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Friday
May 31
HOOD
WINS ARCHIBALD: Cherry Hood's portrait Simon Tedeschi Unplugged
has won this year's Archibald Prize. The $35,000 Archibald Prize,
in its 81st year, is Australia's pre-eminent portrait competition.
This year 751 artists entered the competition. Sydney
Morning Herald 05/31/02
THIS
YEAR'S LOW-OCTANE TURNER: The Tate's Turner Prize is calculated
to be controversial - how better to draw attention to contemporary
art? "This year, however, the judges have selected four rather
cerebral, unflashy artists who are unlikely to create tabloid
headlines. Of course, they are quite unknown to anyone outside
the small world of contemporary art, and not one is a painter:
once again, in a nation that celebrates Hockney and Freud among
working artists, the judges have somehow been unable to uncover
in the past year one decent show by a painter under the age of
50." Financial
Times 05/31/02
- THE
BARBIE BOOBY PRIZE: "Leading arts figures, who delight
in mocking the Turner by suggesting four-year-olds could do
a lot better, are backing a new children's art prize - which,
offering £20,000, boasts the same prize money as the famous
Tate Britain award." The competition would be for children
ages 4-11. The Guardian (UK) 05/30/02
- Previously: TURNER
SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED: The list of four finalists for Britain's
controversial Turner Prize has been released. Last year, the
£20,000 prize was won by Martin Creed for an empty gallery space
with a flickering light. The Turner is designed to spark interest
in and conversation about contemporary art, and it always manages
to do so, even if much of the talk is criticism of the winning
work. A sampling of the nominees' work can
be found here. BBC 05/30/02
TATE
MODERN'S OVERDUE ANNOUNCEMENT: Vicente Todoli's appointment
as the new director of Tate Modern this week caught many by surprise.
Not that Todoli's not up for the job. It's just that "the
job has been open so long, since founding director Lars Nittve
left a year ago to head the national museum in his native Sweden,
that there was some speculation that the Tate might even manage
without a director." The Guardian
(UK) 05/30/02
- Previously: TATE
MODERN'S NEW BOSS: "Spanish museum boss Vicente Todoli
is to be the new director of London's Tate Modern art gallery,
taking over early next year [and succeeding Lars Nittve.] Mr
Todoli, 43, studied art history at Yale University in the US
after getting a degree at the University of Valencia. He was
chief curator and artistic director of Instituto Valenciano
de Arte Moderno before joining the Museu Serralves in Porto,
Portugal, as its founding director in 1996." BBC
05/29/02
MONUMENT
OR MAUSOLEUM? The new Dresden Library is more a monument to
the past than the future. "Its architectonic profile seems
to prefigure the fate of all the libraries in the Internet age
to become wondrously brooding mausoleums, tombs for the books
that may even occasionally be taken in hand, if only out of sentimentality
or piety. Viewed thus, the hermetic Book Museum, its precious
volumes displayed under gently reduced artificial light, would
no longer be a tabernacle of the art of Gutenberg, but instead
the exquisite sepulchral chapel of literature as we knew it."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 05/30/02
FRAUGHT
WITH FREUD: Lucien Freud is widely considered Britain's best
living painter. Next month he'll get a major retrospective of
his work in London. "As many of his sitters have found, having
Lucian Freud recreate you in paint is not an unrelieved joy. Jerry
Hall's portrait turned her into an amorphous lump of pregnant
fleshy blubber. The Queen's portrait, unveiled last December,
provoked a tirade of abuse for its unflattering delineation of
a blue-chinned nightclub bouncer in a fright wig and a filthy
temper." The
Independent (UK) 05/30/02
Thursday
May 30
TURNER
SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED: The list of four finalists for Britain's
controversial Turner Prize has been released. Last year, the £20,000
prize was won by Martin Creed for an empty gallery space with
a flickering light. The Turner is designed to spark interest in
and conversation about contemporary art, and it always manages
to do so, even if much of the talk is criticism of the winning
work. A sampling of the nominees' work can
be found here. BBC 05/30/02
LIGHTNING
DAMAGES OBELISK: Lightning damaged a 3,000-year-old obelisk
in Rome this week. "A two metre chunk of granite toppled
from the 24-metre obelisk during a thunderstorm in Rome late on
Monday." The obelisk was stolen from Ethiopia by Mussolini
in 1937, and the African nation has been trying to get it back
ever since. The
Guardian (UK) 05/29/02
DON'T
LET MUSEUMS OFF THE HOOK: In Britain, artists are protesting
the way the government values art. But at least one critic believes
museums and galleries are complicit in the problem. "In my
view, the main problem facing these valuable national institutions
is not so much their lack of money as their distorted priorities.
At present these collections are not giving the pleasure and inspiration
that they could. This is because their traditional functions of
presenting and interpreting great works of art are undervalued
in today's cultural policy circles."
The Independent (UK) 05/28/02
ART
INSTITUTE GETS GAUGUIN: The Chicago Art Institute has landed
a gift of 41 watercolors and other works on paper. "The Art
Institute is known for its works on paper from the 18th to the
20th century. This expected new influx of old master drawings
would place it in the top rank of museums in this category as
well. No other museum holds a group of Gauguin's works on paper
comparable to that being donated, curators here said. Most depict
scenes from Tahiti." The
New York Times 05/30/02
SMITHSONIAN
TO MEMORIALIZE 9/11: A new exhibit set to open at the Smithsonian
on the one-year anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington
"will include photographs, video footage, personal accounts
and at least 50 objects selected to tell the story of that day.
Visitors also will be allowed to share their own Sept. 11 stories
through written responses or audio recording." Minneapolis
Star Tribune (Newhouse) 05/30/02
Wednesday
May 29
TATE
MODERN'S NEW BOSS: "Spanish museum boss Vicente Todoli
is to be the new director of London's Tate Modern art gallery,
taking over early next year [and succeeding Lars Nittve.] Mr Todoli,
43, studied art history at Yale University in the US after getting
a degree at the University of Valencia. He was chief curator and
artistic director of Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno before
joining the Museu Serralves in Porto, Portugal, as its founding
director in 1996." BBC 05/29/02
SECURITY
HOLE: What does the theft of hundreds of works of art from
small European museums by a lone thief say about the museums'
security measures? Most museums protect themselves against gangs
and sophisticated thieves, not lone visitors who walk in and steal.
"In a way, small museums are better protected at night than in
the day. The buildings are usually well secured, but the objects
themselves are often very poorly secured, or not at all."
