Friday
August 30
WHILE
DREAMS OF GOOG DANCED IN THEIR HEADS: Evidently oblivious
to the Guggenheim's sagging financial fortunes, the City of Edinburgh
is trying to lure the museum into building a branch there. Representatives
from Gehry & Associates have already been to town to assess
site feasibility It would add something to a rich landscape
if a gallery of contemporary art were to open. That would be a
very positive development. The
Scotsman 08/29/02
WILL
THERE BE ANY NEED TO LOOK AT THE ACTUAL ART? The Tate Museum
is experimenting with giving visitors handheld computers on which
they can wirelessly access multimedia guides to the exhibition
they are visiting. "If the trial, being offered free to enthusiastic
visitors, is a success, the multimedia tours could be offered
alongside the existing audio tours." BBC
08/30/02
ART-AS-COMMODITY
REPORT: The art market has been good the past few years. But
will the good times continue? "Simply looking at beguiling
prices realised and touted by auction houses might lead one to
think that the art market has defied gravity and has, and can,
continue, oblivious of the wider economic slowdown. While such
a scenario would be lovely, the truth is it is impossible to imagine.
But the slowdown of 2003 is not going to be a repeat of the crash
of 1990. Times have indeed been good, but an economic shakeout
is not a collapse: the underlying global economy remains healthy:
so too with the art market." The
Art Newspaper 08/30/02
CAMBODIA
OFFERS UP ANCIENT SECRETS: A pair of 2000 year old bells is
the latest treasure unearthed by a mining operation in Cambodia.
"The demining team which discovered them, buried three feet
underground, believed at first they were dealing with two bombs
- and followed standard procedure: 'They dug them out very carefully
because they were scared of an explosion, but when they got them
out of the ground, they realized what they were'." Public
Arts (Reuters) 08/29/2002
- GOLD
BUDDHAS IN CAMBODIAN JUNGLE
New restoration work on Cambodian sites of 1970s Khmer Rouge
destruction is unearthing more than political memories. Twenty-seven
solid gold Buddha statues, as well as more of silver and bronze
were found buried under a ruined pagoda: "The workmen were
supposed to be rebuilding the temple which was smashed up by
the Khmer Rouge, but then they found these golden Buddhas and
the whole construction work has had to stop." Arizona
Republic 08/27/2002
THE
'HOLD-BACK' ROOM: Starting in the mid-18th Century, museums
began holding back items in their collections deemed too...shall
we say...startling...for visitors of refinement. "By the
1830s the British Museum, too, had started hiving off items considered
potentially too corrupting to be perused by ordinary mortals
particularly women and the lower classes. Such material, it was
felt, would lead to moral degeneracy, which in turn would lead
to the collapse of social and economic values and who knows?
the decline and fall of the Empire itself." The
Times (UK) 08/30/02
Thursday
August 29
OF
SUNFLOWERS AND DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS (OH MY!): The Animals-on-Parade
public art project has been adopted (without incident) by dozens
of cities around the world. But Washington DC has found itself
in court this summer over that city's version of the painted animals.
First, the Green Party sued to get its party symbol (a sunflower)
included alongside the elephants and donkeys. Then "People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals convinced another judge that
the city violated their 1st Amendment right to protest the treatment
of circus animals when it rejected the group's portrayal of a
weeping, shackled elephant." Chicago
Tribune 08/29/02
OUT
OF THE BASEMENT: Like most museums, Sacramento's Crocker Museum
is able to display only a tiny fraction of its collection. "At
any one time, only 5 percent of the museum's 10,000-piece collection
is available to the public." Now the museum is embarking
on a project to put its entire collection online. Sacramento
Bee 08/28/02
Wednesday
August 28
WHERE'S
THE ART? The amount of quality art for sale has been declining
over the past decade. "The sellers have simply fled. The
art market gets back to business for the 2002-03 season next week
with one auction at Sothebys in September and six at Christies.
September sales, ten years ago, were around 15 in each house;
now, the great rooms in Mayfair and St Jamess echo with
inactivity. You cant walk the London art suburbs without
hearing the choral sadness of the art trade that yes, wallets
are bulging, buyers are everywhere, but no, weve nothing
of quality to sell." The Times
(UK) 08/28/02
ANOTHER
ARTIST GENTRIFICATION STORY: Hoxton, in East London, is home
to some of the biggest names in contemporary visual art. In the
past decade it was the center of all that was hot. But "the
artists' squats have disappeared, turned over to lucrative loft-style
living. So, nearly five years after Hoxton was declared London's
art hot spot, is it really still hot? Or has it become a Covent
Garden of the East - all gloss and glamour and no grit? As the
money rolls into the area, it's clear that this is the heart of
a new art establishment." London
Evening Standard 08/27/02
THE
MAN WHO SAVED DRESDEN'S ART: Quick
thinking by Dresden's director of museums helped mobilize an army
of workers to haul priceless works of art out of the city's flooded
museums to higher ground. "Two hundred staff and volunteers,
assisted by the army and the fire brigade, removed 4,000 paintings
from the basement, including 30 top-quality paintings by Cranach
and some fine works by Veronese." The
Times (UK) 08/28/02
GIVING
NO QUARTER: The U.S. Mint's state quarters project, which
releases a new batch of state-specific coins each year through
2008, has been a hit with the public. But a Missouri artist is
furious with what has become of his design for the Show Me State's
two bits, and the dispute has focused some light on the process
the Mint is using to select the designs. "The Mint asks state
governors to drum up ideas in the forum or contest of their choosing.
But in the end, government engravers alter and recompose the concepts
pretty much as they please. And they put their own initials on
the completed work." Washington
Post 08/28/02
MAJOR
GIFT IN SAN FRAN: "The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
has been given nearly 1,000 objects by two donors, retired Los
Angeles businessman Lloyd E. Cotsen and the Doris Duke Charitable
Foundation. The Asian, which reopens in its new quarters on Jan.
