Sunday
June 30
OVERREACHING
AT THE GUGGENHEIM: The Guggenheim, that beacon of expansionist
artistic fervor, is in trouble. Staff layoffs, cancelled exhibitions,
and general fiscal chaos have combined to tarnish the reputation
of director Thomas Krens, who has been considered an essential
innovator for years. With some in the arts world calling for Krens's
resignation, where is the Guggenheim going, and how will it get
there with no apparent cash flow? The
New York Times 06/30/02
LIBESKIND'S
LEGACY: "Daniel Libeskind has been a leading light in
architecture for 30 years, yet he didn't build a thing until 1999.
But the Jewish Museum in Berlin was both a professional challenge
and a personal test: his parents had fled the Nazis. As his Imperial
War Musuem North opens in Manchester, he tells [The Guardian]
how buildings help us make sense of history." The
Guardian (UK) 06/29/02
- BUDGET
CUTS FOR THE BETTER: Libeskind's new Imperial War Museum
almost never made it off the drawing board after the Heritage
Fund ordered its budget slashed by an unheard-of 40%. But instead
of abandoning the project, Libeskind resdesigned the entire
building, and claims that the cheaper version wound up being
considerably better than the original. The
Telegraph (UK) 06/29/02
- DIVERSIFYING
THE PORTFOLIO: Daniel Libeskind's stature as an architect
often overshadows his earlier career - as a young man, he was
a widely hailed concert pianist. This summer, Libeskind is returning
to his musical roots, conducting a new production of a Messiaen
opera in Berlin. The Guardian (UK)
06/28/02
GETTY
COMES THROUGH FOR ST. PAUL'S: Philanthropist and art collector
Paul Getty has announced a £5 million gift dedicated to
the restoration of the famous facade of St. Paul's Cathedral in
London. The cathedral's outer face has been crumbling for centuries
under the harsh city conditions, and its famous 64,000-ton dome
has been slowly crushing the entire building. The Getty gift brings
the cathedral halfway towards its fundraising goal for a full
restoration. The Guardian (UK) 06/28/02
DOES
CNN CAUSE WAR? A new exhibition in the small Belgian community
of Ypres focuses on the 20th century's nearly ceaseless military
conflicts from the perspective of the media types who covered
it. The exhibit is wide-ranging, but its central focus can be
boiled down to one basic question: has media saturation so numbed
humanity to the sight of horrible violence that we are no longer
able to be put off by the prospect of death and destruction? Financial
Times 06/28/02
Friday
June 28
A
RIVER AWAY: The Museum of Modern Art is opening its new temporary
home in Queens this weekend. "The Modern's galleries are
efficient and airless, like the inside of a storage center, which
is exactly what this building is. On the other hand, there is
something touching and apt about seeing priceless Cézannes,
Seurats and Braques in a makeshift, unadorned setting: they look
fresh and by contrast seem to pop off the walls even more than
usual." The New York Times 06/28/02
- NEW
TALES TO TELL: "The opening of the temporary Modern
tomorrow in Long Island City is less significant than the closing
of the museum's old quarters. The space was exhausted, and so
was the institution's underlying premise. Since the Modern's
founding in 1929, it has become increasingly clear that its
use of the word modern is historically cavalier. This unpromising
commission offers a graceful promenade through the history of
modern thought." The New York
Times 06/28/02
- KING
OF QUEENS: It's "a museum that engenders a remarkable
sense of intimacy between art and viewer and acts as a pointed
challenge to the monumental museum projects that have become
ubiquitous in the past decade. In its populist spirit, it is
closer to Los Angeles projects like Frank Gehry's Geffen Contemporary
- a gaping warehouse space built in the ethnic enclave of Little
Tokyo in 1983 - than to the typical, more refined Manhattan
museum." Los Angeles Times
06/28/02
TO
PLUG THE HOLES: The British Museum needs an extra £10
million a year to fix its budget woes. "We still receive
30% less than we did in 1992 due to government cuts. We've had
to cut back and slim down over the last decade but now the point
has been reached where we simply can't do that any more."
BBC 06/28/02
AND
THERE'S LESS DUST THAN A MILL, TOO: Is it really possible
to rebuild a town in decline around the arts? The residents of
one old mill town in western Massachusetts would say so: since
the MASS MoCA museum opened in North Adams in 1999, tourists have
flocked to it, complimentary events have sprung up regularly,
and the gallery has become as much a pillar of the community as
the old mills used to be. Boston Globe
06/28/02
HOW
NOT TO OBSERVE: In trying to decide what kind of memorial
should be chosen for the World Trade Center, it's a good idea
to look at the Oklahoma bombing memorial (for an example of what
not to do). "There are so many symbols here as to obliterate
the poetry of any one of them. There are so many faces on televisions
inside the museum describing their pain to you that you feel wrung
out like a rag. Worst of all, the memorial has nothing to say
about the important historical issues that triggered Timothy McVeighs
madness. The problem is obvious." New
York Observer 06/26/02
FIRST
PHOTO GETS THE ONCE-OVER: The world's first photograph dates
from 1826, depicts an idyllic pastoral scene, and is in remarkably
good condition for a 176-year-old image. It sits on a pewter plate
covered with bitumin, and took three days of exposure to create.
The heliograph, as its creator referred to it, is undergoing its
first-ever scientific study at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Chicago Tribune 06/28/02
Thursday
June 27
IMPOVERISHING
THE BRITISH MUSEUM: There are many reasons for the British
Museum's woeful financial condition. But outgoing director Robert
Anderson says it comes down to simple underfunding. "It is
easy to say that efficiency must be increased, but it comes to
the point that people have extraordinary work loads, and their
output is already extraordinarily high. We are a flagship museum,
and yet in many ways we are impoverished." The
Guardian (UK) 06/26/02
WANTED
- BETTER IDEAS: Australia's most prestigious architecture
awards, presented this week, were a jumble of compromises and
unfulfilled expectations. One award - for residential design,
wasn't even awarded. "Too many projects are results of Land
and Environment Court rulings ... slowly the art of architecture
is being whittled toward a more predictable and forecast outcome."
