Wednesday
July 31
GREATER
ROLE FOR ART: The Palace Museum in Taiwan holds some of China's
great art treasures. But the museum was also a political statement,
created by Chiang Kai-shek after fleeing from the mainland in
1949. But now, "with the Nationalist Party's fall from power
in Taiwan, the museum has begun to change. Paintings and busts
of Chiang Kai-shek have been removed. An ambitious construction
project will soon begin, creating more space for tour groups and
lectures instead of reception halls for diplomats and politicians.
'I hope to change this museum from political to art,' says the
museum's new director." The
New York Times 07/31/02
DESIGN
THIS: Since the six proposed designs for the World Trade Center
site have been pretty much unanimously discarded, officials overseeing
the process have decided to solicit designers who may have been
excluded before. "Many such groups were excluded from consideration
for the first design contract because of their relative lack of
experience working on big projects in New York. For instance,
the firms were required to have 10 years of urban planning experience
and to have worked on at least three $100 million projects."
The New York Times 07/30/02
TRAGEDY
THROUGH THE EYES OF ART: As the anniversary of September 11
grows near, New Yorkers are wondering how artists will mark the
event. "There's an obvious desire to see how the city has
changed over the past year through its art. After all, New York
art was always so responsive to social upheaval. From the mid-Eighties,
for example, the art community was profoundly affected by Aids
and spoke articulately of the crisis... London
Evening Standard 07/30/02
TATE
IN SPACE... Think today's ambitious museums have lost perspective
with their expansion plans? The Tate pokes fun at its ambitions.
"First there was Tate Britain. Then there was Tate Modern,
Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives. Next, coming to a galaxy near
you: Tate in Space - an extraterrestrial art-exhibition venue
for space tourists in search of intergalactic cultural enrichment.
'In order to fulfill their mission to extend access to British
and International contemporary art, the Tate Trustees have been
considering for some time how they could find new dimensions to
Tate's work. They have therefore determined that the next Tate
site should be in space'." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/31/02
Tuesday
July 30
NEW
ATTENTION FOR WOMEN ARTISTS: As a group, women artists have
not received nearly the attention of their male counterparts.
But in Australia, a recent string of big sales of work by women
artists has caught the attention of collectors. Sydney
Morning Herald 07/30/02
FIXING
UP STONEHENGE: Stonehenge is a world heritage site. Yet it
shows to very poor advantage. "The monument remains imprisoned
within wire fences, and clenched in the fork of two busy roads.
It is 13 years since the parliamentary public accounts committee
condemned the present arrangements as 'a national disgrace'."
Now English Heritage has announced some funding to fix up the
surrounding site. The Guardian (UK)
07/27/02
Monday
July 29
ANOTHER
AUCTION SCANDAL? Sotheby's is facing a crimminal investigation
over a £49 million Rubens painting which was sold by an
Austrian woman earlier this month. "Public prosecutors in
Austria launched an inquiry after they were handed a dossier from
an anonymous source claiming the company had conspired with the
paintings owner to conceal the true identity of the Old
Master." The Scotsman 07/28/02
"WHAT
IS HAPPENING IS A CRIME": Greece is building a museum
at the base of the Acropolis to house the Parthenon Marbles, if
Britain ever returns them. Greece is rushi9ng to get the $100
million museum open before the 2004 Olympics. But "a growing
number of critics say the government is damaging other antiquities
in a rush to make the museum ready in time. They charge that excavation
at the museum's site at the foot of the great Acropolis citadel
has uncovered substantial Roman, Byzantine and Stone Age ruins
that provide vivid archaeological snapshots of ancient Athens,
and that development should be delayed while the remains are studied."
Washington Post 07/29/02
LOOKING
AT DAVID: Michelangelo's statue of David is one of the most-recognized
scultures in the world. Yet the statue has some problems with
proportion. "Some of the oddities of the statue come from
its curious history - Michelangelo was handed a huge block of
marble that another sculptor had made a start on. More complexities
are contributed by its contemporary meaning; it has often been
thought that it had a specific political meaning for a Florence
in the wake of Lorenzo de Medici's death and Savonarola's deranged
austerity. The more one looks at it, the less familiar and comprehensible
it seems." The Observer (UK)
07/28/02
BBC
BUILDS FOR GREATNESS: The BBC may be a world leader in broadcasting,
but its sense of visual style has never been great. That changes
with the opening of a dramatic new headquarters. "The most
dramatic feature of the building will be a vast newsroom - at
5,000 square metres the largest in the world - taking up virtually
the whole of the lower ground floor of the main part of the building.
It will be a symbol of the importance of the BBC in British, indeed
world, culture." The Telegraph
(UK) 07/29/02
REVERSE
BEGGING: An artist in Colchester England is given £300
and had 24 hours in which to spend it. He began asking people
on the streets if they'd like it. "Instead of asking people
for spare change I said, 'Would you like some spare change, mate?'
When people saw that image they automatically went into their
beggar mode, and said, 'No mate'." BBC
07/28/02
Sunday
July 28
LOOKING
TO DIVERSIFY? Planners are trying to jam so much into whatever
will replace the World Trade Center that the design proposals
so far are a hodgepodge acceptable to no one. "Perhaps the
real lesson for the planners of the World Trade Center site is
the same lesson as that of the stock market, just a couple of
blocks from the WTC site. Instead of putting all their eggs in
one basket - instead of betting on all that office space - maybe
the developers should look into diversification."
Boston Globe 07/28/02
SFMOMA'S
NEW MAN: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has been on
an amazing upward trajectory in the past 15 years. Fueled by dotcom
money, the museum built a new home and acquired an impressive
collection. But Neal Benezra, SFMoMA's new director comes into
the job at a time of newly-imposed austerity. "SFMOMA remains
in relatively good financial health - it has an $80 million endowment
and continues to draw big crowds to shows such as last year's
Ansel Adams exhibition - but it laid off a dozen staff members
in January and faces a $1 million deficit." San
Francisco Chronicle 07/28/02
Friday
July 26
OLD
TIME FRENZY: The biggest thing in New Hampshire each August?