The New York Times 05/29/02
POLITICS
OVERSHADOWS ART: A London curator was asked last year to put
together a show on human rights during the Israel Festival in
Jerusalem. "I chose to focus on those artists whose work
had addressed identity, place and issues of displacement in other
parts of the world. They, I thought, could provide models that
might resonate here." He chose international artists - no
Israelis, no Palestinians. But by the time the show was ready
to open recently, one by one the artists had withdrawn. "Each
artist offered one excuse or another. For some it was simply fear
of suicide bombers. Most of the excuses were rooted in politics,
or possibly ideology covering for anxiety. It is hard to argue
a defence when feelings run so deep."
London Evening Standard 05/28/02
WHATEVER
HAPPENED TO FUNCTIONAL ARCHITECTURE? As the number of new,
high-profile buildings in North American cities continues to grow,
some critics are becoming concerned over what they see as a lack
of respect for the people who will have to use the buildings on
a daily basis. Form is no longer following function if function
interferes with the architect's ego. "These kinds of oversights
have become frequent since architects were encouraged to think
of themselves as artists rather than master builders. And when
sculptural buildings are placed in a dense urban setting such
as Toronto, the problems are harder to fix." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 05/29/02
FEEL
THE PAIN: A number of artists make art around inflicting gruesome
pain on themselves. Viewers recoil in horror, and the artists
claim to be exploring a fundamental side of human existance. But
does an artist need to feel the pain to express it? And do viewers
gain anything from such displays? The
Times (UK) 05/29/02
POPPING
INTO ART: In the UK "much of the pop culture of the Sixties
came directly out of the art colleges, which were then the principal
hotbed of student dissent and a ferment of creative activity far
outside the traditional disciplines of fine art courses."
Now, it seems pop culture figures are the ones producing visual
art, and we're still paying attention...
The Times (UK) 05/29/02
Tuesday
May 28
POST-BIENNIAL:
Manifesta is a European biennial for contemporary art that is
a "project" rather than an "exhibition." "This
Manifesta is a nontrivial relationship machine. Many give it input,
but nobody knows what the output will be. The machine produces
an open, networked field of art, a terrain of rapprochement and
examination. Video, performance, photography, assemblage, installation:
What is shown here is art after the disintegration of all genres
and borders. Art products from the present day's conveyor belt
- medial, networked, young." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 05/27/02
DRESSING
UP: The exhibition of Jaqueline Kennedy's dresses was such
a hit in New York, that the competition to host the show when
it comes to Chicago was intense. Three of the city's most prestigious
museums found themselves competing with one another - not because
the art component was so compelling, but because the show figures
to make so much money for whichever museum landed it. Says one
director: "I view the competition among our museums as a good
thing - it helps us achieve our best. The results ensure a continuous
lineup of great exhibits for Chicago and the growing tourism industry."
Chicago Tribune 05/28/02
ROME
AWAKES: After decades of architectural slumber in which contemporary
architects bypassed the city of Rome, the Italian capital has
finally begun building again, and with first-class international
architects. "Not all Romans welcome this new renaissance.
Some decry what they call the "Los Angelization of Rome".
Wired 05/27/02
WHAT
BECOMES A DEALER? Madonna is currently playing an art dealer
in the play Up for Grabs in London's West End. The play
"reinforces the common perception of art dealing as a manipulative,
seedy, morally corrupt business in which you certainly wouldn't
want your daughter involved. It isn't, of course. But art dealing
is one of the last unregulated businesses, and from the outside
the fixing of prices can seem random and open to manipulation."
The Guardian (UK) 05/27/02
Monday
May 27
SAO
PAULO - ART OF DISCORD: Physically, the São Paulo Biennial
is "the largest celebration of art in the world, exceeding
even its better-known counterpart in Venice. But organizing such
a show has always been a process fraught with controversy and
adversity, and the 25th biennial has proven no exception."
The controversy began long before this year's edition opened,
and only intensified after the exhibitions went up.
The New York Times 05/27/02
TURNER'S
OPENING ACT? The Tate has opened a show of 74 paintings by
Paul McCartney in galleries adjacent to a Turner show. Guess which
one's getting more attention? The museum hopes that a few of those
tramping through the McCartney show will find their way to Turner.
The Guardian (UK) 05/24/02
SEOUL'S
NEW MUSEUMS: In the past few weeks two new major museums have
opened in Seoul. "Last week, the Seoul Metropolitan Government
opened the Seoul Museum of Art (SMA) after relocating it into
a modern historic building next to Deoksu Palace in downtown Seoul.
Another new arrival on Seoul's cultural map is the Seoul Historical
Museum, after seven years of construction. Covering two different
subjects, contemporary art and the city's historical heritage,
the two institutions are expected to emerge as hot attractions
in the downtown Seoul area." Korea
Herald 05/23/02
Sunday
May 26
PRETTY
PICTURES: There are 730 entries in this year's Archibald Prize,
Australia's most notorious painting prize. It's "that moment
of the year when the country's attention turns to canvas and assorted
surfaces, and the arrangement upon them of pigment approximating
portraiture. There are other prizes, there are richer prizes,
but there's only one Archibald, and there are more artists than
ever who are eager to make the most of it."
The Age (Melbourne) 05/25/02
SENSE
OF PLACE: Artists from Chicago used to call themselves "Chicago
artists." But beginning in the 1980s, they began referring
to themselves as "Chicago-based" artists. "The
implication was that they had become an elevated kind of nomad
circling the globe, making and showing art anywhere. Chicago was
just the place they had chosen to bed down. That attitude now
is widespread. The most contemporary visual artists in London
or Paris or Rio de Janeiro or Kabul seldom want to be known as
being of those cities." Yes, it's just words - but what does
the change mean to how artists perceive their relationships with
the places they live? Chicago
Tribune 05/26/02
ROYAL
MESS: The art inside might be magnificent, but the the new
Queen's Gallery is a mess. "Welcome to the toy-sized magnificence
of our latest Royal architecture, where friezes, flaccid as putty,
portray Homeric allegories of our dear Queen's reign, and where
you expect chocolate soldiers to pop out from behind each dwarfish
column, or out of each stunted niche. It is a commission calling
for subtlety and quiet dignity, but it has received shrivelled
pomposity." London
Evening Standard 05/24/02
Friday
May 24
THIEF
- I DID IT FOR THE LOVE OF ART: "In the latest twist
to a case that has left the art world reeling, Stephane Breitwieser,
who was arrested in the Swiss city of Lucerne last November after
stealing a bugle from a museum, told police his six-year spree
was driven by a love of art rather than a desire to make money.
