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Thursday
August 31
-
RAISING
MONEY FOR POLITICS: Seventy American artists including Chuck
Close, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein have donated
artwork to raise money for the Democratic National Committee.
Some 1,500 works will be put up for sale on a web art auction.
CNN.com 08/30/00
-
DEALING
WITH THE LAW: Crispo, a Manhattan art dealer who was "acquitted
in a 1980s sex-torture case was sentenced to seven years in
prison on Wednesday for threatening to kidnap a lawyer's daughter
in an attempt to get money from a bankruptcy trustee."
Yahoo!
(Reuters) 08/30/00
-
FRINGE
BENEFITS: As part of his job Thomas Foley, U.S. ambassador
to Japan, gets a mansion to live in, a driver, full in-house
staff...and his own private art collection. A beneficiary of
JFK's 1964 "Art in Embassies Program," Foley is particularly
fond of American Abstract Expressionist paintings...as you can
tell by looking at his website.
Japan Times 08/31/00
-
ODE
TO DANTO: Arthur Danto is a prominent philosopher as well
as art critic for The Nation. "Philosophers, at least in
theory, are seekers after truth. Truth, the poet says, is beauty.
Thus it makes perfect sense that Danto, who philosophizes by
day, should moonlight as one of America's best-known art critics."
Boston
Globe 08/31/00
-
ASSEMBLY-LINE
KITSCH: Who are these "artists" who paint the
"genuine oil paintings" for $29.95, and why do they
have to be so bad? "The pedestrian banality, if not downright
kitsch, of these offerings is as numbing as a TV sitcom or Norman
Rockwell Christmas card. Seagulls, sand dunes, beached rowboats,
heeling sailboats, wooden pilings, twinkly lighthouses and ineptly
drawn old-time sailing ships parade endlessly by as evocatively
as place mat decorations."
Chicago Tribune 08/31/00
-
BSTRACT
EXPRESSIONIST MOVIE: Jackson Pollock movie to debut at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
Variety 08/31/00
Wednesday
August 30
-
TANKS
AND BOMBS AND PLANES, OH MY: "Britain's art world is
shaking its head over an unknown British artist who spent a
decade chronicling the Gulf War. The artist is about to sell
his entire output to a Saudi Arabian prince for £17million."
Glasgow Herald 08/30/00
-
DECLARING
YOUR SYMPATHIES: Under pressure, Austrian state governor
Jorg Haider is having Nazi artwork removed from the state parliament
buildings. But instead of painting over the fresco, he's having
a new museum built for it so it can be restored to its former
glory.
Ananova 08/30/00
-
PAYING
FOR MUSEUM ART: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's new
Eames show has raised charges of conflict-of-interest. The show
is sponsored by makers of some of the Eames furniture in the
show. LACMA's gift shop also sells copies of some of the furniture
in the show. "If the museum has a problem funding the Eames
exhibition without the sponsorship of the company that makes
the furniture, they oughtn't to do the show. The conflict of
interest is too blatant."
Los Angles Times 08/30/00
-
FILMING
FRIDA KAHLO: "No Mexican cultural figure has ever been
as sought after by Hollywood. For years, filmmakers here have
tried to make a movie based on Kahlo's gripping and tragic life
story, but they have found their projects derailed by bickering
parties, mediocre scripts, lack of financing and controversy
about casting decisions.The latest chapter in the making-of-the-Frida-Kahlo-movie
saga is the fierce competition between three bio-pics rushing
to be the first in production. They involve some of the biggest
Latino names in filmmaking."
Los
Angeles Times 08/30/00
-
ART
BEHIND THE POLITICS: News
stories are almost never about the art itself; they're almost
always about the people that make art happen, or try to take
it down. That's why I had my doubts about the artistic interest
of the stuff I was likely to see in Dust on the Road, the show
of Indian art activism now on at Toronto's York Quay Gallery;
despite its very modest scale and ambitions, it has sparked
a widespread controversy over the last few weeks. Many of the
pictures on display were no great shakes, but the issues that
they raised are so important to how art works these days that
the stuff is worth a good close look."
Globe and Mail (Toronto) 08/30/00
Tuesday
August 29
-
THE
MET LOOKS EAST: Once a bastion of exclusively Western
art, New York's Metropolitan Museum now has more than 50 permanent
galleries devoted to the largest and most comprehensive collection
of Asian art under one roof. Wen C. Fong, who headed the museum’s
Asian art department from 1970 until his retirement this summer,
is largely responsible for the transformation. New
York Times 08/29/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
-
RESHUFFLING
THE DECK:
The Museum of Modern Art has been the arbiter of all things
modern since it opened in 1929, and has always championed a
linear view of art history as the evolution of one “ism” after
another. The museum is currently re-hanging its permanent collection
by theme rather than era. “The assumption behind MOMA's reshuffle,
like the Tate's, appears to be that to continue creating, we
have to free ourselves from a burdensome history. Picasso has
to be put in his place.”
The
Guardian (London) 08/29/00
-
THE
PLUNDERING OF ZEUGMA: Turkish mosaics have been ripped from
their sites and sold internationally. Does anyone care? "The
excavations uncovered a Roman villa. The news was published.
The mosaic was to stay in situ and locked up. Six years
went by. One night, thieves came, cut out two-thirds of the
mosaic and made off with it. Interpol has been searching the
entire world for it since 1998."
Artnet.com 08/29/00
-
STONE
COLD: The British Museum and English Heritage continue hassling
over the Case of the Wrong Stone, laid for a new portico for
the museum. They also "resist any suggestions that the
entire structure could be condemned, although Camden council
has not ruled out this possibility." Instead the stone
could be "color-washed" to make it blend with the
surrounding stone.
London Evening Standard 08/29/00
-
UK
REGIONAL MUSEUMS IN CRISIS: "Hundreds of museums could
close without investment from the government and the local authorities
that are largely responsible for regional collections. Funding
from central government to the museum service has fallen by
15% in real terms since 1997, and hundreds of museums around
the country are sacking staff, cutting opening hours and seeing
treasures kept in inadequate storage crumble because of a lack
of funding."