23, agreed with both donors not to discuss the monetary value
of the acquisitions, but a seven- figure estimate would probably
be modest. Cotsen has given more than 800 items from his renowned
personal collection of Japanese bamboo baskets and other objects
related to the traditional tea ceremony." San
Francisco Chronicle 08/28/02
LISTENING
TO ART: "The desire of galleries to make art accessible
is subtly altering the way the work itself is presented. Visitors
are being invited not just to contemplate, but to engage in a
more active experience. Not just to look, but also to learn. Hence
the growing popularity of audio guides. Rough estimates from their
producers suggest that, whereas five years ago just two per cent
of visitors to major exhibitions would use one, now 40 per cent
will." The Telegraph (UK) 08/28/02
IT'S
OFFICIALLY FRANK'S HOUSE: "The Mitchell House in Racine,
Wis, long believed to have been designed by a Frank Lloyd Wright
colleague, was actually conceived by the famed architect, a Wright
scholar said yesterday." The house, which has sometimes been
attributed to Cecil Corwin, contains many elements remniescent
of other Lloyd Wright buildings, and while documentation firmly
establishing him as the architect has yet to be unearthed, the
author of the preeminent Frank Lloyd Wright catalog says he is
convinced enough to put the house in his register. Toronto
Star 08/28/02
Tuesday
August 27
GIANT
COMMEMORATION: In one of the larger scale commemorations of
9/11, "thousands of volunteers will unfurl a 5-mile-long
silk banner with 3,000 American flags under the Golden Gate Bridge
and wrap it along San Francisco's coastline on Sept. 8 in a massive
red-white-and-blue commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The memorial artwork is the product of Chinese American artist
Pop Zhao, who stretched the world's longest artwork on the Great
Wall of China last year." San
Francisco Chronicle 08/27/02
ADDING
UP ANDY: The recent much-publicized Andy Warhol show which
ran for 12 weeks at Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art, generated
$55.8 million into Los Angeles' economy, says an economic impact
study. "My hope is that the proof that this show had tangible
economic benefits as well as artistic benefits will help MOCA
and other institutions produce important projects of equivalent
cost and ambition in the future." Los
Angeles Times 08/27/02
BUY
ONE, GET ONE FREE: London's National Gallery is putting a
series of Renaissance paintings on display which were painted
over top other paintings. "Any painting is a lesson in chemistry
and optics: white reflects all colours, black absorbs all colours;
some chemicals absorb everything except red or yellow or blue
light and so become natural pigments. Humans have a limited visual
range, from red to violet, but paintings are still 'visible' at
other wavelengths. Owls and foxes can see in the near infra-red.
Very weak infrared light shone on a painting can penetrate thin
layers of paint, to be stopped by something impenetrable underneath."
The Guardian (UK) 08/26/02
Monday
August 26
FURTHER
BAMIYAN PERIL: The hollowed-our niches that once protected
the Bamiyan Buddhas before they were destroyed by the Taliban
last year are in danger of being destroyed themselves. An expert
who has examined the site says that "explosions caused by
the Taliban have perilously weakened the cliff face. Cracks have
appeared, allowing rain water to percolate into the decorated
caves. The water then freezes at night, enlarging the cracks."
Unless emergency conservation is undertaken, the niches will "disappear
within a decade." The Art Newspaper
08/23/02
IT'S
REAL: Sotheby's is defending a painting sold last month for
$120 million as authentic. The auction house says the painting
is an authentic Rubens, with provenance going back to 1699 or
1700. Sotheby's "consulted the leading Rubens experts for
their opinions and not one who saw the painting raised any doubts.
On the contrary, they were enthusiastic about the attribution
and supported it often publicly. Sotheby's is unaware of any change
in the views of the leading experts who supported the attribution
at the time." Toronto Star 08/24/02
- Previously: A
GIFT FOR DAD: Last month David Thomson, the son of Canada's
wealthiest man and biggest collectors, bought his dad a present
- a newly discovered painting by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens.
The $120 million Thomson paid for The Massacre of the Innocents
was the third highest amount ever paid for a painting. Now the
painting may turn out not to be by Rubens at all, and the gift
has provoked a debate... National
Post (Canada) 08/23/02
Sunday
August 25
WHOLESALE
LOOTING AND WASTE: Looting of Afghanistan's cultural treasures
hasn't stopped with the overthrow of the Taliban - it has excalated.
"The theft in the valley of Jam is only the most obvious
evidence of a general destruction of Afghanistan's cultural heritage.
But the pillaging of Jam is a recent, post-Taliban phenomenon.
The chaos that followed the 1989 Soviet withdrawal kept antiquity
traders away from the valley, and the Taliban had protected it
as an Islamic site. Now, with a measure of order restored but
with a lack of control from Kabul, looting is in full season.
The demand for these objects and the money for the excavations
come primarily from dealers and collectors in Japan, Britain and
the United States. But there have also been reports of American
servicemen buying antiquities from villagers. Items from Jam are
already being offered on the art market in London, described as
Seljuk or Persian to conceal their Afghan origin." The
New York Times 08/25/02
THE
REAL DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA? In the 1920s, a horde of artifacts
was found in the desert outside Tucson. The objects suggest that
Europeans had been in the Arizona desert as early as 800 AD, centuries
before Columbus was said to have "discovered" America.
The objects look real, but many experts believe they're fake.
"There are endless theories about the items, and the facts
don't change the minds of the people who hold those theories."