Many of the 60-odd 16th, 17th and 18th century canvases stolen,
including works by Boucher, Watteau and Breughel, are thought
to have been destroyed by his mother Mireille, who told French
police that soon after her son was arrested she cut them up into
small pieces and threw them out with the rubbish 'because the
house absolutely had to be wiped clean'."
The Guardian (UK) 05/23/02
SELLING
OFF NATIONAL HERITAGE: As old German families sell off their
collections to raise money, German governments at various levels
attempt to buy them so the artwork stays in Germany. Trouble is,
cash-strapped German governments can barely afford essential services,
let alone art... Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung 05/23/02
Thursday
May 23
SECOND-RATE
MASTERS? In Australia an exhibition of Italian master paintings,
called by the Italian culture minister "the most important exhibition
ever to leave Italy," has been blasted in a front page review
in a national paper. "Benjamin Genocchio, a Sydney-based
critic and art historian who is a citizen of both Australia and
Italy, called the show 'a resoundingly average exhibition of minor
pictures by second- and third-division artists'. His review on
the front page of The Australian, a national daily broadsheet,
also charged that The Italians, as the show is popularly
billed, was marred by restoration errors and attribution questions."
The New York Times 05/23/02
EARNING
ITS KEEP: For many arts organizations, fundraising is a constant
balancing act between selling the notion that the arts are something
worth paying for, and trying not to sound like a charity case.
Boston's Museum of the Fine Arts, however, has gone the traditional
route one better, commissioning a study which indicates that the
MFA is a cash cow for the region, creating new jobs and new businesses,
and pumping hundreds of millions into the local economy every
year. Why bother with the study? Well, MFA is expanding, and needs
something in the neighborhood of $425 million to accomplish it.
Boston Globe 05/23/02
MINIMAL
SUCCESS: "Scottish artist Callum Innes has won the £30,000
Jerwood painting prize. The Edinburgh-born painter, who has been
compared with Mark Rothko, creates large-scale minimalist and
monochromatic paintings. Innes, who has been nominated for the
Jerwood and Turner prizes in the past, fought off competition
from well-established artists Graham Crowley and Lisa Milroy and
the recognised talent of Paul Morrison, Nicky Hoberman and Pamela
Golden. The Jerwood remains the most valuable single prize awarded
to an artist in the UK and attracts submissions from many leading
British painters." BBC 05/22/02
MEIER
WAY NOT THE HIGH WAY: When Atlanta's High Museum decided to
double in size with a $130 million addition, officials didn't
even consider asking Richard Meier, the High's original architect,
for a plan. Instead, without a competition, it hired Renzo Piano.
"It seems very strange not to have consulted or hired the original
architect. It's the best building in Atlanta and Meier's first
big commission. It would have been interesting to see what he
would have done now that he's done a lot of other museums."
The New York Times 05/23/02
GENUINE
FAKE MASTERPIECES FOR SALE: The Supreme Court in Australia
has cleared the way for the sale of a massive collection of fake
artwork owned by a deceased art dealer, who appears to have been
passing them off to her clients as works by real masters. The
dealer's husband had been seeking to have the sale blocked, but
the executor of the estate won the right to go ahead with it.
Oh, and one more twist: the executor just happens to be the same
man who executed the fakes in the first place. Sydney
Morning Herald 05/23/02
Wednesday
May 22
VIRTUAL
BUDDHAS: "It was an act of cultural desecration that
shocked the world. The age-old Buddhas at Bamiyan in northern
Afghanistan, which had withstood the ravages of Genghis Khan and
centuries of invasions and wars, proved powerless against the
destructive zealotry of the Taliban regime. Now the Buddhas are
making a comeback of sorts, thanks to the efforts of a Swiss entrepreneur
and a team of researchers at a Swiss university." The twist
is that the comeback is of the digital variety, and employs the
very latest in 3D imaging technology. Wired
05/22/02
WE
DON'T CARE WHO BUILDS 'EM: Here's a blow to architects' egos.
A new poll by an architecture organization reports that "81%
of respondents claimed that they were interested in the look and
feel of the buildings they use" Good news, yes. But only
16% could name a living architect. Oddly, asked to name a living
architect, five percent identified 17th-Century master Christopher
Wren. The Guardian (UK) 05/20/02
WHERE
ELSE WOULD YOU DITCH IT? When the mother of the thief who
stole a billion-plus dollars worth of art decided to dump the
art, she drove to a small French town and threw it into a canal.
Not a good place. In November the shallow canal is clear, and
it wasn't long before the valuable art was spotted. The
New York Times 05/22/02
GOING
BEYOND 'WASH ME': The winner of a £10,000 contemporary
drawing prize in the U.K. may have won the cash, but another finalist
appears to have captured the hearts and minds of both public and
press. Ben Long creates incredibly intricate drawings in the dust
and grime caked to the side of vans and cars, and was named a
finalist after submitting videos of himself creating the works.
He didn't win, but the publicity being heaped upon him is a pretty
good consolation prize. BBC 05/22/02
Tuesday May 21
THE
PROBLEM WITH SPIFFING UP: The new Manchester Art Gallery reopens
after a major project to double its size and dress it up with
all sorts of new enhancements. "Why are museums convinced
that the art itself, well presented and well explained, isn't
magical or marvellous or interesting enough? Why does art have
to be tarted-up and given all this spin? Unless it is done as
well as an arcade or console game, the family are going to be
convinced that the stuff in the rest of the gallery is second-rate
too. They will expect entertainment on every level, and generally
they are not going to find it. I believe this kind of thing actually
reaffirms the notion that art is dull, dry, dusty and dead. This
isn't dumbing down - it is just patronising, and no substitute
for good teaching elsewhere." The
Guardian (UK) 05/21/02
DIGITAL
DIFFICULTY: Why does the artworld seem to have difficulty
accepting digital art? "Computers have been seen for the
past 50 years as tools of business and science, and more recently,
expensive typewriters. Because much of the digital art out there
is native to the computer, that's where it is best displayed.
People are unaccustomed to writing emails on a platform of artistic
expression. Perhaps they are in denial." *spark-online
05/02
Monday May 20
HOOSIER
HISTORY: The new $105 million Indiana State Museum opens this
week in Indianapolis. "The struggle to create a permanent
home to honor the state's past consumed more than a half-century
of empty legislative promises." Indianapolis
Star-Tribune 05/19/02
ONLINE
GALLERY GOES BUST: They were going to change the way people
bought art. They were going to put traditional galleries out of
business. Actually no. The online artsellers have been going out
of business, and Eyestorm, one of the most prominent, is being
liquidated. "Art lovers are reluctant to buy works they have
not experienced first-hand. To compensate, Eyestorm opened galleries
in London and New York — a seeming contradiction to its original
premise of allowing buyers to avoid the gallery scene."