The Guardian 08/29/00
-
REPORTS
OF MY DEATH... "The skyscraper is back, and little
wonder. Big egos like big buildings. Megalomaniac real estate
developers do not believe that 'less is more.' Skyscrapers provide
instant status symbols for emerging economies. Besides, there's
nothing like a little face-to-face contact to make the wheels
of capitalism turn smoothly."
Chicago Tribune 08/29/00
-
ART
OF SELLING: Legendary dealer Richard Feigen has written
a dealer tell-all about the art business. He "promises
tales about 'the painters, the museums, the curators, the collectors,
the auctions, the art.' That's a tall order, too tall even for
a well informed insider. And it's far too ambitious for an author
who rambles, who digresses, and who loves to preach rip-snorting
sermons on too many topics."
The Idler 08/29/00
Monday
August 28
-
WHEN
SHOCK BECOMES SHLOCK: Shock, disgust, and horror are common
themes at the heart of numerous contemporary artists’ work.
Relying on the grotesque to shake viewers from the complacency
of modern life’s distractions and luxuries may be an honorable
goal, but is it succeeding? “Disgust is a drug whose effects
quickly abate with overdosing. If art aspires to disgust and
nothing more, then disgust will rapidly become the pallid salon
style of the day - and that is exactly what has happened. Disgusting
is now simply what art is; it has lost its shock value."
Sunday
Times (London) 08/27/00
-
DOUBLES
ANYONE? Chicago's Mayor Daley and the Chicago Sun-Times
are feuding. Not about taxes or police or misdeeds. It's about
ping-pong tables. This summer, in a follow-up to last summer's
art cows, the city has placed ping pong tables through downtown.
The newspaper called the project a flop and the mayor's fuming;
the city ordered the table in front of the Sun-Times building
removed.
Chicago Sun-Times 08/26/00
-
THE
ART OF NOT
KNOWING: An interview with American art legend Robert Rauschenberg
who, at age 74, is still creating, improvising, and expounding
freely on “the way a serendipitist works.” “For me, art shouldn't
be a fixed idea that I have before I start making it. I want
it to include all the fragility and doubt that I go through
the day with. Sometimes I'll take a walk just to forget whatever
good idea I had that day because I like to go into the studio
not having any ideas. I want the insecurity of not knowing.”
New
York Times 08/27/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
Saturday
August 26
-
BUILDING
STARS: In the 80s architects and the buildings they created
were reviled in Britain. But a whole new generation of buildings
has made building the hot visual art of the moment. "Architecture
is a profession that matures late, and there are innumerable
young practices with potential. What follows are five to watch
out for, architects who have already demonstrated their potential
but have yet to achieve their best work. If they are not clearly
established as household names by the end of the decade, then
the fault will lie not in their own talents, but in Britain's
traditional failure of will when it comes to commissioning young
architects."
The Telegraph (London) 08/26/00
-
SHOCK
OF THE NEW: What is it about being shocked that artists
and viewers find so...invigorating? "Notoriously, ever
since the dawn of Impressionism, modern art has delivered the
shock of the new. Whether you find it a bracing blast of novelty
or a dastardly attack on everything sacred is partly a matter
of temperament - and taste."
The
Telegraph (London) 08/26/00
Friday
August 25
-
MATERIALS
ARE EVERYTHING: Wednesday, the British Museum revealed it
had been "duped" by a stonemason who had used cheaper
stone than had been agreed upon for a new $97 million portico
under construction at the British Museum. But evidently the
switch was discovered a year ago and workers were allowed to
continue. Now everyone is "aghast" at the mismatch
in stone color as the scaffolding is being removed. The
Guardian 08/25/00
- NOW
FUNDING WOES: Britain's Lottery, which is helping to fund
the new British Museum portico to the tune of £15.75 million,
said it will withhold £2 million because the right stone was
not used. London
Evening Standard 08/25/00
-
NATIONAL
GALLERY CANCELS SHOWS: The National Gallery of Canada has
canceled two big shows planned for next year. The reason? Money.
"The deficit for the 1998-99 fiscal year was $5.4 million,
almost half of which can be attributed to a drop in funds from
Parliament. Gallery officials earlier this year had predicted
the 1999-2000 fiscal year deficit would be lower, but the figures
have yet to be made public." And to make it worse, the
current "blockbuster" impressionist show only brought
in 74 percent of expected attendance.
Ottawa
Citizen 08/25/00
-
ART
SCHOOL TO SUE VENICE BIENNALE: China's Sichuan Academy of
Fine Art - one of China’s three major art schools - says it
intends to sue the Venice Biennale, curator Harald Szeeman,
and artist Cai Guo Qiang, who won the Biennale's 1999 International
Prize, for violation of copyright. "Behind the suit are
a group of elderly propaganda artists enraged at Cai’s appropriation
of their work" in Cai Guo Qiang's “Venice Rent Collector’s
Courtyard.”
The Art Newspaper 08/25/00
-
MY
RICH UNCLE IN MANHATTAN: British cultural institutions are
increasingly looking to donors in the US for funding. "London’s
Royal Academy was the first to break ground in the US in 1983.
Since then they have received close to $32 million in donations.
The Tate has followed, formally opening an office in Manhattan
last September. The fact that their parent bodies are 3,000
miles away seems no impediment to raising millions of dollars
in record time."
The Art Newspaper 08/25/00
-
FINDING
THE NEXT STARS: Who are the next YBA's? That is to say -
who are the next British art phenomena? "This year, the
biggest buzz was at the Royal College of Art's fine art MA show.
Several of the painting students have since received studio
visits from White Cube representatives, with many other galleries
– from Beaux Arts to Percy Miller and Nylon – expressing interest
in taking on certain artists."