Antiques Week, a series of sales of American collectibles. Participants
are a serious lot. "People come by the thousands. Customers
line up at 2 a.m. the night before the show opens. These people
are fanatics. They are so afraid they are going to miss something."
The New York Times 07/26/02
CHAGALL
RETURNS HOME: It was a curious theft - a Chagall stolen in
June 2001 from the Jewish Museum in New York, where it had been
on loan. "A group calling itself the International Committee
for Art and Peace sent a note saying it would not be returned
until there was peace in the Middle East." But it was later
found in Kansas City. Now it's been returned to its home in St.
Petersburg, Russia. BBC 07/26/02
PARKING
IT IN PHILLY: Philadelphia has arguably one of the most beautiful
city skylines in America. Colonial architecture dovetails with
sweepingly modern skyscrapers in an unusually successful marriage
of old and new styles. But a new threat to the city's architectural
continuity has arisen, and is threatening to take over the city.
"Philadelphia is a city where land is cheap but new construction
is expensive. Because [parking] lots cost so little, they are
a low-risk way to make money on open land until someone comes
up with a better idea. Put another way, surface lots are a form
of land speculation." Philadelphia
Inquirer 07/26/02
POLITICS
ON PARADE: Even to the least cynical observer, the whole "animals-on-parade"
concept (which began with cows in Chicago and has spread to nearly
every animal in the barnyard in various American cities) has grown
a bit tired. But Washington, D.C. may have found the right way
to embrace the fad - with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The
district's parade of donkeys and elephants has a decidedly ironic
feel - witness the "Florida Hybrid" elephant decorated
with butterfly ballots. This being the nation's capital, however,
politics is inevitably involved: the Green Party has sued in an
effort to force organizers to include their party emblem as well
(it's a sunflower - seriously) and People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals is outraged that it isn't being allowed to display
one of the elephants with a meathook in its side. Ah, Washington
in summertime... Chicago Tribune 07/26/02
Wednesday
July 24
APPROPRIATION
IS THE GREATEST FORM OF FLATTERY? Artists have always looked
to other artists for inspiration. But what about artists who borrow
images from others and incorporate them into their work? "Perhaps
we are coming close to the computer world's notion of the image
as shareware. No one really owns it, it is constantly available,
sometimes useful, sometimes disposable." London
Evening Standard 07/23/02
VANISHING
ART: A half hour north of San Francisco there is a cave with
paintings inside dating back to 500 AD. But they are deteriorating
quickly. "The paintings present California officials with
a dilemma as they try to balance the desire for access with the
need for preservation. It's an issue tackled at ancient sites
around the world - from the Egyptian pyramids to national parks
in the United States." New Jersey
Online (AP) 07/23/02
WHAT
THEY COLLECT: "Of the 497 billionaires on the Forbes
list of billionaires, 36 singled out by The Art Newspaper are
known as major art collectors, although a good number of the others
decorate their properties with pictures. When it comes to taste,
22 of the 36 collectors go for Modern and contemporary. Impressionism
lags some way behind, with only 8 collectors. Clearly those with
ultra financial ambitions opt for the cutting edge." The
Art Newspaper 07/19/02
OASIS
AMIDST THE SPRAWL: An hour north of Philadelphia, an endless
chain of strip malls and suburban sprawl gives way to a town small
enough to be missed, but cultured enough to play host to an astonishing
collection of American art. This is Doylestown, Pennsylvania,
and from a poured-concrete castle highlighting some of America's
most innovative tile art to a surprisingly high-profile museum
housed in an old 19th-century prison (and named after longtime
denizen James Michener,) it has managed to maintain a prideful
grip on an impressive array of regional art of the type usually
only found in cities and private collections. Washington
Post 07/24/02
Tuesday
July 23
BMA
ON A DOWN CYCLE: The British Museum draws 400,000 visitors
a month - a success by any standard. "But beneath its familiar
exterior, the museum, Britain's most visited tourist attraction,
is in turmoil. Even after several years of steep cuts, its budget
deficit, growing steadily, is projected to reach almost $8 million
in the next 18 months. A planned $118 million study center, once
a cornerstone of the museum's long-term strategy to engage the
public more directly, has been abandoned. At any given time the
museum keeps more than a dozen galleries closed to the public,
another way of cutting costs. Meanwhile morale there is at rock
bottom." The New York Times
07/23/02
WORLD'S
UGLIEST BUILDINGS: The ugliest buildings in the world? Forbes
thinks it knows. These are buildings that cost a lot and should
have been great - but aren't. Some are obvious - the Millennium
Dome is no one's idea of great. But SFMoMA? Frank Gehry's Experience
Music Project? Forbes 07/23/02
RECIPE
FOR BOREDOM (AND MENACE?): Sydney is requiring use of a pattern
book to guide designers of the city's apartment buildings. "The
pattern book, naturally enough, standardises detail, material
and composition. And there's the rub, since gains in taste are
matched by losses in ingenuity and creative freedom. It yearns
to improve design, but really just makes it plain that design
is not a recipe game. But for it to be imposed from above, even
on a nominally advisory basis, is menacing indeed." Sydney
Morning Herald 07/23/02
THE
NEW MEDICIS: Some of today's richest billionaires have taken
a serious interest in art. "Their interest in the international
art market is not just that of billionaires who enjoy the thrill
of having an Old Master or a modern masterpiece displayed in the
living room, however. As well as aesthetics and ostentation they
are also encouraged by the continuing unpredictability of the
stock markets. When share prices fall and the world's wealthiest
investors stand to lose billions, it is not surprising that they
look for other repositories for their spare cash. And, in a bear
market, fine art is the place for money to be." The
Independent (UK) 07/22/02
Monday
July 22
THE
ONE THAT ALMOST GOT AWAY: When a rare Van Dyck painting was
recently offered to Tate Britain after the death of its owner,
the museum jumped at the chance. Only one problem - the museum's
acquisitions budget has been cut so much (like at most British
museums), the painting almost got away... The
Telegraph (UK) 07/22/02
IN
SEARCH OF A CLIENT: Why do the plans for replacing the World
Trade Center seem so flat and uninspired? "New York's finest
skyscrapers have virtually all been the product of this synergy
between an architect hitting his stride and a strong-willed client
with a clear program and the ambition to make a mark. It's hard
to imagine how such a relationship can arise in downtown New York
today. Even as the six draft plans for the trade center site were
unveiled last week, it remains difficult to pinpoint who the client
is amid the byzantine lines of command. It is not just a question
of how the architects were selected, it is the lack of clarity
in the program. These are not conditions for creating lasting
architecture." The New York Times
07/21/02
LATERAL
MOVE? (AT BEST): Fifteen years ago Neil MacGregor took over
the National Gallery in London and made a big success of the job.
