, one of Spain's
leading architects, designed Bilbao's new airport as well as a
delicate footbridge that spans the Nervión." Financial
Times 04/28/01
CHICAGO
ART INSTITUTE ADDS ON: The Art Institute of Chicago is tearing
down the ajacent ex-home of the Goodman Theatre to make room for
a $200 million addition to the museum, designed by Renzo Piano.
Chicago Sun-Times 04/29/01
DISCERNING
PIGEONS: A Japanese professor of cognitive science "has
managed to get pigeons to recognize whether a painting is a van
Gogh or a Chagall — even if they had never seen it before. He
trained three pigeons for a month by showing them on a computer
screen eight masterpieces by van Gogh and Chagall. Pigeons were
fed when they pecked at pictures by van Gogh. They received nothing
when pecking at a Chagall." Discovery
04/29/01
Friday
April 27
CASHING
IN ON ART: "For years synonymous with showgirls, gambling,
and glitz, Las Vegas is reinventing itself: High culture is the
gambit this time, and, in true Vegas style, there's nothing small
about these new ambitions. "If you look at the history of art
in the Western world, where the support is you are going to find
art being made, whether that support is coming from banks or businessmen.
Now, we're finding casinos with the money, and they are investing
in art and culture." Christian Science
Monitor 04/27/01
ANOTHER
DOTCOM CASUALTY: Last year, as everyone was getting into the
dotcom business, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Museum
announced a joint web project. So where is it? The project's been
dissolved... The New York Times 04/27/01
(one-time registration required for access)
OUT
IN PUBLIC AGAIN: A Monet haystack painting unseen in public
since 1895 has resurfaced and is to be sold at auction in June.
The Telegraph (UK) 04/27/01
SMITHSONIAN
TURMOIL: Lawrence Small, a former investment banker who was
president of Fannie Mae, is only the second non-scientist to lead
the Smithsonian in more than 150 years. But his leadership so
far has riled almost everyone. "In the short 15 months since he
assumed that office he has become what is surely the most reviled
and detested administrator in the Institution's history."
Washington Post 04/27/01
DR
DEATH'S DISAPPEARING ACT: An exhibition of the paintings of
euthanasiaist Dr. Jack Kevorkian has been canceled. The paintings
were reported stolen earlier this week, but in fact had just been
removed. The owner of the gallery where they were hund felt the
show was too controversial. Hartford
Courant 04/26/01
Thursday
April 26
IS
THE BUST A BUST? A marble bust on display at New York's Metropolitan
Museum of Art was suddenly and quietly removed a few weeks ago.
Now some critics "want to know why, if the museum was so
confident the bust was genuine, did it take the piece down so
quickly and refuse to provide evidence to back up its claims?"
Forbes.com 04/26/01
STEAMED
BACON: Francis Bacon's estate has filed suit against the artist's
former gallery, alleging "undue influence" and breach of duty
in a claim which could be worth £100 million The estate claims
Marlborough kept up to 70 percent of the revenue from sales it
made. BBC 04/25/01
SUBLIME.
INDEED. VERY SUBLIME: A few months ago, Robert Gober's drawing
of a sink sold for $56,000. The sink itself sold for $830,000.
"The sinks, without their metal plumbing, emphasize the plain
forms that we come into contact with on a daily basis, but are
largely unaware of. Gober's hand-made versions quickly put us
in touch with the mundane, but somehow make us think of the sublime."
Artnet.com 04/26/01
Wednesday
April 25
NUDE
CHRIST COVERED: Workers at a new terminal at New York's Kennedy
Airport complained about a mural in the terminal that included
a tiny naked Christ. So the artist has touched up the painting,
covering the controversial anatomy. The
New York Times (AP) 04/25/01 (one-time
registration required)
HYPE
OVER CRITICISM: How many Guggenheims are too many? Hard to
say. Director Thomas Krens suggests there may one day as many
Goog outposts as there are Starbuck's. The museum buildings themselves
have become as big an attraction as the art inside.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 04/24/01
HOPING
FOR A BLOCKBUSTER: The Art Gallery of Ontario is hoping that
a new exhibition of pieces on loan from Russia's famed Hermitage
museum will go a long way towards retiring its $6.24 million debt.
But the gallery isn't simply hoping that the crowds will come
- it is spending a bundle to make sure they do. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/25/01
A
HIT WITH THE CROWDS: Though its former curator continues to
criticize it, Australia's Museum of Contemporary Art had its most
successful year last year, with a 74 percent increase in attendance.
Sydney Morning Herald 04/25/01
3
= FUSCHIA: When Dan Robbins invented "paint-by-numbers"
kits in the 1950s, he had no idea that his creation would become
a cultural phenomenon, with everyone from young children to Hollywood
celebrities getting sucked into the "make-your-own-Matisse"
craze. The hobby fell out of fashion some time ago, but a new
Smithsonian exhibition is evidence of a comeback. Chicago
Tribune 04/25/01
ARE
THOSE JELLY KRIMPETS? Anyone not native to Philadelphia is
unlikely to see the allure of prepackaged, preservative-injected
snack cakes being used as the subject of serious paintings. But
to those who grew up with the endless varieties of Tastykake®
available in the City of Brotherly Love, nothing could be more
natural. Philadelphia Daily News 04/25/01
Tuesday
April 24
FAKE
STOLEN TURNERS: It looked like two Turners stolen from the
Tate were finally about to be returned. But at the "drop"
it was obvious the canvases were fakes. "They weren't just bad
fakes, they were awful. It became clear the whole thing was just
a scam by two chancers." The Guardian
(UK) 04/23/01
THE
BUSINESS OF MUSEUMS: "In recent years, California politicians
have learned that providing the home folks with swimming pools
and firetrucks would win them front-page publicity, which is why
the state budget has been saturated with such items. But perhaps
the most intriguing form of contemporary pork barrel spending
is an explosion of state-financed museums commemorating one thing
or another." Sacramento Bee 04/23/01
REMEMBER
WHEN THIS WAS CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL? Even as schools across
America continue to cut back on arts programs viewed as "frills,"
museums in the nation's capital are making a point of creating
new ties with students, and strengthening existing programs. Washington
Post 04/24/01
NUTTY
GENIUS: Le Corbusier may have been a genius at architecture.