The
Independent (London) 08/25/00
-
DAMAGES
FROM RESTORATION: Scientists tell the annual meeting of
the American Chemical Society that "collectors and curators
have been unknowingly using risky techniques that cause the
polymers forming their paints to fall apart. Poor preservation
techniques, including the cleaning of paintings using harsh
chemicals, could soften and deform the paint."
Ananova 08/24/00
-
ROOM
FOR EXPRESSION: The director of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary
Art defends contemporary art: "It seems to have escaped
the attention of many media commentators in Australia that contemporary
art is in fact a very wide discipline. There is no longer one
school or type of art that prevails. Contemporary artists continue
to make interesting work with traditional media while at the
same time embracing new forms of artistic expression."
Sydney Morning Herald 08/25/00
Thursday
August 24
-
ARTIST
SUED OVER WOODS TRADEMARK: An Alabama artist painted a picture
of golfer Tiger Woods winning the 1997 Master's tournament.
Woods sued the artist claiming violation of trademark. Though
a Cleveland judge threw out the case, Woods has appealed and
new organizations "believe that if Woods' appeal is successful,
it would increase the potential for publicity rights laws to
extend into the newsgathering process." USA
Today (AP) 08/24/00
-
BRITISH
MUSEUM SCAMMED: The British Museum was scammed by a stonemasonry
company that substituted a cheap stone for the stone it had
offered as a sample for building a portico for the museum. The
company "mixed samples of Portland stone with a cheaper
French limestone to get approval - and then secretly went ahead
with building in the French stone. The result has appalled experts.
The portico is dazzling white and stands out from the Portland
stone that surrounds it. 'We were mugged,' said the museum's
managing director Suzanna Taverne."
London Evening Standard 08/24/00
Wednesday
August 23
-
WORKING
OUT THE BUGS: Last week it was revealed that the National
Gallery of Australia had known about the presence of bugs that
cause Legionaire's disease for at least five years. Further
investigation shows the gallery's director sent a letter of
concern about the bug problem just days before a high-profile
Matisse exhibition - and managed to keep her letter out of the
official registry and away from the press. Sydney
Morning Herald 08/23/00
-
HISTORY
OF UNREST: A number of prominent artists have come out in
support of striking workers in the four-month-long strike at
the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA director Glenn Lowry had similar
troubles at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, where he
was director from 1990 to 1994. "During that time, labour
unrest roiled the gallery as Lowry oversaw enormous cutbacks
in the budget. After the provincial government slashed funding
in 1992, Lowry laid off half the staff of 450 and extended a
planned three-month closing for renovations by an additional
four months. Many felt the gallery suffered afterward from his
extreme approach."
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 08/23/00
-
TRIPLE
CELEBRATION: This year is the 200th anniversary of Amsterdam's
Rijksmuseum, opened as the Nationale Konst-Galllerij in 1800.
"Since the emphasis of the museum's collections has always
been on the art of the Dutch Golden Age, what more appropriate
than a giant show to mark the millennium, the bicentenary, and
the initiation of a major structural overhaul for the fabric
of the museum itself?"
The Times (London) 08/23/00
-
HIRST
UNDER GLASS: Damien Hirst has
pickled cows to sharks. So what's the subject of his latest artwork?
"In a piece titled "Contemplating a Self Portrait
(as a Pharmacist)", Hirst has taken the trappings of the
figurative painter; easel, canvas, smock, palette, brushes and
tubes of oil paint, and encased them in a series of glass boxes."
The Guardian (London) 08/23/00
Tuesday
August 22
-
TOOLS
OF THE TRADE: A growing number of artists are incorporating
scientific techniques into their work - everything from X-rays
and MRIs to anatomical drawings and bacterial cultures. “Reductive
science collects more data than we can perceive. We need new
ways of looking at the world around us. This is essentially
what artists do.” ABC
News 08/21/00
-
MARKING
TIME: It's looking like a large new monument marking World
War II will be built on the the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington DC. "Tearing down part of an existing, widely
beloved national memorial and building a new one on the ashes
of the old raises an obvious question. What does this project
mean for the future of historic preservation in our nation's
capital?"
Los Angeles Times 08/22/00
Monday
August 21
Sunday
August 20
-
REDEVELOPING
THROUGH ART: North Adams, Massachusetts is a small town
far away from major population, and who would think a contemporary
art center would make it? But "by most measures, MASS MoCA's
inaugural year was a smashing success. More than 100,000 people
visited its galleries. Another 25,000 turned out for performances,
movies, or community dances and parties in the sprawling 27-building
complex that once housed the Sprague Electric Factory. High-tech
start-ups that set up shop on the site grew so quickly and spawned
enough like-minded local enterprise that The Wall Street Journal
last fall touted North Adams - a town that didn't have touch-tone
telephone service until 1990 - as a silicon village.''
Boston Globe 08/20/00
-
HOME
AWAY FROM... "There was a time when hotels did all
they could to persuade us we hadn't left home. Now they do all
they can to show us how different they are from home and, paradoxically,
the effect is to go on making everywhere look the same."
The Observer (London) 08/20/00
-
WIRED
ART: With artists, galleries and museums exploring
possibilities of the internet, there is a scramble to redefine
who has the power and where the audiences are for art on the
web.
Sunday Times (London) 08/20/00
-
LUCIEN
FREUD REPAINTS CEZANNE: "In some ways, Freud's new
painting is very close to his Cézanne, in other ways entirely
different. For one thing, the Cézanne is tiny, just over 11
inches by 15, while the Freud is huge, with figures approaching
life-size -so big, in fact, that it had to leave Freud's studio
by the skylight. And, while the Cézanne is a standard rectangular
shape, at an early stage Freud's grew an extension at the top
left that contains the upper part of the maidservant."
The
Telegraph (London) 08/20/00
-
RAIL
ART: "Since it began 29 years ago, Artrain USA, one
of the oldest of an increasing number of museums on wheels,
has brought original artworks by Picasso and Warhol, Calder
and O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell and Robert Rauschenberg, to more
than 600 towns and cities in 44 states. It has gone to big cities
like Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Washington, but more
often its destination isn't even a whistle stop anymore - places
like Zeeland, Mich.; Plant City, Fla., and Parkers Prairie,
Minn."