Arizona Republic 08/24/02
LOWER,
SAFER: 9/11 has had an immediate impact on the kinds of buildings
being added to cities. "In both Chicago and New York, there
is talk in real estate circles that prospective tenants now favor
lower office floors instead of high ones. If that turns out to
be true, it will mark a sea change in skyscraper psychology: The
high floors used to be the ones that commanded the highest prices
because of their best views and prestige. Now, it seems, there's
a premium being put on survival." Chicago
Tribune 08/25/02
Friday
August 23
GREATER
ALEXANDER: Plans have been unveiled to carve a giant likeness
of Alexander the Great on a mountain in Northern Greece. "The
planned 240 foot image will be comparable to the carved faces
of American Presidents on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and cost
nearly £200 million. Supporters believe that the sculpture
of the general, whose empire stretched from Greece to India, will
bring in the tourists and assist the local economy."
The Times (UK) 08/22/02
- ALEXANDER
THE MONSTROSITY: Environmental opponents of the plan have
"vowed to go to court to stop the 30-million euro project,
while the Greek Culture Ministry has warned that it will not
allow work to begin as scheduled in November. The plan, from
a group of Greek-Americans, would see a rock outcrop on Mount
Kerdylio in the northern province of Macedonia changed into
a massive monument to the fourth-century BC empire-builder.
Environmentalists fear it will spoil the landscape and harm
the area, while archaeologists have called the project a 'monstrosity'
that they say could threaten a nearby ancient theatre and a
Byzantine church." BBC 08/22/02
DRESDEN
ADDS UP FLOOD DAMAGES: Dresden art officials are counting
up damages in last week's floods. "Some 20,000 artworks were
evacuated during three large operations. Thousands of the figures
and castings that were saved now lie strewn around wherever space
is available in both the painting section and in the antiquity
hall of the gallery. Transportation damages were only minimal.
Of the four thousand paintings that were housed in the 'old masters'
storage area only 25 large-size paintings received moisture damage.
But the Zwinger Palace gallery's restoration workshop completely
emerged in water and the entire technical infrastructure has been
destroyed." Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung 08/23/02
STOLEN
TITIAN FOUND: Police in London have recovered a stolen 16th-Century
painting by Titian worth more than £5 million. The painting
was recovered without its frame in a small plastic carrier bag.
BBC 08/23/02
A
GIFT FOR DAD: Last month David Thomson, the son of Canada's
wealthiest man and biggest collectors, bought his dad a present
- a newly discovered painting by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens.
The $120 million Thomson paid for The Massacre of the Innocents
was the third highest amount ever paid for a painting. Now the
painting may turn out not to be by Rubens at all, and the gift
has provoked a debate... National
Post (Canada) 08/23/02
Thursday
August 22
CZECH
DAMAGE: Prague's major art collections escaped the recent
floods But the water "submerged large swaths of the Czech
Republic, leaving broad ribbons of destruction, including hundreds
of millions of dollars in damage to the country's cultural fabric,
though a formidable number of artworks were saved during the pandemonium.
Much of the damage is hidden: undermined foundations, devastated
castle gardens, soaked cellars and damaged heating and alarm systems
in castles, museums, galleries and archives. On a smaller scale,
there was damage to irreplacable cultural artifacts."
The New York Times 08/22/02
HIDDEN
COLLECTION: The British Museum has acquired an important textile
collection from Afghanistan, but it may be years before anyone
will see it. The British Museum "has one of the finest collections
in the world, of more than 18,000 textiles, ranging in size from
tiny scraps of embroidery to vast carpets and entire tents, but
it has been closed for years, and the plans for a new display
and study centre and open store have collapsed in the museum's
dire financial situation. The plight of the collection has been
causing concern to international textile experts. Although cataloguing,
research and conservation work has continued, it has been impossible
to display them - not only to the public but even to visiting
scholars." The Guardian (UK)
08/22/02
CELEBRATION
OF INDIAN CULTURE: Santa Fe's popular annual Indian Market
"takes its name from two intense days of selling Indian art
at outdoor booths around this city's plaza, but it has blossomed
into a weeklong celebration of Indian culture with museum exhibitions,
benefit auctions, gallery openings, music and even a film festival.
'You can no longer put Indian art off to the side. I think it
has just gotten too good'." The
New York Times 08/22/02
JUST
PLAYING: "The boisterous artistic career that ended last
week with [artist Larry] Rivers' death at age 78 was to many,
including obituary writers, just another set of antics to put
next to the much advertised ones involving sex, drugs and (pre-)rock
'n' roll. This may not have been how Rivers actually wanted it,
but everything he did seemed to insure that the roles of painter,
sculptor, printmaker, poet and musician would be subsumed into
the larger role of hipster - and so they were." Chicago
Tribune 08/22/02
THE
MID-CENTURY MODERNS: When you think of Los Angeles, visions
of great architecture don't spring to mind. "But Los Angeles
has perhaps the best collection of mid-century modern architecture
in the world, a fact that is now being celebrated in a number
of quarters. Many architects working in L.A. at the time were
determined that the postwar housing boom should also be a boom
for modern design. The buildings they designed are characterized
by their minimalism, lack of ornamentation, simplicity in materials
and form, flat roofs and emphasis on indoor-outdoor living. These
elegant buildings and their contemporary reinterpretations are
now very fashionable in a city that cares a great deal about current
trends." Los Angeles Times 08/21/02
Wednesday
August 21
NOT
FOR ATTRIBUTION: You have your experts, we have ours. They
don't agree - so what to do in the case of the painting Massacre
of the Innocents, sold last month as being by Peter Paul Rubens?
With Rubens' name attached, the picture was worth £50 million
at auction. Without it - let's just say the value drops. Experts
have come forward to dispute its authenticity. So if experts disagree,
will science help? Not necessarily. So maybe the courts? A footnote
- isn't it still the same painting, no matter who painted it?
The Telegraph (UK) 08/21/02
WHAT
COMPETITION? After last month's failed proposals, those planning
the design for the World Trade Center site have decided to choose
five firms to compete for the job. It sends "an important
signal about how much our democratic values matter. By limiting
the number of participants in the competition to five, the agency
is ensuring that the debate about ground zero's future will remain
relatively narrow. And in that sense, the competition falls far
short of the kind of open discourse that is the public's right.