But he was also completely nuts - indeed, it's amazing he ever
managed to design anything, says a new book. London
Evening Standard 04/22/01
HOMAGE
OR OPPORTUNISM? The Metropolitan Museum of Art is featuring
an exhibition of Jackie Kennedy's trinkets, gowns, and White House
memorabilia in the name of celebrating the late First Lady's legacy.
Even in death, Jackie O's appeal is undeniable, but is this really
the kind of thing that musuems are supposed to be doing? New
York Post 04/24/01
THE
DOCTOR IS IN: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, incarcerated in a Michigan
prison for helping multiple people to commit suicide, is not doing
much to rehabilitate his image as "Dr. Death" with a
new exhibition of six of his paintings at a Connecticuit museum.
The works are horrifying, if cartoonish, glimpses into a world
of terror, violence, and bloodlust, and even the museum's owner
is taken aback by them. Hartford Courant
04/24/01
GLORIFYING
BERLIN: Eduard Gärtner was one of the world's great urban
landscape painters in an era before the world cared about urban
landscapes. A massive new retrospective of his work, which fills
a four-story gallery in Berlin, traces the rise of Germany's capital
city in artistic and architectural terms. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 04/23/01
THAT
WILD AND CRAZY ART... Steve Martin gets a show of his art
collection in Las Vegas. What's it like? "The collection
is uneven, as are most personal collections, so called to distinguish
them from those formed with museum or other expertise. And it
lacks focus, as many personal collections do. In fact, its scattershot
quality might lead one to believe that Mr. Martin is very much
an impulse buyer." The New York
Times 04/24/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
Monday
April 23
AIN'T
IT GRAND: Venice is planning a new bridge across the Grand
Canal. "The design by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava,
combines an innovative shape with a span of 83 metres and a width
of nine. It will be the only bridge in Venice to be illuminated
at night." It should be completed by next year. The
Art Newspaper 04/23/01
TV
SHOW SETS UP ARTISTS/CRITICS: British TV show takes a decorator
and gives him a four-week crash course in contemporary art, then
passes him off to critics. They're fooled.
The Observer (UK) 04/22/01
LOST TURNERS
ARE STILL LOST: For seven years, the Tate Gallery has been
hoping to recover the two Turners that were stolen while on loan
in Germany. Then a call came, saying the thieves had been arrested
and the paintings recovered, undamaged. One look at the recovered
art work, however, was enough to convince experts that, whatever
they were, Turner had not painted them. The Guardian (London) 04/23/01
CAN
WE TALK? "In recent decades what one might have imagined
as a conversation between those who look at a work of art and
say, 'It's beautiful' or 'It's new,' and those who say, 'But what
is beauty?' or 'But what is newness?', has become very different.
Basically, there is no conversation. There is hardly even a debate.
Instead there is a rancorous face-off. There are theorists on
one side and appreciators on the other side, and when they look
at one another all they see is cartoons." The
New Republic 04/20/01
SHOULD
COLLECTIONS BE OPEN? Few museums have more than a tiny fraction
of their permanent collections on display at any one time. But
some museums are trying to make more of their collections available.
Some laud the new openness. Others think it a bad idea. "Big collections
are treasures, but you have to put it in some context people can
relate to. The public wants stories – they don't want row upon
row of stuff." US News 04/30/01
LOSING
THE INITIATIVE: Have other media surpassed traditional visual
arts? Jean-Christophe Ammann, director of the Museum für Moderne
Kunst in Frankfurt thinks so: "The problem is that artists
today react rather than act. With all the media available to them,
they have somehow still failed to create valid and uniquely identifiable
models." The Art Newspaper 04/20/01
Sunday
April 22
NEW
MUSEUM OF SPAM: Sited in a former K-Mart store in Austin,
Minnesota, the 20,000sq ft museum will have a cinema telling the
story of Spam and a cafe serving such delicacies as Spam fritters."
The Telegraph (UK) 04/21/01
- CELEBRATING
THE TUBE STEAK: There are two kinds of American cities -
those with a hot dog stand on every corner, and those without.
Chicago is decidedly one of the "withs," and a local
photographer has put together an exhibit memorializing thirty
of the city's best. Chicago Sun-Times
04/22/01
MUSEUM
DIRECTOR COMMITS SUICIDE: The director of museums in Merseyside,
England, knighted by the Queen last year for his service, filled
his pockets with sand and drowned himself. “He was desperately
overworked. He was worried that he was not in control of everything
that he should have been.” The Times
(London) 04/21/01
CROSS-CULTURE
SATURATION: The U.K. is about to be saturated with Japanese
culture in a major way. A year's worth of exhibitions and festivals
around the country will attempt to decipher the world's most enigmatic
national combination of Eastern and Western traditions, and, in
the process, win some new fans for Kabuki and Shinto. The
Telegraph (London) 04/21/01
JUST
TRY TO LOOK AWAY: Spencer Tunick is either an artistic visionary
or a gimmicky phenomenon, depending on who you're asking. The
photographer, who has gained notoriety in recent years for "performances"
in which he snaps pictures of large numbers of naked models in
public places, is bringing his act to Montreal, and the debate
is on again over whether this is art. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/21/01
MUSIC
IN THE BACKGROUND: A new installation art piece in Pittsburgh
purports to use music as a context rather than a focus. The works
on display look more like office furniture than the makings of
a symphony, and the sounds produced by the dot-matrix printers,
unmanned turntables, and other everyday objects, are music in
the service of the visual message. Or is it the other way around?
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 04/22/01
Friday
April 20
LOOTING
WITH THE INTERNET: Archeological sites "across Florida
have been looted over the years, but now some experts say the
incidents may be on the rise, in part because of the Internet.
Some Web sites offer detailed instructions where to find the artifacts
and how to retrieve them." St.
Petersburg Times 04/18/01
EXISTENTIAL
ANGST: "Last year, for the first time ever, American
museums attracted more than a billion visitors. As they have become
more marketable properties, some museums have begun to behave
in more commercial ways. And to the consternation of many old-school
curators, it is a business strategy that seems to be working."