New York Times 08/20/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
Friday
August 18
-
RETURN
TO SENDER: "Britain may have lost its former colonial
territories, but its national museums still hold vast cultural
treasures; the surviving legacy of hundreds of years of empire.
These museums are now becoming increasingly out of step with
museums around the world which have been handing back material
over which there have been claims. Indeed the Australian Museum
has been a leader in the field for more than 20 years, having
returned significant items to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and
the Solomon Islands."
Sydney Morning Herald 08/18/00
-
AFGHAN
MUSEUM REOPENS: Though many of its treasures have been looted,
the National Museum of Afghanistan has reopened after a decade
of being closed during the civil war.
BBC 08/18/00
-
OUT
DAMN BUGS: The National Gallery of Australia has bugs -
of the kind that cause Legionaire's disease and are potentially
very dangerous. The museum has apparently known about the problem
for five years, according to documents.
Sydney
Morning Herald 08/18/00
-
TOKYO
ART CENTER: "Mori Building is starting a ¥270bn
($2.5bn) development in the Roppongi area of Tokyo, which aims
to transform the district, best known as a sleazy centre for
international night life, into a cultural metropolis by 2003.
And the crowning piece of this project, which will cover 27
acres and feature hotels, offices, homes and shops, will be
the Mori Art Center - on the top five floors of a 54-storey
skyscraper. It promises to be one of the most lavish and ambitious
art spaces that Tokyo has ever seen."
Financial Times 08/18/00
Thursday
August 17
-
MOMA
MATTERS: Artists Robert Rauschenberg
and Art Spiegelman, filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese
and performers Laurie Anderson and David Byrne have spoken out
in support of striking employees at the Museum of Modern Art.
The first strike in 27 years by museum employees -- including
archivists, conservators, curators, librarians and other professionals
is now in its seventh month.
New Jersey Online (AP) 08/16/00
-
TOOLS
IS TOOLS: David Hockney charges that Constable painted his
remarkable skies with the aid of mechanical device. As if this
is a scandal. So what? Artists have always used tools to help
them with their work.
The Guardian 08/17/00
-
HAVE
MONEY WILL TRAVEL: The Phillips Collection will "lend
26 major paintings and sculptures from its collection for a
six-month show at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, the hotel's
state-of-the-art gallery built by former owner and famed art
collector Steve Wynn. Billed as "Masterworks From the Phillips
Collection at Bellagio," the show will include major works
by Monet, Degas, Bonnard, van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso
and El Greco." Why do it? The museum hopes to collect $1
million from the deal.
Washington Post 08/17/00
-
THE
MEANING OF ART: "With a typically enigmatic installation
that won high honors at the most recent Venice Biennale, the
expatriate Conceptual artist Cai Guo-Qiang has unexpectedly
achieved every artist's dream: he has provoked a debate, long
overdue, in his officially stifled native country about the
meaning of art, originality and the avant-garde."
New
York Times 08/17/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
-
THE
ALLURE OF THE MUNDANE: Britart/"Sensation"
photographer Richard Billingham has had a rapid rise to fame;
one minute he was taking pictures of his speed-addled brother
playing video games and his mum smoking fags - the next
minute, his work was being collected by Saatchi, Rockefeller
and New York's Metropolitan Museum. He and his family are a
bit bemused: "has no one seen a dog licking the floor before?"
The Irish Times 08/17/00
-
BALANCE
OF TRADE: "Britain runs a massive national trade surplus
in architecture. Our architects can be proud of the European
symbols they have created – the Pompidou Centre by Richard Rogers,
the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and the Reichstag dome, both
by Norman Foster, the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart by James Stirling
and the new Berlin embassy by his former partner Michael Wilford.
But the corollary has been a creativity deficit here which is
only now beginning to be cut." The
Independent (London) 08/13/00
Wednesday
August 16
-
VISUAL
AID: David Hockney believes that Constable's amazing sky
pictures were accomplished with the aid of optical devices.
"Meteorologists look at skies in a different way to most
people. They study clouds professionally. They say that only
Constable got them right.''
National Post (Telegraph) 08/16/00
-
STOPPED
TRAFFIC:
Israeli port officials in Haifa intercepted a crate bound for
the U.S. that was filled with valuable artifacts (ranging from
3000 BC–1000 AD) looted from Israeli archeological sites and
believed to be headed for sale on the international antiquities
black market. Times
of India (AP) 08/16/00
-
HOUSE
ORGAN? Bernard Arnault has bought Art & Auction Magazine.
"The tricky part comes when you notice that Art & Auction
- whose audience is a small but influential cabal of art sellers
and buyers - has suddenly become a corporate sibling of Phillips,
the world's third-largest art auctioneer. Meanwhile, Christie's
auction house is owned by Arnault's archrival, Pinault Printemps
Redoute.
Inside.com 08/16/00
-
NO
ONE CALLED IT “ROADKILL” AT THE TATE: She may be unknown
by name, but taxidermist Emily Mayer’s work is already wildly
famous - she made the severed cow's head and stuffed bear for
Damien Hirst's hits. Now she’s setting out to make a career
as a sculptor - but, to the shock of many, her medium’s still
the same. “A lot of the animals I work with come from road-kill.