But apparently he needs a truly impossible job, so he's taking
over the top spot at the troubled British Museum. Why? The
Art Newspaper 07/20/02
NATIONAL
AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSEUM: Plans are moving ahead for a National
Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
"One possible location for the museum is the 120-year-old
Arts and Industries Building of the Smithsonian Institution, which
is used for temporary exhibitions. But a new building is a possibility,
despite the limited space on the Mall. The museum will be paid
for by contributions from the public, said officials, who added
that a preliminary cost estimate will be ready this fall."
The New York Times 07/22/02
WORSHIPPING
AT THE ALTAR OF CALVIN KLEIN: When a group of Cistercian Trappist
Bohemian monks went looking for an architect to design their new
monastery they found themselves admiring a Calvin Klein store
in New York. So architect John Pawson got the call. "If ever
there were a marriage made in heaven, this was it. What the monks
learned, to their delight, is that this was the commission Pawson
had been dreaming of for decades." The
Guardian (UK) 07/22/02
Sunday
July 21
CLOSING
THE PRICE GAP: "For the first time in recent auction
history, the huge gap separating Impressionist and Modern paintings
from Old Masters was almost bridged last week at a Sotheby's sale,
where a Rubens set a record for the Flemish master at £49.5 million
($76.6 million). In fact, it could be argued that Old Masters
are running ahead since the sale." An isolated anomaly, or
a sign of auction reality to come? International
Herald Tribune (Paris) 07/20/02
- CROWDING
OUT THE FIELD: Blockbuster sales like this week's record-setting
auction of a Rubens at Sotheby's are exciting, certainly, but
"the truth is that, although the price for the Rubens will
raise the profile of Old Masters, it does not reflect what is
really going on. The total for Sotheby's main sale was £67.5
million but, subtracting the Rubens, it was £18 million, with
a third of the 83 lots failing to sell." The
Telegraph (UK) 07/20/02
ALL
POLITICS IS LOCAL: The fault for the decidedly substandard
proposals for New York's memorial to the victims of 9/11/01 does
not lie with the city's developers alone, says Joel Budd. "Because
of many conflicting pressures, the Development Corporation has
not been allowed to make its decisions in peace. The families
of those killed on September 11 have formed two pressure groups
- September's Mission, and the Coalition of 9/11 Families - to
try to prevent development on the site. They are opposed by three
local organisations" which want mixed-use development on
the site. In other words, politics has once again overshadowed
real progress, but that doesn't change the basic reality that
the six design proposals are just not good enough. The
Telegraph (UK) 07/20/02
THE
PEEP SHOW: Toronto's Harbourfront Centre has something of
a PR problem on its hands following the gallery's efforts to shield
its more sensitive patrons from a painting it feared would spark
controversy for its explicit sexual content. The painting in question
(which depicts a sexual act with racial and political overtones)
was not removed from the Centre, but placed "on display"
in a closed case with a small peephole in it, along with a warning
about the content. The artist, surprisingly enough, is not thrilled
with the arrangement. Toronto Star
07/21/02
PAINTING
ON THE ROPES? "Judging from the two big international
shows in Europe this summer, one might almost conclude that painting
is no longer a viable art form. There's barely a canvas to be
seen in either Documenta 11, the latest version of the global
survey that takes over Kassel, Germany, every five years, or its
no-frills, equally earnest doppelgänger, Manifesta 4, a short
train ride away in Frankfurt. Instead, video — that sleek, cost-efficient,
hypnotizing successor to installation art — and photography rule
the international survey circuit. Perhaps quixotically, museums
in two other European cities have taken the opposite tack, mounting
exhibitions devoted to painting alone."
The New York Times 07/21/02
NOT
ALL RICH PEOPLE ARE JERKS: "Eli Broad is one of the richest
people in America: His $5.2 billion fortune places him at No.
51 on this year's Forbes magazine list. He is also one of the
nation's most charitable individuals: The Chronicle of Philanthropy
ranked him No. 5 last year, when he gave away more than $387 million.
And he's one of the world's greatest art collectors: The current
Artnews list puts him in the top 10. Another collector might build
a Broad Museum. But this entrepreneur, who gives far more to public
school causes than he spends on art, has instead created a ''lending
library'' of the contemporary work that is his focus."
Boston Globe 07/21/02
Friday
July 19
CRITIQUING
THE WTC MEMORIAL: The reviews are trickling in for the six
proposals unveiled in New York this week for how to use the space
formerly occupied by the World Trade Center towers. The biggest
complaint seems to be the seemingly nonsensical decision to rebuild
all the office space the towers contained, despite high existing
vacancy rates and the city's stated desire to turn the area into
a thriving residential neighborhood. "As the designs make
clear, the money men... holders of the office and retail leases
to the 16-acre site -- really are in charge. The plot's owner,
the Port Authority, is only too happy to go along with their plans
to rebuild all the commercial space contained in the old World
Trade Center. Why? Because it would get $120 million a year."