To call the development corporation's process a competition is
somewhat misleading. Real competitions are open to anyone - that
is, to any designer willing to sacrifice the time, energy and
money it takes to produce a viable proposal." Los
Angeles Times 08/21/02
MEMORABLE
MEMORIAL: With all the talk of official memorials to 9/11,
one homemade shrine - a piece of a storefront near the World Trade
Center preserved as it looked the day the towers fell - gets it
right. "The homemade shrine, random and homely, brings the
event to a human scale, the ugliness of the debris in particular
belying the picturesque metaphor of blanketing snow that everyone
liked to use last September." The
New York Times 08/18/02
AIN'T
NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH: Pepsi and Coke are in trouble with
the Indian government. It seems that in their zeal to promote
the soft drinks as the world's drinks of choice, the companies'
franchisees in India painted ads for the drinks all over Himalayas.
Literally. On the rocks. The Indian court was told "the advertisements
had been plastered on an entire mountain side from the village
of Kothi to Rallah waterfalls to Beas Kund, a stretch of about
56 kilometres. Coke said it was not sure if it would pay the clean-up
cost." BBC 08/15/02
Tuesday
August 20
RISKY
PLAN FOR FORBIDDEN CITY: A Chinese magazine has exposed plans
by caretakers of Beijing's Forbidden City to build a three-story
museum structure underneath the Forbidden City. The new structure
would allow the display of thousands of artifacts currently locked
away in storage. But critics charge the plan will endanger the
palace. "The palace compound is built on a foundation of
crisscrossing bricks and clay originally intended to keep the
'earth dragon' at bay (to limit damage from the earthquakes that
occasionally strike Beijing) and to allow rainwater to dissipate.
Tampering with the foundation would only put the structure at
risk and without good reason, critics say." The
Independent (UK) 08/19/02
THE
PERILS OF CROWD PLEASERS: The just-closed Andy Warhol show
at LA's Museum of Contemporary Art was a big, money-making success.
But are such shows healthy for museums? "Tourist-oriented
blockbusters represent a tear in the art museum fabric. While
the general public is being seduced, the art public is abandoned.
The Andy Warhol Retrospective was pitched toward anyone
who'd ever been to the movies. What's the harm in that? Nothing
in the short term. For an art museum, it's quick cash. The risk
is slow-motion suicide. The general public is where the fast action
is, but it certainly won't stick around for the long haul. Lose
the art public through attrition, though, and you might as well
close up shop." Los Angeles Times
08/20/02
SLOWING
DOWN THE ICA: Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art is supposed
to be part of an enormous $1.2 billion waterfront development
project, a piece of "a bustling new neighborhood with hotels,
restaurants, shops, offices, luxury residences and park land."
But the economy has slowed, and demand for the new hotels and
offices to be built with thje project is down. So the project
has slowed to a crawl and the ICA, which has done everything it
could to get supporters excited about the project, sits and waits.
Boston Herald 08/20/02
SIMPLE
IS BETTER: What kind of memorial ought to be created for 9/11?
A look at the attempts of artists to memorialize previous tragedies
is instructive. "If a monument strains for an excess of spurious
grandeur, it soon becomes remote. Far better, surely, for visitors
to realise that they can respond to the memorial on an intimate
level, and truly make it their own." The
Times (UK) 08/20/02
PARTYGOERS
BREAK CHIHULY GLASS: Partygoers at Chicago's Garfield Park
Conservatory smash a $70,000 piece of Dale Chihuly glass art.
"The work was a recent addition to the Chihuly in the
Park: A Garden of Glass exhibit, which features 30 originals
from the Tacoma, Wash.-based artist. The event has attracted more
than 450,000 people since opening in November and has been so
popular it has been extended twice." Chicago
Tribune 08/19/02
SCIENCE
AS ART (EVEN IF IT'S WRONG): "Bioart is becoming a force
in the creative world. A glowing bunny made the front page of
newspapers across the country two years ago, and installations
that require biohazard committee approval are increasingly common
at universities and art galleries." But often artists' interpretations
of the science their work is about, is superficial and just plain
wrong. Wired 08/19/02
Monday
August 19
PRAGUE
FLOODING: Floods have taken a heavy toll on Prague's historic
buildings. "It will take at least seven days before the damage
to the medieval Malá Strana neighbourhood can be judged,
but it is already clear that the National Theatre, the Rudolfinum
concert hall and hundreds of historic houses have been affected,
by the backflow of the drains as much as the flood itself."
The Art Newspaper 08/16/02
PAINTER
OF BLIGHT: Owners of ten of Thomas Kinkade's galleries across
the country are suing Kinkade's company, claiming it has "saturated
the market with Kinkade's works and sold them on QVC cable television,
undercutting 'exclusive' galleries. Once devout followers of 'the
painter of light,' now are saying that the business end of Kinkade's
empire has a dark side. The Star-Tribune
(Minneapolis) 08/18/02
FIXING
FALLING WATER: Six years ago it was obvious that if something
was not done, Frank Lloyd Wright's greatest building - the house
Falling Water - would collapse into the stream around it. Now
the house is about to be reopened after an extensive makeover.