I'll be driving along when I suddenly see something and slam
on my brakes.” London
Times 08/16/00
-
MONUMENT
TO BAD TASTE: Small towns in Canada - mostly on the prairies,
have erected giant statues to all sorts of things: "giant
deer antlers, a giant turtle, a giant mushroom, giant wheat
sheaves, a giant space ship like Star Trek's USS Enterprise
at a town called Vulcan, and the giant Happy Rock - a slab of
rock with a happy face painted on it." There are about
220 of them across the country. "It's an embarrassment
to some of the communities, but at the same time it attracts
attention." Chicago
Tribune (Reuters) 08/16/00
Tuesday
August 15
-
THE
ART OF EXPANSION: On the heels of the Guggenheim’s smash
success in Bilbao, cities all over the world are clamoring for
a Guggenheim of their own. “No less than six cities in Italy
have applied to build Guggenheim museums. There are bids in
from South Africa and Australia too, but the next is almost
certain to go to a city in Latin America.” Not to mention an
$800 million Soho museum targeted to open in 2006. London
Times 08/15/00
-
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
LAND MINES: For the last 18 years, one of Israel's
top archaeologists has been digging at Mt. Gerizim, home of
the world’s small remaining Samaritan community, on the West
Bank. Amongst his many discoveries, the archeologist has unearthed
the fact that "if digging in Israel is like working in
a thorn field of political and religious sensitivities, archaeology
in the territories is thornier yet." The
Jerusalem Report 08/14/00
-
DESIGN
DEBACLES: Since relocating to Berlin a year ago, the German
government has planned several major cultural projects commemorating
the Holocaust and Germany's lost Jews. But most of the them
are plagued by delays and red tape. “As things stand, the so-called
triangle of major new Jewish projects form a bizarre picture:
a building without an exhibition (the Jewish Museum), an exhibition
without a building (the Topography of Terror site at the former
SS headquarters) and an embarrassingly vacant central lot (the
numbingly debated Holocaust Memorial).” New
York Times 08/15/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
-
UNTANGLING
IDEOLOGY: An interview with Iranian artist Shirin Neshat,
whose popular “Women of Allah” photo
series and video installations subvert stereotypes of Muslim
women. “There's the stereotype about the women - they're all
victims and submissive - and they're not. Slowly I subvert that
image by showing in the most subtle and candid way how strong
these women are.” Time
(Europe) 08/14/00
-
THE
SYDNEY SYNDROME: Architect Kazuyo Sejima was under
the impression that she had been selected to design a new building
for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney; while the city
became subsumed with Olympics-frenzy and the MCA battled for
funding, Sejima has been left wondering if she has the job.
Has the MCA blown their chance with her? Sydney
Morning Herald 08/15/00
Monday
August 14
-
AUSTRALIAN
ART PRICES SOAR: Australian art collectors are driving up
demand for contemporary art. A new record was set this weekend
for the highest price paid for a contemporary Australian painting
at Christie's inaugural contemporary Australian art auction
in Sydney. The
Australian 08/14/00
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BUILDINGS
AND BODIES: The Zandra Rhodes Museum of Fashion, designed
by architect Richard Legorreta, is slated to open in South London
in 2002. The museum will address why “architecture and fashion
move remarkably closely together at some points in history.
The connections are intriguing, for buildings are in many ways
a representation of ourselves, our bodies and the ways in which
we clothe ourselves. We build facades for ourselves, not just
for our buildings." The
Guardian (London) 08/14/00
Sunday
August 13
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ART
FAKERY: A senior Vatican official is being investigated
for "allegedly selling works of art with fake Vatican-stamped
certificates representing them as masterpieces by artists such
as Michelangelo."
The Times (London) 08/12/00
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NET
EFFECT: The internet is revolutionizing the way museums
do business. "We're seeing a revolution, really. Museums
are having to completely redefine who they are as well as who
are their audiences."
Chicago Tribune 08/13/00
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TERM
OF THE MOMENT: What exactly does "contemporary"
art mean? "Look at what happened to Modern art, which today
is considered to have begun as far back as the mid-19th Century.
At first the term described the art of its day, but since then
the term has been assigned to a certain historical period. Could
the category of contemporary art be used one day to classify
art of the second half of the 20th Century? What then - the
ghastly 'post-contemporary'?"
Chicago Tribune 08/13/00
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UNTANGLING
THE BOARD: Fort Worth's Kimbell Museum has been damaged
with revelations that two members of its board of directors
take a combined salary of $1.5 million per year. "I
just hope this doesn't set a precedent, because if highly qualified
people will only serve on nonprofit boards if they are paid
then it changes the American system of governance for nonprofits
and impacts it negatively."
Dallas
Morning News 08/13/00
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TOFFING
UP THE V&A: Is London's Victoria and Albert Museum in
trouble? "Ever since Elizabeth Esteve-Coll offered us that
memorable marketing pitch of 'An ace caff with quite a nice
museum attached' - and told us via the BBC World Service that
the problem with her museum was that it dealt in historical
artefacts - we have been left with the impression that, for
the powers-that-be at the V&A the contents of this
great, amorphous, impossible, wonderful institution are, somehow,
faintly embarrassing."
London Evening Standard 08/13/00
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CITYSCAPE:
"Shaping a city is typically a matter of striking a balance
between competing priorities - cars versus people on foot, privately
owned buildings versus public space. And so it is just east
of Lake Shore Drive, where the Adler Planetarium finished a
major expansion last year, the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium
have big additions of their own in the works, and the Chicago
Bears want to renovate Soldier Field, which sits just south
of the campus."
Chicago Tribune 08/13/00
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LEAVING
THE GETTY: Getty Museum director John Walsh says goodbye
after 17 years. "Walsh arrived a year after the Getty Trust
received its fortune. As the endowment has grown from $1.2 billion
to $5 billion, the Getty Museum has not only spent huge sums
on its collections, but also beefed up educational programs,
developed what Walsh says is now the best publishing program
of any museum in the world and built the new facility at the
Getty Center."
Los Angeles Times 08/13/00
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SELLING
CONTEMPORARY ART: A year ago the Huntington Beach Art Center
was a mess - fiscally as well as creatively. After closing for
a breather, the center is back - sort of. What does it take
to pitch contemporary art today?
Orange County Register 08/13/00
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IN
SEARCH OF FAKES: Van Gogh is wildly popular these days,
but what about the fakes? "Serious research is still
at a fairly young age, and early research was colored too much
with the myth of the mad genius."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 08/13/00
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ACCESSIBILITY
AFOOT? "Conceptual art, performance art and hard abstraction
still often dominate the art magazines. But in New York, there
is a feast of representational art this summer. I decided to
check it out to see if there was anything in these exhibits
that would give me a clue as to what is afoot."