Sydney Morning Herald 06/27/02
IN
AMERICA WE'D FINE THE ARTIST: The mayor of Ankara, Turkey,
decided that a statue of a nude in one of the city's parks was
obscene and anti-Islamic, and ordered it taken down. That was
in 1994. This week, an Ankara court ordered the mayor to pay 4
billion Turkish lira for damage to the statue incurred during
its removal, plus other damages, plus interest. BBC
06/27/02
eBAY
AS ART CANVAS: With 50 million users, eBay has become fodder
for artists. "Recently, a Canadian artist did an eBay search
for the word 'malaria', bought everything connected with it and
put an eclectic array of memorabilia on display in an exhibition
in London. And an impoverished Newcastle graduate sold his soul
on eBay for £11. The so-called 'item'was bought by a man
from Oklahoma who had lost his own soul in a bet." The
Scotsman 06/26/02
ART
THAT MEANS SOMETHING (BUT WHAT?): Bill Drummond and Jim Cauty
are "famous for two gestures: presenting Rachel Whiteread
with a cheque for £40,000 as 'worst British artist' on the
night she won the £25,000 Turner Prize, and then, most famously,
incinerating what appeared to be £1 million in cash on the
Isle of Jura in front of a handful of bemused witnesses. Art prank?
Scam? Political statement? Drummond and Cauty made an agreement
at the time never to explain themselves, and they never have."
The Telegraph (UK) 06/27/02
ART
OUT OF THE LIMELIGHT: Catherine Goodman just won the prestigious
BP Portrait Award. She's also known to be Prince Charles' art
adviser. But her work sells for only a few thousand pounds, and
she works slowly and accepts few commissions. "Art can be
tough if people want a lot of attention. I'm not sure I do. I
want to carry on painting and selling and having people tell me
what they think of the pictures, but I don't want to be a celebrity.
I'm not sure it's very good for artists." The
Telegraph (UK) 06 27/02
Wednesday
June 26
STOLEN
ART RECOVERED: Nineteen works of art valued at £20 million
that were stolen last year have been recovered by police in Madrid.
"Among the paintings taken in August last year were two by
Spanish artist Francisco de Goya - The Donkey's Fall and
The Swing - and a work by French impressionist Camille
Pisarro, called Eragny Landscape." BBC
06/25/02
OLDEST
TOMB: "A 4,600 year-old Egyptian tomb, glued shut and
with its original owner still inside, has been discovered by archaeologists
working near the Giza Pyramids." The tomb is thought to be
the oldest intact tomb ever discovered. Discovery
06/24/02
ANOTHER
BIG-TIME AUCTION: "A 'sensuous' portrait by Picasso of
his mistress at the height of their passion has been sold at auction
for more than £15m. Nu au collier fetched £15,956,650 -
almost double the estimate of up to £9m - when it went under the
hammer at Christie's in London." BBC
06/25/02
MOMA'S
ATTENTION-GETTERS: What to do when your museum is forced to
move from the middle of Manhattan to an old warehouse in Queens?
Hold a parade and shoot off fireworks, of course. New York's Museum
of Modern Art may be in temporary quarters, but its curators are
making darned sure that New Yorkers know where to find them, with
"a procession over the Queensborough bridge," a series
of galas and opening parties, and a massive fireworks display
bridging the two boroughs with a rainbow. The
New York Times 06/26/02
FRESH
BASEL: The Basel Art Fair has scratched and clawed its way
to to become one of the modern art world's preeminent events,
and these days, it has also become something of a gauge for the
health of the industry. To judge by this year's installment, all
is well: the pace was chaotic, the displays eclectic, and, most
importantly, sales were brisk. Boston
Globe 06/26/02
DIAMOND
IN THE ROUGH: "When it was initiated in 1992, the idea
of founding a contemporary art museum in Sarajevo was considered
nothing short of crazy, but foundations were laid this week for
the museum's first wing and it already boasts one of the world's
largest exhibitions... Now, the collection includes 120 works
of internationally acclaimed artists and its value is estimated
at some $7 million." Nando Times
(Agence France-Presse) 06/26/02
THE
NEW ALTERNATIVES: "Just when we all assumed that the
alternative space movement had met a noble death, laid low by
the double-fisted blows of the culture wars and the New York real
estate market, a host of new outfits have sprung up, offering
an alternative not only to the gallery system, but to our traditional
view of an alternative space." Village
Voice 06/26/02
LOSING
THE ART OF COLLECTING: Some of Australia's biggest corporations
are getting out of art collecting. Several have put their collections
up for auction or donated them recently. "Companies that
have opted out of the art market totally or in part include Shell,
Rio Tinto, Orica, AXA and BP Australia." The
Age (Melbourne) 06/26/02
WHAT'S
WRONG WITH CRAFT? "It is a sad fact that in the art universities
of recent years it is the concept constructors - students who
produce weird installations or have quirky ideas - who receive
the highest marks. Craft creators - those with a natural talent
- who want to learn to better their ability, are left unencouraged,
often ignored and always poorly marked." The
Guardian (UK) 06/25/02
Tuesday
June 25
NOTHING
SAYS I LOVE YOU LIKE FLOWERS: A painting of Monet's
Waterlilies that has not been seen in public for more than
75 years sold for just over $20 million on Monday, Sotheby's auction
house said." Nando Times (AP)
06/24/02
REINVENTING
THE MFA: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is reinventing
itself. A decade ago it was deep in debt and on the decline. Now
it's hired star architect Norman Foster to reimagine what one
of America's great museums might become. "To pay for this
expansion, and for additions to its endowment and budget, the
museum has embarked on a drive to raise a daunting $425 million.
Officials here say this is the largest fund-raising effort ever
undertaken by an art institution outside New York City. The new
building is expected to cost $180 million and be completed in
2007." The New York Times 06/25/02
REINVENTING
THE COOPER-HEWITT: New York's Cooper Hewitt Museum, America's
foremost design museum, ius cutting back. "Over recent months,
more than a dozen administrators, curators, researchers and part-time
consultants have left the Cooper-Hewitt, fleeing an atmosphere
described by a former employee as 'draining'and by another as
'total misery'." The New York
Times 06/25/02
BLOWING
UP BOLOGNA? Police apparently intercepted a plan by terrorists
affiliated with al-Qa 'eda to blow up Bologna's "most important
church to erase the offence of a 15th-century Gothic fresco showing
Mohammed being tormented by devils in hell. The Milan daily Corriere
della Sera reported that in a telephone call intercepted by police
in February, one of the suspect's alleged associates discussed
plans for an attack on the Church of San Petronio, which has a
large fresco by Giovanni da Modena showing the founder of the
Islamic religion in hell." The
Guardian (UK) 06/24/02
MUSEUMS
AS PARTY ANIMALS: "Over the past 25 years a new balance
- seesaw might be a better term - has been established in national
museums between public and private money. In many ways, this is
a positive change. Museums are far more responsive to their public
now than they used to be. Permanent collections are often more
interestingly displayed. Temporary exhibitions are more frequent.
