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Monday December 31
FUSS
OVER WORDS: The new Memphis Central Library opened in November.
Outside the library dozens of famous quotations were inscribed
in stone, among them "Workers of the world, unite!"
"This phrase from the Communist Manifesto caught the eye
of two county commissioners and a city councilman, and in these
days of heightened patriotism a smoldering debate was ignited
on a popular radio talk show, in the letters and opinion column
of The Commercial Appeal of Memphis and in the three politicians'
own correspondence and phone calls. What is appropriate public
art?" The New York Times 12/29/01
THE
STORY OF THE FAKE PICASSOS: Turkey has taken down four paintings
it had said were Picassos after they were proven to be fakes.
"The paintings' provenance had always been slightly questionable.
They were acquired by the state after undercover detectives posing
as buyers infiltrated an art smuggling ring. The Turkish authorities
concluded that the pictures had been looted from Kuwaiti royal
palaces during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990." BBC
12/30/01
WHERE
ART MATTERS: No city celebrates contemporary visual art like
London. From the Turner Prize controversy to the Tate's success,
and the V&A's new look, art matters here. The
New York Times 12/31/01
Friday December 28
A
RIGGED AUCTION? After a John Glover painting sold on auction
last month at what experts say was an extraordinarily low price,
the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is investigating
to see if price collusion went on between bidders - two Australian
galleries. "The commission is investigating the suggestion
that art museums may have been discouraged from bidding, or talked
each other out of bidding for the picture, to the detriment of
the market-place and a fair price for the vendor." The
Age (Melbourne) 12/26/01
WHY
IS AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE SO BLAND? "Among practicing
architects here and abroad, it is axiomatic that there is much
more contemporary architecture of high quality to be found in
Europe than in the United States and that innovative, inspiring
architecture - as well as architecture that is well built and
long lasting - is constructed less frequently here than almost
anywhere in Europe. American architecture is, as a rule, conventional,
bland, and dull." American Prospect
12/17/01
KEEPING
MIES IN PLACE: A famous house in the Chicago suburbs, designed
by Mies van der Rohe and long open for public viewing, is on the
block, and preservationists fear it may fall into the wrong hands.
At one point, the state of Illinois planned to buy the house and
designate it as a landmark. "But the state's fiscal picture
has worsened dramatically because of the recession and the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks... No easy solutions are in sight. And so,
the Farnsworth House has entered a kind of official limbo."
Chicago Tribune 12/28/01
BANNING
TREASURE HUNTING: "According to estimates by commercial
salvors, there are some three million undiscovered shipwrecks
scattered across the world’s oceans." More and more of them
are becoming accessible because of improvements in diving technology.
So UNESCO has banned underwater treasure hunting, in an effort
to protect sunken artifacts from plunder. UNESCO
Sources 12/17/01
Thursday December 27
REBUTTING
THE NYT: Earlier this month, The New York Times dissed the
Milwaukee Art Museum and its new Calatrava-designed building.
Deborah Solomon wrote: "The museum has only a B-level art
collection - it does not own a Fauve Matisse painting, a Cubist
Gris painting or a Surrealist Magritte or Dali - but has nevertheless
managed to become a cultural landmark. As city planners everywhere
have clearly realized, a museum can become a global attraction
along the lines of the Tower of Pisa - and if the outside is good
(and slanty) enough, it really doesn't matter what is inside."
In defense, the MAM's director has written to the Times: "Perhaps
Ms. Solomon's piece comes under the issue's 'conceptual leaps'
category, since she neither visited the institution nor saw the
collection." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
12/26/01
POMPEII'S
GRAPHIC PICTURES: In January some 2000-year-old frescoes go
on display for the public in Pompeii. The pictures are highly
sexual. "The eight surviving frescoes, painted in vivid gold,
green and a red the color of dried blood, show graphic scenes
of various sex acts and include the only known artistic representation
of cunnilingus from the Roman era." What was the purpose
of the art? Ads for sex? Humor? The
New York Times 12/27/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
WAITING
FOR THE NEXT NEW THING: "The contemporary scene, currently,
is like a tide at still waters. Watchers are all waiting to see
which way the flow will run. As the Turner Prize attests, the
art world cannot churn out ground-breaking talents every generation.
Having shortlisted six dozen candidates since it was established,
its remit has recently seemed pretty sparse. And after this year’s
shenanigans it may have to fight harder for attention in 2002.
The public, like a wily old trout, may refuse to take the bait."
The Times (UK) 12/27/01
POP
GOES THE EASEL: As museums around the U.S. struggle with attendance
figures and constantly evolving competition from new and exciting
pop culture offerings, many are turning to pop art exhibits to
draw in the younger set. From the Guggenheim's motorcycles, to
SFMOMA's Reeboks, to a widely criticized display of Jackie O's
clothing at no less a gallery than New York's Metropolitan Museum,
it cannot be denied that museums are dumbing down. But is this
a failure of the arts, or a success for marketing? The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) (AP) 12/27/01
BEIJING'S
NEW CAPITAL MUSEUM: Construction has started on Beijing's
new Capital Museum. It will cost $94 million and be 60,000 square
metres large, reportedly the largest building built in the city
since 1949. It is expected to open in two years. China
Daily 12/26/01
TIME
FOR A RETURN TO POMO? Postmodernist architect Charles Moore
is enjoying something of a renaissance eight years after his death,
with exhibitions and biographies extolling his work, and his view
of architecture's place in the world. "Modernism, Moore argued,
was like Esperanto: an invented language that lacked cultural
depth and resonance. Buildings should talk a language that people
recognize." Boston Globe 12/27/01
WARHOL
TO GET 15 MORE: "The first major retrospective of Andy
Warhol's art in more than a decade will make its only North American
stop in Los Angeles next year." Although reproductions of
the American icon's work are commonplace, the exhibition will
be the first major display of Warhol's work since a New York viewing
in 1989. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (AP)
12/27/01
Wednesday December 26
FEEBLE
NONSENSE? So David Hockney believes that great artists of
the past may have used lenses to aid them in their sketches. And
he's made his claims in a book that many critics are taking seriously.
But critic Brian Sewell does not: "This is a silly and meretricious
book, a demonstration of naive obsession, of remote improbabilities
presented as hard facts, of shifting ground for every argument,
self-indulgently subjective, a farrago of feeble nonsense that
should never have been published and, had it been sent to Thames
and Hudson by Uncle Tom Cobleigh or Jack Sprat, would not have
been." London Evening Standard
12/26/01
ENRON'S
ART VENTURES: Enron had been making substantial investments
in art before its recent collapse. "Most of Enron's art-buying
was for its new building." In addition, the company supported
Texas arts groups. "Last year, the firm gave $12 million
to local charities, about one percent of its annual pre-tax revenues
of $110 billion. (By contrast, the firm spent a mere $2.1 million
on political lobbying in Washington.)."
The Art Newspaper 12/26/01
THE
SCULPTING ICON: Sculptor Louise Bourgeois turned 90 Christmas
Day. "She has witnessed most of the art movements of the
last century and influenced her share. She is still innovating.