Washington
Post 08/13/00
Friday
August 11
-
SON
OF SENSATION: The Royal Academy is about to open another
show aiming to shock. "Three years after 'Sensation!',
the 1997 show that prompted the resignation of three Royal Academicians,
the show is equally defiant in the face of political correctness.
Exhibits include Jake and Dinos Chapman’s nine-part, swastika-shaped
sculpture containing 10,000 figures and Maurizio Cattelan’s
Pope John Paul II crushed by a meteorite."
The Art Newspaper 08/11/00
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GOING
ONCE, GOING TWICE… Australia’s art market is thriving to
such a degree that auction houses are trying to meet demand
for new work by repeatedly reselling a handful of top-rated
works. A 19th-century landscape that sold for $550,000
in November is expected to fetch more than $1 million at auction
on Monday. Sydney
Morning Herald 08/11/00
-
FINDING
A WAY: Blind woman finds new career as a painter. "She
uses a technique she describes as mental mapping to work her
way around a canvas, by dividing it up into quadrants. And how
does she find the right colours? In water colours, I used to
differentiate between colours by dipping my fingers in it."
BBC 08/11/00
-
THAT
SINKING FEELING: When the Renzo Piano-designed Osaka airport
- based on the wings of a glider - opened in 1994, it was hailed
as a marvel of architectural and technological achievement.
"Due to the extreme constrictions of space in Japan, the
airport was built on a 1.7 kilometre long, man-made island of
mud, rock and sand which has since descended eleven metres into
Osaka Bay." What to do?
The
Art Newspaper 08/11/00
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18,000
MANUSCRIPTS, BOOKS, AND MUSIC COMPOSITIONS stolen by Russia’s
Red Army after World War II and since kept in Armenia’s Academy
of Sciences were returned to Germany this week. Armenia first
returned war booty to Germany in 1998 with a huge shipment of
antiques. Germany’s culture minister is confident the remaining
artifacts will be returned shortly.
Russia
Today (Reuters) 08/10/00
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GUILTY
UNTIL... An artist is arrested after a photo processing
store calls the police because the photos are of the artist's
naked children. "I felt they had decided I was guilty and
treated me as such right up to the day when charges were dropped."
The Times (London) 08/10/00
Thursday
August 10
-
LEARNING
TO LOVE: "There is a basic myth of modernism, essential
to its ideology, that all great works of art are initially repellent.
It is only natural that this should give rise to the suspicion
that any art which seems repellent at first is perhaps, after
all, daring and provocative. In the past, however, the assimilation
of a new style which was originally detested was most often
the work not of critics but of the artists themselves."
New
York Review of Books 08/10/00
-
WITH
THE TWIRL OF HIS PEN the Lord Mayor of Sydney has signed
three memorandums that will help ensure a brighter financial
future of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. The MCA will
now receive nearly $2 million a year in public funding, and
no longer has to worry about paying off its debt to the University
of Sydney. Sydney Morning
Herald 08/10/00
-
BIRD'S
EYE ART: A Japanese artist has new meaning to the word "detail";
he rents a helicopter, photographs a particular city, and then
recreates it on paper with a magnifying glass, drafting
pens and calligraphy brushes. Recently he spent 12 hours
photographing Manhattan. "From the Hudson River to the
East River, every rooftop chicken coop and streetside hot dog
stand has surely been accounted for. There are people, too:
some 8,000 pinpricks among the 5,000 cars and 230,000 buildings."
Daily Yomiuri 08/10/00
-
BACK
TO BASICS: While YBAs Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst have
pushed traditional artistic boundaries with their unmade beds
and pickled animals, the Royal Academy of Arts in London believes
in the simple power of the line: drawing. This October, the
Academy will sponsor a program in which more than 500 galleries
and museums in Britain will offer sessions for adults and children
to draw with artists, designers, mathematicians. Sydney
Morning Herald (AP) 08/10/00
-
THE
POWER OF PRINT: The new National Opera house in Beijing,
designed by a French architect in the shape of an enormous titanium
bubble, has sparked a raging debate in mainland China. Days
before authorities are to make the final decision on the project,
the China Daily newspaper publishes petitions by more than
150 Chinese intellectuals who believe the futuristic building
is all wrong for China. China
Times 08/10/00
Wednesday
August 9
-
MR.
MODERN: Nicholas Serota is smiling. And why not? Serota,
director of the Tate Museum, is "one of the handful of
culture gurus who have persuaded conservative Britons to cast
aside their instinctual suspicion of modern art. Serota has,
with Tate Modern, simultaneously catapulted Britain to the forefront
of the international contemporary art world, up there with New
York's MOMA and the Pompidou in Paris."
Los Angeles Times 08/09/00
-
MISSING
BOOKS: The Japanese embassy in London has been hit by art
thieves.
"For the past two
years, it is thought, a British voluntary librarian allegedly
stole about 150 books, selling them via the auction house and
to private dealers. The collection had been stored at the embassy
by the Japan Society, which promotes relations between Britain
and Japan, because it had run out of space and wanted greater
security." The
Telegraph (London) 08/08/00
-
FAILURE
TO PROTECT: British police are "failing to take the
theft of fine arts and antiques seriously, undermining a Government
initiative to make it harder for criminals to sell stolen property,
according to a leading figure in the arts market."
The Telegraph
(London) 08/04/00
-
COOKING
IN CANBERRA: Canberra's
National Portrait Gallery buys a picture for $5.3 million -
the highest price paid for an art work by any Australian public
gallery or private collector - for a portrait of Captain James
Cook. The Age (Melbourne)
08/09/00
-
ANTIQUES
CLICKSHOW: Internet auctions have transformed the antique
business. But "while the online market has helped to boost
antique prices as demand grows, some dealers say online auctions
are stripping antiquing of its romance, reducing the thrill
of the hunt to a bland point and click. CNN 08/08/00
-
CLEANING
THE ACROPOLIS: In preparation for the 2004 Olympics, "teams
of archeologists are restoring and cleaning the 2,500-year-old
Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the walls fortifying the
Acropolis, and the Propylaia, the main entrance to the monuments.