The Economist 04/19/01
TOO MUCH AVANT,
NOT ENOUGH GARDE: Most of the work by Russian avant-garde
painter Lisitsky wound up in Europe and America. So the State
Russian Museum in St. Petersburg was delighted to get three Lisitskys
for a current exhibit. Delighted, that is, until the experts started
looking closely. Two of the three appear to be fakes.
Moscow Times 04/19/01
PUBLIC
ART AT A REMOVE: Twelve years ago a Bay Area artist erected
"91 painted aluminum rods on a median strip in the middle
of Contra Costa's largest city." The public art was panned,
and the rods were removed for safety. But a California law prohibits
removing public art without the consent of the artist, and the
city, which wants to install a turning lane where the base of
the rods sits, is negotiating with the artist. SFGate
04/18/01
THE
NEXT BUILDING FAD? Architect Bill Price had an idea - transluscent
concrete, and it may change the next new building you work in.
"The need was that the translucent material be pourable -
and that once solidified it support weight, absorb shock, insulate,
and endure as well as or better than traditional concrete."
Metropolis 04/01
Thursday
April 19
RIGHTING
ANOTHER WRONG: As the debate continues over whether museums
have an obligation to "repatriate" works of pillaged,
stolen, or smuggled art, another return is being made. Japan's
Miho Museum (near Kyoto) will return to China a stolen Buddhist
statue valued at $813,000. The Plain
Dealer (Cleveland) 04/19/01
DEPARTMENT
STORE ART (WITH A TWIST): For the month of May a London store
will be "made over to deliver a Tokyo experience, from food
to fashion, lift girls to a 24-hour convenience store. At the
heart of the event is an art project, which brings together the
work of some of the city’s leading contemporary artists in a show
that explores the intriguing no-man’s-land between art and Mammon."
The Times (UK) 04/19/01
TATE
GETS A NEW LIBRARY: "A new library hosting thousands
of letters, photographs and papers relating to British artists
is to be built in the Tate Britain gallery. It will showcase previously
unseen documents from leading artists of the past century."
BBC 04/19/01
MEINE
FREUD: Australia's National Gallery wants to acquire a Lucien
Freud painting for $8 million. The museum has the Cezanne work
on which the Freud is based. But is the painting only masking
a host of problems with the management of the museum? Still,
the painting is worth
having, say some. Sydney Morning
Herald 04/19/01
WELL
WORTH THE WAIT: "It's taken 50 years. But after a handsome
and intelligent $4 million renovation, the Baltimore Museum of
Art's Cone Collection has emerged at last as a warmhearted treasure
trove of modern art." Washington
Post 04/19/01
RESTORE
THIS: The 3rd-century wall in Rome that collapsed earlier
this week was thought to have been restored last year. Turns out
it had only been "cleared of weeds."
CBC 04/18/01
SCOTTISH
STRIKE: Scotland's national museums may be forced to close
as attendants go on strike. The Times
(UK) 04/19/01
THE
HEADLESS PIPER: Are Scotland's castles haunted? Some "240
volunteers were sent into the cells of Edinburgh Castle — one
time home of 17th century French prisoners of war — and cellars
in the bowels of the medieval 'Old Town.' Nearly half the guinea
pigs, drawn from visitors from across the globe, reported ghostly
goings-on, although few were more hair-raising than a sudden drop
in temperature, a few uncomfortable drafts or a feeling of being
watched." Discovery 04/18/01
PARKIN'
IT IN PITTSBURGH: "Too often, parking garages are a pox
on the modern city -- self-centered, brutal intrusions that thumb
their noses at neighborhood context and contribute nothing to
the life of the street. They don't have to be necessary evils,
as two recently completed projects on opposite sides of the Allegheny
River demonstrate." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 04/19/01
Wednesday
April 18
THE
NEXT BIG THING?
Some critics say there's no such thing as digital art. Some museums
and curators say different. Now that digital has hit the Whitney
and SFMOMA, can artworld credibility be far behind?
ArtsJournal.com
04/18/01
CONTEMPORARY
ART AS VICTIM: TV commercials have found a new whipping boy:
Beer, credit cards, and fast food are all taking shots at modern
art, or modern artists. Why? Advertisers assume their audiences
are people who "believe that art is pretty much one big scam
put over on decent people by smirky East Coast cultural cadres."
Slate 04/16/01
IF
ONLY WE HAD A FREUD: Australia's National Portrait Gallery
says the painting it is in most dire need of - something that
will make its collection of 20th Century art - is a Lucien Freud.
So it's trying to raise $8 million to buy one from the artist.
"There's no doubt that Lucien Freud is one of the greatest
20th century figurative painters.'' The
Age (Melbourne) 04/18/01
EBAY SHILL
BIDDERS COP A PLEA: Two men who placed hundreds of bids on
their own eBay offerings - including a fake Richard Diebenkorn
painting - have pleaded guilty to fraud. They've agreed to compensate
other bidders and to cooperate with federal prosecutors. A third
man indicted in the scheme is still at large.
CNET (AP) 04/17/01
LOVED
AWAY FROM HOME: Last year the Smithsonian's American Art Museum
closed for a four-year, $211 million renovation. The "often
overlooked American Art Museum has been using its homelessness
to take to the road with eight simultaneous traveling exhibitions
featuring 514 of its most acclaimed works." And it's
finding appreciation that it often hasn't enjoying back in Washington
DC. The New York Times 04/18/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
RETURN
TO CHINA: A Japanese museum says "that one of its masterpieces,
a rare Buddhist statue from China, is one that was stolen from
Shandong Province, China, in 1994." It is returning the art
to China. The New York Times 04/18/01
(one-time registration required for access)
Tuesday
April 17
FALLING
MUSEUM ATTENDANCE: A few weeks ago the British government
released attendance figures for major national museums that showed
business is booming. But when attendance for museums in general
around the UK are measured, the numbers are down. In fact, the
number of people visiting museums last year dropped about 7 percent
- a "cause for concern." The
Independent (London) 04/17/01
ALL
PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY: "Santa Fe Archbishop Michael
Sheehan and other Roman Catholics on Monday urged the removal
of a photo collage by Los Angeles artist Alma Lopez from Santa
Fe's state-run Museum of International Folk Art, saying the work
depicted the Virgin Mary as 'a tart.'" Los
Angeles Times (first item) 04/17/01
THAT'S
NOT MY MUMMY: A Persian mummy, discovered last October in
Pakistan and thought to be 2,600 years old, has now been declared
an elaborate and modern fake. The case has turned into a murder
investigation. Time 04/16/01
ROMAN
WALL FALL: A section of Rome's ancient city wall built in
the 3rd century crumbled this week after heavy rains. BBC
04/16/01
PARTY
ON DUDE: The Victoria & Albert Museum has been an underperformer
in London's museum scene. Now a report charges that the V&A's
security guards are routinely drunk and incompetent guarding artwork.