The fierce, old, military-style warders have been replaced by
friendlier staff. Information about the collections is available
on-line." On the other hand, the amount of energy required
to court favor with the giving classes threatens to overwhelm
the business of seeing to art. London
Evening Standard 06/24/02
BRUTALLY
BACK: "Over the past few years, something quite extraordinary
has happened to the cityscape of Blairite Britain. Contrary to
conservative expectations, some of our most despised structures
have been restored, revamped - even given coveted listed status.
The modern monoliths we once loathed have become our newest national
monuments. Against all the odds, brutalism is back in vogue."
New Statesman 06/24/02
TOW-AWAY
ART: Artists unhappy with the growing numbers of abandoned
cars on Hackney, England streets, stage an art project to do something
about it. "The idea was to create a series of designer 'car
covers' to turn the burnt out cars on Hackney's street into works
of art." The zealous city council towed away the decorated
cars. "The way to get rid of a car is to decorate it and
make it pretty and then the council will move it." The
Guardian (UK) 06/24/02
Monday
June 24
ON
THE TRAIL OF STOLEN TREASURE: "Theft of historic artifacts
is massive worldwide. "Interpol, the international police
network, says it is impossible to track the volume of trade in
stolen antiquities because so much of it is so far underground.
Some pieces disappear straight from digs, before anyone can catalogue
them, and into the hands of collectors who never risk showing
them publicly. But many involved in the study and preservation
- and the buying and selling - of ancient art say that although
the change is likely to be slow and fitful, it has begun."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/24/02
AT
HOME IN QUEENS: The Museum of Modern reopens this week in
its new temporary home in Queens. "On the face of it, Queens
and the Museum of Modern Art make the quintessential odd couple.
But you do not have to spend a whole lot of time in MoMA's new
neighborhood to realize that the pairing actually makes good sense.
Long Island City, the specific setting for MoMA's new venue, is
a place apart, even in diverse, sprawling Queens. It's a fast-changing
flatland of working and abandoned factories, auto body shops and
industrial miscellany, with a scattering of attached houses and
apartment buildings. The area's future is up for grabs."
Washington Post 06/23/02
THE
CONTRARY FREUD: Over the past 30 years Lucien Freud has been
mad, bad and dangerous to know. His pictures pitiless, ambiguous,
violent and aggressive, he has been a man of twilight lives between
the gutter and the Ritz, mixing with the most rich and socially
eminent, yet a man of privacy and mystery whose telephone number
no one knows, and who inhabits houses without doorbells, flitting
like Dracula from one to t'other, to work on sleeping models through
the night. He is as bohemian as Puccini, as much a ruffian as
Caravaggio (I once witnessed his stealing a girl from Peter Langan
without plunging a dagger into that clumsy lecher's groin), and
as much a creature of the ivory tower as Vermeer. All this lends
gloss to his pictures and pushes up the price - the truth is probably
much less fabulous." London
Evening Standard 06/21/02
THERE
ONCE WAS A MUSEUM IN GROZNY: "Before the war between
Russia and the would-be breakaway Republic of Chechnya, there
were 3,270 works in the Grozny Museum collection, including 950
paintings. But the museum was bombed, with many of its paintings
detroyed. Much of what was left was looted to sell for arms. Now
an attempt to rebuild the Grozny Museum. The
Art Newspaper 06/21/02
ONE
MAN'S SURPLUS IS... Britain's Labour government has a policy
of selling off items that are deemed to be surplus. "While
few would quarrel with the Ministry of Defence selling off a disused
Army base or the Highways Agency disposing of some surplus road
maintenance equipment, the flaws in the policy are becoming clear."
As the policy tags items of artistic or historical importance,
critics worry about a sell-off of the nation's important heritage.
The Telegraph (UK) 06/24/02
PECKING
ORDER: A huge glass-domed biosphere building in Cornwall is
being endangered by seagulls. Seems the birds are mistaking their
own reflections in the glass for hostile males, and are attacking
the glass panels, doing considerable damage... The
Guardian (UK) 06/21/02
REMEMBERING
J. CARTER BROWN: "Brown epitomised the American impresario
art museum director. He was the first to hold a masters degree
in business administration. His diplomatic skills pulled foreign
loans to Washington by the planeload. Ever the pitch-man for his
institution, he urged benefactors to donate art for the
nation. The pitch worked, and paintings by Cezanne, van
Gogh, Picasso and Veronese flowed in." The
Art Newspaper 06/21/02
Sunday
June 23
STRIKE
ACTION IN SCOTLAND: Scotland's nationally run galleries are
facing a partial work stoppage by their staff to begin June 30.
"The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents
120 staff, said the decision would mean a ban on all overtime
and the closure of all four galleries on Sundays." The dispute
centers on the contention of the PCS that staffers are underpaid
and undervalued, with most making less than £5 per hour.
BBC 06/21/02
SPEAKING
OF STRIKES... What should the museum-going public make of
the strike at the British Museum? "The strike and its causes
are symptomatic of the disease that has hit cultural life in Britain...
This is an artificially engineered crisis. It is as much the duty
of a nation to fund its museums as it is to maintain its monuments.
Government funding, currently set at £36 million, has been cut
in real terms by 30 percent over a 10-year period according to
most accounts." International
Herald Tribune (Paris) 06/22/02
MORE
FREUDIAN ANALYSIS: Lucien Freud's nude portraits, on exhibit
at the Tate Britain, say a great deal about his perception of
the world. "The naked animal, unidealised and depicted with
extreme concentration on physical essence and fact, has come to
seem like mainstream Freud: his grand contribution to twentieth-century
painting. But to see his career at full stretch is to see how
much else was achieved long before and how that past seeps into
the future." The Observer (UK)
06/23/02
THE
NAKED SENSUALITY OF CLOTHING: An exhibit at the UK's National
Gallery purports to be about the history of clothing and drapery
in classical painting, but Andrew Graham-Dixon sees some down-and-dirty
subtext. "As well as offering an interesting and informative
potted history of western fashion - showing, for example, how
the doublet-and-hose peacock finery of male dress during the Renaissance
evolved, through the Enlightenment and beyond, into the democratically
inspired sartorial restraint of the suit - [the] exhibition also
and, more piquantly, explores the invention and development of
what we now know as sex appeal." The
Telegraph (UK) 06/22/02
MUSEUM
OF ONE MAN'S MIND: There is always a certain quirkiness in
museums designed to house personal collections. The tastes of
the individual tend to overshadow any larger objective, and England's
Horniman Museum remains a perfect example as it reopens following
a massive renovation. "The museum is now a triumphant architectural
blend of the present and the past. The white limestone slabs of
the new building echo the delicate white wrought-iron tracery
of the conservatory, which is to the side of the main structures,
and irresistibly remind the onlooker of hothouses at Kew Gardens
or even the original Crystal Palace." The
Guardian (UK) 06/22/02
FINALLY,
ART AND EXERCISE TOGETHER! Think of it as an extremely high-tech
Etch-a-Sketch crossed with a connect-the-dots game. Two British
artists and a state-of-the-art Global Positioning System are creating
artworks by tracing roads, highways, and bridges in various UK
cities, routes they travel on bicycles while the GPS system records
their progress. Their efforts are then posted and discussed on
their website, which
has already begun to spawn copycat efforts worldwide. Wired
06/22/02
Friday
June 21
TYRANNY
OF THE ACOUSTIGUIDE: Thinking about reaching for one of those
handy acoustiguides now so popular at many museums? Think again.