The New York Times 05/20/02
Sunday May 19
STOLEN
BERLIN ART RECOVERED: "Nine expressionist paintings worth
an estimated $3.3m that were stolen from a Berlin museum last
month have been recovered. The paintings were found rolled up
together in a holdall at an apartment in Berlin, said police...
Six of the paintings were by Erich Heckel, and one each by Emil
Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Pechstein. Most were painted
between 1908 and 1920. Eight of them were undamaged, but the Pechstein
painting - Young Girl, painted in 1908 - had been slashed."
BBC 05/18/02
500
YEARS OF ROYAL ART: "The cream of [Queen Elizabeth's]
collection of art and royal artefacts was unveiled on Friday,
before going on public show in Buckingham Palace's gallery...
It features 450 pieces that have been acquired by the Royal Family
over the last 500 years. Sketches by Da Vinci as well as works
by Rubens, Vermeer, Rembrandt and Monet are among the masterpieces
on show." Also included in the show is Lucian Freud's controversial
(and fairly unflattering) portrait of Her Majesty. BBC
05/17/02
- PLENTY
TO SEE: The royal exhibition contains some real gems, according
to one critic. "Two small treasure chambers are crammed
with priceless objects, including a belt given to Queen Victoria,
two of the huge flawless Cullinan diamonds, and a display case
full of Fabergé toys including animals modelled on farm pets
at Sandringham... The drawings gallery is an unbroken parade
of master-pieces - just one wall has two Holbeins, a Raphael,
a Michaelangelo and a Leonardo da Vinci." The
Guardian (UK) 05/18/02
HONORING
CONTEXT AS WELL AS EXTRAVAGANCE: One of the most frequent
criticisms levelled at architects of high-profile projects is
that they tend to ignore the larger context of the area in which
their building is being placed. Too often, a dramatic new skyscraper
overshadows everything around it, or clashes with other prominent
towers nearby. So it was perhaps understandable that this year's
Governor-General awards in Canada seem to be making a special
effort to honor architects who respect the landscape around their
projects. The awards, which went to a dozen wildly disparate buildings
across the country, are not concerned with scope and scale, but
with the idea "that architecture should reveal the surrounding
landscape." The Globe & Mail
(Toronto) 05/18/02
PORTRAIT
OF THE ARTIST AS SELF-ABSORBED: Artist Tracy Emin's career
has always been more or less an exercise in voyeurism, with high-profile
pieces ranging from an unmade bed (which was shortlisted for the
Turner Prize,) to "a tent embroidered with the names of every
man she ever slept with." Emin is at Cannes this month, raising
money for the ultimate peep show into her life - a feature film
detailing her childhood in Margate, England. BBC
05/19/02
IT'S
A DIRTY JOB, BUT... Okay, so it's not exactly curator at the
Guggenheim, but Mierle Ukeles likes her job just fine. She is
the artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation,
and has been described by one critic as 'the art world's preeminent
garbage girl.' She creates art from trash, art celebrating trash
(and the folks who get rid of it for us,) and would prefer to
hang out at Staten Island's famous Fresh Kills Landfill than at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But judging from the critical
reaction to her work, the garbage theme is no gimmick. For Ukeles,
it's a passion. A darned weird passion, but a passion, nonetheless.
New York Times 05/19/02
Friday May 17
MOM
DESTROYS STOLEN ART: The French art thief spent years traveling
Europe stealing art. After his mother heard he had been arrested
she destroyed the art he had stolen - about $1.4 billion worth
of it. "The case has stunned art experts because the 60 paintings
and 112 objects that the police say Mr. Breitwieser has admitted
stealing were estimated to be worth at least $1.4 billion. Among
the paintings destroyed were works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger,
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Corneille de Lyon and Watteau."
The New York Times 05/17/02
- Previously: SHE
DID SEND HIM TO HIS ROOM, THOUGH: An art thief made his
way across Europe for much of the last decade, stealing a violin
here, a painting there, specializing in taking advantage of
low security at small, regional collections, and storing everything
he stole at his mother's house in France. Then he was busted
taking a bugle in Luzerne. "When his mother heard about
the arrest she dumped many of the stolen artefacts in the canal
- and later destroyed the paintings, forcing some of them into
her waste disposal unit at home." Total monetary loss:
$1.4 billion. BBC 05/16/02
SYDNEY'S
PEOPLE'S BIENNIAL: The Sydney Biennial isn't a critic-pleaser.
But it's sure hooked the tourists. "It is so full of holes,
many of them wondrously elaborate and large, that the critic can't
get a bead on anything. If the truth is out there (X-Files soundtrack,
please) it's impossible to pin down with certainty in all the
curatorial Swiss cheese. While critics might have trouble locking
onto a target, however, it's clear that Grayson has a palpable
hit on his hands. He's got Sydney, if not the show, sewn up."
Sydney Morning Herald 05/17/02
SAVE
AN ANCIENT LIBRARY: Classicists are calling for renewed excavation
of the Villa of the Papyri, one of the great ancient libraries,
found in southern Italy. They say that "flooding now poses
a grave danger to the site and its precious library of ancient
manuscripts. Among the authors whose works could lie buried beneath
the volcanic debris are Sophocles, Euripides, Aristotle, Virgil,
Horace and Livy. A full excavation might cost several million
pounds, but this, the classicists argue, would be a small price
to recover unknown writings by these intellectual giants."
The Art Newspaper 05/11/02
THE
9-11 SHOW: The Smithsonian is planning an exhibition commemorating
the attacks of last September 11 on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center. Actually, the museum's been planning it for awhile
now - the first planning meeting was held last September 13. "The
horrific events of Sept. 11 was probably the most widely watched
tragedy in history, presenting special challenges for curators
more comfortable dealing with events much further in the past."
Washington Post 05/17/02
HOW
TO BE A GALLERY OWNER: You're schlepping in a gallery, working
as a faceless lowly assistant in the thrall of a gallery owner.
How to make the leap to running you're own gallery? There are
essentially three ways. Our favorite? The Miss Brazil route: "The
art world will embrace you because you have won a beauty contest,
or worked as model, or recently got engaged to someone with the
name Rockefeller. You already know how to pose for photographs,
and you probably own a collection of pointy-toed shoes, which
men love because, most of them, deep down, are attracted to girls
who can grind egos to salt with the step of a stiletto heel."