"Security was so haphazard that at one private party visitors
were seen sniffing cocaine off the base of Canova's sculpture
The Three Graces, one of the most renowned in the museum and worth
at least £10 million." Sunday
Times (London) 04/15/01
Monday
April 16
NY
MUSEUM ATTENDANCE DROPS: The slowing US economy has hit New
York museums. "At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there were
200,000 fewer visitors from November to February when compared
with the same time a year earlier, an 11 percent attendance decline.
Industry observers blame the economy, which has scared away penny-pinching
tourists. Two years ago, museums were at full capacity even during
off-peak months." New
York Post 04/16/01
SMART
TO STEAL ART: "Ever since puritanical Taleban rulers
in Kabul began smashing ancient artefacts last month, smugglers
and merchants have become the last line of defence against the
extinction of a country's archeological legacy. Indeed, dealers
are working overtime to make the most of Afghanistan's lost heritage,
before the trail gets cold across the Khyber Pass." Toronto
Star 04/16/01
MICHELANGELO'S
ROME: An Italian art expert has reconstructed the Rome that
Michelangelo knew, based on reading the artists notes and correspondence.
“Michelangelo’s Rome has been altered radically since the Renaissance,
but armed with contemporary records and maps Filippo Tuena has
found doorways, chapels and tombs that have gone largely unnoticed
in one of the most photographed square miles in the world."
The Times (London) 04/15/01
ART
WHOSE OWNERS YOU'VE HEARD OF: Celebrities selling off their
art collections and getting good prices. "The numbers of
actors who have great collections may not be enormous, but the
number of actors and celebrities who can add glamour to mundane
objects is considerable." The Telegraph
(London) 04/16/01
TOWER
OF POWER: In Romania, controversy mars the restoration of
a prominent Brancusi sculture. New
York Times 04/16/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
Sunday
April 15
ALL
ABOUT THE CONTEXT: The British Museum's new show about Cleopatra
and Antony promised to be a blockbuster. The art is spectacular.
But "this is an oppressive and cynical exercise, an unholy
alliance of marketing and scholarship. The degree to which this
show makes a sow's ear out of one of history's finest silk purses
is spectacular." The Guardian
(London) 04/15/01
NEGOTIATING
YOURSELF OUT OF A JOB: Declan McGonagle, the long-serving
director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art has been at odds with
the museum's board. Last fall he sued the board when they advertised
his job. Now McGonagle has won a contract offer from the board,
which he then turned down so he can discuss a separation agreement...
Sunday Times 04/15/01
Friday
April 13
AFTER
THE BUST: In the 1980s rich Japanese investors bought up some
of the world's highest profile art. But then the Japanese economy
went bust. Now some of the treasures are coming back on the market.
Forbes.com 04/12/01
HIP
TODAY, GONE TOMORROW: It's difficult for galleries to keep
up with their hipness quotient and still stay solvent. "These
are difficult times for high-end galleries that not only want
to make money (that seems to be the easier part, even in our days
of downturn) but maintain some art-world street cred as well."
MSNBC 04/12/01
TALIBAN, TAKE
NOTE: Destruction of cultural property, acknowledged as a
crime nearly half a century ago, has finally been sanctioned by
an international tribunal. The International Tribunal for Former
Yugoslavia has found the Yugoslav air force guilty of the destruction
of historic monuments for its bombing of Dubrovnik ten years ago.
The Art Newspaper 04/13/01
SAVE
THOSE OLD PAPER NEGATIVES: They aren't common in the US, but
if you happen to find one in your attic (or someone else's), hang
onto it. Paper negatives from the middle of the nineteenth century
are highly-prized, and highly-priced. "Starting at $5,000,
they can easily climb to $75,000 or above for especially early
or rare examples." Forbes
04/11/01
Thursday
April 12
O'KEEFFE
CONTROVERSY: "A New Mexico man who once lived with noted
western artist Georgia O'Keeffe has registered a copyright for
16 paintings once attributed to her. But there are significant
questions about whether Jacobo Suazo or O'Keeffe actually painted
the works." Washington Post (AP)
04/11/01
RIGHTING
A MYSTERIOUS WRONG: "The National Gallery of Canada is
about to return to China a stolen 1,300-year-old Buddhist limestone
carving surreptitiously chiselled from the wall of a temple cave
some time during the last century...The figure was vandalized
from a full-bodied image of an arhat found in Kanjing Si Temple."
Ottawa Citizen 04/12/01
ART
AND THE UNHAPPY NEIGHBORS: New York's Metropolitan Museum
is embarking on a 12-year $200 million renovation. Neighbors aren't
pleased at the prospect of living with the construction. "And
if their concerns run toward the mundane—they’re worried about
noise, dust and the deleterious effects of an influx of construction
workers (and their trucks) into the neighborhood—the Met’s executives
have reason for concern. Their neighbors are angry, they are rich
and they have lawyers." New York
Observer 04/11/01
THE
LOTTERY LOBBY: Are national lotteries the 21st-century’s
answer to struggling arts sectors and the rampant export of cultural
treasures? Pierre Rosenberg, who retires Thursday after seven
years as director of the Louvre, has proposed creating a French
lottery to help safeguard the country’s artistic heritage from
being sold abroad.
New York Times 4/12/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
MARIA
GAETANA MATISSE HAS DIED at age 58 in New York. Widow of Henri
Matisse’s son Pierre, she was a longtime New York gallery owner
and influential modern art patron. New Jersey Online (AP) 4/11/01
Wednesday
April 11
DAMAGED
LOANER: A Gainsborough painting on loan from the National
Gallery of Scotland to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in the
US was damaged while hanging in the Tennessee museum. The painting
was on loan from Scotland's national collection in Edinburgh.