"It makes choices for you. It pick winners. Most museums
that use the system restrict it to a (growing) menu of masterpieces,
effectively relegating great tracts of their collection into a
sort of art-historical Division Three there to be scanned
indulgently if you happen to have some quirky personal attachment,
but clearly far beneath general interest. So immediately your
choices are curtailed. Then, once the audioguide has imposed its
snobbery on you, it sets about telling you, with varying degrees
of skill and subtlety, what you ought to think about the art on
show, and this is where the real trouble begins." Electricreview.com
05/26/03
SISTER
WENDY'S PRIVATE TOUR: Sister Wendy's trip through American
museums for her recent series didn't include a stop at LA's Norton
Simon Museum. So the museum made her an offer she couldn't refuse,
and Wendy obliged with a private tour captured on tape. "It's
a little strange that Sister Wendy, known more for her broad telepopulist
appeal than for the eloquence or originality of her insights,
should be sequestered in the back room of a deluxe suburban vanity
museum. But such an improbable arrangement is actually pretty
much par for the course in the long, strange trip of the art nun's
career." LAWeekly 06/20/02
PRINCE
OF A MISTAKE: Earlier this week three works by Prince Charles
were put up for auction in Birmingham. Interest in the watercolors
was high - they were listed at a few hundred pounds, but they
eventually fetched £20,000. The day after the sale, though,
it was noticed that a mistake had been made - the art wasn't painted
at all - they're lithographs. "Worth a few hundred pounds,
they were excellent copies of the original works, but of interest
more for their novelty value than their artistic merit."
The Scotsman 06/20/02
Thursday
June 20
WHERE'S
THE PUBLIC IN CHICAGO'S PUBLIC ART FUND? Chicago's Public
Art Fund spends millions on public art, financed by the city's
percent for art ordinance. Some of its projects are highly visible,
yet critics charge that the program operates in secret and lacks
accountability. How much money does it spend? How does it decide
what to buy? You'd think public records would be available, and
yet... Chicago Tribune 06/20/02
LOST
IN THE WTC: "Among the major losses of a historic and
archaeological nature was the Five Points archaeological collection,
which, excavated in the early 1990s had been stored in the basement
of Six World Trade Center, the building that was destroyed when
the facade of Tower One fell into it. Only 18 of about one million
unique artifacts documenting the lives of nineteenth-century New
Yorkers survive." Archaeology
06/19/02
TALE
OF TWO CITIES: Why is Toronto unable to produce artists in
the way that Vancouver is? Perhaps it is structural. From weak
schools, a sense of insularity and a lack of serious public art
program, Toronto doesn't encourage a mix of artists. "Vancouver
provides a vivid contrast. The city's leading artists have leapfrogged
over Toronto to establish connections in New York, Dusseldorf
and beyond." The Globe &
Mail (Canada) 06/20/02
Wednesday
June 19
FIRST
COMMISSION WINS: This year's £25,000 BP Portrait Award
has been won by Catherine Goodman. Her painting of Antony Sutch
was her first commissioned portrait, and the first time in many
years that the competition has been won by a formal traditional
portrait. Despite the art world skirmishing over conceptual conceptual
art crowding out figurative painting, the portrait competition,
now in its 22nd year, attracted 760. The
Guardian (UK) 06/18/02
WEIGHING
ANCHOR: Due to security concerns, the Anchorage, a space under
the Brooklyn Bridge used for the past 19 summers as a space for
art installations and performances, is being closed because of
fears of terrorism. "The 50-foot-tall vaulted ceilings, stone
floors, windowless brick and overhead traffic hum gave the ambience
a tilt toward the introspective and mysterious. The Anchorage
could seem all gothic gloom or cool cave. It changed, depending
on the art: a cathedral, a dungeon, a fort." Village
Voice 06/18/02
UNDERSTANDING
FREUD: This summer's hottest art show in London is the Lucien
Freud retrospective at Tate Britain. At 79, Freud is generally
considered Britain's top living artist. "Let me be clear
about this: at every stage in his long career, Freud has painted
wonderful pictures. In a show with 156 works, I am talking about
no more than a dozen misses or near-misses, but they are enough
to show that painting does not come easily to Freud. He's a thrilling
artist because when he performs, he doesn't have a net to catch
him if he falls." The Telegraph
(UK) 06/19/02
- A
HISTORY OF LOOKING: "For 60 years, Freud has interrogated
reality with a tough, unsatisfied intelligence. Eyes stripped
as a snakes, he has studied the visual evidence of life.
He has searched for the truths that his paintings will tell."
The Times (UK) 06/19/02
- ARTIST
LAUREATE: "At Freud's level of artistic dedication
he is competing with history. It is a daunting sport for, unlike
the athlete, the artist is running against an international
field that includes famous contestants who have been dead for
centuries." London Evening
Standard 06/18/02
- ABOUT
PAINTING: "The viewer who believes he has discerned
a truth about a relationship between artist and subject, however,
is likely to be mistaken. It is mostly projection. There is
some kind of truth somewhere in there, but it is first and foremost
a truth about depiction in painting itself." The
Guardian (UK) 06/18/02
POLLING
THE MASSES: "A major exercise to decide on the best way
of displaying art in Wales has started." And while asking
the public might seem to be a risky method of deciding policy,
that is exactly the route Wales is going. Among the proposals
on the table are an expansion of the current National Museum and
the construction of a new, dedicated gallery. BBC
06/19/02
Tuesday
June 18
ANOTHER
TAKE ON DOCUMENTA: Michael Kimmelman writes that the show
delivers what it promised. But "calm, clear, remarkably orderly
considering its size, the show is also puritanical and nearly
humorless. It gives the impression of having been conceived by
people for whom the messiness and frivolity of art are almost
moral failures. Some control over the organization of a show this
size is necessary. Too much is alarming." The
New York Times 06/18/02
- OVERLOAD:
An exhausted Peter Plagens marvels at the sheer size of the
event. And how much explanation the art takes. "Never in
the history of contemporary-art shows have so many viewers been
asked to read so much while standing on such unforgiving concrete
floors." It's also difficult to sort out. "Hardly
any of the art in Kassel lives up to the huge political burden
placed upon it." With the show's attempt "to get art
to act as a rebuttal to the G8s style of globalization,
Documenta has turned itself into a clever, but only occasionally
convincing, Didactamenta." Newsweek
06/24/02
Monday
June 17
STRIKE
CLOSES BMA: The British Museum is closed today after 750 museum
workers went on strike, protesting government cuts in funding.