Slate 05/16/02
INDIVIDUALITY
AIN'T EVERYTHING: "It has been said that if we were to
line a street with all the great houses of the past century, the
result would be a very bad street with great houses. If architects
do not speak for communities, we risk becoming obsolete. In order
to concentrate on abstract design, we have already relinquished
many services to developers, builders, and other economically
driven forces. Given the rising need for responsive and humane
environments, architects' tendency for self-expression could result
in the disintegration of the profession altogether, unless we
rethink our role." Metropolis
05/02
Thursday May 16
SHE
DID SEND HIM TO HIS ROOM, THOUGH: An art thief made his way
across Europe for much of the last decade, stealing a violin here,
a painting there, specializing in taking advantage of low security
at small, regional collections, and storing everything he stole
at his mother's house in France. Then he was busted taking a bugle
in Luzerne. "When his mother heard about the arrest she dumped
many of the stolen artefacts in the canal - and later destroyed
the paintings, forcing some of them into her waste disposal unit
at home." Total monetary loss: $1.4 billion. BBC
05/16/02
RECORD
PRICES: Buyers are enthusiastic at this week's New York art
sales, with record prices set for the work of 15 contemporary
artists. Records were set for "established, blue-chip names
as well as emerging artists. Last night, paintings by Gerhard
Richter, whose retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art has drawn
more than 300,000 visitors since it opened in February, brought
the two highest prices." The
New York Times 05/16/02
FIRST
LADY MAKES A GESTURE: Republican administrations are not known
for their enthusiastic support of the arts, but First Lady Laura
Bush is hoping that her husband will help Afghanistan rebuild
its shattered artistic heritage in the wake of last fall's military
action. Mrs. Bush announced that she will be soliciting donations
towards the restoration of the Bamiyan Buddhas from rich friends
in Texas, and called on the U.S. government to help salvage other
lost and damaged Afghan art. The Plain
Dealer (AP) 05/16/02
TALL
DREAMS: "Just as the brick towers of New York and Chicago
once symbolized America’s aspirations to overtake the gable-roofed
countinghouses of Europe, today’s glass and metal obelisks make
a similar assertion about China and its East Asian neighbors—like
Malaysia, which put its capital of Kuala Lumpur on the business
map with the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers. 'It’s an ego issue and
a status thing. High-rises are the Pyramids of our time'.” Newsweek
05/15/02
DON'T
CALL IT A COMEBACK: You know a school is serious about good
architecture when it hires world-renowned architect Rem Koolhaas
to build a train noise muffler. Chicago's Illinois Institute of
Technology has done just that, and the gleaming steel tube which
runs the length of a city block is just the latest in a new line
of buildings, structures, and, um, mufflers, which are putting
the school and its South Side neighborhood on the architectural
map, after years of being derided as 'America's ugliest campus.'
Chicago Tribune 05/16/02
GOVERNOR-GENERAL
AWARDS HANDED OUT: "A Nova Scotia house that glows like
a lantern, a Montreal pavilion lining its outer glass wall with
logs and a Richmond, B.C., municipal building are among those
honoured with the 2002 Governor-General's Medals in Architecture,
the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada announced yesterday."
The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 05/16/02
ATTENTION
MUST BE PAID: "The least-known great architect who ever
worked in the [U.S.] capital -- or, for that matter, in the nation
-- may be Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Representatives from nine preservation
and cultural groups -- including five from Washington -- yesterday
announced a five-year, $50 million attempt to make the name more
famous... Latrobe was the architect of the most memorable rooms
in the U.S. Capitol, including Statuary Hall and the old Senate
and Supreme Court chambers. He designed both the north and south
porticoes of the White House." And that's just the beginning...
Washington Post 05/16/02
Wednesday May 15
FASCINATED
BY FRIDA: Almost half a century after she died, painter Frida
Kahlo is hot. "Kahlo, who died in 1954, was a crippled, bisexual
Communist who painted visceral images of miscarriage and menstruation
and was overshadowed by her more famous husband, Diego Rivera.
Yet in the last 20 years, she's joined the rarefied ranks of artists
like Picasso, whose work is as ubiquitous as wallpaper. More than
just a poster girl for artsy adolescents or a Latina role model,
Kahlo is now a coffee mug, a key chain, and a postage stamp. Suddenly
a fierce new wave of Fridamania is upon us that is conjuring up
a new Kahlo, customized to suit 21st-century desires."
Village Voice 05/14/02
Tuesday May 14
RECORD
AUSSIE SALE: The sale of a 1968 bronze Henry Moore sculpture
for $490,000 has set a record price for work of art sold at auction
in Australia. The
Age (Melbourne) 05/14/02
BOTCHED
ITALIAN RESTORATION: "Restoration projects in Italy are
nearly always dogged by bitter controversy. The current restoration
of the 14th- and 15th-century frescos in the Camposanto in Pisa
has, however, raised controversy to a new level. The destruction
of the frescos through a bungled attempt to clean them is not
just a major scandal, it is an irreparable loss to the world of
art." The
Telegraph (UK) 05/14/02
MISGUIDED
HOBBY: No question Houston's new Hobby Center for the Performing
Arts is a big addition to the city's cultural landscape. But "architecturally,
the Hobby Center is a dud. The sure command of materials and details
evident in Robert A.M. Stern's earlier country houses and public
buildings has deserted him here. The exterior looks slapdash and
a bit tacky. Budget probably played a part – astonishing as it
sounds, $92 million is cheap for a performing arts center these
days – but a more fundamental problem may have been Mr. Stern's
trying to be a modernist when his heart, and his hand, were not
really in it." Dallas
Morning News 05/13/02
Monday May 13
THE
TROUBLE WITH MODIGLIANI: The highly-anticipated catologue
raisonne on Modigliani has been delayed for a year and experts
are upset. Modigliani research is hampered by fakes and a lack
of scholarly order. "So highly charged is the subject that
some researchers claim they have received death threats, and two
have abandoned work on monographs. Things are not helped by a
plethora of fakes on the market and bitter quarrels between the
experts. Why is Modigliani so particularly targeted?" The
Art Newspaper 05/10/02
THE
MUSEUM THAT REMAKES A CITY: The Manchester Art Gallery has
reopened in significantly larger and grander form. "From
the moment visitors to the city step out from Piccadilly station,
currently being rebuilt, it is clear that Manchester is well on
its way to becoming a European city with real verve and style.