Projects also include work on the Erechtheion, with its porch
of statues of young women known as caryatids."
Boston Globe 08/09/00
Tuesday
August 8
-
BESIDES,
WRITING'S MORE FUN: When Australia's National Gallery hired
a critic as its curator of Australian art
last year, there were plenty of complaints that John McDonald
"had no curatorial experience and was hostile to contemporary
art." Now, less than a year into the job McDonald is considering
quitting, complaining that 90 per cent of the job is
administrative, "whereas he had originally thought paperwork
would take only half his time." The
Australian 08/08/00
-
HOW
DO THEY DO THAT? At its top, the Tower of Pisa is 15 feet
out of alignment with the bottom, in danger of tipping over.
But the lean is being painstakingly corrected. It's "a
delicate operation in which dirt is being extracted through
thin drill pipes— the geotechnical equivalent of laboratory
pipettes— from under the north, upstream side of the tower foundations,
allowing it to settle toward the upright direction. The rate
of soil extraction amounts to just a few dozen shovelfuls a
day; anything faster might jolt the tower over the brink."
Discover Magazine 08/00
-
ART
IN GRIM PLACES: Life expectancy for a Russian orphan is
26 years. A Russian artist went into an orphanage bringing art
and invited the orphans to draw their dreams. "They painted
brilliant rainbows, pink buses and staircases to cotton-candy
skies. They were joyous images that belied their grim surroundings.
The purpose of this project is not to turn children into artists.
The purpose is to help them to overcome the various obstacles
that they face because they're orphans."
Minneapolis Star-Tribune 08/08/00
-
CLUTTERED
ATTIC?
America has finally gotten
better at protecting its cultural past, trying to preserve important
pieces of its history. But are we going to far, now? "Here,
for instance, we find millions of dollars allocated for tenement
and prison renovation, the repair of fetid laundry rooms and
leaky school roofs. Yes, there is funding for traditional cultural
activity such as repair of classic houses designed by H.H. Richardson
and Frank Lloyd Wright. But there is also money for sprucing
up tourist traps and old scrapbooks."
Philadelphia Inquirer 08/08/00
Monday
August 7
-
STRIPPING
FOR ART: The Guggenheim Museum and the Phillips Collection
are making deals to open outposts on the Las Vegas Strip. "The
first exhibition of twenty-five pictures including Van Gogh’s
'Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles' and El Greco’s 'The
Repentant St.Peter' is set to open in September, with more to
follow." The
Art Newspaper 08/04/00
-
VIRTUAL
ARCHEOLOGY: Virtual reality now lets viewers wander through
ancient cities. "Although virtual exhibitions and computer-based
museums have been a promising possibility since the first works
of art were scanned and stored, technology has only just caught
up with the expectations placed upon it. The
Art Newspaper 08/05/00
-
STRIKING
FOR ART: About half of the Museum of Modern Art's 250 administrative
employees have been on strike against the museum since April.
But though some of the museum's educational programs have had
to be canceled, the strike seems to have had little impact on
the museum's operations.
New
York Post 08/07/00
-
BANKING
ON ART: An art sale in Mexico is attracting a lot of attention.
The work for sale was stripped from the walls of Mexico's failed
banks. "The exhibition is the first time many of the works
have been displayed publicly since being seized by the government
following Mexico's 1994-95 banking crisis. The auction - part
of the government's efforts to recoup some $100 billion paid
to bail out the industry - has sparked a 'morbid curiosity'."
Financial Times 08/07/00
Sunday
August 6
-
THE
O'KEEFFE FIASCO: The controversy over the authenticity of
a set of watercolors purported to be by Georgia O'Keeffe is
the biggest scandal in years to hit the National Gallery of
Art. "Whether a grand deception or just a garage-sale dream
gone wrong, it never should have happened. The warning signs
were there from the start, but they were swept away by a tsunami
of money and wishful thinking."
Washington Post 08/06/00
-
MONET
TROVE: A new museum in Paris is home to the world's largest
collection of Monets. "The elegant building, now called
the Marmottan-Claude Monet Museum, is one of Paris' best-kept
secrets." The
Globe and Mail (Toronto) 08/05/00
-
SF-LAND:
Plans for a huge history museum with "fake fog, a mini
Golden Gate Bridge and a re-creation of the 1960s-era Haight-Ashbury
district" have Bay Area residents conflicted. "Opponents
deride the plan as a kitschy, Las Vegas-style tourist trap and
consider the fight to stop the 70,000-square-foot San Francisco
Interactive History Museum no less than a battle for the city's
soul."
Cleveland Plain Dealer 08/06/00
Friday
August 4
-
GET
THE PICTURE? Think digital cameras are going to take over
the art of photography? Not hardly. "Even a $10 single-use
camera offers 10 times better resolution than today's $1,000
digital." Now a French chemist "has developed a new
method of 'doping' film emulsions that promises to make them
five times better at capturing light. 'If it can be widely applied,
it will certainly be one of the greatest inventions in photography
in the last 60 years.' "
Discover Magazine 08/00
-
ALLURE
OF LONDON: A group of New York artists working in London
talk about the differences between the two cities. "They're
impressed by the apparent importance attached to contemporary
art in Britain. Stories about artists make the front page of
newspapers; television documentaries about art are informative
and well made. No matter how crude its terms, Britain, and specifically
London, engages in a national debate about art. This does not
happen to the same extent in America and New York."
London
Evening Standard 08/04/00
-
SO
THEY'RE WORTH IT: The board of Fort Worth's Kimbell Museum
defends the $1.5 million salaries it pays to two of its board
members for their services to the museum. The museum has been
criticized for paying the two for services which are usually
voluntary.