Chicago Tribune 07/19/02
FRAME-UP:
David Thomson, the billionaire chairman of the Thomson newspaper
group, was the winning bidder for Rubens' The Massacre of the
Innocents last week. He paid a record £49.5 million,
but is said to have been unhappy with the painting's frame. So
he was busy this week putting together another £20,000 to
change it. The Guardian (UK) 07/19/02
GERMAN
BONANZA ON THE BLOCK: "A $20 million collection of German
Expressionist and modern art that has been in the same Stuttgart
family for three generations will be auctioned on Oct. 8 and 9
at Sotheby's in London. The sale includes major German and Austrian
paintings by artists including August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky
and Alexei von Jawlensky, along with watercolors and prints by
Max Beckmann and Max Pechstein." The
New York Times 07/19/02
ARCHITECTURE
OF FEAR: Los Angeles is redesigning LAX, its airport. It's
a long-overdue makeover. And yet it reflects the nation's apparent
paranoia about security after last September 11. The plan "signals
a significant shift in how we view the public realm. It sacrifices
freedom of mobility for the illusion of invulnerability and the
demands of continual surveillance. As such, it represents a new
architecture of fear." Los Angeles
Times 07/19/02
VIENNA
COMES TO NEW ENGLAND: "Vienna in the Berkshires in the
summertime sounds like a publicist's dream. And in a sense the
series of cultural events called the Vienna Project, under way
this summer in western Massachusetts, is exactly that. Nearly
a dozen local museums, theaters and musical institutions are offering
20th-century Viennese fare, which means Strauss lieder, paintings
of alpine landscapes and a "Sound of Music" singalong." The
New York Times 07/19/02
Thursday
July 18
GREAT
WALL IN PERIL: Experts warned this week that the Great Wall
of China is endangered by increased tourism, graffiti, and unauthorized
construction. "Peddlers have put up unauthorized ticket booths
and ladders and collect money from Chinese and foreign tourists
venturing to its wilder sections." Discovery
07/17/02
THE
RAPHAEL BEHIND THE PAINT: A Renaissance painting of a Madonna
by a disciple of Raphael was in fact directed by the master himself.
Scientists used an infrared device to peer behind the paint and
discovered "the outlines of a picture almost identical to
a Raphael sketch owned by Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. The original
idea for the painting, its conception and the layout of the figures
is almost certainly Raphael's." BBC
07/18/02
LONG
ROAD TO HERMITAGE: A painting by Russian avant-gardist Kasimir
Malevitch is now hanging in the Hermitage. The long and tangled
story of how it got there begins with some potatoes. "Relatives
of Malevich's wife, the story goes, had hidden the painting from
the Soviet authorities in a crate of potatoes. When times changed,
a young man from the family wrapped the painting in a blanket,
put it in a gym bag and brought it to the bank, hoping to offer
it as collateral for a loan..." The
New York Times 07/18/02
OUT
OF FASHION: Why is the British Museum currently in a funding
crisis? Outgoing BMA director Robert Anderson says there's money
for art - just not for traditional BMA functions. "The current
financial restrictions are symptomatic of a broader problem: there
is waning enthusiasm for the traditional functions of museums.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has plenty
of money to give out, but collecting and interpreting the artefacts
of human history is just not where it's at. The museums that get
money today are those that play to the new government agenda of
social inclusion: running projects to improve self-esteem or reduce
prejudice, or using new technologies to increase community participation.
There is little support for the idea that objects and knowledge
have a value in and of themselves." Spiked-online
07/17/02
Wednesday
July 17
REPLACING
THE WTC: Six proposals were unveiled Tuesday for projects
on the site of the World Trade Center. Each proposes multiple
towers. None imagines any of them taller than 85 stories. Here's
a look at the plans. New York Magazine
07/16/02
- TALLER,
BIGGER: With towers, some of the proposals envision structures
taller than the old Twin Towers. Each would replace the commercial
space of the former buildings. "The plans call for as much
as 10 acres to be set aside for a memorial, although only four
proposals preserve the tower footprints. Those plans envision
taller office buildings and a denser development scheme than
the two designs that build over the footprints."
New York Daily News 07/17/02
HARVARD
CANCELS MUSEUM PLANS: Harvard has canceled plans to build
a new museum which was to have been designed by Renzo Piano."
It's a body blow to the mood of robust expansion that had prevailed
among Boston-area museums - at least until the recent dive in
the stock market. It greatly weakens recent signs the Boston area
was on the verge of becoming a significant center for contemporary
art. It makes the new Harvard administration look like philistines
and the community that opposed the museum look parochial and petty."
Boston Globe 07/17/02
FOUR
CONNECTICUT MUSEUMS TO CLOSE? Because of huge state budget
cuts, four Connecticut historical museums may have to close. "The
approximately 44 percent reduction in state aid means either the
museums, which employ 12 people, or the Connecticut Historical
Commission's preservation division will have to close. The preservation
office works to protect the state's cultural resources and has
10 staff members." Hartford Courant
07/17/02
THE
NBT'S (NEXT BIG THINGS)? So what is to take the place of the
YBA's since the Young Brit Artists aren't so young anymore and
their ideas are getting a bit too familiar? Richard Dorment thinks
the Whitechapel Gallery's new show is a door to the future. "All
five of the artists in the show are terrifically talented, but
one in particular, 29-year-old Gary Webb, is the most original
young artist I've come across in almost 15 years of writing art
criticism." The Telegraph (UK)
07/17/02
UNABLE
TO ACQUIRE: Britain's major museums have slashed their budgets
for acquisitions of art. "Twenty years ago the five museums
and galleries we examined received £7,897,000 in grant-in-aid
specifically for acquisitions. This year they are allocating just
£855,000down nearly ten times. The fall in real terms
is even greater, because of inflation. Art prices have probably
tripled, which means that government grant in aid for acquisitions
was effectively nearly 30 times higher two decades ago than it
is today." The Art Newspaper
07/14/02
STAR
ADDITIVE: There's been no official announcement, but architect
Frank Gehry has signed on to design a major $150 million expansion
of the Art Gallery of Ontario in his hometown of Toronto. The
announcement can be expected later in the summer after details
of the deal are finalized and Gehry has a vacation. But now "one
of the most intriguing questions at the moment: How will the AGO
deal with the feisty neighbours who are steadfastly resistant
to any expansion of the museum?" Toronto
Star 07/17/02
MORE
THAN JUST A PRETTY PICTURE: An astonishing 5.5 million visitors
go to the Louvre each year to see the Mona Lisa. It's a great
painting, sure. But its fame is the product of many things...