The great achievement here has been to bring together two of Manchester's
finest Victorian buildings - the former Royal Manchester Institution
and what was the Athenaeum Club - with a handsome new gallery
on the site of what had long been a car park." The
Guardian (UK) 05/13/02
RENOVATION
IN DETROIT: A museum renovation is never as simple as it seems
like it should be. In Detroit, a proposed $91 million construction
project for the Detroit Institute for the Arts has resulted in
a $330 million capital drive, multiple architectural schemes that
may or may not work together, and all the general chaos that seems
to come with updating a classic building. Detroit
News 05/13/02
RUNNING
FROM COOPERATION: Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario and the
Ontario College of Art & Design both want to expand with new
buildings. Architect Will Alsop has come up with a plan
to "enhance their separate projects and achieve much more
working together than either could on their own." So why
does everyone associated with the projects seem to be trying hard
to ignore the idea? Toronto Star 05/12/02
Sunday May 12
IS
THE ART MARKET HEADED FOR A FALL? Recent auction sales have
been going through the roof, thanks in large part to a few greatly
sought after works. But some observers are concerned that the
world of art sales could be headed for territory all too familiar
to anyone who spent the last few years digging out from the NASDAQ
collapse. Still, for the moment, times are good for sellers, and
though they may regret it later, no one seems too concerned about
the bubble market at the moment. International
Herald Tribune (Paris) 05/11/02
MILWAUKEE'S
TRIUMPH: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is one of those charming but
unfortunate cities seemingly doomed to exist in the shadow of
another, larger, metropolis (Chicago,in this case.) But a new
addition to the city's art museum has critics raving nationwide,
and some even believe that Milwaukee may be on its way to becoming
an important regional arts center, with the Quadracci Pavilion
as the centerpiece. Boston Globe 05/12/02
PLAYING
DETECTIVE: "In a quixotic bid to help crack the most
costly art heist on record, [filmmaker Albert] Maysles... is volunteering
his time to solicit clues in a case that has stymied the FBI,
Boston police detectives and museum investigators for 12 years."
The case involves a Vermeer, three Rembrandts, and a tantalizing
$5 million reward. International Herald
Tribune (New York Times) 05/11/02
REBELLION
IN TORONTO: "A new generation of Toronto painters is
reacting to their elders' relentless emphasis on clean, clinical
presentation by creating works that are unabashedly luminous,
lush and willfully garish. Mixing fresh paints and bold textures
as freely and loudly as their predecessors mixed French semiotic
theories and factory-made packaging, these adventurous darlings
(or brats, depending on your generational bias) are bent on giving
Toronto's academic image a frothy, girly makeover. Pretty is the
new smart." The Globe & Mail
(Toronto) 05/11/02
1,000
YEARS OF ISLAM - ONE ART COLLECTOR: What may be the most impressive
assemblage of Islamic art in America exists thanks to the efforts
of a Syrian-born political science professor at a New York university.
The collection, much of which is now on permanent display in Los
Angeles, is made up of some 800 pieces of ceramic, textile, and
tilework spanning a thousand year period, and is valued at $15
million. New York Times 05/12/02
MORBIDLY
PURPOSEFUL: A new exhibition in Paris purports to examine
the history of the death mask. This is a difficult proposition,
because, as any observer will tell you, death masks do not tend
to be particularly full of meaning, which is, of course, the point.
They reflect death, and are therefore mostly devoid of any of
the sort of life-affiriming value we look for in most art. On
an aesthetic level, they can be creepy, or just flat and affectless.
Still, the human fascination with death, and our attempts to understand
and preserve life and its tragic ends makes the exhibition work.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 05/10/02
ART
WITHOUT A HOME: "Much has been said recently about the
rights and wrongs of art being removed during wars from one owner
or country to another. Yet the long history of such appropriations
is rarely mentioned. It may be that Rome's pillage of Corinth
in 146 B.C., or Venice's of Constantinople in 1204, now seem irrelevant
because the spoils cannot be identified or because they have come
to be associated with their new home. (The four horses of St.
Mark's is a case in point). But even when we know the fate of
the booty, we accept the outcome after enough time has passed:
in the long run, art has no permanent home." New
York Times 05/12/02
Friday May 10
RIGHT
WAY ART: A Los Angeles artist tired of getting lost on a downtown
freeway decided to alter the official sign, adding directions.
He "designed, built and installed an addition to an overhead
freeway sign - to exact state specifications - to help guide motorists."
The alteration stayed up for 9 months until it was discovered
by highway workers tipped off by a local newspaper column. "The
point of the project was to show that art has a place in modern
society - even on a busy, impersonal freeway. He also wanted to
prove that one highly disciplined individual can make a difference."
Los Angeles Times 05/09/02
SO
WOULD THIS BE FUNCTION OVER FORM? "One of the most famous
of all works of conceptual art, an enamel urinal entitled The
Fountain, could fetch up to $2.5m at auction on Monday. The urinal,
one of the "readymade" works of French artist Marcel
Duchamp, is part of a complete set of his works being sold at
the New York auction house Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg."
BBC 05/10/02
ART
EVERY TWO YEARS: This year's Biennale of Sydney features 57
artists from 21 countries. The Biennale is "an international
modern art smorgasbord that evokes reactions ranging from pure
excitement to bewilderment and the occasional 'Hey! My grandmother
could do better with a wooden stick and a pile of gravy'."
Sydney Morning Herald 05/10/02
JERWOOD
ON DISPLAY: "An exhibition of work by the six-strong
shortlist for the prestigious Jerwood Painting Prize has opened
in London. Graham Crowley, Lisa Milroy, Callum Innes, Nicky Hoberman,
Paul Morrison and Pamela Golden will find out on 22 May who has
won the £30,000 prize. The Jerwood remains the most valuable single
prize awarded to an artist in the UK and attracts submissions
from many leading British painters." BBC
05/10/02
Thursday May 9
RECORD
PRICE FOR SCULPTURE: "Constantin Brancusi's 1913 gold
leaf portrait "Danaide" set a world record for a sculpture sold
at auction tonight, fetching $18.2 million at Christie's in the
first of the major auction houses' annual spring sales."
Washington Post (Reuters) 05/09/02
IN
PRAISE OF MESS: So the authors of a report on the state of
the Smithsonian Museum of American History think it ought to be
tidied up and reorganized. No, no, no. "It may be that we
moderns want to learn from the objects in our museums - we probably
can't help but learn from them - but that doesn't mean that we
need to be taught about them, or have them set out in some tidy
order like the illustrations in a high school textbook. The marvelous
objects in our museums - whether works of art or artifacts of
history - aren't the illustrations for the nation's story. They
are actual chunks of the past, the substance of it, the stuff
that scholars analyze to figure out the way the world once was.