The Guardian (London) 04/10/01
- THE
RENTALS: Scotland's National Gallery needs money. So "the
colourful director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland,
has rented out 50 of the country’s greatest masterpieces to
America in a bid to fund a planned £26 million revamp of the
Royal Scottish Academy. Works by Goya, El Greco, Gainsborough,
Constable, Sir Henry Raeburn and Canaletto, have been sent to
Memphis, Tennessee. Scotland on
Sunday 04/08/01
HOME
SWEET HOME: "If you want to understand an artist, first
find out where he lived and worked, what he saw outside his studio
window, and whom he might have met on his way to the pub. Only
when you've located artists such as Hogarth, Sickert or Gilbert
and George in Covent Garden, Camden Town, or the East End do you
fully grasp what they are doing in their art."
The Telegraph (London) 04/11/01
HE
SAID/HE SAID: More stories about the squabbles among Australia's
National Gallery leadership director Brian Kennedy and former
curator John MacDonald. MacDonald's turn: "I am concerned that
there's a perception that I am some sort of lazy or recalcitrant
person when in fact I feel I was doing everything in my power.
Things I did not do I avoided doing for what I thought were perfectly
good and ethical reasons." Sydney
Morning Herald 04/11/01
TOO
MUCH ATTENTION: Is the Brooklyn Museum's Yo Mama photograph
Catholic bashing? Not at all - it has more to do with a "form
of zealous howling" going on in the media and elsewhere.
Why is it so easy to get attention this way? American
Prospect 04/23/01
£24,000
FOR BEAUTIFUL BLONDES: Britain's richest art prize goes this
year to an artist who says he paints "beautiful blonde girls
on park benches." Tim Stoner collects the £24,000 Beck's
Futures Award. "His paintings depict a seemingly worryless
world... a vision of consumerist paradise. But it doesn't take
long before the dark undertones of his idealised world... become
apparent". Guardian
04/11/01
BLIND
ARTIST DOING WELL, THANK YOU: We have Beethoven to prove that
a person can lose hearing and still compose music. But an artist
who cannot see? "Lisa Fittipaldi is a rising star in the
art world. Her work is sold through the biggest gallery in the
United States and routinely fetches thousands of dollars. Many
of those who buy her work are unaware that the artist has never
seen it." The Telegraph (London) 04/11/01
TOO
MUCH ATTENTION: Is the Brooklyn Museum's Yo Mama photograph
Catholic bashing? Not at all - it has more to do with a "form
of zealous howling" going on in the media and elsewhere.
Why is it so easy to get attention this way? American
Prospect 04/23/01
HIS ART, BUT NOT
EXACTLY HIS IDEA: Glenn Brown's painting "The Loves of
Shepherds 2000" was exhibited at the Tate as a candidate
for the £21,000 Turner Prize. Then someone noticed it was an almost-identical
copy of the cover art on a 1974 science fiction paperback. Now
the paper-back cover artist is suing. The Tate, caught in the
middle, explains that "Brown’s images were 'never direct
replicas but have been cleverly manipulated', and that Brown merely
appropriated ideas." London
Times 04/10/01
SAARINEN'S TWA
TERMINAL MAY COME DOWN: The TWA Flight Center at Kennedy Airport,
an official New York City Landmark as well as an architectural
milestone, may be demolished to make room for a new United Airlines
Terminal. Beautiful it may be, says the Port Authority, but it's
"totally undersized and not equipped to handle modern jets
or customers". The Art Newspaper
04/11/01
Tuesday
April 10
AFRICA
DOCUMENTED: "Even among scholars, Africa often is dismissed
as a continent lacking written records, one of the hallmarks of
civilization." But a discovery of "3,000 manuscripts
ranging from letters and fragments of works to complete books
and covering a range of subjects that include theology, jurisprudence
and history" is changing all that. Chicago
Tribune 04/09/01
SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT: So the Mona Lisa now has a room of its
own. What a good idea. It would be better if more paintings could
get this kind of treatment. It's too difficult to see good art
in a room crowded with other work... The
Times (London) 04/10/01
AN
OFFER THEY COULDN'T REFUSE: "Some of Canada's most successful
artists...took advantage of a short-term program at the federal
Art Bank to buy back their own works at bargain prices. A one-time,
six-month, buy-back scheme ended March 31 this year and resulted
so far in 36 artists issuing cheques totalling $225,000 to purchase
works originally sold to the Art Bank." Ottawa
Citizen 04/10/01
OUT
OF JORDAN: "Hundreds of ancient archaeological sites
in Jordan are being plundered by looters looking for treasures,
which are then being smuggled out of the country and sold for
huge profits in Western cities, including London."
BBC 04/06/01
WHO
COUNTS THESE THINGS? "North Carolina has at least 500
full-time potters, more per capita than any other state. For four
days at the end of March, Charlotte was probably the ceramics
capital of the world when it was host to several thousand potters,
among them students and teachers from universities across the
country, at the annual conference of the National Council on Education
for the Ceramic Arts." The New
York Times 04/10/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
Monday
April 9
CHINESE
CRACKDOWN? Avant garde artists in China, enjoying greater
freedom in recent years, were attacked at the recent China National
People's Conference. Cadres "condemned art in blistering
terms as a 'social evil' on a par with the Falun Dafa cult, and
urged that it be crushed in much the same way." The
Art Newspaper 04/09/01
PONDERING
VERMEER: Why are we so fascinated with the work of Vermeer?
"You would think that veneration so exquisite, verging on
the epicene, indicates an object of, well, recherché taste. But
anyone with eyes can go goofy over this or that little patch of
something in Vermeer." The New
Yorker 04/09/01
WHAT
STYLE IS THIS? Why do architects dislike talking about style?
"While a writer or a painter can be applauded for stylistic
ability, calling an architect a stylist is considered faint praise.
And nothing enrages an architect as much as being categorized."