"Some 100 strikers picketed the museum, handing out leaflets
to members of the public. It is the first time the museum has
been closed by industrial action in its 250-year history."
BBC 06/17/02
NEW
ICA CHAIRMAN: Alan Yentob, the BBC's director of drama, entertainment
and children's programmes, has been named new chairman of London's
Institute of Contemporary Art. The ICA's previous chairman left
in a blaze of publicity, declaring that concept art was "pretentious,
self-indulgent, craftless tat that I wouldn't accept even as a
gift". The Guardian (UK) 06/14/02
- GLAMOUR
BOY: As the BBC's arts and entertainment supremo, Yentob
is an avowed populariser and, after years of rubbing shoulders
with the corporation's glitzier talent, he is now as close to
being 'the glamorous face of BBC management' as licence feepayers
are ever likely to get for their money. Those connections are,
of course, what appealed to the board of the ICA when they judged
his suitability." The Observer
(UK) 06/16/02
FIGHTING
FOR SCRAPS: There is so little high-end art available for
sale in the UK that when even a minor sale comes up for auction,
there's a feeding frenzy. The Telegraph
(UK) 06/17/02
RECORD
ANTIQUITY SALE: A heavily restored ancient Roman Venus sculpture
sold in London at auction last week for "£7.9 million,
more than twice the estimate and a world auction record for an
antiquity. There may now be an export bar to allow British museums
to try and match the price, but it is very unlikely any could
raise such a sum. The Jenkins Venus, also known as the Barberini
Venus, was pieced together from fragments over 200 years ago,
and became one of the most admired works of classical art of the
18th century. The Guardian (UK) 06/15/02
LOOKING
OUT: This edition of Documenta is the most international and
outward-looking yet. "The main themes of this Documenta are
migration, precarious post-colonial constellations, cultural intermixing
and changing perspectives within a new global society. All the
sore points, the terrible conflicts which often trigger or prevent
these changes, are given center stage: the tortured Balkans; the
misery of the underdeveloped and exploited; racism; the genocide
in Rwanda; the hell of a South African gold mine; South American
military dictatorships; guerrilla wars; Sept. 11, 2001; the refugee
ships sunk in the Mediterranean with their unretrieved bodies,
searched for by teams of underwater archaeologists. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 06/16/02
- Previously: RANT
W/O BACKUP: Documenta is the world's
most lavish festival of contemporary art, and it has been
staged in Kassel every five years or so since the Marshall Plan
came to the bombed-out town. This year its curator advances
the idea that America's domination of world culture is an enervating
force, that it is "materializing, hegemonizing and attempting
to regulate all forms of social relations and cultural exchanges."
Curiously, there is little art in the show to back up the premise.
Washington Post 06/16/02
WHAT'S
THE VISION? Rem Koolhaas "may be our greatest contemporary
architect, but the nature and volume of his production indicate
that he wants to be more than that. He plays the game of cultural
critic and theorist, visionary, urbanist, and shaper of cities
for the globalized, digitized, commercialized world of the twenty-first
century. If we don't begin thinking critically about what he's
doing, how our cities look and function might greatly reflect
his influence - and what we get might not be what we want."
American Prospect 06/17/02
Sunday June 16
FREE
ME: When the LA County Museum of Art began charging admission
in 1978, attendance slid by 44 percent. Now, nearly 25 years later,
despite 3 million more people in LA, the number of people visiting
LACMA is roughly the same as it was in pre-admission 1978. As
the museum goes out to raise $300 million to makeover its campus,
Christopher Knight writes that one of LACMA's top priorities ought
to be eliminating the admission fee. "No one should underestimate
the barrier erected by general admission fees. Yet the issue isn't
just a matter of affordability. It also concerns a more fundamental
relationship with art." Los
Angeles Times 06/09/02
TEARING
DOWN HISTORY: The 20th Century was a bad one for English manors.
"More than 1,000 country houses, perhaps one in six, were
demolished in the 20th century. The result was an architectural
and cultural tragedy that has no parallel in this country since
the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. Superb
collections of art were broken up, some of the most delightful
gardens and landscapes ever created abandoned, and many of this
country's finest buildings razed to the ground. The causes of
that destruction have never been spelt out before, perhaps because
the event was too painful." The
Telegraph (UK) 06/15/02
RANT
W/O BACKUP: Documenta is the world's
most lavish festival of contemporary art, and it has been
staged in Kassel every five years or so since the Marshall Plan
came to the bombed-out town. This year its curator advances the
idea that America's domination of world culture is an ennervating
force, that it is "materializing, hegemonizing and attempting
to regulate all forms of social relations and cultural exchanges."
Curiously, there is little art in the show to back up the premise.
Washington Post 06/16/02
IS
IT CHEATING? When photography was invented many predicted
the end of painting. Didn't happen, of course. But lately there
have been fresh debates about the "fairness" of painters
using mechanical devices to help in their work. Does it somehow
lessen a work if the artist used visual aids? "I'm guessing
that psychoanalysts would diagnose this as displaced anxiety."
The New York Times 06/16/02
CUTTING
THE EDGE: Is there anything tougher than being a contemporary
art center? Constantly defining and redefining "contemporary"
is a balancing act that gets tougher as the organization gets
older. The Atlanta Contemporay Art Center is about to turn 30.
With funding down and the search for a new director, ACAC is facing
an identity crisis - does it still matter? Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 06/16/02
THE
ART OF RESTORATION: Paris' small Museum of Jewish Art and
History tries to keep politics out. That means it's "not
a Holocaust museum, although reportedly one is being planned for
Paris. To museum organizer Laurence Sigal-Klagsbald, 'restoring
Jewish culture is an answer in itself to the annihilation planned
by the Nazis'." Toronto Star
06/16/02
Friday
June 14
THOROUGHLY
MODERN BIDDING: With Impressionist works too expensive for
most collectors, contemporary art has caught the interest of investors.