She puts demands on her viewers to go with her into a discomfiting
zone of trauma and endurance." The
New York Times 12/23/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
RECRAFTING
A MISSION: There are few museums devoted to crafts. The Fuller
Museum of Art in Massachusetts is thinking about becoming one
- "The Boston area, one of the country's strongest craft
centers since the days of Paul Revere, is a logical locale for
a craft museum. Boston was an important force in the Arts & Crafts
movement." Boston Globe 12/26/01
Monday December 24
CLEVELAND'S
NEW MUSEUM: The Cleveland Museum of Art is about to start
building a new home, designed by Rafael Vinoly. "With an
estimated construction cost of $170 million, the museum job will
cost nearly twice the $93 million it took to build the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. In dollars and square footage, the
art museum project qualifies as one of the biggest and most complex
cultural efforts in the city's history." The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/23/01
CHARLES'
WORST BUILDINGS: Prince Charles, a longtime critic of modern
architecture, has decided to create his own "anti-award,"
picking the five worst new buildings. "The prince, whose
traditionalist views have been criticised as reactionary by many
modern architects and critics, plans to announce an initiative
aimed at highlighting what he considers the ugliest buildings
around." The Guardian (UK) 12/24/01
ANOTHER
WHACK AT THE TURNER: Prizes such as the Turner proclaim they
celebrate the new and experimental. "The trouble is that
contemporary art so often is not new. It seems that many artists
know nothing about even the most recent past, or if they do, have
no scruples about copying it." The
Art Newspaper 12/20/01
HOMELESS
THATCHER: A large marble statue of Margaret Thatcher is homeless
after being rejected by the National Portrait Gallery. "The
eight-foot sculpture of Baroness Thatcher with her trusty handbag
was judged 'too domineering' by the National Portrait Gallery.
It has left members of the House of Commons's Works of Art Committee,
which commissioned the £50,000 work, searching for a suitable
home for The Marble Lady." The
Telegraph (UK) 12/23/01
Sunday December 23
PROTEST
OVER KENNEDY APPOINTMENT: A member of the National Gallery
of Australia's board has resigned in protest over the reappointment
of Brian Kennedy as the museum's director. Boardmember Rob Ferguson
says the board had decided not to renew Kennedy's appointment,
but that the board chairman recommended to the government the
renewal anyway. The Age (Melbourne)
12/22/01
- KENNEDY'S
CONTROVERSIAL EVERYWHERE: Last month Brian Kennedy was offered
the directorship of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. But he turned
down the job. Now it looks like pressure was put on the museum
by those close to the Irish Minister of Culture to not give
the job to Kennedy. One said: "The Minister will not allow Brian
Kennedy to become Director of IMMA." Was the fix on? Irish
Times 12/20/01
ARTISTS
ON ART THAT MOVES THEM: For the past 15 months, Martin Gayford
has been interviewing artists about the influence of specific
works of art on their own work. "As I look back through the
columns at what the artists have actually said, a few patterns
emerge. The art of the 20th century has proved by far the most
popular - chosen 30 times out of a possible 65 - followed by that
of the 17th century (11), the 15th (seven), the 19th (six) and
the 16th (five). The 18th, and 14th centuries each scored two,
as did the ancient world. The most popular artists were Picasso,
Rubens, Van Gogh, Matisse and - surprisingly - Delacroix, each
covered twice. No one chose Michelangelo, Raphael, Degas, Poussin,
Breugel, Ingres, Goya and a number of other great masters."
The Telegraph (UK) 12/22/01
ART/NOT-ART:
Why get upset about things called 'art' when they seem so 'not-art'?
"You can hardly call something 'not art' when the only reason
you heard about it was that an art gallery funded and displayed
it and an art critic wrote about it in the art section of a newspaper.
The battle is over: It's already art, whether you like it or not.
As soon as the question of its artness even occurs, it is part
of a discussion that is inherently artistic; it is, henceforth,
irrevocably and perpetually a part of the history of art. People
said certain Impressionist works weren't art, and now even Canadian
Alliance members buy posters of them for their living rooms. You
can't get away from it." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/22/01
A
DECADE OF MODERN: This winter, the Frankfurt Museum of Modern
Art is saying farewell to the era of Jean-Christophe Ammann, its
enterprising founding director, who is leaving at year's end.
In his brief but turbulent time in Frankfurt, Ammann brought life
to the modern art scene. Like a dynamic and creative art entrepreneur,
he rewrote the concept of what a museum is about, turning the
place inside out to match the contemporary artistic zeitgeist."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 12/22/01
CARAVAGGIO'S
DEATH CERTIFICATE: There has been much speculation in art
historial circles over how exactly the great painter Caravaggio
died. Now "an Italian researcher claims to have found the
death certificate of Caravaggio and cleared up the mystery of
how the genius of Baroque art met his end." BBC
12/22/01
PAINTING
THE QUEEN: Clearly not impressed by Lucien Freud's efforts
at painting a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, The Guardian enlists
its readers to submit their own portraits of the Royal Handbag.
Check out the entries here.
The Guardian (UK) 12/22/01
Friday December 21
HERMITAGE MASTERWORKS,
SOLD FOR A SONG: Some countries lose their art to pillaging
armies. It was different in Russia, where the treasures of the
Hermitage were sold off by the Soviet government. "Our country
has been thoroughly taken to the cleaners. Only pitiful crumbs
remain of the cultural heritage we once had. Look at the lists
of works sold in the 1920s, look at the artists in those lists.
Almost any item from those lists, offered at auction today, would
create a sensation. But they were sold off for nothing."
The Moscow Times 12/21/01
SUSPICIOUS
(BUT ATTRACTIVE) ART: Some high-quality Afghan art has come
on the market. But dealers are suspicious it may be looted. "Suddenly
this week out of the blue we were offered a couple of Gandharan
works which were pretty spectacular ... of a type that were so
distinctive that had they been out and around in the West I'm
pretty sure we'd have known about them." Sydney
Morning Herald 12/21/01
TINY
QUEEN WITH LOTS OF PERSONALITY: Lucien Freud has painted a
portrait of Queen Elizabeth. It's small - 6 inches by 9 inches.
"The painting is not an official commission but a gift from
Freud to the Queen. (This is a grand gesture which has a precedent,
Freud notes, in the jazz suite that Duke Ellington wrote for the
Queen, having a single record pressed and delivered to Buckingham
Place.)" The Telegraph (UK) 12/21/01
- THEY
ARE NOT AMUSED: The critics have taken a look at Lucien
Freud's new portrait of The Queen. Many don't like it. Some
really don't like it. Among the comments: "extremely unflattering"
(The Daily Telegraph); "The chin has what can only
be described as a six-o'clock shadow, and the neck would not
disgrace a rugby prop forward" (The Times); "Freud
should be locked in the Tower for this" (The Sun);
and perhaps most to the point, from the editor of The British
Art Journal, "It makes her look like one of the royal
corgis who has suffered a stroke." BBC
12/21/01
GOOG GETS 275
CONTEMPORARY WORKS: "The Bohen Foundation, a nonprofit
organization based in Manhattan, has given about 275 works by
45 artists to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The gift,
worth about $6 million, art experts said, significantly augments
the Guggenheim's permanent collection, especially in film, video,
new media and installation art." The New York Times 12/21/01
(one-time
registration required for access)
FOR
REALLY AMBITIOUS PROJECTS: If you're working on a large-scale
sculpture, and need a bit more room, you might check out the Franconia
Sculpture Park in northern Minnesota. With its sixteen acres,
says the founder, "You don't have the constraints of a studio.