Saturday Night 04/07/01
DIGGING
DIGITAL: "Computer art promises the moon, and there is
probably a segment of the public for whom that promise is more
interesting than any work of art, computer-generated or otherwise,
that they have ever seen." But what is it, exactly? The
New Republic 04/09/01
- DIGITAL
CREDIBILITY: "Despite uncertainty surrounding what
it means to own, exhibit, create, or simply view works, computer-aided
art is gaining credibility from collectors and institutions,
who are not only buying it but commissioning it too."
ArtNews 04/01
THE
COLLECTING GAME: No collectors' market for photography? Enter
the concept of "vintage" print - prints made from a
negative shortly after the image was created. Prices have zoomed.
"For a market to thrive, purchasers have to feel that they
are buying something special. Vintage prints are certainly rarer
than more modern ones, but whether they are any better is open
to question." The Telegraph (London)
04/09/01
SHIPWRECK
ART HORDE: A discovery of a Chinese shipwreck from 1000 years
ago is changing the story of Chinese art. Forbes.com
04/09/01
RUSSIAN
CORPSES FOR ART? The Russian government is investigating whether
some of the human bodies used by a doctor in Berlin for an art
exhibit were Siberian prisoners. Moscow
Times 04/09/01
- Previously:
DEADLY
ART: In Germany an art exhibition of dead people preserved
by plastination. "Plastination is a preservation process
by which the body's water content is drained and replaced, first
by super-chilled acetone, then by plastic. Over decades, von
Hagens collected hundreds of corpses from voluntary donors,
mostly from China, refining the plastination technique and honing
his sculptural skills. The culmination of these scientific and
artistic labors is Body Worlds, which has traveled to Vienna,
Cologne, Basle, Tokyo and, now, Berlin." Feed
04/04/01
Sunday
April 8
AUSSIE
RIP-OFF? Architect Daniel Libeskind has accused the architect
of the new National Museum of Australia in Canberra of copying
his design for the Jewish museum in Berlin. "At first, I thought
it was a joke. Not a proportion, not an angle of the Jewish museum
has been changed." Canberra Times
(Australia) 04/08/01
SAVE
THAT ART: They can straighten the Tower of Pisa, save The
Last Supper and bring color back to the Sistine Chapel. Are restorers
the heroes of Italy's historic art? Globe
& Mail (Canada) 04/07/01
ART
OF AFRICA: African art has long fascinated Westerners. But
how to display it, stripped of its context and intentions in a
Western museum? Museums have a range of answers. Boston
Globe 04/08/01
REMOVING
OFFENSIVE MURALS: A British Columbia government report recommends
removing murals depicting pioneer days from the walls of the provincial
legislature. "Native leaders say the murals, which recreate
scenes of white settlers and natives in British Columbia between
1795 and 1843, are historically inaccurate and offensive."
Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/07/01
Friday
April 6
OUT TO SILENCE THE CENSOR: Artists, academics, and free-speech
advocates have banded together to publicly denounce New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani’s creation of a "decency commission"
to evaluate all the art the city funds. "Giuliani has lost
20 of 21 First Amendment court cases during his two terms as mayor,
and advocates said the mayor was pushing the envelope again. ‘He
has the gall to start all over again,’ said artist Hans Haacke,
‘as if he had never been slapped down." ABC News
4/05/01
CHILLIN’ AT THE V&A: Facing increasing scrutiny from
the UK culture secretary and hoping to "dispel its fusty
maiden aunt image forever," the Victoria and Albert Museum
gave the public its first glimpse of its plans for new £31m British
Galleries, which are scheduled to open in November. "The
most surprising change of all though will be a set of ‘chill-out’
rooms at the end of each block of galleries, where weary visitors
can lounge ‘and let it all sink in.’" The
Guardian (London) 4/06/01
GOT A GOYA? The director of Madrid’s Prado Museum
has rejected claims raised by the museum’s top Goya expert that
two of its famous paintings (both currently on loan to foreign
exhibitions) are not the work of Spanish master Francisco de Goya.
"Opinions to the contrary must come in scientific publications and a thoroughly
worked catalogue." CNN 4/05/01
IT'S ALL IN HOW
YOU LOOK AT IT: Think once you've seen a painting in a museum
you've seen it? Maybe not. "Today, with modern-day museums'
harsh, bright lights illuminating the works of artists, the colors
and perspective are often lost, as well as the context of the
time period in which the artists were working." Wired 04/06/01
A CENTURY AT THE CENTER: London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery
celebrates its centenary this spring - a good time to reflect
on the enormous role the gallery has played in promoting 20th-century
British art. "It has the inestimable advantage of being daylit
and is a favourite of artists who feel at home as if in some impossibly
lovely studio." The Telegraph
(London) 4/06/01
DEVOTED TO DIGITAL: When he steps down as Harvard’s
president in June, Neil Rudenstine plans to devote his time to
a project to create a mammoth digital collection of images of
art, architecture, and design. "The aim was to create a kind
of ‘public utility’ for art that would present high quality images,
catalog them and link them to scholarly information." New York Times 4/05/01 (one-times registration required)
Thursday
April 5
NO
SALE: The Taliban say they will punish anyone trying to sell
fragments of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas. "Taliban officials
dismissed media reports that truckloads of rubble from the historic
Bamiyan Buddhas were for sale in neighbouring Pakistan."
CBC 04/04/01
VERMEER
OR NOT VERMEER: Is there a new Vermeer or not? Hard to tell
yet, but "why have the Vermeer people not learned the Rembrandt
lesson? It is this simple: The lesson has never been taught. The
Rembrandt Research Project has never come to terms in public with
its original mistake." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 04/04/01
WELSH
CENTRE GETS THE GO-AHEAD: After months of debate and delay,
the Welsh Assembly has given its permission for construction to
begin on a national arts centre in Cardiff Bay. The Wales Millenium
Centre has an estimated price tag of £92 million. BBC
04/05/01
STERNER
STUFF: Contemporary art is often not made of durable materials.