"The structural fix has at once corrected the problems that
threatened to destroy Fallingwater and renewed the house that
the American Institute of Architects in 1991 voted the best work
ever designed by an American architect." Chicago
Tribune 08/18/02
Sunday
August 18
DRESDEN
FIGHTS TO RESCUE ART: Workers struggle to save Dresden's valuable
art as floodwaters threaten. "Working by the light of candles
and torches, 200 museum workers, police officers and soldiers
carried some 4,000 paintings to the upper floors of the 19th-century
palace as the Elbe rose by the hour. Six paintings too large to
move were attached by ropes to pipes in the ceiling in the hope
that the floodwater would not reach them. The flooding has proved
particularly traumatic for Dresden, an eastern city that since
the reunification of Germany in 1991 has been working to rebuild
itself around its historic cultural image." The
New York Times 08/16/02
IMPRESSIONISTS
SCORE AGAIN: London's Tate Modern is staying open 36 hours
this weekend to help accommodate the crowds that want to get in
to see the museum's Matisse Picasso show. More than "250,000
people have visited the exhibition since it first opened its doors
on 11 May to coincide with the second anniversary of the gallery's
opening. It has been the gallery's most successful exhibition
to date, and will be one of the five most popular in the history
of the Tate by the time it closes." BBC
08/17/02
ENOUGH
ALREADY: Isn't it about time that conceptual art was allowed
to die? "Consider this: cubism lasted about 20 years because
it had a lot of conventions to break down; pop and op art lasted
about 10 years (change was becoming more acceptable). At that
rate conceptual art should have lasted no longer than five years.
The only kind reason that I can think of why conceptual art has
lasted so long is that because it possesses virtually no permanent
form and thus very little content." The
Age (Melbourne) 08/17/02
CONTROLLING
THE MESSAGE: Organizers of Documenta have stopped outside
guides from taking visitors through the exhibition. Only "official"
guides, trained by Documenta are allowed to give tours, and critics
charge that officials are trying to control interpretation of
the art. To what extent are those responsible trying to
put a stop to any critical reception? To what extent do the organizers
really want to offer visitors an official view of young contemporary
art?" Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung 08/16/02
NOT
JUST PEANUTS: The Charles M. Schulz Museum opens in California,
drawing fans from around the world. "The $8 million museum
is an elegantly understated, streamlined two-story building with
stucco and slate facades in shades of gray and white that echo
the tones of a black and white cartoon. It has more than 7,000
of the 17,897 original Peanuts strips that Schulz drew in an amazing
50-year run that ended when he died of colon cancer in February
2000 at age 77 - the night before his final strip appeared in
Sunday newspapers around the world." San
Francisco Chronicle 08/17/02
Friday
August 16
FLIGHT
OF IMAGINATION: The new Yokohama international airport sets
a new standard in airport design. "Like the Pompidou in its
era it is the newest big thing, and the calling card of the next
generation of architects. It is designed by a young practice which
calls itself Foreign Office Architects, or FOA, of which you will
hear much more." London Evening
Standard 08/16/02
WORRYING
ABOUT STONEHENGE: At last - a plan to fix up the area around
Stonehenge. Plans for the site are bound to be controversial,
but the architects have been sensitive to the site. "While
keeping in line with the current vogue for high design, theirs
is a plan which will work extremely well in the surrounding landscape,
as it will be set into a hillside with a roof planted with native
grass. The centre will include displays which tell the story of
Stonehenge and its history. Visitors will still not be allowed
to enter the ring of stones itself, though managed access by prior
arrangement is anticipated. The destructive potential of 830,000
visitors a year is too great to allow free access to the stone
ring." The Art Newspaper 08/16/02
LARRY
RIVERS, 78: The "irreverent proto-Pop painter and sculptor,
jazz saxophonist, writer, poet, teacher and sometime actor and
filmmaker" died of cancer. "He helped change the course
of American art in the 1950's and 60's, but his virtues as an
artist always seemed inextricably bound up with his vices, the
combination producing work that could be by turns exhilarating
and appalling." The New York
Times 08/16/02
Thursday
August 15
"ART"
OF ADOLF? Why are critics reviewing a show about Hitler at
Williams College Museum of Art's as an aesthetic construct? Considering
Hitler and his actions as a product of aesthetic choices misses
the point entirely, writes Lee Rosenbaum. "Could it be that
critics and curators who spend their lives looking at pictures
begin to lose sight of the big picture?" OpinionJournal.com
08/15/02
THE
80S - IN FOR THE LONG RUN? Every era has art that helps define
it. But though there still seems to be interest in art created
in the 1980s, there is some question about how good it is. "What
I am suggesting is that much of the work from the 1980s is not
holding up very well. With the exceptions of Sean Scully, Robert
Gober, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Philip Taaffe, it doesn't seem
as if very much of the work of that era will ultimately matter."
Artnet 08/14/02
TREASURE
TROUBLE: Britain's reformed treasure law has resulted in more
found items being offered to British museums. The law gives museums
an opportunity to buy the found items, but the finder must be
compensated at market price. Cash-strapped museums are having
difficulty coming up with the funds for purchases. Some "221
items of treasure were reported in 2000, compared with 24 a year
before the medieval law of treasure trove was reformed in 1996."
The Guardian (UK) 08/15/02
Wednesday
August 14
DUPING
THE ART PUBLIC: "Last week, art students from Leeds Metropolitan
University dumped some cardboard boxes on the floor of the Tate
Modern. Within moments, a crowd had gathered to admire the new
exhibit before security guards cleared them away. The Evening
Standard decided to test the credulity of the public once again
by exhibiting a mundane object - and seeing how long it took visitors
to treat it with the reverence of a tank of Damien Hirst's pickled
sharks." London Evening Standard
08/13/02
THE
MOMA CHALLENGE: Neal Benezra becomes director of San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art at a challenging time. He "will have
to figure out how to continue growing an institution that, at
least on paper, seems to have peaked. Museum attendance hit a
high in 1990, when 732,000 people visited, and has been trailing
off since then, reaching 640,000 last year. Membership has slipped
also, down to 40,000 from 43,000 last year." Los
Angeles Times 08/14/02
A
NEW PARADIGM (WITH CURVES): We're done with modernism and
post-modernism. So what tag makes sense of the new architecture?