The New Republic 07/15/02
Tuesday
July 16
JACKHAMMERING
ANTIQUITIES: Greece has been trying for years to get Britain
to return the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. Now the
Greeks are building a swank museum at the base of the Parthenon
to house the marbles and want to make it "so magnificent
that Britain will finally bow to its demand to return" the
statues. But to build the museum, authorities are destroying "a
unique archaeological site" including "the impressive
remains of an ancient Christian city and Roman baths, dating from
the late Neolithic era to the post-Byzantine period. At the foot
of the Acropolis. As bulldozers continued razing buildings surrounding
the site yesterday, some 300 prominent Greek archaeologists and
architects, and other leading lights in the arts and sciences,
denounced the 'cultural vandalism' in a petition." The
Guardian (UK) 07/15/02
A
GIANT GLASS... London's distinctive new City Hall opens this
week. "The striking circular structure once dubbed the 'glass
testicle' by [London mayor] Ken Livingstone was designed by Lord
Foster and cost £43m under a private finance deal. It is
being hailed as one of the most inspired new buildings in Europe
since the unveiling of the Pompidou Centre in Paris 25 years ago."
The Guardian (UK) 07/15/02
THE
RIGHT TO CRITICIZE: Earlier this year The Art Newspaper reported
on destruction of World Heritage artifacts by the Israeli army
in Palestine. "We reminded readers that the deliberate destruction
of cultural heritage contravenes the 1954 Hague Convention for
the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict,
and that Israel is a signatory to this convention." The reaction
of readers was immediate, and charges of anti-semiticism flew.
Yet pointing out and criticizing behavior is not anti-semitic,
writes Anna Somers Cocks, the Art Newspaper's editor. It is a
responsibility. New Statesman 07/15/02
SUPPORTING
THE STRIKE: Sir Timothy Clifford, director of the Scottish
National Galleries, has surprised supporters of the museum by
saying he sided with the museum's workers in their recently threatened
strike against the museum. "For far too long, we have not
been paying our museum staff enough. They work extremely hard
and deserve to be paid properly. They are perfectly correct to
stand up for their rights. Speaking from a personal point of view,
I know I am the lowest-paid director of a gallery in the UK, so
it is no bad thing that these concerns are being looked at."
The Scotsman 07/14/02
Monday
July 15
TO
OWN A HITLER: Hitler was a painter - but one with modest talent.
Nonetheless, "there is a busy and lucrative trade in Hitler's
artwork mostly watercolours, a few oils, lots of hand-painted
postcards (some of which were actually sent and include birthday
salutations and wish-you-were-here vacation greetings on the flip
side), and a few 1-by-2-inch miniatures that reveal an obsession
with architectural detail. What does it mean now, half a century
later, to own a Hitler, to hang it in a place of honour in your
front hall, to want it so badly that you fight the government
for decades for the right to call it your own?" The
Age (Melbourne) 07/15/02
SEE
GLOBAL BUY LOCAL: The world of fashion has been dominated
in the past couple decades by global fashion houses - slickly
marketed designer chic intended for the streets of Paris to Beijing.
But there are signs that is changing, that the global fashionistas
are giving up some ground to small distinctive designer houses.
The Age (Melbourne) 07/15/02
AESTHETIC
PROTECTION: Since the Oklahoma bombing and September 11, Washington
DC's official buildings and monuments have been ringed with ugly
barriers. "Walk the grounds of the Capitol and the Mall,
as I do every day, and you can only be depressed by the spectacle
of places once renowned for their beauty now ringed by fences
and barriers and police cars, not to mention the ubiquitous presence
of police officers, few of whom seem to have done any time in
charm school." A new report suggests more aesthetic protection
- we're in for the long haul. Washington
Post 07/15/02
Sunday
July 14
'TATE
MODERN OF THE NORTH' OPENS: "The doors of the new £46m
Baltic contemporary arts centre next to the River Tyne opened
to the public at one minute past midnight on Saturday. Five thousand
art enthusiasts queued for the opening of the gallery, dubbed
the "Tate Modern of the north", which is housed in an old flour
mill... The gallery aims to put the north east of England on the
art world's map after many years of London hogging the limelight
with big UK galleries." BBC 07/13/02
- VERY
PRETTY, BUT WHAT IS IT FOR? "Baltic has no permanent
collection of art. Nothing ancient or modern, nothing contemporary,
nothing famous or cherished or hated. This is one of its founding
principles. Another is its avowed to decision to go it alone
- no loaned sharks, no touring shows, nothing borrowed in any
quantity from London." A risky strategy, perhaps, but one
which the Baltic's directors hope will result in something more
than just another regional museum. The
Observer (UK) 07/14/02
THE
COLLECTOR'S EYE: Art collecting is a delicate process for
the investor who expects to see any return on his purchases. Artists
fall in and out of fashion faster than Oscar dresses, and a must-have
engraving in 1900 may be all but worthless a few decades later.
So what is the trick to finding value in something as undefinable
as art? It's a lot more complicated than "I know what I like,"
but one of Canada's top collectors seems to think that that's
not a bad place to start. The Globe
& Mail (Toronto) 07/13/02
MORE
FLAK FOR DOCUMENTA: This year's Documenta exhibit in Germany
has been catching a fair amount of heat for being elitist, silly,
and overly ambitious. Russell Smith is unsure of the worth of
a show that requires the viewer to spend an inordinate amount
of time reading dense academic explanations of obscure pieces.
"Explaining abstract concepts in everyday language is far
from a dumb activity; indeed it usually requires more intelligence
than speaking in code does. That code is usually more vague than
precise. It's the dialect that's a dumbing down." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 07/13/02
BRINGING
IT ALL HOME: China has spent a good amount of time over the
centuries being invaded, attacked, and plundered. One of the upshots
of such a beleagured history is that a great many Chinese art
pieces have been scattered to the winds, and have wound up, legitimately
or not, in museums and private collections far from home. A new
generation of collectors is attempting to repatriate many of the
artifacts, and in the process, is driving up the cost of Chinese
art worldwide. Philadelphia Inquirer
(Knight Ridder) 07/14/02
NEW
URBANISM AND THE BOSTON HIGH-RISE: New Urbanists are not really
all that fond of urban landscapes at all. They tend to prefer
small-scale construction to high-density city architecture, and
they generally can't stand high rises. So what was the Congress
for New Urbanism thinking when they gave an award to the gigantic
Ritz-Carlton Towers in Boston? "What the New Urbanists have
figured out is that a place such as the Ritz can be a city version
of the tightly clustered, mixed-use, humanly scaled world they
cherish." Boston Globe 07/14/02
LIBESKIND
SPEAKS: The architect of the new Jewish Museum in Berlin explains
his vision of what makes for good architecture in the modern world.