By leaving in some of the mess and leaving out some of the annotations,
museums can give visitors the chance to come to grips with olden
times, instead of being fed with someone else's vision of them."
Washington Post 05/09/02
THERE
ARE NO TEMPORARY MOVES: New York's Museum of Modern Art is
moving to Queens while its building is being rebuilt. "Inevitably,
the move will change MoMA, just as it will change the perception
of the institution. The reality is that we will be a different
institution. We will have benefited from working in a different
community. ... I hope it will make us better and more interesting."
Nando Times (AP) 05/09/02
HIPPER
THAN THOU: Scottish artist Toby Paterson has won the Beck's
Futures Prize. "The prize has been described by the Face
magazine as 'a whole lot hipper' than its much-derided competitor,
the Turner Prize, and is seen by some critics as the best yardstick
for gauging the merits of emerging contemporary artists. A self-confessed
lover of the urban environment, all of the artist’s work relates
to architecture, particularly the modernist era of the 1950s."
The Scotsman 05/08/02
- Previously: PATERSON
WINS BECK'S: Toby Paterson has won this year's Beck's Futures
Prize in London. Beck's Futures is the UK's largest award for
contemporary art. "Paterson, 28, collected his cheque for
£24,000 from BJÖRK at a gala event at London's Institute of
Contemporary Arts on the Mall this evening."
ICA Press Release 07/08/02
Wednesday May 8
PATERSON
WINS BECK'S: Toby Paterson has won this year's Beck's Futures
Prize in London. Beck's Futures is the UK's largest award for
contemporary art. "Paterson, 28, collected his cheque for
£24,000 from BJÖRK at a gala event at London's Institute of Contemporary
Arts on the Mall this evening." ICA
Press Release 07/08/02
BRITISH
MUSEUM CRISIS: "Annual visits to the British Museum have
dropped alarmingly, it seems. For years they hovered at around
5.6 million, making the museum second in popularity only to Blackpool
Pleasure Beach among free attractions. And with the completion
of Foster’s Great Court, and the opening of the hallowed Reading
Room to yobs like me, the figure was expected to rise to six million
in time for the 250th anniversary next year. Instead it has slumped
to 4.6 million. Seventy years after Ira Gershwin penned his great
line, the British Museum really does seem to have lost its charm."
The Times (UK) 05/08/02
CLUTTERED
ATTIC: The Smithsonian National Museum of American History
is the third most-visited museum in the world. But a new report
says the museum is so cluttered and disorganized it needs a a
complete reorganization. "As it is now, the museum does not seem
to meet any obvious test of comprehensibility or coherence. Indeed,
in the most basic physical sense, visitors frequently have difficulty
orienting themselves. Even some curators who have spent their
entire professional lives in the NMAH building get lost."
Washington Post 05/08/02
TWO
20TH CENTURY GIANTS: If Tate Modern's new Matisse Picasso
show seems familiar before you see it, just wait. The show is
the hit of the London art season. Richard Dorment: "I can't
remember an exhibition in which I become so engaged with the artists'
creative process, or one in which I learned so much about how
to look at a work of art." The
Telegraph (UK) 05/08/02
- COMPLICATED
RELATIONSHIP: The Matisse/Picasso relationship was one of
the great artistic rivalries. "Their rivalry lasted throughout
their lives. Picasso continued it even after Matisse was dead.
And this is the debate — variously compared to a chess match,
an arm-wrestling contest and a prize fight — that Tate Modern
now restages in a show which brings together some 30 different
groupings of their pieces and offers a ringside view of Modernism’s
most dazzling match." The
Times (UK) 05/08/02
Tuesday May 7
MUM'S
ART: With the death of Britain's Queen Mother, what will happen
to her extensive art collection? She was a serious collector,
and while no one's talking yet, indications are that most of it
will pass to the Queen's Royal Collection. "This would transform
the collection, adding masterpieces by Monet, Sisley, Sickert
and Nash." The
Art Newspaper 05/03/02
Monday May 6
SURREAL
JUDGMENT: Fifty years ago the director of the Glasgow Art
Gallery spent the museum's entire annual acquisition bufdget -
£8,200 - on just one painting - Salvador Dali's Christ of St
John of the Cross. "It was, said everyone with a voice,
a 'waste of money'. The press foamed at the mouth in condemnatory
headlines. Rate-payers were incensed by the action of the GP turned
art expert. Students at Glasgow School of Art petitioned for his
sacking, and the eminent Augustus John derided the cost of the
acquisition of a work by a living artist as 'wilfully extravagant'."
Fifty years later the painting is the most-reproduced religious-themed
work of the 20th Century and worth £25 million to £100 million...
The Scotsman 05/05/02
A
RELATIONSHIP WITH ART: "Art is glamourous, but how good
a time do we really have when we are actually standing in front
of a picture looking at it? If we dutifully try to look at all
the pictures we are probably going to get rather bored. This is
not because the pictures have nothing to offer us, but because
the timing is wrong. We tend to be too polite with pictures. To
have a good time looking at them we need to be a bit more imaginative
in the questions we ask, we need - as with other people - to take
a bit of a risk if we are going to become more intimate."
The Age (Melbourne) 05/06/02
IRAQ
TO REBUILD ANCIENT LIBRARY: Iraq plans to rebuild the Ashurbanipal,
the earliest known library of the ancient world, and has asked
the British Museum to help by making casts of tablets the museum
owns. "The proposed reconstructed library at Nineveh would
hold copies of all of the BM’s tablets, and it is planned as both
a scholarly centre and tourist attraction. Alongside the library,
the Saddam [Hussein] Institute for Cuneiform Studies will be set
up as part of the University of Mosul. Plans are also being made
to excavate one of the wings of King Ashurbanipal’s palace, in
Kuyunjik Mound, where it is hoped that thousands of other tablets
lie buried." The
Art Newspaper 05/03/02
BUILDING
PROTECTION: The National Park Service has a plan to protect
the Washington Monument from the "evildoers." "Under
the pretext of protecting the monument against truck bombs and
other forms of vehicular assault (jet airplanes don't seem to
have crossed its radar screen), the service has come up with a
bizarre plan that could end up presenting the Mall with an unexpected
new treasure, the Leaning Monument of Washington, or perhaps -
even better! - with 81,120 tons of New England granite spattered
all over the Mall. The service wants to replace the Jersey barriers
that now surround the base of the monument with two sunken walkways,
12 feet wide and walled in stone." Washington
Post 05/06/02
Sunday May 5
PRICE
OF GREATNESS: The new Matisse Picasso show which opens at
Tate Modern this week is probably a once-in-a-lifetime affair.