It's an outdoor studio. We're unique in that we're a workplace
and a showplace." Chicago
Tribune 12/20/01
ART
IN THE DEEP FREEZE: Two artists are living at the South Pole
. They're "the first two painters to visit this frozen continent
under the British Antarctic Survey’s Artists and Writers Programme.
The initiative was launched this year as a step towards bridging
the cultural gap between the worlds of science and the arts."
The Times (UK) 12/21/01
Thursday December 20
FIRE
DAMAGES TAPESTRIES: This week's fire at New York's Cathedral
of St. John the Divine did serious damage to two priceless tapestries.
"The tapestries, The Last Supper and The Resurrection,
depicted scenes from the life of Christ. They were two of a set
of 12 known as the Barberini tapestries, woven under the direction
of Florentine Cardinal Maffeo Barberini on papal looms in the
mid-17th century. 'They're among our greatest, most treasured
possessions'." Newsday
12/19/01
WAS
BACON BLACKMAILED? Artist Francis Bacon's estate is suing
the Marlborough Gallery, accusing it of blackmailing Bacon into
not switching to another gallery when he wanted to. The estate
"believes that Bacon was not paid properly by his long-time
dealer for many of his pictures" and that the claim against
Marlborough could be worth more than £100 million The
Art Newspaper 12/18/01
WHY
NO UK AUCTION HOUSE CHARGES: With ex-Sotheby's head Alfred
Taubman convicted of price-fixing in New York, why have no charges
been leveled in Britain against Christie's former chairman? "While
the Christie’s-Sotheby’s collusion was going on, UK anti-competition
laws were weak, and continue to be weaker than US antitrust laws.
Before the UK Competition Act of 1998, which came into effect
in March 2000 after the auction house conspiracy had ended, no
penalties were imposed in the UK for price-fixing." The
Art Newspaper 12/18/01
AUSTRIANS
TAKE OVER A BRITISH ART: It's the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary
of the death of JWW Turner, arguably the greatest watercolour
artist of all time. He was British, of course - as the president
of the Royal Watercolour Society notes, "it is a very British
medium. It is the one thing we have given the arts." But
where are the fine watercolourists of today? "The wellspring
of inspiration for the last two decades has been Austria."
The Economist 12/20/01
NOT QUITE
PICASSO: The State Museum in Ankara, Turkey, may have to close
its Picasso room. At least four of its eight "Picasso"
paintings are fake. They're copies of Picasso originals owned
by the Hermitage Museum, whose director says, "Not only are
they copies, but they are very bad copies. The originals are here
with us at the Hermitage where they have always been."
online.ei 12/19/01
Wednesday December 19
APPROPRIATING
ABORIGINAL: Over the past 30 years Australian Aboriginal art
has become wildly popular. But "indigenous designs created
over thousands of years were being used to decorate furniture
and furnishings, clothing and carpets, doonas and desks. Ignoring
copyright law, companies were stealing the patterns and shapes
Aborigines had been creating for thousands of years." One
researcher has fought to preserve the rights of Aboriginal artists.
The Age (Melbourne) 12/19/01
TRUMP'S
BLOATED BLOB: When Donald Trump announced plans earlier this
year to construct a new skyscraper on the Chicago riverfront,
he swore up and down that this, finally, would be a Trump building
to be architecturally proud of: more substance, less glitz. Well,
the plans are out, and the design looks to be The Donald all over
- in fact, it's "hard to say which is more disappointing
about Donald Trump's plan for a bloated blob of a skyscraper on
the prime riverfront site now occupied by the Chicago Sun-Times
building -- the mediocrity of the design or the facile, thumbs-up
reviews it's getting from Mayor Richard M. Daley's top planners."
Chicago Tribune 12/19/01
MUMMY-BURGERS:
Two Egyptian mummies have been buried in the foundation of what
is now a McDonald's restaurant for the past 70 years. "They
were laid there at the instigation of their owner, the Rev William
McGregor, who had built up a large collection of artefacts he
had brought back from Egypt for a museum he opened at his home."
Birmingham Post & Mail
(UK) 12/19/01
Tuesday December 18
AN
OKAY LEAN: The leaning tower of Pisa was reopened to tourists
over the weekend after 12 years of efforts to stabilize it. "The
tower lurches vertiginously towards the cathedral museum, despite
restoration work that has reduced its lean by 44cm and which,
experts say, should make it safe for the next 200 years."
The Guardian (UK) 12/16/01
BUILDING
BOOM: Across the American South, dozens of new museums are
being built. "This boom is based partly on the desire of
many Southerners to bring more fine art to their communities.
Although some museums here have superior collections that are
languishing in storage for lack of display space, directors of
some others are still uncertain what they will hang on their new
walls." The
New York Times 12/18/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
WAYNE'S
WORLD: When Wayne Baerwaldt takes the reins at Toronto's Power
Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, it could mark a watershed moment
for new and innovative art in Canada, according to observers.
Baerwaldt, who curated Canada's entry at the Venice Biennale,
and has, as curator of a high-profile Winnipeg gallery, earned
a reputation as a tireless promoter of Canadian art and artists,
will take over at the Power Plant in March 2002. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/18/01
Monday December 17
DISSENTING
OPINION: Critics have greeted the Victoria & Albert Museum's
redo of its British galleries with enthusiasm. "In chorus,
the writers sang the Gershwin song 'S'wonderful, s'marvellous,
you should care for me ...' and described the new display as a
knockout, a triumph, a stroke of genius, a tour de force, a coup
de thè‚tre and a sockeroo. It perhaps ill behoves me, then, to
play curmudgeon with what is evidently the eighth wonder of the
world, but that is precisely what I am compelled to do, though
from melancholy regret rather than sheer cussedness."
London Evening Standard 12/16/01
AUSTRALIA'S
MOST WANTED: Who are Australia's most collectable artists?
Some big names didn't make the list... Sydney
Morning Herald 12/17/01
ART
MAGAZINE CLOSES: The 13-year-old LA art magazine Art issues
has closed, surprising many in the art world. Its publisher said
"the decision to cease publication had more to do with aesthetics
than finances. The magazine garnered about $60,000 in grants,
along with donations to the foundation and about 3,000 paid subscriptions
in 2001. But more money would be needed in the future for the
publication to thrive, he said. Those funds could probably be
found, he said, but it would it take too much time from the editorial
work that he loves." Los
Angeles Times 12/16/01
EVERYBODY'S
GOT A NEW PROJECT: Besides the highly publicized announcement
of a new Rem Koolhaas-designed LA County Museum, two other American
museums have recently announced big new projects - a 100,000-square-foot
$79 million addition to the Virginia Museum of Art, and a $170
million addition to the Cleveland Museum. The
Art Newspaper 12/14/01
Sunday December 16
LET'S
GET RID OF ANYONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT ART: Madrid's Prado is one
of the world's great museums. But a series of scandals and missteps
in the past decade has made it the object of ridicule. Recently,
the museum's latest director was removed and replaced by a bureacrat
with no art experience. The "putsch has scandalised Madrid's
cultural elite. Is he qualified to go shopping for new Goyas?