Prices for 20th Century work has been setting records of late.
"The stock market is not currently offering many opportunities
for people to get involved so when they find something that gives
them pleasure, like art, they say 'let's do it.' ". Financial
Times 06/14/02
ART
FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY: "There's a transformation taking
place in art museums. These temples of contemplation that once
catered mostly to adults now offer a full menu of programs aimed
at families -- not to mention school groups, singles, teenagers,
seniors or any other demographic group willing to walk through
the front door. At the venerable National Gallery of Art and the
exclusive Kreeger Museum, even preschoolers now have their own
programming." Washington Post
06/14/02
BRITAIN'S
BEST NEW BUILDINGS: The Royal Institute of British Architects
has made a list of the 58 best new buildings in the UK. "The
buildings, which range in size from a tolbooth and a private residence
to big industrial centres and the Gateshead millennium bridge,
have all been selected to receive a RIBA award for their high
architectural standards and their contribution to the local environment."
The Guardian (UK) 06/13/02
SCOTTISH
GALLERY WORKERS THINK STRIKE: While staff at the National
Galleries of Scotland ponder a strike, the museum director is
on a paid six-month sabbatical in Italy. And the museum is proposing
to increase his salary by almost a quarter. That doesn't sit well
with junior staff. "Here we have a director on a six-month
sabbatical, travelling the world, while the lowest-paid members
of staff can barely afford to get themselves to work." The
Scotsman 06/13/02
Thursday
June 13
MORATORIUM
ON COLLECTING: The Denver Museum is building a $62 million
addition. To help focus on getting ready for the expansion, the
museum has declared a moratorium on acquistions. "The museum
will not make purchases or accept any gifts of artworks except
those to be exhibited in the new wing, and it will not grant loans
of pieces to other institutions or borrow from them." Denver
Post 06/13/02
CLEVELAND
EXPANSION: The Cleveland Museum of Art has approved plans
for a $170 million-plus expansion. Architect Rafael Vinoly presented
plans for the addition this week. The museum hopes to start construction
in 2004. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
06/13/02
FOR
THE SOUL OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY: London's Royal Academy has
had a very successful few years. But now director David Gordon
is leaving, and the RA is at a crossroads. "At issue is whether
artists or administrators should run the public side of the organisation,
now that it has been transformed into a £20 million-a-year
business, putting on world-class exhibitions. With the RA about
to embark on a £50 million project to take over 6 Burlington
Gardens, the former Museum of Mankind building, the debate has
added urgency." The Art Newspaper
06/10/02
DRAW
ME A PICTURE: Is there any place for drawing in art? "If
art can be bought ready-made, or if it can be made in some way
that has nothing to do with manual dexterity, with a video camera
or a computer program, then drawing, this essential act of making,
has definitely been marginalized, turned into a sideline, a caprice.
A sea change has occurred, one of the fundamental ones in the
history of art, or so we are told. But what of those artists who
still believe that art is not so much in the conceptualization
as in the realization?" The New
Republic 06/10/02
Wednesday
June 12
BRITISH
MUSEUM STRIKE: The British Museum won't open next Monday because
of a 24-hour strike by its workers. They are protesting cuts and
management of the museum. "It is believed to be the first
time the museum will have closed because of industrial action
in its 250-year history." The
Guardian (UK) 06/12/02
FOOD
FIGHT: A show of Italian Masters sponsored by the Italian
government and sent to Australia has provoked a fierce review
that has insulted the Italians. "Attacks on the show feed
fears that Australia is regarded by the rest of the world as the
back of beyond, a place where nobody would care to send too many
masterpieces, and also that Australians are taken for bumpkins,
too unsophisticated to realise when they are being fobbed off."
The Times (UK) 06/12/02
DESIGN-CHALLENGED:
Wonder why people don't grow up with an appreciation for good
architecture? Start with school buildings. The province of Ontario
is building new schools, but the amount spent on design is pitiful.
"On their own and strapped for money, some of the region's
school boards are replicating school designs over two or three
different sites. Sadly, the new schools in Toronto can't achieve
the robust detailing of the public schools that emerged in the
city in the early 20th century." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/12/02
THE
COWS COME TO LONDON: The arts cows invade London. "The
organisers claim it as the world's largest public art event. And
with more than 150 bovines on display, and another six cities
around the world lining up for more cow action, they might not
be far wrong." They've earned respect in other cities, even
in cities where you wouldn't expect it. In New York "their
cumulative effect on the viewer was to disrupt the flow of thought.
What struck me was the extent to which people noticed them and
began to treat them in a way that public sculptors hardly dare
to dream of - with respect. No one vandalised the New York cows."
London Evening Standard 06/12/02
SETTING
UP FOR ART: Howard Hodgkin makes set designs for the theatre.
They're distinctive and drawings of them have been collected up
for an exhibition this summer. But don't call them art. Hodgkin
will get angry if you do. "They exist only as part of a performance,
on stage, with performers, audience, lighting. Otherwise they're
no more real than those discarded costume sketches people hang
on their walls and expect you to admire. Completely ridiculous."
The Telegraph (UK) 06/12/02
DEALER
SENTENCED FOR ART SALES: New York art dealer Frederick Schultz
has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for trying to sell stolen
Egyptian artifacts. "The stiff sentence, coming after Mr.
Schultz's conviction on Feb. 12, is seen as a sign of the federal
government's determination to crack down on the trade in ancient
objects that have been illegally taken out of their countries
of origin." The
New York Times 06/12/02
Tuesday
June 11
A
PLAN TO SAVE VENICE: Venice has decided to build a controversial
"Thames barrier-type structure with 79 gates, each weighing
300 tonnes" to help control flooding of the city's lagoon.
"But there are fears about how this might affect the Venice
lagoon, particularly the possibility that it could further restrict
the flushing of the city's waterways by the tide, making the famous
stinking canals more stagnant." So British scientists have
been brought in to "suggest ways to prevent the city becoming
the first high-profile victim of global warming anda rise in sea
levels." The Guardian (UK) 06/10/02
THE
ANNUAL: Each summer, London's Royal Academy stages its Summer
Exhibition. It's in its 234th year, and it is the "largest
open-submission exhibition of contemporary art anywhere in the
world. Any such antiquity will naturally gather some myths, and
the most pernicious and unfair myth, unthinkingly retailed, is
that the summer show is the repository of the amateur and Sunday
painting, boardroom portrait and worthy landscape."