So how to conserve? "The question is a hot one at museums
around the country, as institutions ranging from Harvard University
to the Whitney Museum of American Art to the Guggenheim grapple
with the conservation of contemporary art." The
New York Times 04/05/01 (one-times
registration required)
CANADIAN
FIREBRAND: Vancouver's Contemporary Art Gallery is getting
a new leader, and if past performance is any indication, Christina
Ritchie's reign will be anything but boring. "[W]hile Ritchie
can come across as the very epitome of pre-Cambrian gruffness,
she is also one of the Canadian art world's wittiest subversives,
with a seductive voice that she uses to dish, always saying less
than you long to know, but with a provocative lift of the eyebrow
that keeps you waiting for more." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/05/01
MINIMALLY
MOBY? "Critics have been, to say the least, divided about
what happened to the art of Frank Stella. Right now, art is in
a swing back to the minimalist objective art of the 1960s; artists
are acclaimed for their starkness, and Stella's early work looks
modern in a way that his later work does not." So why has
he spent the last 15 years pondering Moby Dick? The
Guardian (London) 04/05/01
VIRTUAL
LANDSCAPES: "Yesterday representatives from [Mexico,
the United States and Canada] launched an online art show called
Panoramas:
The North American Landscape in Art. This show doesn't really
exist anywhere except in cyberspace. It brings together more than
300 works of landscape art from galleries in [the three countries]."
CBC 04/04/01
MOVING
MONA: The Louvre has moved the Mona Lisa to a room of its
own. "The Mona Lisa is a pride and joy for us, but it's also a
problem because the museum's 6 million visitors all want to see
the painting." The hope is that the other paintings in the room
Mona Lisa used to hang will now get some attention. Nando
Times 04/04/01
DEADLY
ART: In Germany an art exhibition of dead people preserved
by plastination. "Plastination is a preservation process
by which the body's water content is drained and replaced, first
by super-chilled acetone, then by plastic. Over decades, von Hagens
collected hundreds of corpses from voluntary donors, mostly from
China, refining the plastination technique and honing his sculptural
skills. The culmination of these scientific and artistic labors
is Body Worlds, which has traveled to Vienna, Cologne, Basle,
Tokyo and, now, Berlin." Feed
04/04/01
HOW
TO DISPLAY A BLOCKHEAD: St. Paul, Minnesota will soon be covered
with a veritable gaggle of Charlie Brown sculptures, the latest
in the wave of copycat art-animal-parades. But what to do with
all the little round-headed kids after the novelty wears off?
A local columnist has a few suggestions, including a Brooklyn-style
Chuck covered with elephant dung. St.
Paul Pioneer Press 04/05/01
Wednesday
April 4
GUGGENHEIM
GOES SOUTH: "The Guggenheim Museum will erect arts facilities
in four Brazilian cities, officials said Monday, bringing an end
to heated competition for the first Latin American affiliate of
the New York-based arts organization." Chicago
Tribune 04/04/01
REINVENT, OR ELSE: Long criticized for its stuffy
image and poor organization, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum
has been officially put on notice. "Its new director has
until October to convince the culture secretary that he has found
a way of redefining the world's greatest and most disparate collection
of decorative art so that visitors can make sense of it. Until
then, the plan for a daring £80m spiral extension designed by
architect Daniel Liebeskind - which has already missed out on
lottery funds - should be put on hold." The Guardian (London) 4/03/01
STENCH
OF DESPERATION: "The Academy of Art College has managed
to insinuate itself into the consciousness of San Franciscans
as a legitimate art school through advertising, prominent campuses,
and a fleet of logoed, navy blue buses that endlessly plies the
downtown area. But there's rot within... [and the] owners have
assembled a family real estate empire by taking advantage of society's
most desperate prey: those who dream of someday becoming artists."
S.F. Weekly 04/04/01
THE POLITICS OF
SAVING ART: The urge to conserve works art is powerful (witness
worldwide outcries over the Taliban's destruction of art).
But increasingly the question has to be asked: Conserve what?
And for what? Conservation often has more to do with the present
than the past. ArtsJournal.com
04/04/01
THE IMAX EFFECT: Photographs seem to be getting
larger and larger - witness recent exhibits by Andreas Gursky,
Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans, and other contemporary photographers,
in which prints measure in feet, not inches. "Although big
photography isn't entirely new (Richard Avedon, who has been making
outsize prints since 1962, first showed his life-size group portrait
of the Chicago Seven in 1970), its ubiquity and prominence is.
But when virtually everyone is striving for new levels of drop-dead
monumentality, size loses its power to wow and becomes almost
beside the point." Village Voice 4/10/01
SIGNS OF A SLUMP: New York’s annual Asia Week events
- six Asian art auctions followed by two large Asian art fairs
- are a good barometer of overall collector enthusiasm and willingness
to spend. This year it seems the purse strings are gathered tight,
perhaps in response to Wall Street’s recent slide. There are plenty
of visitors and a lot of looking, but surprisingly little buying. Financial Review
4/03/01
CONVICTS’ CANVAS: A day after New York governor George
Pataki ordered that violent criminals be banned from showing and
selling their art at an annual state-sponsored inmates' art show,
the work is up and creating quite a stir. Victims’ families are
particularly outraged, since the convicts are entitled to keep
50% of the proceeds. Salon (AP)
4/03/01
ALWAYS AN ACTOR’S ACTOR: The contents of John Gielgud’s
estate will be auctioned this week at Sotheby’s in London, followed
by the sale of Ralph Richardson’s belongings on April 27. Proceeds
from the two auctions will go mainly to charities for actors. New York Times 4/04/01 (one-time
registration required)
"GARFIELD"
THIS ISN'T: If you are already acquainted with Jimmy Corrigan
(the smartest kid on earth, you know,) there is no need for you
to click on this link. But if the graphic novels of Chris Ware
are unfamiliar to you, read on to learn about the man who is simultaneously
reinvigorating the world of alternative comics and taking the
publishing world by storm. New York
Times 04/04/01 (one-time
registration required)
Tuesday
April 3
MUSEUM
ATTENDANCE SOARS: The British government releases attendance
figures for museums. There was a "20 per cent increase in
the number of visitors to the 17 national galleries and museums
in England it is responsible for funding. The total number of
visits rose from 23.7 million in 1999 to 28.4 million in 2000.