"According to the critic Charles Jencks, 'the new paradigm'
is the next big thing for architecture, a theory to make sense
of a wave of buildings that look like blobs of oil, desert landscapes
and train crashes. Given that we now understand the nature of
the universe differently from 50 years ago, why should we cling
to the right angle when we build, when nature has different ways
of organising itself?" The Observer
(UK) 08/11/02
Tuesday
August 13
COMMEMORATING
9/11: "Museums all over the country are developing special
events to remember the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks
in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Ever since the attacks,
museums have organized opportunities for their communities to
express their feelings, planned exhibitions to capture the emotions
and history of the day, and served as sites for charitable fundraising
for families of the victims of the attacks." Washington
Post 08/13/02
PRINCETON
RETURNS ROMAN ARTIFACT: The Princeton University Art Museum
has returned an ancient Roman statue to Italy after discovering
that it had not been granted a license for its export from Italy
in 1985. "Under a 1939 Italian law, all antiquities discovered
in the soil are claimed by Italy as state property."
The Art Newspaper 08/11/02
Monday
August 12
LIVERPOOL'S
DISAPPEARING SKYSCRAPERS: "Four years ago there were
about 70 tower blocks in Liverpool; it is predicted that in the
next couple of years there will be as few as 10. They don't, in
a sense, really need to be saved - they are not architectural
classics." But the office space is no longer needed, and
their teardown is seen as civic improvement. In the meantime artists
are having fun with the derelict tall buildings. The
Observer (UK) 08/11/02
Sunday
August 11
BUILDINGS
AS INSPIRATION: Does a university owe its community good architecture?
MIT president Chuck Vest thinks so. The university has embarked
on a major building program. ''I believe that the buildings at
this extraordinary university should be as diverse, forward thinking,
and audacious as the community they serve. They should stand as
a metaphor for the ingenuity at work inside them.'' Boston
Globe 08/11/02
BUILT-IN
CONFLICT? Does architecture play a role in shaping political
conflict? Israeli architects are debating the issue. "Some
argue that by designing and constructing Israeli settlements in
the occupied territories, the architectural profession has, perhaps
unwittingly, contributed to escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Others respond that architecture is neither political
nor ideological and, as such, has nothing to answer for."
The New York Times 08/10/02
PULLING
UP STAKES: What obligation does a museum have toward art created
for it? The Dallas Museum of Art is removing a Claes Oldenburg/Coosje
van Bruggen sculpture that dominates one of its prime galleries.
The artists are unhappy. But the museum's circumstances have changed
since the work was commissioned and installed. Doesn't the DMA
have the right to change? Dallas
Morning News 08/11/02
- Previously: RIGHT
TO MOVE: The Dallas Museum of Art is moving a giant Claes
Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggen sculpture which has towered through
the museum's largest gallery since the museum was built in 1984.
The museum wants to use the space for other artswork, but the
artists, who believed that the site-specific work was permanently
located, are unhappy. Dallas Morning
News 08/06/02
ART
OF IRAN: To Western eyes, Iran seems like a very closed society.
But Anna Somers Cocks reports that present-day Iran is picking
up on its long and impressive artistic and intellectual traditions.
The Guardian (UK) 08/10/02
Friday
August 9
IF YOU
MAKE IT FREE, THEY WILL COME: Since British museums did away
with admission fees last winter, average attendance is up by 2.7
million - or 62%. Free admission has particularly helped the once-ailing
Victoria and Albert Museum which has seen a 157 percent increase
in visitors. Some institutions, like the British Museum have
failed to make up the income they have lost, and are struggling.
The Guardian (UK) 08/09/02
TAKE
A LONGER LOOK: New Republic art critic Jed Perl worries that
people are forgetting how to look at art. "People seem to
have an idea that to look at art in a sophisticated and up-to-date
way means not looking at it very long or very hard. What people
are no longer prepared for is seeing an experience that takes
place in time. They have ceased to believe that a painting or
a sculpture is a structure with meaning that unfolds as we look
.
The essential aspect of all the art I admire the most, both old
and new, is that it makes me want to keep looking." Spiked-online
08/07/02
APPRECIATING
ART W/O SEEING IT: London's Tate Modern has "launched
a new online art resource to help visually impaired people explore
key concepts in modern art." No, blind viewers still won't
be able to see or touch the art, but, "with text, image enhancement,
animation and raised images, i-Map will serve partially sighted
and blind people with a general interest in art, as well as art
teachers and their visually impaired students." Wired
08/09/02
Thursday
August 8
RUBENS
RECOVERED: Irish police have recovered a Rubens painting 16
years after it was stolen by Dublin mobster Martin Cahill. "Cahill
and his 13-strong gang made international headlines in 1986 when
they snatched 18 paintings, worth a total of £24 million
in a daring raid." The Guardian
(UK) 08/07/02
OVERVALUED? It was an
art deal gone wrong. A couple of art lovers thought they were
buying a couple of Robert Ryman paintings. But then the dealer
skipped out with the buyers' money and the buyers sued everyone
in the deal. On the stand Ryman said he thought his work was way
overpriced - the paintings that had been sold for $90,000 were
worth only "a few hundred dollars." So why sell them
for more? "I think the prices are too high, but there is
nothing I could do about that." New
York Observer 08/06/02
REM
VS. CHARLES: When Harvard University hired renowned architect
Rem Koolhaas to design an architectural vision for its newly expanded
campus, they expected to be blown away. True, it's quite a challenge
to create a cohesive campus when the Charles River runs through
the middle of it, but everyone agreed that the eccentric and brilliant
urban planner was up to the challenge. And he was: after much
thought, Koolhaas announced the centerpiece of his proposal to
bring all of fair Harvard together - the river is just going to
have to be moved. Boston Globe 08/08/02
STRUGGLING
IN DETROIT: Detroit's Museum of New Art is barely five years
old, and has been in its downtown digs for only one year, but
the growing pains are coming fast and furious. The museum's founder
resigned in frustration at a board meeting this week, and a local
artist was tapped to replace him. MoNA has never made money, and
most of its operating cash has come from artists donating works
for auction. On the plus side, the new director's name is Cash...