Financial Times 06/11/02
- HOUSE
OF THE ALREADY-DONES: "At this year’s show one is frequently
waylaid across a crowded room by some familiar-seeming image,
only to realise on closer inspection that it is not actually
a Lucian Freud, or a Cy Twombly, or a Richard Artschwager, as
one might suppose, but in fact some sedulous substitute."
The Times (UK) 06/11/02
HARVARD
MUSEUM CHIEF TO COURTAULD: James Cuno, the director of the
Harvard University Art Museums since 1991, has been named director
of the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art. The
appointment is seen as a sideways move for the highly-regarded
Cuno, who is also president of the Association of Art Museum Directors
in the US. His departure from Harvard is "the latest in a
number of high-profile departures from the university since the
arrival last year of president Lawrence H. Summers."
Boston Globe 06/11/02
Monday
June 10
DOCUMENTING
CONTEMPORARY ART: The 11th Documenta opens in Kassel. "Despite
contemporary techniques - video, installation, photography - this
Documenta 11 fails to match the work of much of the 1990s in loudness,
velocity or the frequency of its shock effects. There are fewer
illustrations of political theses than feared, and instead more
truly classical art than many might have anticipated. In order
to avoid making a loss, Documenta 11 must attract 630,000 visitors
to Kassel and earn over euro 6.9 million ($6.5 million) by Sept.
15." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 06/09/02
A
CONSERVATION SCANDAL: How was the ancient Villa of the Papyri
- one of the richest and largest of the ancient Roman villas ever
discovered, "allowed to degenerate into a massive dumping
site for rubbish while weeds ravaged the ancient mosaic floor,
holes in the plastic roof left it exposed to rain, and rising
water levels blocked access to the site?" It's a sad case
of bungled bureaucracy... The
Art Newspaper 06/07/02
IS
THIS ANY WAY TO BUILD A CITY? So Los Angeles might get a new
football stadium, and it might not cost taxpayers money. Okay
- but potential developers of the project are so far shy about
revealing details of the project - like where exactly it might
be built. Should Angelinos trust them? The "plans for downtown
have yet to show such ambition. They are safe, formulaic, somewhat
soulless. They embody an age of corporate gigantism in which decisions
are made by committee, and the only real concern is the bottom
line." Is this any way to plan urban landscapes?
Los Angeles Times 06/10/02
PAUL
GOTTLIEB, 67: "In his 20 years as publisher and editor
in chief of the country's most notable publisher of art books
he exercised vast influence, not merely on how such books are
published but also on how art is presented and promoted at museums
around the world. Gottlieb knew just about everybody connected
in one way or another to publishing and art." Washington
Post 06/10/02
Sunday
June 9
BRITISH
MUSEUM STRIKE PROTEST: Staff at the British Museum have voted
to strike to protest plans by the museum to cut 150 workers. The
financially-challenged museum is trying to close a £5m budget
shortfall. "National treasures will be hidden away from the public,
galleries will be closed off and less school children will be
educated in the British Museum if the government does not accept
that world-class museums cannot be funded by gift shops and cafes
alone." The
Guardian (UK) 06/08/02
WHOSE
HISTORY? Britain has always had a reverence for its history,
and the country is full of historic markers. But "is today's
historic environment - the stately homes, museums, religious edifices,
tourist attractions, heritage centres, preservation areas - adequately
serving the complex intellectual requirements of a multi-cultural,
multi-layered Britain? Not according to a recent report by the
Historic Environment Steering Group. This commission of great
and good heritage experts worryingly concluded that, 'People are
interested in the historic environment.But many people feel powerless
and excluded'." The
Guardian (UK) 06/07/02
Friday
June 7
THE
FRIDA FAD: "Never has a woman with a mustache been so
revered - or so marketed - as Frida Kahlo. Like a female Che Guevara,
she has become a cottage industry. In the past year, Volvo has
used her self-portraits to sell cars to Hispanics, the U.S. Postal
Service put her on a stamp, and Time magazine put her on its cover.
There have been Frida look-alike contests, Frida operas, plays,
documentaries, novels, a cookbook, and now, an English-language
movie. But, like a game of telephone, the more Kahlo's story has
been told, the more it has been distorted, omitting uncomfortable
details that show her to be a far more complex and flawed figure
than the movies and cookbooks suggest." Washington
Monthly 06/02
RETURN
TO REALISM (DID IT EVER GO AWAY?): Painters and sculptors
who have eschewed abstraction in rendering their particular take
on the visible world have proliferated and thrived, occasionally
even generating a movementphotorealism, for example. Now,
emerging from the last decades polymorphous stew of postmodernism,
realist artists are moving back into the foreground. But theres
just one puzzle: no one seems able to define what realism actually
is." ArtNews 06/02
Thursday
June 6
THE
NEW WTC - A TOWERING CONCEPT? Word is that the architects
working on plans for a replacement for the World Trade Center
are contemplating a building of about the same height as the Twin
Towers. "The tower also could be shorter, perhaps 1,300 feet
or 1,350 feet, but it clearly would be no ordinary office building.
It would contain about 65 to 70 stories of office floors, with
the highest of those floors reaching 900 feet or more. Above them
would be an empty vertical space, enclosed in a skeletal extension
of the building's superstructure, making it visible to passersby.
This chamber of air, which would be 300 to 400 feet tall, would
soar ethereally toward the clouds."
Chicago Tribune 06/06/02
CUBAN
CLAIMS FOR ART: Many Cuban refugees fleeing Cuba had to leave
artwork behind. "Over the last decade, a growing number of
these works have surfaced outside Cuba and been put up for sale.
Some left the island via diplomatic channels, others were exported
privately and illegally, and some, particularly in the early 1990's,
were put on the international market by Cuba itself as it sought
hard currency." Increasingly, the original owners are making
claims for the art. The New York Times
06/06/02
A
LITTLE ART SCANDAL: A British internet firm offers exclusive
reproductions of "never before published" Old Master
drawings from the British Museum. But of course this isn't right.
"The talk of unpublished, rarely seen material is nonsense.
But the most misleading thing of all is the omission, in this
quasi-official joint-venture parasitic commercial- wheeze website,
of the fact that any member of the public, at any time during
opening hours, can ask to see any drawing or print in the museum's
collection, and that this access is free." The
Guardian (UK) 06/06/02
TAKES
ONE TO CATCH ONE: A British art security expert is defending
his use of an art thief to track down two stolen works of art
- including a Titian. "The ex-prisoner has been using his
former criminal contacts to make inquiries about the paintings,
and has claimed that recently he came close to the art thieves."