Madrid's art world thinks not, but Eduardo Serra has the support
of the conservative prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, who no longer
trusts anyone from the art elite to run the museum." The
Guardian (UK) 12/15/01
ART
FROM THE UNDERGROUND: In South Africa, how to counter dwindling
attendance at traditional galleries and arts institutions? "The
awards landscape is slowly expanding beyond the confines of rearguard
formats and exclusive 'art mafia' decision-makers and it seems
to be happening rather quietly, without much public investment.
What has rocked the apathetic cultural boat over the last year
has been the growing support for public art events that either
have critical and engaged social awareness ambitions at their
hearts or those that set out to spectacularly entertain in the
form of art parties in our national galleries."
Daily Mail & Guardian (South
Africa) 12/16/01
Friday December 14
NEW
IDEAS FOR OLD BUILDINGS: English preservation got a shot of
new blood this week with the appointment of the energetic rising
star Simon Thurley. "English Heritage has, for the first
time, a chief executive who is a buildings man, not a bureaucrat.
It is a critical break with the Civil Service legacy that has
hung like a miasma over the organisation. Life will not be easy
with Thurley at English Heritage. As one very senior commissioner
acknowledged yesterday, 'It's a brave choice, it won't be quiet
with Simon'." The
Telegraph (UK) 12/14/01
TOWARDS
SETTING UP AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSEUM: The US Congress has
passed a measure setting up a "presidential commission to
handle planning and logistics for a National Museum of African-American
History and Culture." The new museum would help "demonstrate
the significance of African-American history to American history."
CNN.com 12/13/01
THEY'RE REAL
GOLD, BUT THEY'RE STILL FAKES: The Gold Museum is the most
popular museum in Peru. Its prize holdings, however - thousands
of pieces of pre-Columbian gold - turn out to be mostly fakes.
A government commission reports that of "4,349 metal pieces
analysed, 4,237 are false and more than 100 have aroused strong
suspicions concerning their authenticity." The commission
had doubts about the gold for 20 years, but it was only after
the death of the museum's politically-prominent founder that the
holdings were analyzed. The Art Newspaper 12/13/01
BANFF
CENTER APOLOGIZES FOR ARTWORK: Canada's Banff Center has publicly
apologized for art one of its residents created. Artist Israel
Mora masturbated into seven vials, "placed the vials into
a cooler and wheeled it around Banff on a cart. He then hung the
cooler between two trees. A message on the exterior explained
the nature of the contents. Mora has said the vials represent
seven members of his family." The Center said: "There are
some differences in public taste. We're a publicly funded institution
and we need to be cognizant of those things." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/14/01
TRADITIONAL
TREE: The Tate Museum surprises everyone by putting up a traditional
Christmas tree. "After years when the traditional tree sculpture
in the London gallery's foyer was either hung upside down from
the ceiling or dumped in a skip to protest against consumerism,
the artist Yinka Shonibare was determined to do something really
controversial and make a jolly one. 'Christmas is a happy time.
This is happy tree'." The
Guardian (UK) 12/14/01
Thursday December 13
A
NEW KIND OF CONCERT HALL: "Philadelphia now breaks
ranks with cities that have regressed toward infinite infantilism
in the quest to revitalize their downtowns. Rafael Viñoly's
architecture is not nostalgic for ye olde city life. It's not
ironic about it, and it's not cute. Apart from spatial amplitude,
it makes few concessions to luxury or glamour. The exterior,
particularly, may strike some concertgoers as harsh. It is only
inside the building that the Kimmel Center reveals the elegance
of its concept. Mr. Viñoly has designed an urban ensemble, composed
primarily of city views. Classical music is the architecture
here, the building an instrument in which to perform and hear
it." The
New York Times 12/13/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
-
L.A.'S
NEW LANDMARK: In Los Angeles, Frank Gehry's new Disney
Concert Hall is taking shape. It's sure to alter the cultural
architecture of the city. "The crazily curved building
- which evokes the hallucinatory shapes of Disney's more
fantastic cartoons - will surely be another milestone in
the architect's long career. Now 71, for much of his life
he was underappreciated in his adopted city."
The Age (Melbourne) 12/13/01
ROCKWELLS
RECOVERED: "Working with Brazilian police, the FBI
has recovered three Norman Rockwell paintings valued at up
to $1 million that were stolen from a [Minnesota] art gallery
in 1978, taken out of the United States and hidden most recently
in a farmhouse outside the town of Teresopolis, Brazil. An
art dealer in Rio de Janeiro turned the paintings over to
authorities after questioning by U.S. and Brazilian authorities
this month." Minneapolis
Star Tribune 12/13/01
CARBUNCLE
BOY HAS ANOTHER GO: Prince Charles is at it again, deriding
Britain's architects and their work: "Tall buildings
are often nothing more than 'overblown phallic structures
and depressingly predictable antennae that say more about
an architectural ego than any kind of craftsmanship', the
prince told the Building for the 21st Century conference in
London, before quoting the American novelist Tom Wolfe's quip
that they left '"turds in every plaza'."
The Guardian (UK) 12/13/01
IT'S
OFFICIAL - NATIONAL POST DECLARES 'END OF ART': The editorial
page writers for Canada's National Post play art critic, weighing
in with a judgment on Martin Creed's winning artwork for this
year's Turner Prize: "Mr. Creed literally made nothing.
He has achieved the logical end of art, for if anything and
everything may be regarded as art - even a room devoid of anything
except a light bulb - then nothing is art. This is obviously
all to the good. The practitioners of contemporary art can all
go home - and we can all ignore them."
National Post (Canada) 12/12/01
-
OTHER
CRITICS DISAGREE: "It’s a very profound thing. He’s
trying to make art with nothing - with the most ordinary,
denigrated, degraded, run-of-the-mill materials like Blu-Tak
or Sellotape. He is an up-to-date version of the conceptual
artist. The art is a concept made momentarily transitory.
He was asking the final question, which is about the spectator.
He made the people going into the room look at the room
and ask a question about what was the room doing. Rooms
in galleries are beautifully lit; you don’t expect them
to be suddenly in darkness." The
Scotsman 12/12/01
- SOME
FIND A MIDDLE GROUND: There is no doubt that Creed's work
is minimalist. But much of the fascination of his stuff is the
sense that such conceptual pieces are "the product of an
artist engaged in a kamikaze game of chicken with the critics."
Like it or hate it, you've got to give points for the brashness.