"Buildings provide spaces for living, but are also de facto
instruments, giving shape to the sound of the world. Music and
architecture are related not only by metaphor, but also through
concrete space." The Guardian
(UK) 07/13/02
Friday
July 12
MIA
EXPANSION UNVEILED: The Twin Cities are packed full of unusual-looking
museums, from the Walker Art Center to the Frank Gehry-designed
Weisman Museum. But the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts has
always been proud to be the museum that looks like a museum -
solemn, staid, majestic, and with plenty of columns. Architect
Michael Graves is in charge of MIA's upcoming expansion project,
and the plans were unveiled yesterday. "The 117,000-square-foot
addition will increase gallery space by 40 percent and add space
for offices, art restoration, storage and framemaking. Inside,
one of the most dramatic spaces will be a reception hall and a
skylit dome that recalls the museum's main rotunda. Three floors
of new galleries will ring the light well under the dome."
The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 07/12/02
LATINO
MUSEUM BACK ON TRACK: Being a niche museum is never easy,
especially when the rock-bottom economy is giving even the biggest
galleries fits. So it was something of a surprise this week to
hear that LA's beleagured Latino Museum of History, Art, and Culture
has managed to dig itself almost completely out of debt, and is
readying for a new beginning. The museum had been forced to close
in 2000, but reopened earlier this year. Los
Angeles Times 07/12/02
Thursday
July 11
RECORD
PRICE FOR A PAINTING: "A lost masterpiece by Rubens last
night became the most expensive picture ever sold, when a rare
books dealer paid £49.5 million to acquire it for a private
collector at a Sotheby's auction in London." The
Guardian (UK) 07/12/02
TOP
TEN COLLECTORS: ARTNews is out with its annual list of worldwide
art collectors. "In any given year, there are at least five
people spending at least $100 million a year on art." ARTNews
07/02
SUPERSIZE
IT: Hilton Kramer isn't impressed with the Museum of Modern
Art's new temporary home in Queens or with MoMA's expansion plans.
"It is with mixed feelings that we face this bigger MoMA
and the other overscale expansions now in the works for the Morgan
Library, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the High Museum in
Atlanta and, of course, the ever-expanding, ever-deflating Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum. The only thing we know for certain about
this mania for perpetual museum expansion is that it has everything
to do with money and ambition, and very little to do with the
life of art." New York Observer
07/11/02
Wednesday
July 10
FINDING
MICHELANGELO: New York's Cooper-Hewitt Museum has discovered
it owns a Michelangelo drawing. It was discovered in a box of
light fixture designs. "The drawing, purchased in 1942, was
one of five anonymous Italian Renaissance works for which the
museum paid a total of $60." Its current value is between
$10 million and $12 million, art dealers said.
Washington Post 07/09/02
MAKE
THEM STARS: How to build interest in historic buildings? How
about a TV game show? "The BBC2 series, Restoration,
is designed to interest viewers in historic treasures around the
country and raise money to save the winning entry. Viewers will
take part in regional heats over 10 weeks, voting for their favourite
endangered buildings. The winner will be restored from cash raised
by the programme." The Guardian
(UK) 07/09/02
ART
BY DESIGN: We depend do much on design for the modern museum
experience. Design can help clarify art, help give it a context,
help focus our attentions. But does design also overwhelm the
art we care about? London Evening
Standard 07/09/02
NEW
TAKE ON WAR: Manchester's new Imperial War Museum, designed
by Daniel Libeskind "opens a new chapter in the treatment
of war as a museum subject. Museums of war can make up for much
of the missing context. They allow us to see behind the headlines,
to read the full ghastly menu of war - the private notes of soldiers,
the mapped strategies of generals, the account sheets of civilian
casualties. The tone of such museums has to be handled with great
care, however: they can so easily become vehicles of vainglorious
nationalism or monuments to human despair." Financial
Times 07/08/02
Tuesday
July 9
MURAL
FIX: Fifty-one damaged outdoor murals in Los Angeles are awaiting
repairs. "Many of the most heavily damaged murals were commissioned
just before the 1984 Olympics by the Olympic Organizing Committee
and local corporations, with the support of Caltrans. Most of
the damage cited by the study was caused by vandalism, deterioration
and dirt accumulation." But the state has allocated enough
money - $1.7 million - to repair only about half the murals.
Los Angeles Times 07/08/02
ROYAL
ACADEMY MAY MAKE CUTS: London's Royal Academy is hurting for
money, what with corporate sponsorships and ticket sales down
since last fall. Now rumors that the RA may cut staff to save
money. "The academy, which was set up in 1768 by artists
for artists and counts David Hockney, Peter Blake and Norman Foster
among its members, has become a £20m a year business."
The Guardian (UK) 07/06/02
MOMA
- MISSING THE POINT? Critic Jed Perl doesn't think much of
the Museum of Modern Art's new temporary home in Queens. "In
recent years, the Museum of Modern Art has mostly seemed to be
aware of experimentation as a p.r. value. At MoMA QNS the gathering
of classics suggests a trophy perched on the edge of a dumpster.
And the arrangement of contemporary art feels like a twelve-step
program designed by somebody who is trying too hard to be hip."