"'To bring it off at all we had to share with the Pompidou
in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and I think
the cost alone will make it out of the question in future. With
more than 150 works by the two giants of modern art, valued at
well in excess of £1 billion, it has been a mammoth undertaking."
The Telegraph(UK) 05/04/02
LINCOLN
CENTER - GROUP GROPE: Lincoln Center is holding a competition
to redesign Avery Fisher Hall, and it's attracted the usual big
names - Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Meier, Arata Isozaki
and Skidmore Owings & Merrill. But the project has a troubled
start. "Architecture competitions can focus energy or they
can be a terrible drain on civic spirit. It helps if the clients
have a clear idea of what they want and, more important, a firm
sense of who they are. Judged on these terms, I'd say the competition
to design a new concert hall for Lincoln Center now stands less
than a 50-50 chance of producing architecture."
The New York Times 05/05/02
LONDON'S
NEW CITY HALL: London's new city hall is under construction.
"The grey blob next to Tower Bridge designed by Norman Foster
and his partner Ken Shuttleworth is already the most visible and
instantly recognisable building in Britain since the London Eye,
even though it's just 10 floors high. Instant recognition, of
course, is not necessarily an architectural virtue. Try too hard
to create a landmark and all too often the result is an embarrassing
failure. And that is certainly how it looked that City Hall would
turn out." The
Observer (UK) 05/05/02
Friday May 3
DOCUMENTA
11 ARTISTS NAMED: Nigeria-born Okwui Enwezor is the first
non-European curator of Documenta. The list of artists for one
of the world's premiere art gatherings has just been released
and his impact on selections is clear: "In previous Documentas,
80 to 90 percent of the artists were natives of NATO countries;
this time the percentage is about half that." Artforum
05/01/02
- DIRECTOR
OF FEW WORDS: All media and genres will receive attention,
said the director, the entire range of contemporary art forms
represented: Painting, drawing and sculpture as well as photography,
film, video, net art and architecture. According to Enwezor,
118 artists and artists' groups have been invited to Kassel,
and 79 projects in all developed especially for D11, including
some intended for outdoor sites. Basically, Enwezor is attempting
to set in motion what he promised - more or less explicitly
- from the start, namely to mirror, via art, alternative forms
of knowledge-production that are underrepresented in public
perception. That sounds rather uninspiring, and to some extent,
it is. Everything will depend on how the works are presented,
and here, too, Enwezor is resolutely silent." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 05/02/02
NAVIGATING
THE ROYAL: London's Royal Academy is a unique institution.
Run by its artist/members, its shows are not like those found
in museums. For example, the RA's exhibitions secretary says,
there is at least one fake work in every show. "We don't set out
to have fakes, of course. Sometimes you only know by comparison,
when it goes on the wall. If a fake is discovered, that's good,
whereas reviewers tend to think it's a catastrophe. But these
are tiny things. We should sing the big picture - that these fabulous
paintings are in London at all. During the Caravaggio show the
RA was transformed into an amazing basilica. I was here every
night having Catholic orgasms." London
Evening Standard 05/02/02
FORGOTTEN
GRAND: Why has London's Westminster Hall fallen into such
disuse? "For much of its near-1,000-year history Westminster
Hall, thronged and bustling, was the centre of first English and
then British public life. That it is not better-known today is
a tragedy, for it is a remarkable building. At 240ft long and
67ft wide, its scale is a reminder of the wealth and ambition
of the Norman kings. When the walls were built in 1097 by William
Rufus, son of William the Conqueror, it was among the largest
halls in Europe." The
Telegraph (UK) 05/03/02
Thursday
May 2
RECONSIDERING
CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE: "Three-dimensional modeling is
turning some of archaeology's once-established truths on their
heads. Because 3-D software can take into account the building
materials and the laws of physics, it enables scholars to address
construction techniques in ways sometimes overlooked when they
are working with two-dimensional drawings." Take the Colosseum,
for example: "researchers have discovered that in some sections
the building may have had all the efficiency of a railroad-style
apartment on the Bowery. The model reveals dark, narrow upper
hallways that probably hemmed in spectators, slowing their movement
to a crawl." The
New York Times 05/02/02
STUCK
ON THE NEXT BIG THING? Could it be Stuckism? "Stuckism
stands as much for what it opposes—postmodern conceptual and installation
art, etc.—as for what it champions: a spiritual renewal in art,
particularly painting, following the lead of its prime exemplar
Van Gogh. Stuckism's objective is to bring about the death of
Post Modernism, to undermine the inflated price structure of Brit
Art and instigate a spiritual renaissance in art and society in
general." And yet, as a movement it's a bit unstuck itself...
*spark-online 05/02
CHANGING
FORTUNES AT AUCTION: As the spring New York auctions begin,
the auction house landscape looks radically different from a year
ago. Then, No. 3 Phillips was making a big run to assert its place.
Still mired in scandals, Christie's and Sotheby's laid low. This
year Phillips has had to cancel its spring sales, while Sotheby's
and Christie's have pulled out all the stops in an attempt to
revive their fortunes. The
New York Times 05/02/02
Wednesday
May 1
ANOTHER
SOTHEBY'S SENTENCE: "Diana D. Brooks, the former chief
executive of Sotheby's, was spared prison yesterday and sentenced
to three years of probation, including six months of house arrest,
for her admitted role in fixing commission rates with the rival
Christie's auction house." The
New York Times 05/01/02
FREE
ART PACKS 'EM IN: "Attendance at museums and galleries
in the UK has risen by 75% since entrance fees were scrapped...
The rises equate to an extra 1.4 million visitors pouring through
the doors of the capital's museums and galleries. Another sign
that the initiative is working is the 10% increase in the number
of children who have taken the opportunity to visit a museum in
the past year." BBC
05/01/02
ENGLAND'S
GIANT ART: The Chesterfield Borough Council in England has
signed off on a plan to build an enormous 40-metre high Solar
Pyramid sundial that will be the UK's largest artwork. "Designer
Richard Swain described the structure, which will give accurate
astronomical data, as 'art meets science. It will be like a giant
sundial, but it will also give details of the earth's rotation.
We have always wanted to do things which are fairly monumental
and are part of the landscape." BBC
04/30/02
HIS
FRIENDS JUST CALLED HIM 'DOUBLE H': "Baron Hans Heinrich
Thyssen-Bornemisza, who died Saturday at age 81 at his home on
the northern Mediterranean coast of Spain, was the greatest art
collector of the second half of the 20th century." His massive
collection of European and American art has been given a permanent
home in Madrid. Los Angeles Times
05/01/02
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