The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/13/01
- AND
THEN THERE ARE PROTESTERS (NATURALLY):
A 52-year-old grandmother has been banned for life from the
Tate after she went into Creed's room and threw eggs at the
walls. "What I object to fiercely is that we've got this
cartel who control the top echelons of the art world in this
country and leave no access for painters and sculptors with
real creative talent." BBC
12/13/01
STOP
IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW: This is all Chicago's fault. The giant
cows all over the city were cute for about five minutes, but then
every other American city had to jump into the act, with pigs,
Snoopys, and God knows what else on display as public art. Now,
the District of Columbia is leaping into the fray. The animals
of choice? Donkeys and elephants, of course. Washington
Post 12/13/01
HOW
TO ENJOY A TRAFFIC JAM: Phoenix's Artlink shuttle, a self-guided
monthly bus tour highlighting dozens of area galleries and studios,
has added in-transit performance to its free service. Poets and
musicians have been invited to climb aboard the shuttle to perform
between stops, and early reports indicate that some patrons are
actually staying on the shuttle longer than they intended so as
not to miss a minute. Arizona Republic
12/12/01
Wednesday December 12
ART
INSTITUTE ALLEGES FRAUD: The Chicago Art Institute has
accused a Dallas financial firm of maybe defrauding the museum
of millions of dollars. "As much as $43 million in museum
endowment funds placed with the firm appear to be at risk,
the Art Institute said. One fund containing $23 million from
the museum is said to have lost as much as 90 percent of its
value, according to the complaint." The firm promised
"protection from any plunge in financial markets."
Chicago Tribune 12/11/01
-
HEDGING
ON THE FUTURE: So why was so much of the Art Institute's
endowment invested in one place? "A museum executive
defended the Art Institute's heavy investment in so-called
hedge funds, investment vehicles that are widely used by
institutional investors to minimize risk or maximize returns.
While such investments typically make up 10 percent or less
of institutional investors' portfolios, the Art Institute
allocated 59 percent of its $667 million endowment to hedge
funds." Chicago Tribune
12/12/01
UNFAIR
BIDDING? Last month two museums in Australia (one of them
the National Gallery) teamed up to bid on a painting at auction.
The auction house was disappointed when the painting - John Glover's
1833 painting of Hobart sold for $1.5 million, about $1 million
less than it hoped for. Now the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission is investigating the galleries for unfair bidding.
"They could be fined up to $10 million if the Trade Practices
Act has been breached." The
Age (Melbourne) 12/12/01
THUNDER
STEALING: Three days before a major show of Rodin sculptures
and drawings is due to open at Australia's National Gallery of
Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales announces it's been given
a gift of nine important Rodin bronzes. "The timing was purely
coincidental." Sydney Morning Herald
12/12/01
THE
MEANING OF ART: So some people - okay, a lot of people - wonder
why a an empty room with the lights flashing on and off can win
Britain's top art prize. "Some people, undoubtedly, are afraid
- both of the feelings art provokes and of having their preconceptions
of what art ought to be upset. They want meaning on a plate, served
up the way it has always been. They often seem to want demonstrations
of familiar skills." The
Guardian (UK) 12/12/01
CHEATER
CHEATER PUMPKIN EATER: So great artists might have used an
optical device to help them draw. "Allusions to deception
(or cheating) have now emerged in the reception to artist David
Hockney's new book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost
Techniques of the Old Masters. But whatever the optical device
(including a modern camera) and whatever the time period, one
thing remains the same: Using an optical device does not make
art easier; it makes art look different. That's a point easily
lost." Los
Angeles Times 12/12/01
HMNNN
- IS IT REALLY A VAN GOGH? The recent attribution of a heretofore
anonymous painting as have been painted by Van Gogh is a bit of
a mystery. Not only is it now said to be by the Dutch master,
but it's also supposed to be a portrait of Gauguin. "Why
should this extraordinary find, which its supporters now claim
is worth an estimated £5 million, have been dismissed for so long?
The answer lies in the fact that Man in Red Hat is a crudely
executed work. Modest in size and hastily painted, the supposed
Gauguin portrait is far from a masterpiece." The
Times (UK) 12/12/01
THEY
WANT TAX CUTS WHILE WE'RE CUTTING PROJECTS IN PROGRESS? "The
White House Office of Management and Budget has proposed a $45
million cut in next year's capital budget" for the Smithsonian.
That means that restoration of the Old Patent Office, home of
the National Portrait Gallery, "the third-oldest public building
in the nation's capital" and the building for which "President
Andrew Jackson laid the cornerstone in 1835 and Abraham Lincoln
danced in at his inaugural ball" and which closed last year
for a five-year renovation, may be delayed for at least a year....
The New York Times 12/12/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
Tuesday December 11
NEW
VAN GOGH DISCOVERED: "Dutch researchers have unearthed
what they believe to be the only painting of artist Paul Gauguin
by Vincent Van Gogh. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam say the
painting, Man in a Red Hat, is a very 'significant' and 'fascinating'
work." BBC 12/11/01
EXTENDING
A CONCEPT: "You think Martin Creed's Turner Prize effort
with the light turning on and off is silly? Or perhaps you still
regard Tracey Emin's unmade bed as the apotheosis of over-hyped
conceptual art lunacy? Well, brace yourselves, conceptualist fans,
because this is where it gets even sillier. Three models have
formed "the world's first purely media-driven art collective,
so this, the very article that you are reading right now, is their
'art'." London Evening Standard
12/11/01
- A
CONTEXT FOR NOTHING: Turner Prize winner Martin Creed on
the meaning of his work: “My work is about 50 per cent of what
I make and about 50 per cent about what other people make of
it,” Creed says. And when they make nothing of it? He shrugs.
“It’s not necessarily a direct form of communication. It’s more
like a kind of feeling. More like music.”
The Times (UK) 12/11/01
THE
NEW NEW YORKER MAP: It was 1976 when New York artist
Saul Steinberg's famous map of the world as viewed from Ninth
Avenue appeared on the cover of the New Yorker magazine.
Everyone wanted a copy, and versions were created for nearly every
city on the East Coast. Now, the same magazine has placed on its
cover a new map of Gotham's famous neighborhoods, each rechristened
with names like Kvetchnya and Mooshuhadeen. Always lovers of the
inside joke, New Yorkers are snapping up copies. National
Post (Canada) 12/11/01
HOW
SOME MUSEUMS COUNT ATTENDANCE: Minneapolis's Walker Art Center
says it drew its best ever attendance attendance last year, with
1,022,000 visitors, putting it in 8th place among American art
museums. But the number is unquestionably inflated with subgroups
such as the "386,000 people who passed through the Minneapolis
Sculpture Garden but not the museum."
Minneapolis Star-Tribune 12/10/01
ANOTHER
VIEW OF ART HISTORY: University of Chicago art historian Michael
Camille has caused a stir with his challenges to conventional
readings of art history. "His reading of early Western art
as an enforcement of power has provoked mixed responses, reflecting
broad disagreements among commentators over the notion, as detractors
put it, that culture is a conspiracy."
Chronicle of Higher Education
12/10/01
NEW
CLEVELAND HEAD A BIG FAN: "A Cleveland businessman who
fell in love with art in college and who wrote his senior thesis
on the impressionist painter Mary Cassatt has been named president
of the Cleveland Museum of Art." The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/11/01
Monday December 10
CREED
WINS TURNER IN ODD CEREMONY: Martin Creed has won this
year's Turner Prize. "Having said earlier he regarded
Turner as 'just a stupid prize', he said of his installation:
'It doesn't make it a better piece of work just because it
wins a prize'." Presenter Madonna also took some swipes at
the award, calling awards "silly" and asking: "Does
the artist who wins the award become a better artist? Is it
nice to win 20 grand? Definitely - but after spending time
in this city, I can tell you that it won't last very long."
