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-
OWNERSHIP
QUESTIONS: British report says some 300 works of art in
UK museums have questionable WWII provenance and could have
been stolen by Nazis from their rightful owners. The
Guardian 02/29/00
-
NAZI
LOOT: British museums and galleries announce a list
of art they hold that was looted by the Nazis and never
returned to rightful owners. So will the art be returned?
Not necessarily. "Arts Minister Alan Howarth told the
BBC's 'Newsnight' program: 'Just as it was wrong to take
paintings off Jewish people in the circumstances of the
Nazi era, so it would be wrong without a proper basis of
evidence to take paintings off the national collections
which are held for the public benefit.'"
BBC 02/29/00
-
WHAT'S
FAIR? "It is entirely proper that stolen pictures,
especially those taken in the appalling circumstances of
Europe under Nazi domination, should be returned to the
families of their pre-war owners, but publishing lists of
this kind invites false claims made, not with mischievous
intentions, but through errors of recollection after 60
years or more - one Picasso looks much like another after
so long a time. It is possible, even probable, that the
list will provoke false memories, and once a false claim
is made it may well be difficult for the gallery in question
to prove or disprove the claim, leaving ownership in limbo."
Evening
Standard 02/29/00
-
A
MATTER OF HONESTY: For all Al Taubman's fabulous success
running Sotheby's these last 17 years, he forgot one thing,
writes Thomas Hoving: "the basic point about what Sotheby's
had to be. Honest. The opposite of caveat emptor. Clean. Never-a-scandal.
Caesar's wife. Or, to quote from a renowned 1928 court of appeals
ruling, 'Not honesty alone but the punctilio of an honor the
most sensitive.' " Artnet.com
02/28/00
-
NO
MAN IS AN ISLAND: The
United Nations headquarters complex is falling down. The
50-year-old buildings currently
feature leaking
roofs, crumbling walls, and
failing HVAC.
The
U.N.'s immunity from New York City building codes
means
asbestos remains throughout,
there are no sprinklers, and wheelchair access is poor. According
to The New York Times, saving the property could cost $800 million.
The solution? An island getaway. Architecture
Magazine 02/00
-
ALL
DRESSED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO: "Arguably the third
most important commercial art fair in the world after Basel
and Chicago, ARCO is to Spain what the Venice Biennale is to
Italy or the Documenta in Kassel is to Germany: the largest
and most important art-related event in the country. I was surprised
to see entire middle-class families at ARCO on the weekend;
hordes of bongo-playing art students vegged out en plein
air just beyond the pavilion doors, smoking hash cigarettes
to their little hearts’ content. But all the optimism, booze,
drugs and quick money–and of all these this year there was plenty–could
not have made ARCO 2000 less of an artistic fiasco."
New York Press 02/29/00
-
"CHUNKY
PAPERWEIGHTS": Seattle entrusted the design of its
new main library to architect Rem Koolhaas, who promptly turned
around and presented an idea for a building that is...what,
floating glass cubes, piled together in "a bazaar for books,
computers, lectures and coffee, that augments the existing library
of helpful reference librarians, children's story time and quiet
reading nooks." Seattle
Post-Intelligencer 02/29/00
-
PICTURE
HOUSE: Getty Images says it will buy rival Visual Communications
Group in a $220 million deal that would create the biggest commercial
library of pictures, images, and film clips in the world - about
70 million. Wired
02/29/00
-
I
REMEMBER SYDNEY: In 1964 Harold and LuEsther Mertz, a couple
of rich American tourists, visited Australia. They decided to
buy four or five Australian paintings but became so captivated
by them they bought 148, assembling possibly the finest private
collection of Australian paintings anywhere and shipped them
off to America. Now they're for sale, and Australian auction
houses are lining up for the privilege. Sydney
Morning Herald 02/28/00
-
PAYING
FOR PAST SINS: The Smithsonian has begun renting itself
out - its experts, its expertise, its artifacts - in an attempt
to earn money to make up for budget cuts. Why? "The federal
contribution to our budget has declined to the point that, while
it will pay for some (not all) maintenance of our buildings
and for about 75 percent or so of our staff, it will not cover
any of the costs associated with mounting new exhibitions or
educational programs. We no longer have the staff to do work
in-house; contracting it out is very costly. And yet the public
expects us to continue as we have in the past, and the belief
that taxpayers' money supports everything we do is widespread.
It supports the infrastructure, barely, but nothing else. And
from this deficit stems a great deal that is troubling, to those
of us inside the institution as well as to outsiders like yourself."
Washington
Post 02/28/00
-
CHANGING
TIMES: New leadership
at the Harlem Studio Museum to forge new directions/definitions.