The New Republic 07/08/02
Monday
July 8
NEW
ART EXAMINER DEAD? Is Chicago's New Art Examiner, the
city's only visual arts magazine going out of business? The magazine
is "said to be $150,000 in debt," and shut down operations
in May. It "canceled the July/August issue, laid off the
staff and closed the office. Just a year ago, at a cost of more
than $100,000, the Examiner was 're-launched' following another
financial crisis. The magazine has survived similar episodes in
the past, but never has ceased publishing." Artnet.com
07/05/02
THE
DIMMING LIGHT: Thomas Kinkade is the most-collected painter
in America. "More than 350 galleries in the US are dedicated
entirely to his work. The income from his painting last year was
more than $150 million." Kinkade has also opened a housing
subdivision based on his treacly paintings. But not all is going
well for the "Painter of Light." :Last year, the company
posted losses of $16.6 million, having turned in a profit of $16.2
million the year before. Shares that stood at $25.75 in 1998 are
now $3.66." The Guardian (UK)
07/08/02
SAVING
HAVANA: Havana's celebrated architecture is endangered. But
how to keep the city working while protecting heritage? Everyone
agrees its a city covered in a veil of nostalgia, of beautiful,
crumbling decadence. But weve always believed its
also necessary to reveal it as a functional city, not just a museum
piece. Theres no validity in creating a theme park. So we
desperately need to look for the balance. Newsweek
07/08/02
Sunday
July 7
DOCUMENTA
PIGEONHOLES ITSELF: The Documenta festival in Kassel, Germany,
may have hit a wall of its own creation with this year's ultra-political
edition. "It isn't the presence of a political agenda, though,
that is the problem with this installment of Documenta, which
has been mounted every four or five years since 1955 and, since
a landmark presentation in 1972, has earned a reputation as the
most significant international survey of contemporary art in the
world. It's the near absence of diversity that grates. Through
sheer numbers, Documenta insists that one kind of art--political
art--is most significant today." Los
Angeles Times 07/07/02
THE
JEWISH EYE: "To be a great photographer, Garry Winogrand
liked to claim during the 1970's, it was first of all necessary
to be Jewish... As generalizations go, Winogrand's semi-serious
barroom boast has a lot of evidence to back it up. In no other
visual art form except cinema over the last 100 years were Jews
such a shaping force. From first decade to last, in fine art,
reportage, portraiture, fashion and especially street photography,
a staggering number of influential figures have been Jewish."
The New York Times 07/07/02
IT'S
OUR BALL, AND WE'RE STAYING HOME: All around Europe, governments
have been grappling with the issue of how to protect national
artistic treasures obtained in times of war and pillage against
the legal assaults of families who, quite legitimately, feel that
the works belong to them. An exhibit of Czech works scheduled
to be shown in France has been called back by the Czech government
amid talk that a claim might be placed on the works by a French
family. Calgary Herald 07/06/02
PURGING
THE UGLY IN OHIO: "Kenyon is one of those small liberal
arts schools that have won reputations far out of proportion to
their size. Its curriculum draws applicants from around the country
and beyond, and outside the classroom it boasts successes ranging
from perennial champion swim teams to a highly regarded literary
magazine, the Kenyon Review. But from the time its first permanent
building was completed in 1829, Kenyon has taken almost as much
pride in the look of its campus as in the quality of its education.
The campus is mainly a collection of Gothic buildings, modeled
after European churches and colleges. So now there is a campaign
to cleanse it of architectural ugliness by tearing down buildings
that people here call 'sixties boxes' or 'unfortunate sixties
mistakes.'" The New York Times
07/06/02
Friday
July 5
SELLOUT:
Last month Italy passed a law that would allow the state to sell
off its assets to raise money. Does this include museums and architectural
heritage? The law's proponents say no. But there are nagging questions,
and a few unsavory loopholes... The
Art Newspaper 07/05/02
BLOOD
SCULPTURE MELTS? Did workers at collector Charles Saatchi's
house destroy an important frozen artwork by unplugging the freezer
in which it was stored? "Rumours spread after suggestions
that Saatchi had stored a blood sculpture made by Britart's enfant
terrible, Marc Quinn, among his frozen peas. The work, Self, consists
of Quinn's head cast in nine pints of his own frozen, congealed
blood." The Guardian (UK) 07/04/02
CITY
OF GLASS: Like many cities Tacoma is attempting downtown renewal
through the arts. The city has opened a new $48 million museum
dedicated to glass art. The Northwest is one of the centers of
glass art and Dale Chihuly is the hometown boy. Still - the museum
is hedging its glass bets by widening the museum's focus to include
other contemporary art. A crisis of confidence in the museum's
concept? Seattle Post-Intelligencer
07/05/02
- BUILDING
AS SCULPTURE: "With one grand gesture, architect Arthur
Erickson did the $48-million museum a tremendous favor by creating
an identifiable image, but he did an even larger service to
the community by providing an urban living room for the city."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/05/02
- Previously: TALE
OF TWO MUSEUMS: A new international museum dedicated to
glass art is opening in Tacoma Washington. The museum is a natural
for the area, but it's competing with a new art museum being
built just a block away. "Many in the arts community are
wondering how the two museums ended up in a neck-and-neck rivalry
for patronage and programming. Are they serving the best interests
of the public? And how will they avoid the kind of competitive
one-upmanship their opening exhibitions signal?" Seattle
Times 07/01/02
Thursday
July 4
WHAT
RIGHT'S RIGHT? Artist Rick Rush painted a picture of Tiger
Woods after he won the Masters. Woods sued, claiming that he had
not granted the rights for his image to be used. Now the case
has become a major test of where the rights of artistic expression
and celebrity licensing intersect, with major corporations, news
organizations and artists all weighing in. The
New York Times 07/04/02
DONOR
PULLBACK HURTS MOCA: Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art
is having its best year ever attendance-wise, with a popular Andy
Warhol show drawing in the crowds. But the museum is facing a
financial challenge after a donor who had pledged $10 million
notified that $6.9 million of the pledge might not be mae after
all due to a downturn in the donor's business. Los
Angeles Times 07/03/02
CRACKED
EGG: Norman Foster's new London City Hall is a huge glass
egg that screams importance. "In theory, this building, which
will be opened by the Queen on July 23, is the most important
to be erected in the capital since County Hall, former seat of
the London County Council and Greater London Council. Except that,
in this case, the building's message is sadly at odds with the
reality of what is going to go on within it." The
Telegraph (UK) 07/04/02
HARVARD'S
LOSS: James Cuno's departure as director of the Harvard Museums
to become director of the Courtauld Institute is "certainly
not glad tidings for Harvard, with its famously ambivalent attitude
toward art, especially of the contemporary sort that Cuno has
championed. There is fear now that the progress Cuno has made
will halt or even be reversed, that his agenda - including plans
for a new Renzo Piano -designed museum on the banks of the Charles
- will unravel." Boston Globe
07/03/02
Wednesday
July 3
TAKE
YOUR FIRST PRIZE AND... Last week Randwick, Australia's National
Institute of Dramatic Arts building won Australia's top architecture
award for public building. But the building's neighbors tell a
different story, accusing the project of "poor design, aesthetic
ignorance and political maneouvring. Randwick Council has denounced
the NIDA site on Anzac Parade, Kensington, as an 'utter disgrace',
claiming that the back of the building was causing problems for
thousands of local residents. The height of the building had also
created an overshadowing problem for residents whose backyards
adjoin the site." Sydney Morning
Herald 07/03/02
A
MOVE AT THE RIGHT TIME: The Museum of Modern Art's temporary
move out to Queens is more than a physical dislocation. "With
a long-serving chairman of the board stepping down, and two of
its curators gone to new jobs, this is a time of profound transition
for MoMA in every sense. One of the ironies of its move to Queens
is that it is there and in the borough of Brooklyn that the really
interesting new art in New York is being made and shown."