Detroit News 08/08/02
BETTER
TEAR IT DOWN, THEN: It may be the architectural pride of a
nation, and an instantly recognizable landmark the world over,
but apparently, the Sydney Opera House is a disaster from a feng
shui perspective. The outer facade resembles "a set of
rice bowls crashing," which is quite the non-no. Oh, and
the structure's position "on an extension of Bennelong Point
means it blocks the natural water flow between two harbours,"
also a bad idea. So what? Well, "read the history books on
the Opera House... The original designer had a miserable time,
walked off the job and left the country... The builders had constant
arguments, it was always behind schedule and over budget. At the
time, the people of Sydney hated it and campaigned against it."
Sydney Morning Herald 08/08/02
Wednesday
August 7
BROKEN
WATER: Seattle artist Kathryn Gustafson has only just won
the commission for a memorial to Pricess Di. But critics seem
determined, she thinks, to misinterpret what she plans. Rather
than create something that people come to look at, her oval ring
of water is a place to come experience. "The role of a memorial
is to offer a place that helps people to remember. It needs to
have the essential qualities of that person." The
Telegraph (UK) 08/07/02
TAKING
ON THE DOWAGER: Neil McGregor, the British Museum' new director
has a big job ahead. The museum is "all but broke. With a
projected budget deficit of more than £6 million it faces
drastic cutbacks: 150 staff members have been told they must lose
their jobs. A third of the galleries may have to be closed at
any one time. How can this Bloomsbury dowager, beset by declining
visitor numbers, compete with its debutante granddaughter, Tate
Modern, which, on the very day that MacGregor took up his new
position, was welcoming its ten-millionth visitor?" The
Times 08/07/02
Tuesday
August 6
HOLDING
TO ACCOUNT: Greece is demanding an explanation from the British
Museum for how a 2,500-year-old Greek statue was stolen from the
museum last week. "Given the historic and cultural interest
Greece has in all Greek antiquities, wherever they may be, we
would like an explanation." The
Guardian (UK) 08/06/02
DEFINING
THE COOPER-HEWITT: New York's Cooper-Hewitt Museum popped
up in the spotlight last month when a Michelangelo was discovered
in its collection. But mostly the museum has kept a low profile.
"Now, because it has a new director who amid controversy
has begun to make significant personnel changes and because the
Michelangelo discovery has put the museum at least momentarily
in the spotlight, the Cooper-Hewitt may have a crucial opportunity
to better define itself." The
New York Times 08/06/02
WHY
I LEFT THE ROYAL ONTARIO: When Lindsay Sharp became director
of the Royal Ontario Museum in 1996, he brought with him the promise
of a little flash and excitement. But he resigned before the end
of his contract, a controversial figure who upset many of the
museum's supporters. "I did what I was expected to do. But
I couldn't stay there. The politics were too difficult. There
was a struggle, in my view, between the forces of open-mindedness
and creativity, and the other side was selfishness and conservatism
of the wrong sort. I was determined that we make a fair amount
of organizational change, but I didn't manage to do all of the
cultural change." The Globe &
Mail (Canada) 08/03/02
SHOW
US A LITTLE FLESH: There's a growing trend towards eroticism
in recent art. "Today, a kind of openly peddled eroticism
has soaked through almost every layer of life. It sells magazines
and cars; it has made G-strings standard issue, pornography mainstream
and kinkiness straight. Why should art feel the need to swim against
the current? The art world now wants you to know that it doesnt."
The Times (UK) 08/06/02
RIGHT
TO MOVE: The Dallas Museum of Art is moving a giant Claes
Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggen sculpture which has towered through
the museum's largest gallery since the museum was built in 1984.
The museum wants to use the space for other artswork, but the
artists, who believed that the site-specific work was permanently
located, are unhappy. Dallas Morning
News 08/06/02
Monday
August 5
ROCKY
START, BUT OH WELL... Neil McGregor didn't have a food first
week as new director of the British Museum. "The day after
he started an ancient Greek marble head was stolen, by a thief
who simply pulled it off its plinth and walked away with it."
But we trust this isn't going to set the tone of his stewardship
of Britain's most-visited museum. Indeed, he says he believes
his museum will get the extra money it needs to reverse its recent
stretch of hardship. The Guardian
(UK) 08/05/02
TOKYO'S
NEW SKYLINE: "As any visitor to Japan today can testify,
Tokyo in particular, has metamorphosed over the past 20 years
into one of the most stunning, often bizarre, skylines in the
world. Tension still exists, in the sense that its architecture
is an ephemeral commodity. After early mistakes, Japan's contemporary
architecture is the undisputed leader in the aesthetics of style,
and an internationally touring photographic exhibition proves
how far ahead of the game is the land of Zen." New
Zealand Herald 08/05/02
CYBER-REAL:
Internet art is usually an experience between a viewer and a computer
- in most cases a fairly private interaction. But a new work bridges
the physical world and cyberspace, interacting online but being
seen on a large screen in Sao Paulo. The
New York Times 08/05/02
COLOUR
FIELD: So you think calling red, red or green green is sufficient?