New
York Times 02/28/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
-
STATUE
ON THE RUN: A statue stolen 11 years ago from the Montreal
Children's Hospital, supposedly turned up last week as a prop
on the television series "Due South." Now the hospital
is taking its search to the internet to track it down. Ottawa
Citizen 02/28/00
-
RETURN
TO OWNERS: Germany and Russia finally come to terms on returning
some of the art they looted from one another during the Second
World War. ARTNews
03/00
-
BIG
THINK: Rodin's "The Thinker" is being recast for
the first time since the artist's death in 1917. The
Art Newspaper 02/25/00
-
PICTURE
PERFECT: Portrait artists are seeing an increase in business.
"I think the baby boomers have realized there's more and
more that needs to be maintained, that a portrait is a gift
you leave for future generations," says Toronto artist
Gail Hill. Indeed, many of Hill's clients are women in their
mid-40s to mid-50s: "We are the most beautiful we've ever
been, the most powerful, the most confident and competent,"
she says. "And we're also able to buy art." Toronto
Globe and Mail 02/27/00
-
NAZI
RETURNS: On the eve of announcement of a British government
plan for compensation to Holocaust survivors and their families
for artwork looted by the Nazis now residing in British museums,
a controversy erupts. Jewish community leaders and art experts
are protesting that the plan is inadequate. London
Evening Standard 02/025/00
-
SO
BIG THAT... Chicago's latest piece of public art is a $3
million sculpture, designed by London-based artist Anish Kapoor.
It will look like a highly finished piece of seamless modern
art that some have compared to a jelly or kidney bean. When
built, it will be 30 feet tall, 60 feet long, and weigh 100-plus
tons. City officials hope it will be a civic signature piece.
Just one problem: how to get it from where it's built, across
oceans, through canals and finally across town without crushing
the pavement, bridges and other obstacles in its path? Chicago
Tribune 02/25/00
-
WALKER
GIFT: Minneapolis' Walker Art Center gets a $5 million gift
of 20th-century paintings, sculpture, prints and drawings
from the collection of Judy and Kenneth Dayton. The Daytons
have been among the Walker's guiding lights.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune 02/25/00
-
THAT
OLD THING? A painting, found hanging on the wall in an old
English country home turns out to be unrecognized Cimabue worth
$3 million. Believed to be first Cimabue ever to be offered
at auction. Times
of India 02/25/00
-
SHOWING
OFF YOUR STUFF: Showcasing your art on the web is getting
easier and easier, with new websites dedicated to the promotion
of creativity. Wired
02/25/00
-
GLASS
HOUSE: At the Philip Glass Inc. studio, the background noise
"sounds more like a stock exchange than a creative haven.
Assistants, collaborators, friends and journalists are yelling
for the master's attention. 'The phone is always ringing off
the hook,' he admits cheerfully. 'I always have more work than
I can handle.' " Toronto
Globe and Mail 02/24/00
-
EDUCATIONAL
CHIC: A spate of new British college
buildings bring a refreshingly fashionable sense of style to
academia. London Telegraph
02/24/00
-
IS
IT A TEAR? AN EGG? A UFO? No, it's
Beijing's spectacularly daring new French-designed theater complex.
"But fears that foreign design will nevertheless raise
cultural hackles are so pervasive that Peking has imposed a
media blackout on the topic, even though demolition around the
site has started." The
Independent 02/24/00
- HERE
A PLINTH, THERE A PLINTH... Public statues
are a guarantee to oblivion. Who pays any attention to them? "Who
could have named any of the occupants of Trafalgar Square - apart
from Nelson - before the Royal Society of Arts launched its campaign
to fill the fourth plinth, which has remained empty since Charles
Barry laid out the square in 1829?" New
Statesman 02/21/00
- THE
ABC OF "SENSATION"ALISM: Australia's National Gallery
may have canceled a planned visit by the notorious "Sensation"
show, but the Australian Broadcasting Corp. serves up another
way to skin a cow in its new "This is Modern Art" series.
Sydney Morning Herald
02/23/00
- FLAG
OF CONVENIENCE: Irish artists have always felt ambivalent
about London - the need to live there for career vs. resentment
of the British omnipresence. The new generation of Irish artists
working in London are finding national identity increasingly irrelevant.
"Your nationality depends on who's giving you the grant."
The Irish Times 02/22/00
- NEW
JEWISH MUSEUM planned for San Francisco and designed by Daniel
Libeskind is unveiled.