But the Tate Modern accounted for 4 million of the extra 5 million
visitors to the national collections last year." The
Independent (London) 04/03/01
HOW
TO COLLECT? Digital art seems to be gathering a critical mass
with museums. "The commitment of these museums to new media
has prompted debates on the issues of collecting and conserving
digital media, even though there is currently little commercial
support for the creation and production of net art. Without a
real market for collecting on-line projects, some seminal works
have changed hands for as little as $100 but also an indication
of the economic uncertainty net artists face." The
Art Newspaper 04/02/01
- Previously:
THE
END OF DIGITAL ART? Digital art has hit the big time in
terms of recognition now that major museums are showcasing it.
But "just as dot.com was always a fatuous category, lumping
together media, corporate services, and infrastructure companies
into one 'industry,' digital art is a category of convenience
that should be retired." Feed
03/27/01
YO
MAMA'S NEXT OPPORTUNITY: Has the Mayor of New York - in a
fit of religious indignation - managed to destroy the career of
a young artist? Not likely.
ArtNews 04/01
TALL
TALES: London is about to get some seriously tall buildings,
including Renzo Piano's 1000-foot-tall spire atop London Bridge
Tower. But serious questions need to be asked. "Piano has
designed more surpassingly beautiful buildings than any other
living architect, but this design has yet to match the originality
and sensitivity of his best work." The
Times (London) 04/03/01
PROTECTING
THE GIANT BUDDHA: Afghanistan's giant Buddhas may be destroyed,
but China is taking steps to protect the world's biggest stone
Buddha - 72 metres tall - located in Leshan, in Sichuan province.
The restoration project will cost $30 million. BBC
04/03/01
NATIONAL
CHARACTER: You can tell a lot about a country by its national
museums. "New Zealand's public history is often characterised
by a sense of unease, disapproval, and even guilt about our past."
By contrast, Australia's new National Museum gives "a sense
of respect for Australia's history, even its dark episodes, seeing
it in a broader evolving context." New
Zealand Herald 04/03/01
GOING
FOR GREEK: It isn't just ancient Greek art that is prized
by collectors these days. "Collectors are scrambling to get
hold of paintings by 19th-century Greek artists, paying prices
close to those commanded by European masters." MSNBC
(Reuters) 04/02/01
Monday
April 2
CONDONING
LOOTING: "The world's leading cultural guardians have
reversed a rigid 30-year-old policy. Unesco joined scholars and
a handful of museum curators and cultural preservationists who
are trying to take Afghan art threatened by vandalism and looting
to safety beyond its borders." The
New York Times 04/02/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
ART
LOOT AND DRUGS:
Who's buying in Afghanistan's burgeoning trade in antiquities?
"Most of the antiquities are nowadays bought with the proceeds
of drug trafficking. Afghanistan provides up to 75% of the world’s
heroin. Antiquities are a very useful way of laundering money,
since the object is movable, retains its value and can easily
be resold. Moreover the traffickers have international networks
at their disposal to discreetly transport the antiquities anywhere
in the world." The Art Newspaper
04/01/01
PRITZKER
WINNERS: Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron,
who designed the new Tate Modern museum in London (last year's
star architectural opening), have been chosen winners of this
year's Pritzker, architecture's top honor. The
New York Times 04/02/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
HACKING
DOWN HISTORY: Madrid's Prado Museum wants to expand. Last
week "one of Madrid's few 17th-century edifices, the cloisters
of the monastery of San Jeronimo el Real," which sit adjacent
to the museum, was hacked to pieces to make way for the expansion.
"The demolition raises serious questions about the Spanish
government's ability and political will to protect historic monuments."
The Guardian (London) 04/02/01
ENCOURAGING
REGIONAL ART: British artists have a new prize, "the
biggest visual art prize ever in Britain: £150,000. This prize,
called Art to You, dwarfs the Turner, the Jerwood and the Hunting
art prizes put together, but it is aimed specifically at regional
galleries and museums." The Times
(London) 04/02/01
THE
DEFINITION OF GOOD: It isn't only architects who are responsible
for a good building. It takes craftsmen who understand how to
build. "The desire to build beautifully is unlikely to go
away as long as there is someone around who appreciates taking
a straight shaving off a plank, drawing a fine curve without faltering
or laying a brick level in its mortar." The
Guardian (London) 04/02/01
UNLIKELY
COMMISSION: "Transforming London's South Bank Centre
has proved to be the poisoned chalice of British architectural
commissions. Despite its position on the great bend of the Thames,
the centre has never really worked, largely because of its deeply
flawed post-war planning and architecture. Turning it round has
already flummoxed two of Britain's leading architectural practices."
Can a small husband-and-wife team of architects succeed at the
job? The Telegraph (London) 04/02/01
LAUGHING
ONLINE: "Cartoonists who find it difficult to get picked
up and distributed by a syndicate are going straight to the masses
via the Web, where word of mouth can turn an unknown artist into
a sensation in matter of days, if not hours." San
Francisco Chronicle 04/02/01
Sunday
April 1
SAVING
THE BARNES? Pennsylania's Barnes Collection is in a tight
spot. The small collection needs to raise about $50 million to
keep going. But most of the proposals to save it would alter the
collection's fundamental qualities. Should the museum be sacrificed
to the tourists? Philadelphia Inquirer
04/01/01
TALL
THREAT: "Conservation, particularly of historic buildings,
was one of the great popular movements of the 20th century. Not
a wave of ultra-tall buildings threatens to transform London as
much as the whole-scale redevelopment of the Sixties and Seventies.
If they are built, these towers, whose scale far exceeds anything
so far built in the centre of London, will dominate the capital."
The Telegraph (London) 03/31/01
HOW
TO BE A CRITIC: Canada's Globe & Mail has a new art critic:
"The critic, I think, has to give readers enough information
that they can formulate some ideas of their own while they read.
Also, they must be given a sense of what the work looks like.
It's astonishing how often this gets left out of art reviews."
The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/31/01
GOOD
GRIEF: Last summer St. Paul Minnesota lined its streets with
fiberglass Snoopys decorated by artists. The city made money from
them, so this summer it will put out Charlie Browns. "It's a continuation
of our homage to Charles Schulz and what he created," says Mayor
Norm Coleman. "It's a wonderful thing for the city." St.
Paul Pioneer Press 04/01/01
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