Thou cretin! You're probably the kind of person who'd be surprised
to learn there's a whole field of study in the art of identifying
colors. "It is, for me, one of the great pleasures of taking
notes at warp factor 10 during fast-moving fashion shows to get
down the particular shade of the bugle-beaded, dolman-sleeved,
wool-crepe jumpsuit that is sashaying by. To nail the subtle differences
between, say, 'tobacco' and 'snuff', or 'beige' and 'camel' is
deeply satisfying." Sydney Morning
Herald 08/05/02
Sunday
August 4
ELEVATING
THE WHITNEY: "In what is believed to be the largest donation
of postwar American art to any museum, the trustees of the Whitney
Museum of American Art have joined forces to give it a trove of
86 paintings, sculptures and prints that experts value at $200
million... The joint gift is the culmination of a three-year effort
led by the Whitney's chairman, Leonard A. Lauder. During that
time trustees quietly, almost stealthily, scoured artists' studios,
art galleries and auction houses — and even their own living rooms
— for the kind of important postwar American work that has been
increasingly vanishing from the market as it has been acquired
by collectors and institutions." The
New York Times 08/03/02
THE
MIND OF AN ART THIEF (AND HIS MOTHER): "Stéphane Breitwieser,
31, a restaurant waiter, is now in custody in Switzerland, where
he was finally caught last November after stealing a hunting horn
from the Richard Wagner Museum in Lucerne. He is suspected of
stealing 239 works of art in 174 thefts in Switzerland, France,
Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Austria." You remember
Stéphane - he's the thief whose mother repsonded to his arrest
by hurling some £1 billion of stolen art into the canal behind
her house. But this is no ordinary art thief. Breitweiser never
sold the items he stole, and in fact, always stole the display
card with the item, so that he could memorize it later. What drives
such an individual? Philip Broughton has an idea. The
Telegraph (UK) 08/03/02
LOOKING
FOR ANSWERS: "Like critics trying out adjectives to describe
a perplexing canvas, investigators and art experts are looking
at the theft this week of two Maxfield Parrish paintings from
a West Hollywood gallery and straining to understand. Most find
the thief's work 'sophisticated.' But they also label the $4-million
disappearance 'disturbing,' 'puzzling' and 'weird.'" Los
Angeles Times 08/03/02
ARCHITECTURE
MEETS MARKET RESEARCH: Princeton University's recent decree
that all new buildings on its campus must be designed in a Gothic
Revival style was puzzling to many architecture buffs - after
all, the style died out in the early 20th century. But as it turns
out, the decision to restrict the school's visual look was little
more than a calculated move to provide students with an architectural
"brand" they would respond well to. "The students
want the right architectural logo. These are the kids who grew
up wearing shirts that said 'GAP' or 'Abercrombie & Fitch,' who
explain their identities to one another by listing their favorite
music groups. Who you are is what you consume. And what you consume
is brands." Boston Globe 08/04/02
OUR
LADY OF ENDLESS COMPROMISE: Take the combined egos of nine
artists, add a church bureaucracy and a cabal of architecture
critics both professional and amateur, and you have a recipe for
chaos. And yet somehow, the new $200 million Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles got finished. The artists involved
have compared the frustration and compromise of the experience
to that of the folks who collaborated on the Sistine Chapel a
few centuries back, but all seem to agree that the end result
has been worth all the trouble. Los
Angeles Times 08/04/02
Friday
August 2
MURAL
HEIST: Two murals by Maxfield Parrish, valued at $2 million
each, and measuring 5 feet by 6 feet, were stolen from a gallery
in West Hollywood Monday. Police believe it was the work of professionals
- "This is unprecedented; you would need a moving truck and
four people." Los Angeles Times
08/01/02
- MISSING
GREEK: The British Museum has called in Interpol after an
art thief stole a 2,500-year-old Greek statue from the British
Museum, reported to be worth up to £25,000."
BBC 08/01/02
THE
UFFIZI'S NEW GATE OF HELL? The Uffizi is getting a new exit,
and it's been designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. Trouble
is - official Florence hates the proposal. "Is the talk of
this art-blessed town these muggy midsummer days really an aesthetic
disaster-in-the making, as fired-up opponents like film and opera
director Franco Zeffirelli would have it - or an unappreciated
artistic vision, as frustrated proponents contend? Or, to put
it another way, would Dante have assigned architect Arata Isozaki
to inferno or to paradise?" Nando
Times (AP) 08/02/02
CERTAIN
KINDS OF "CHEATING": Does using technology in creating
a painting somehow diminish its accomplishment? Is Thomas Eakins'
work the lesser for his having traced images? The notion challenges
"an entire art worldview devoted to celebrating 'genius,'
long sold as a spiritual quality unsullied by the material world.
For some, the use of optical aids compromises genius, and art
with it." Reason 08/01/02
Thursday
August 1
SPRUCING
UP STONEHENGE: A £57 million plan to dress up the Stonehenge
site is unveiled. "Even the critics agree that the design
for the visitor centre, or 'gateway'as English Heritage prefers
to term it, is lovely. Australian architects Denton Corker Marshall
have almost buried the building in the ground in their anxiety
not to eclipse the monument. From the air it will show as silver
parallel lines in the earth, and from the ground as pewter-coloured
metal slabs roofed with turf. A car park will have trees around
it for camouflage." The Guardian
(UK) 08/01/02
DISSING
THE DIANA MEMORIAL: Prominent critics and artists are protesting
a planned design for a £3m memorial fountain to Diana, Princess
of Wales. The winning design was described as "bland and
an embarrassment to Britain." "Kathryn Gustafson, the
American landscape artist, and the London architect, Neil Porter,
were nominated to create a large, water-filled, stone ring in
Hyde Park, ending five years of dithering since the princess's
death." The Guardian (UK) 08/01/02
DO
NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200: Former Sotheby's chairman
Alfred Taubman, who was convicted on charges of conspiracy and
price-fixing this spring, reported to a Midwest prison this week
to begin serving his one-year sentence. Taubman, who is 78, was
also fined $7.5 million by the court for his part in the price-fixing
scheme, which sparked outrage throughout the art world, and led
to much scrutiny for the top auction houses in the U.S. and Britain.
Nando Times (AP) 07/31/02
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