The Telegraph (UK) 07/03/02
NO
REPATRIATION HERE: "A Swiss art gallery will be allowed
to keep a Kandinsky painting looted by Nazis after reaching an
out-of-court settlement with the artist's family. The deal brings
to an end the long-running dispute between the Ernst Beyeler Foundation
and the heirs of Sophie Lissitzky-Kueppers over Wassily Kandinsky's
Improvisation Number 10." BBC
07/03/02
HARD
TO LIKE, EASY TO ADMIRE: Lucien Freud is currently being celebrated
at the Tate. "I find Freud's work hard to like and almost
impossible not to admire. It constitutes a superb performance
in a socially charged role. What this has to do with its artistic
qualities is a question tangential to his prestige in England
and among Anglophiles everywhere. One feels rather like a spoilsportor
an American, if that's not the same thingfor bringing it
up." The New Yorker 07/01/02
- ESTABLISHMENT
WOG? "Lucian Freud, a seemingly misanthropic senior
citizen who paints unflattering portraits of a chosen few in
all their lumpy and lardy nakedness, has been proclaimed by
the papers - again - as our 'greatest living painter'."
But is his position in today's establishment better secured
than his place in history? New Statesman
07/01/02
LACKING
VISION IN TORONTO? The design for Toronto's new opera house
is in, and musicians ought to love it. With the spectre of the
acoustically miserable Roy Thompson Hall hanging over the city's
music scene, architect Jack Diamond has taken great pains to insure
a quality sound mix inside the new facility. But architecture
critics claim that Diamond has sacrificed form to function, presenting
a design that may be musically compelling, but lacks architectural
focus. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 07/03/02
Tuesday
July 2
THE
RISE OF ZAHA HADID: Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid suddenly has
some very big projects coming online. Like a megaproject in Singapore
named "one-north - the city lies one degree north of the
equator - the vast 200-hectare site will be home to a massive
science and technology quarter. Costed at £14 billion, the
masterplan will change the face of Singapore, and represents the
boldest bid ever made by the sparkling city to plan for the future,
to outsmart the awakening dragon of China." Financial
Times 07/02/02
HOME-WRECKERS:
Some 1,700 historic English country houses were destroyed during
the 20th Century, a shameful carnage visited upon the nation's
heritage. "The 1950s and 1960s were black decades for the
country house. Just under 300 houses are recorded as lost during
the 1950s, although the total is certainly higher; and the 1960s
tells a similar sorry tale. Fire was frequently the cause, but
demolition and deliberate abandonment, often by long-established
families, was another reason for their demise." The
Times (UK) 07/02/02
WINKING
AT THE TAX MAN: Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski is being investigated
for tax evasion on purchases of art he bought but for which he
didn't pay sales tax, claiming that the work was being shipped
out of New York. What gave him away? "Investigators had obtained
a fax which listed some of the paintings that were being shipped
to New Hampshire with the words 'wink wink' in parentheses, indicating
that the objects were not going to New Hampshire but were instead
going to Mr Kozlowskis New York address." The
Art Newspaper 06/30/02
Monday
July 1
THE
NEED TO BE #1: Why is New York's Museum of Modern Art going
through the pain of relocation and rebuilding itself? "For
most of the 20th century, MOMA was the most energetic and ambitious
museum around, and was rewarded with many of the best Cezannes,
Picassos and Pollocks. Now, the ample spaces of Tate Modern make
a powerful pitch for their contemporary equivalents. The new Moma
will counter this, by offering its finest and most prominent floor
to contemporary art." London
Evening Standard 06/28/02
TALE
OF TWO MUSEUMS: A new international museum dedicated to glass
art is opening in Tacoma Washington. The museum is a natural for
the area, but it's competing with a new art museum being built
just a block away. "Many in the arts community are wondering
how the two museums ended up in a neck-and-neck rivalry for patronage
and programming. Are they serving the best interests of the public?
And how will they avoid the kind of competitive one-upmanship
their opening exhibitions signal?" Seattle
Times 07/01/02
WHERE
WE LIVE: "Given that most of the world's population lives
in cities, we do need to understand the lure and the ways, good
and bad, of cities. Most academic studies are inaccessible to
the majority of people. Not only is the subject huge, but the
language used is all too often as dusty as a summer street in
central Cairo. Television has yet to help." So how about
a new museum? The Guardian (UK) 07/01/02
OUT
OF AFRICA: Where was the first art made? Archaeologists have
long thought it was Europe. But a South African archaeologist
is "challenging the theory that artistic culture first developed
in Europe about 35,000 years ago, after people had migrated out
of Africa. He has dug up evidence which, he claims, shows that
such behaviour evolved over 70,000 years agoand in Africa."
The Economist 06/28/02
ART
OF SAFE INVESTMENT: Recent London art sales suggest that investors
may be turning to art as a stable investment as the stock market
sinks lower. The Telegraph (UK) 07/01/02
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