BBC 12/10/01
-
SO
SAY THE JUDGES: “We admired his audacity in presenting
a single work in the exhibition, and noted its strength,
rigour, wit and sensitivity to the site Coming out of the
tradition of minimal and conceptual art, his work is engaging,
wide ranging and fresh.” The
Times (UK) 12/10/01
-
EXTENDING
THE LINE OF CONTROVERSY: Even by the standards of a
prize that has been contested by Chris Offili's elephant
dung paintings, Tracey Emin's soiled bed and dirty knickers
and Damien Hirst's sliced and pickled animals, Creed's work
is widely considered exceptionally odd and is likely to
quicken debate about the prize's future." The
Telegraph (UK) 12/10/01
-
STAR
TURN: Was the choice of Madonna to present this year's
Turner Prize a cynical grab for celebrity? Actually, the
singer comes out of an art background. "Having grown
up with people like Haring, Basquiat and Andy Warhol - who,
incidentally, attended the singer's first wedding, to Hollywood
star Sean Penn - it's no surprise that Madonna has become
a serious collector of modern art."
BBC 12/09/01
MODERN
SICKNESS: It's only been open three years but Stockholm's
modern art museum Moderna Museet, is "being forced to
close next month because of what is known as "sick-building
syndrome," a series of seemingly unrelated construction defects
believed responsible for health problems reported by numerous
staff members." The New York
Times 12/10/01 (one-time registration required for
access)
THE
NAME MEANS EVERYTHING: A painting thought to be by an
anonymous insignificant artist, has been identified as a Van
Gogh. "The painting, which has languished in a storeroom
for decades, has been recognised as a Van Gogh after extensive
scientific research by art historians at the museum and the
Art Institute of Chicago." The attribution is said to
make the painting worth about $5 million. The
Telegraph (UK) 12/09/01
TEXT=50
SECONDS, ART=4 SECONDS: The Washington Post's Blake Gopnik
conducts a little research and observes that visitors to a
gallery spend far more time reading the explanatory texts
on the walls than they do looking at the art. "People
are understandably confused and threatened by the complexities
of art. But when the devices used to help them overcome discomfort
end up standing in for works on show, we have a major problem
on our hands. Museums are supposed to be about experiencing
visual art, but they're in danger of becoming nicely decorated
reading rooms." Washington
Post 12/09/01
DISNEY
- AMERICA'S MOST FAMOUS ARCHITECT? "This may startle
some, because we think of him as a cartoonist, filmmaker,
TV host or theme park entrepreneur, not an architect. But
that's the point. Blessedly free of an architectural training,
he was brilliantly self-taught in the defining art form of
the 20th century - the movies. And he brought that mastery
of the cinema and the forces of popular mass entertainment
to his architecture. At his 1955 masterwork, Disneyland in
Anaheim, and later on a larger canvas at Walt Disney World
in Orlando, Fla., Disney created the template for any number
of major developments and suburban centers ever since."
San Jose Mercury News 12/09/01
APPLAUDING
THE TEARDOWN: "The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's
trustees' unanimous endorsement last week of Dutch architect Rem
Koolhaas' plan to raze the museum's four main buildings and replace
them with a huge structure on stilts topped by a billowing tent
of a roof has been greeted with mostly amazed applause."
Los Angeles Times 12/10/01
Sunday December 9
CREED
WINS TURNER: Scottish artist Martin Creed has won this year's
Turner Prize, presented Sunday night in London by Madonna. Creed's
minimalist installation that consisted of an empty room with
a light flashing on and off, had drawn the most controversy
of this year's finalists. The Scotsman
12/10/01
-
WHY
CARE ABOUT THE TURNER? Is there really any point to being
interested in the Turner Prize? It's become so much more about
the "idea" than anything visual. "There are
still plenty of painters. There are still plenty of paintings
which cannot be described because they are indescribably dreadful.
And there are plenty of conceptual works which make a powerful
visual impact. But when 'the idea' has become so dominant
that it ousts the image from art, and when all the candidates
selected for Britain’s premier prize represent one particular
trend of thought, you do have to wonder why." And yet
there is a bigger idea behind it all... The
Times (UK) 12/08/01
-
THERE'LL
ALWAYS BE A TURNER: People get in a huff about the controversial
Turner Prize and decry the aesthetic that it pushes. But this
is nothing new. "The Turner Prize is our modern-day equivalent"
of the great historic salons and annual official art shows
of the past "in that it creates a moment when art becomes
fully public. The prize is sometimes talked about as if it
had no historical precedents, but in fact it fits into a history
of exhibitions - more common in the 19th century than the
20th - that gave contemporary art a high public profile. In
Turner's Britain the Royal Academy show was just as popular
and contentious as the prize that now bears his name."
The Guardian (UK) 12/08/01
WHO'LL
TAKE OVER THE NATIONAL? Now that the popular Neil MacGregor
has moved from London's National Gallery to take the top job at
the British Museum, jockeying for the National Gallery job is
beginning. The flamboyant Timothy Clifford, director of the National
Galleries of Scotland is at the head of the pack. "Other
contenders include Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National
Portrait Gallery in London, and Christopher Brown, head of the
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The National Gallery’s trustees may
also look for some American pizzazz to help update its commercial
approach. The Tate Gallery and the V&A have recently had more
success in attracting casual custom."
The Scotsman 12/08/01
STAR
SEARCH: Dallas wanted a star to design its new performing
arts center. Instead it got two, and they're two of the hottest
architects working today - Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaas. The
question is - can they work together in a city that's known for
the generic modernism of its buildings? "Generic modernism is
never more generic than it is in Dallas," says Koolhaas. "There
is a way of building here that is so typical and so featureless
that it creates an opening for something really interesting."
Dallas Morning News 12/08/01
Friday December 7
TURNER
FAVORITE: The Turner Prize will be announced by Madonna in
a ceremony at the Tate on Sunday. Bookmakers have made installation
artist Mike Nelson the favorite. His work contains "a plastic
cactus, mirrors, doors and old tabloid newspapers with declarations
of war, an array of army helmets and scrawled graffiti-like comments
including 'failed Marxist' and 'this is crap'." BBC
12/06/01
BUT
IT'S JUST NOT DONE... "The auction market has
had its share of corruption and dishonesty in the past - the
Sevso silver scandal, fakes galore, the selling of Nazi loot
- but no one ever imagined in their most cynical dreams that
the very pinnacles of the establishment, the chairmen of Sotheby's
and Christie's, could take it upon themselves to filch millions
of dollars from their wealthy customers." And yet they
did... The
Guardian (UK) 12/07/01
-
ADDING
UP THE LOSSES: Sotheby's and Christie's have lost big-time.