Dallas Morning News 08/04/00
-
WHO
CONTROLS THE ART: There's a battle raging for control of
Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. "People on powerful
committees are there because they have a contribution to make,
and there is usually an ego commensurate with that capacity
to contribute. When such people's views are bypassed, or worse,
not sought in the first place, there is usually trouble."
Sydney
Morning Herald 08/04/00
-
SCANDAL
EFFECT: Sotheby's earnings decline 5 percent, though revenue
was up in the second quarter. "Sotheby's shares have declined
by more than a third this year as Internet spending and legal
fees from the price-fixing investigation and related lawsuits
cut into earnings." New
York Times 08/03/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
Thursday
August 3
-
ACQUIRING
ETHICS: The American Association of Museums, comprised
of 3,000 museums and 11,400 museum professionals and trustees,
will adopt new ethical guidelines for how museums deal with
art borrowed from private collections. Following in the wake
of the Brooklyn Museum scandal in which it was discovered that
Charles Saatchi, the exhibit's largest donor, was also its single
largest financial backer, the question of curatorial ethics
has loomed large at arts organizations around America. The
New York Times 08/03/00
(one-time registration required for entry)
-
WHERE
SHOULD BEAUTY LIVE? The hypothetical question of where
the Elgin Marbles would go if they were returned to Greece has
incited a debate over the proper context for items of beauty.
Do we have a responsibility to make sure works of art remain
in the place that gives them artistic life? "It's our loss
if we find reasons not to worship beauty and condemn ourselves
to a life of aesthetic squalor." The
Guardian 08/03/00
-
FAKING
IT: You probably didn't know you could find one of
Michelangelo's frescoes from the Sistine Chapel or Leonardo
da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" in a museum in Naruto, Japan.
The priceless pieces are among 1,074 artworks from 190 museums
that have been reproduced for the new Otsuka Museum of
Art, the world's first "ceramic archive." Why would
you want to spend your time looking at a fake? For one thing,
the works can be displayed under bright lights, revealing details
that could never be seen in a traditional museum. The
Daily Yomiuri 08/03/00
-
EXPLOSIVE
ART: A Bosnian artist is digging up dirt from minefields
and selling it in what she calls a "special artistic performance."
"I've already sold one minefield for 500 marks. Mom and
I sew bags that contain 10, 20, 30 and 50 kilograms. I sold
quite a few bags the first day."
New Jersey Online 08/03/00
-
A
MUSEUM FOR POMERANIAN HISTORY: The last and newest
of Germany’s Federal State museums has just opened in the town
of Greifswald on the Baltic Coast. The Pommersches Landesmuseum
will focus on its historic links with neighbors Sweden and Denmark.
It's Picture Gallery, housed in a converted Franciscan
monastery, will also feature the works of Frans Hals, Caspar
David Friedrich, Phillip Otto Runge, Max Liebermann and Vincent
van Gogh. The Art Newspaper
08/03/00
-
FIVE-STAR
HOTEL, FIVE-STAR ART: It's so hard to find a hotel
with really good art in it anymore...if only the inn at Murecina,
a little south of Pompeii, were an operating hotel/spa - as
it was in A.D. 79 - instead of of an archaeological dig site,
it would surely be booked year-round. Archaeologists first
discovered the inn in 1959, and found several delicate frescoes
that had been preserved when the explosion from Mount Vesuvius
buried the building in ash. Since then the scientists have unearthed
a reclining river god holding a cornucopia, a winged Minerva,
and an image in miniature of an elegant maritime villa. Archaeology
08/00
Wednesday
August 2
-
BEYOND
THE FATAL SHORES: "There is no complaint that Robert
Hughes left Australia more than three decades ago and established
a successful niche as art critic for Time magazine in New York.
Good luck to him. But Australians are entitled to ask why the
ABC still sees value in airing the thoughts of Robert Hughes
as an 'intimate perspective' on contemporary Australia. It isn't."
The Age (Melbourne) 08/02/00
-
AN
ANIMATED FUTURE: At the Venice Biennale, US architects present
the future. "The emerging generation of architects represented
here uses animation software to study the effects of natural
forces on different forms, and film- and Web software to produce
virtual environments and atmospheric effects. Moreover, they
say, they are among the first architects to respond to the way
that digital technologies have altered people's aesthetics,
even their very sense of space."
Chronicle of Higher Education 08/02/00
-
SPACEMAN:
The man doing the sophisticated computer modeling for the designs
of Australia's National Gallery of Victoria is a big fan of
the museum. He's also a prisoner. "Max" works on the
project from prison. "I find it fascinating that a man
who has been incarcerated for so much of his life has such an
interest in space, and dimensions and images. I doubt it's purely
coincidental."
The Age 08/02/00
Tuesday
August 1
-
TO
SEE AND BE SEEN: The New York art
scene is hotter than ever. “Gone are the somnolent years of
the early ‘90s, when ‘art party’ conjured up images of cramped
gallery openings or struggling artists convening at someone's
loft to consume white wine from plastic cups and white powder
from bathroom counters. With the economy revving like the ‘80s,
the art market is also back to eighties-style extravagance,
from the inflated price tags to the high-velocity socializing.”
New
York Magazine 08/07/00
-
UNESCO
TO THE RESCUE: UNESCO, the UN’s cultural
and educational agency, is coordinating a $250 million international
effort to rebuild Moscow’s 19th-century Bolshoi Theatre,
which is crumbling and close to collapse due to years of neglect.
Theatres from around the world have already rallied around the
cause by sending in contributions equal to one night’s earnings.
NPR
07/31/00 [Real
audio file]
-
GETTYS
SUED OVER ARTWORK: Artist Garth Benton has sued Ann and
Gordon Getty because, he claims, the San Francisco philanthropists
and socialites painted over his $327,000 mural on the wall of
their mansion, "violating a rarely used California law
barring the destruction of fine art."
San Francisco Examiner 07/31/00
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