BBC 06/06/02
QUEEN'S
GALLERY USED ENDANGERED WOOD: Queen Elizabeth's new Queen's
Gallery is under attack because endangered rare tropical woods
were used in its construction. "The use of this timber not
only goes against the palace's sustainable forest purchasing policy,
but is a snub to the Duke of Edinburgh, president emeritus of
the World Wildlife Fund, who said in 1998 that all 'forests subject
to commercial exploitation should be certified under the Forest
Stewardship Council certification scheme'." The
Guardian (UK) 06/05/02
Wednesday
June 5
MISSING
IN ACTION: A more complete list of valuable art items lost
in the World Trade Center collapse is being put together. Among
them: "first editions of Helen Keller's books. Sculptures
by Auguste Rodin. Artifacts from the African Burial Ground, a
centuries-old Manhattan cemetery. Thousands of photographs of
Broadway, off-Broadway and even off-off-Broadway shows."
Los Angeles Times (AP) 06/05/02
GOING
THREE-DIMENSIONAL: Forget painting - sculpture is the hot
artform of choice right now. "Sculpture is no longer the poor
cousin of painting. A lot of established painting collectors have
turned their backs and started buying sculptures. They've filled
their walls with pictures and now are looking for objects to put
outside in their gardens or in their beach houses."
Sydney Morning Herald 06/05/02
GROVELING
TO BE LIKED? The newly reopened Manchester Art Gallery is
doubled in size. It's a handsome new building. But "the displays
are presented with a frantically jovial emphasis on accessibility.
The room containing the most recent items, for example, is labelled
'Modern Art - You Cannot Be Serious', which is more suitable for
a tabloid headline on the Turner Prize than a serious museum."
The Telegraph (UK) 06/05/02
WHAT'S
IT TAKE? The new Turner Prize short list is up, but one critic
is still thinking about last year's winner. "You have to
make suitable contemporary art, and smack suitably of controversy,
to stand a chance of winning the Turner Prize; and actually winning
it bestows both fame and a heroic aspect. In one sense the winner
can be seen to represent all struggling and misunderstood artists
whose work may be a darn sight less controversial in international
art world terms, but which can be just as misunderstood, if not
more so, in one's own local context. Making art and the way it's
perceived is all relative to the time and place you happen to
be in. Fame also means that a lot more people will misunderstand
and denigrate your work than before, so it's a mixed blessing."
*spark-online 06/02
IN
PRAISE OF GLASS: Glass is the latest hot material in buildings.
"New kinds of glass - for ceilings, floors, walls - are helping
define the latest architectural look at home and at work, according
to a survey of some 500 exhibitors at the recent American Institute
of Architects' national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Instead of hanging art on the walls, designers can manipulate
building materials so that color, texture and mood are integrated
into the walls themselves." Wired
06/05/02
Tuesday
June 4
MET
DOWN: The Metropolitan Museum in New York has seen a big dip
in visitors this year. "The museum has lost about 1 million
visitors this year, down from about 5 million in each of the two
years before." That translates to a drop of 20-25 percent.
Museum officials say the biggest decline is visitors from Asia
and Europe. New
York Post 06/04/02
TASTE
TEST: New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl, art historian Linda
Nochlin and writer George Plimpton get together to talk about
approaching art. "Taste is the residue of our previous experience,
and if we are presented with something that doesn't fit we immediately
try to reject it. I think that's good. Taste keeps us from being
wowed by absolutely everything all the time; without it, we wouldn't
get to work in the morning. Out of a spirit of economy, we try
to reject things, or to put them aside, or to think they're understood.
I think that's healthy, in a way. I think that if you're a critic
you're supposed to stick with it till you feel sure, and when
a work of art defeats all my best efforts to dismiss it, that's
when I go down on my knees and want to shout about it to everyone."
The New Yorker 06/03/02
STOLEN
GIACOMETTI: A Giacometti sculpture was stolen from the Kunsthalle
in Hamburg. "Thieves had used the crowd of about 16,000 visitors
on the center's extra 'Long Night' with opening hours extended
until 3:00 a.m. to swap the original bronze for a painted wooden
figure." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 06/03/02
Monday
June 3
THE
BRITISH MUSEUM'S LITTLE PROBLEM: "The British Museum
has the collections to make it, with the Met in New York and the
Louvre in Paris, one of the three great museums in the world.
It is also visited by three million tourists a year, a quarter
of all visitors to London, which makes it a showpiece for the
capital and for the country. If it is dim and dusty and closed
for business, it makes the whole nation look bad." So how,
with all the lottery money put aside for culture in the past decade,
does the BM find itself in such precarious financial condition?
London Evening Standard 05/031/02
THE
QUEEN'S NEW MESS: Critics are piling on Queen Elizabeth's
new gallery to mark her jubilee. "To give it its due, what
will be the most enduring physical reminder of the Queen's golden
jubilee does give confused visitors unclear about which parts
of the palace are off-limits an unmistakable signal of where they
will be welcome. But it looks more like a collection of giant
milk bottles, left at the backdoor of the palace, rather than
a descendant of the sublime Greek temples of Paestum that [architect
John] Simpson fondly imagines them to be."
The Observer (UK) 06/02/02
Sunday
June 2
PRICELESS?
IT'S JUST A WORD: Recent high prices for paintings gets one
reporter thinking about how the value for great works of art is
set. "If 'priceless' is a real concept to a museum curator,
it's just a word - and a false one at that - in the calculating
marketplace, where everything has a price." What would be
the real-world price of some of the Art Institute of Chicago's
most famous pictures? Chicago
Sun-Times 06/02/02
NO
SMALL MATTER: Smithsonian chief Lawrence Small has roiled
the institution like none before him. "Since Small's arrival,
markers of an institution in turmoil have popped up almost monthly:
Directors of six museums submitted their resignations. Congress
had to step in to save pioneering scientific research. A benefactor
withdrew $38 million after her ideas were ridiculed by staffers.
And more than 200 academics protested the "commercialization"
of the Smithsonian--even faulting its decision to award the cafeteria
contract at the National Air and Space Museum to McDonald's."
Los Angeles Times 06/02/02
ART
OF THE MEETING: Documenta is the once-every-five-years assemblage
of contemporary art. "Documenta is not this year's only group
show, but Kassel is definitely Rendezvous 2002 for museum directors,
curators, dealers, gallery owners and collectors. They will be
there because everyone will be there."
The New York Times 06/02/02
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