"Seldom has a scheme seemed to yield as little, in the
end, for its participants as this one has. The $4 billion
a year high-end auction business, controlled for centuries
by the two companies, finds itself more cash- strapped than
ever. Both companies have had to pay hundreds of millions
of dollars in legal settlements, lawyers' fees, and, in Sotheby's
case, fines stemming from the collusion. They are also facing
a shaky economy with a dwindling supply of multimillion- dollar
art coming on the market, an upstart competitor with deep
pockets poking at their duopoly, and reputations that might
have been deeply damaged by the scandal and seamy revelations
that emerged during Mr. Taubman's 16-day trial in Manhattan
federal court." The New York
Times 12/07/01 (one-time registration required for
access)
AFTER
ELI'S ART: Eli Broad is "possibly the richest man in
Los Angeles and one of California’s heavyweight power brokers.
Broad has purchased more than a thousand works of art since 1972,
either personally or through his eponymous foundation. Broad’s
the largest single charitable donor in the U.S. after Bill Gates,
and gave away some $137 million last year." Who will get
his art when he's ready to give it away? He's being coy, and three
museums across the country are hosting exhibitions from his collection.
A tryout perhaps? New York Press 12/05/01
UNDER
THE BIGTOP: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a jumble
of rundown buildings. In reimagining what it might be, Rem Koolhaas,
who won the competition for a new design this week, has "literally
wiped away the past, obliterating almost all of the existing LACMA
campus. It is a brazen move that transforms a muddled collection
of undistinguished buildings into a cohesive architectural statement
of piercing clarity. The entire complex is reconceived as a system
of horizontal layers, with the exhibition spaces stacked above
an open-air plaza and offices." The entire complex will be
covered by "an organic, tent-like roof." Los
Angeles Times 12/07/01
LOST
CITY DISCOVERED OFF COAST OF CUBA: Canadian explorers have
found a sunken lost city off the coast of Cuba. "The explorers
said they believed the mysterious structures, discovered at the
astounding depth of around 2,100 feet and laid out like an urban
area, could have been built at least 6,000 years ago. That would
be about 1,500 years earlier than the great Giza pyramids of Egypt."
Discovery 12/06/01
Thursday December 6
PROPOSED
CUTS TO SMITHSONIAN: The Bush administration is proposing
big budget cuts for the Smithsonian, including transferring $35
million from the Smithsonian's research offices, stopping restoration
of the Old Patent Office building and taking $20 million from
the institution's budget to pay for security. "A congressional
source familiar with the proposals said the OMB plan essentially
cuts the Smithsonian's mission in half because its scientific
research programs would be decimated. 'They could go down the
tubes,' he said." Washington
Post 12/06/01
EX-SOTHEBY'S
CHIEF CONVICTED: Alfred Taubman was convicted in New York
of price fixing in collusion with Christie's, Sotheby's main rival.
"'Hey, the law's the law,' said Mike D'Angelo, a postal worker
who served as foreman of the jury as he and fellow jurors discussed
the case outside afterward." The
New York Times 12/06/01 (one-time registration
required for access)
KOOLHAAS WILL DESIGN
NEW LA COUNTY MUSEUM: "Choosing between a tear-down and
a fixer-upper, leaders of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
took the leap Wednesday. They unanimously approved a proposal
by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to demolish most of the buildings
at the Mid-Wilshire site and replace them with a vast structure
that sits on columns and is topped by a tent-like roof. Board
Chairman Walter L. Weisman said the actual cost of the building
might run as high as $300 million." Los
Angeles Times 12/06/01
THE
REAL PROBLEM WITH THE BRITISH MUSEUM: "The British Museum's
difficulties are not just the well-reported cock-ups - the debts,
the confusion about the Portland stone that has dogged the otherwise
successful Great Court. The museum's real problem is that it has
no brain, just diverse limbs, flopping about. It doesn't seem
to know who it is for, or why, and is run by scholars and marketing
people, two groups that often seem to regard the general public
as idiots. The Guardian (UK) 12/06/01
OUTLAWING
TECHNOLOGY IN THE MUSEUM: Simon Thurley is director of the
Museum of London and a young rising star. But he's banning technology
that has become commonplace in museums. "He claims that the
gadgetry so many museums have invested millions in during the
past decade is 'nonsense... A lot of it is rubbish and doesn't
work anyway. You press the buttons too hard and you break it'."
The Guardian (UK) 12/06/01
Wednesday December 5
NEW
GERMAN LAW FOILS STOLEN ART RECOVERY: A new German law applies
a statute of limitations of 30 years on property claims. "Among
the big implications is on artwork seized by the Nazis. "Among
other implications for the art trade, this would make it impossible
for works stolen by the Nazis to be returned to claimants, despite
repeated declarations by German governments that they will do
anything to achieve a just and fair solution in such cases. The
German museums association issued a press release deploring the
new law." The
Art Newspaper 12/05/01
- CUSTODY
BATTLE: "Two museums in Eastern Europe want back a
collection of Albrecht Durer drawings now owned by other museums
around the world, including the Cleveland Museum of Art. But
an official from the U.S. Department of State said Monday that
the U.S. government acted properly after World War II when it
returned the drawings, looted by the Nazis, to Prince George
Lubomirski, who claimed to be the rightful owner. Lubomirski
later sold the drawings to museums." The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/05/01
REVIVING
THE V&A: Of all the museums that are benefitting from
England's recent scrapping of museum admission fees, London's
Victoria & Albert museum may be experiencing the most dramatic
turnaround. The V&A had been in something of a funk for the
last few years, and was widely considered to be conservative to
the point of stodginess. But a new director and a widely-praised
expansion of the museum itself have sparked a dramatic turnaround.
The New York Times 12/05/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
LET'S
GET REAL: When the National Gallery of Australia and a major
bank announced a new $50,000 National Sculpture Prize, it was
widely assumed that many of the entries would be abstract and
conceptual. Surprise - most of the work is decidedly realist.
The show "could have been designed as an argument for the
resurgence of anatomical concerns in contemporary object-making,
or at least as proof of sculpture's traditional obligation to
represent things." Sydney Morning
Herald 12/05/01
OBSCURA
THEORY: David Hockney has proposed that "around 1430,
centuries before anyone suspected it, artists began secretly using
cameralike devices, including the lens, the concave mirror and
the camera obscura, to help them make realistic-looking paintings."
Last weekend, art historians and scientists gathered in New York
to debate the theory. On average, the art historians weren't buying
it.... The New York Times 12/04/01
(one-time registration required for access)
WHO
GETS THE AUSSIE MUSEUM DOLLAR? Is the National Gallery of
Australia getting a disproportionate share of funding and power
at the expense of the country's other museums? With many fewer
visitors, the NGA gets much more money from the government.
The Age (Melbourne) 12/05/01
Tuesday December 4
PRADO
DIRECTOR QUITS: Fernando Checa has resigned as director of
The Prado Museum, Spain's most visible and visited art museum.
The resignation appears to be the culmination of a long-running
feud with the president of the museum's oversight board. BBC
12/04/01
BERLIN
MUSEUM REOPENS: Berlin's Old National Gallery has reopened
after a £50 million renovation to "erase some of the scars
of World War II and the communist era behind the Berlin Wall.
The ornate, neoclassical building houses about 500 of the most
important German paintings and sculptures of the 19th Century."
BBC 12/04/01
DALLAS
PAC GETS DESIGNERS: "A cool Brit known for technological
lyricism and a Dutch iconoclast famed for pushing limits have
been chosen to design the $250 million Dallas Center for the Performing
Arts, the largest cultural project in the city's history. Sir
Norman Foster's London firm will design the 2,400-seat opera house,
the center's showpiece, while Rem Koolhaas will do the adjacent
800-seat theater. The announcement Monday concludes an 11-month
search that involved several dozen firms from around the world."
Dallas Morning News 12/04/01
WHITNEY
CELEBRATES A DYING MOVEMENT: New media art has appeared to
be on the downswing for the last year or so. Lack of public interest
and outright critical hostility have driven the movement to the
brink of irrelevance. But next year's Whitney Biennial is trumpeting
what it calls "the largest representations ever" of new media
art, and given the festival's wide sphere of influence, proponents
are hoping for some fresh interest. Wired
12/04/01
SURE,
THAT'LL CHEER 'EM UP: Collector Charles Saatchi wants to donate
some of his art - carved up carcasses and headless animals - to
London hospitals. "If the Chelsea and Westminster hospital
in London can overcome its initial misgivings, the most spectacular
and expensive Damien Hirst of all, Hymn, a 20ft anatomical
model based on a children's toy, will soon grace its huge atrium.
So far, however, the hospital's pioneering art programme has seemed
a little squeamish about the statue's lurid single staring eye,
and the fact that its innards are on open display."
The Observer (UK) 12/03/01
MAKERS
BEHIND THE ART: So you think artists actually make their own
big-scale works? "A lot of people don't get it, because they
still think that artists make their own work. They imagine that
Damien Hirst is welding and grinding, when actually he's off on
a four-day bender." Meet the man and his crew who fabricate some
of the art world's most famous sculptures.
London Evening Standard 12/03/01 '
SFMOMA
STILL HEADLESS: "David Ross' abrupt departure from the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has left the director's position
at the high-profile local institution empty for more than three
months now. But in an interview last week, SFMOMA chairwoman Elaine
McKeon said the search for his successor proceeds at full speed."
Still, the museum has had three directors in the last three years,
and some wonder about the intraoffice politics. San
Francisco Chronicle 12/04/01
Monday December 3
WHITNEY
MAKES CUTS: New York's Whitney Museum has seen its attendance
fall by more than 25 percent since September 11. So the museum
is moving to cut $1 million from this year's budget. "The
70-year-old facility will trim 14 workers from its 210-person
staff and cut back on its scheduled roster of 2002 exhibitions."
Nando Times (AP) 12/01/01
PRIVATIZING
A HERITAGE: Watching over the cultural and artistic riches
of Italy is a massive job, and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi,
Rome's answer to Rupert Murdoch, says the government just isn't
up to the task anymore. Accordingly, Italy's 3,000 state-run
museums will be at least partially turned over to private management
in the near future, with the government maintaining only a cursory
oversight role. The New York Times
12/03/01 (one-time registration required for access)
RISKY
BUSINESS: Afghanistan's Taliban rulers made it one of their
missions to wipe out as completely as possible the nation's
considerable cultural heritage, including the deliberate destruction
of hundreds of works of art from the country's museums. "But
it has now become apparent that an Afghan businessman and art
lover, Sabir Latifi, managed to save up to 50 of the condemned
works" at grave risk to his own safety. BBC
12/03/01
HEY,
IT'S WORKING! "Thousands of visitors have poured into
Britain's top museums over the weekend after entrance fees were
scrapped... The decision to introduce free entry follows tax
changes in the last Budget - which allow free museums to reclaim
VAT [tax revenue]." BBC 12/03/01
WORLD'S
LARGEST ARTWORK: The same weekend an artist created the
largest painting in the world, an Australian artist who "trained
as a mining engineer has created the world's largest art work,
a 4.3 million-square-metre figure of a smiling stockman furrowed
into the Mundi Mundi Plains" in Australia. The
Age (Melbourne) 12/03/01
-
Previously:
WORLD'S
LARGEST PAINTING: "Eric Waugh has been working for
five years on Hero, a painting that will stand twice
as tall as the Statue of Liberty when all the canvas is pieced
together. The massive work is to be unveiled on Saturday –
World AIDS Day – on the grounds of the North Carolina Museum
of Art. After the one-time exhibition, the 41,400-square-foot
painting will be cut into 1-square-foot pieces and sold on
the Web site art.com, a sponsor of the work. Waugh hopes to
raise $4 million." Washington
Post (AP) 11/30/01
RUNNING
OUT OF ART: Even though London's auction houses hailed last
week's sales as including "important English art," there
wasn't much important up for bid. "With so many pictures
in museums, supplies of great British art are gradually drying
up." The
Telegraph (UK) 12/03/01
Sunday December 2
WORLD'S
LARGEST PAINTING: "Eric Waugh has been working for
five years on Hero, a painting that will stand twice
as tall as the Statue of Liberty when all the canvas is pieced
together. The massive work is to be unveiled on Saturday – World
AIDS Day – on the grounds of the North Carolina Museum of Art.
After the one-time exhibition, the 41,400-square-foot painting
will be cut into 1-square-foot pieces and sold on the Web site
art.com, a sponsor of the work. Waugh hopes to raise $4 million."
Washington Post (AP) 11/30/01
-
PAINTING
ASSEMBLED: "With the Guinness official watching to
make sure every panel was put in place, a pre-arranged bit
of theater began. The volunteers came up one panel short.
Waugh threw up his hands. Had he left the final canvas in
his studio? What now? As a baffled crowd looked on, a Fargo
truck, with sirens blaring, made its way onto the ground.
Three armed guards unloaded the final panel, put in place
by Waugh and his sons." Raleigh
News & Observer 12/02/01
PHOTOGRAPHIC
RECORD IN PERIL: Some 50,000 glass-plate photographic negatives
made in the 19th and early 20 centuries sit in storage deteriorating
in storage in Beijing's Forbidden City. "We are afraid to open
the boxes because we don't have the conditions to protect the
negatives. But the longer we wait, the greater the danger that
the gelatin will not hold and the photos will be destroyed forever."
International Herald Tribune 12/01/01
THE
UNDERGROUND MUSEUM: "Awarded the 2004 Summer Olympics,
Athens quickly bored two subway lines through the heart of the
city. With the ancient city sometimes no more than a paving slab
away, workers overturned 65,000 square metres of ground and uncovered
a wealth of glorious things. Thankfully, most artifacts survived
and have now taken their place in the most mobile of museums -
the subway." National Post (Canada)
12/01/01
ON
THE TRAIL OF A HOLBEIN: A writer's attempt to find out everything
he could about a Holbein painting hanging in London's National
Gallery leads to a complicated story involving a mysterious donor
and a forgotten last novel by Henry James.
The Guardian (UK) 12/01/01
MINIMAL
FUSS: The problem with Minimalism is there's just too little
to it. "Prejudice puts minimalism close to the top of the
pretentiousness charts: a philosophy that passes off next to nothing
as if it was something, a creed that sells new clothes to emperors.
But like all art, minimalism should be seen in its historical
place - that it was a reaction to, and an advance on, what had
gone before." The
Guardian (UK) 12/02/01
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