New York Times 02/23/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
- THE
ROCKWELL DEBATE: Was he artist or illustrator? Who cares,
asks the Chicago Historical Society, on the eve of the opening
of the blockbuster Rockwell show. The show was so popular in Atlanta
they couldn't get all the people in who wanted to see it. Chicago
Tribune 02/22/00
- SWING
LOW: New Paris footbridge across the Seine opens, then closes
quickly after disconcerting swaying and "weird and wonderful"
movement.
London Times 02/22/00
- TRADE
IN HORROR: Museums and exhibitions dedicated to the Holocaust
have seen a growing commercialization in artifacts from the Holocaust.
Toronto
Globe and Mail 02/22/00
- MONUMENTAL
FAILURE: A Lyons opera house, built in 1993 by leading architect
Jean Nouvel, had to close its doors and the company cancel its
season after a rash of structural and mechanical failures in the
building. This is the latest mishap in a pattern of failure afflicting
celebrated modern French buildings. The Opéra Bastille, the Grande
Arche de la Défense, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and
the Conservatoire of music have all suffered collapses and dysfunctions
costing millions to repair. London
Times 02/21/00
- NOT US: Revelations that some
US museums have asked for commissions on sales of work they exhibit
leave other museums scrambling to deny they engage in the ethically-questionable
practice. New
York Times 02/21/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
- ART
OF THE WEB: A symposium on art in digital media concluded
Saturday with a roundtable of critics, historians and artists
at the Berkeley Art Museum. While the internet may have buzz,
here - just miles from the i-epicenter of Silicon Valley - the
symposium's 15 panelists almost threatened to outnumber their
audience. And though David Ross, director of the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, likened the artistic impact of the internet
to that of the advent of photography, the panel could hardly even
agree on how to define internet art. San
Francisco Chronicle 02/21/00
- ARTIST
RESALE RIGHTS: British opponents of an EU plan to give artists
a cut on the resale of their work say the plan will gut the English
market and drive art-sellers to Switzerland or New York where
the tax won't be collected. Is that any reason not to let artists
share in profits on their work? London
Telegraph 02/21/00
- STEP IN STEP: A wave of lawsuits
against Christie's and Sotheby's for price fixing amidst a pattern
of seemingly lockstep behavior.
New York Times 02/21/00 (one-time
registration required for entry)
- THE
"TWO OLDEST GUYS AROUND": Metropolitan Museum director
Phillippe de Montebello and Guggenheim Museum director Thomas
Krens run two of the museum-world's powerhouses. They have very
different ideas of the roles for their institutions in what some
call the Golden Age for museums. New
York Times 02/20/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
- GOING
FOR THE BIG "WOW:"
Designing the modern museum show isn't simply a matter of glass
cases and discreet tags any more. Award-winning museum designers
Cel Phelan and Steve Simons make an Event out of some Europe's
biggest exhibitions. The
Irish Times 02/20/00
- ENGLAND'S
ARCHITECTURE: Nostalgic? You bet we are. "We're more
than fond of our architectural heritage, and will do almost anything
to preserve the least-deserving Victorian pile. Or streamlined
30s factory, 50s school, 70s office block." The
Guardian 02/19/00
- CHINESE
LOUVRE: The People's Republic has included plans for a "massive
national museum capable of housing the country's reserve of cultural
relics reflecting the nation's 5,000-year history" to be
built in Beijing. China
Times 02/20/00
- THE
FACE OF GOD: It's difficult to love someone without a face.
We all have an image of what Jesus looked like, even though there
is no physical description in the Bible. Just how did the notion
of what Christ looked like evolve?
London Telegraph 02/19/00
- WEBBY
ART: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art teams up with the
Webbys to offer $50,000 prize to digital artist with the most
impressive work. Wired
02/18/00
- RELUCTANT
HONOR? The Austrian parliament has agreed that all works of
art stolen by the Nazis should be returned to their rightful owners.
But is the policy really being carried out? The
Art Newspaper 02/18/00
- WHERE'S
THE BEEF? Over the past 30 years Japan has built thousands
of new museums, some of them by prestigious architects. But what
baffles some visitors is the lack of collections to go inside.
The Art
Newspaper 02/18/00
- SAINTHOOD
DESERVED? Georgia O'Keeffe has long been elevated to the role
of secular American art saint, particularly by those in search
of a great female artist to worship. New retrospective strips
away decades of rhetoric to take a fresh look at the artist's
work. San Francisco Examiner
02/17/00
- NO
PEOPLE ALLOWED: The Taliban reopened Afghanistan's National
Art Gallery in Kabul this week, but no art depicting human figures
was allowed, in keeping with the Taliban's strict interpretation
of Islamic law. Times
of India (AP) 02/18/00
-
MASTER
DOUBT: An Old Master painting sold at auction in January
was a rags to riches story. But now experts have come forward
to say they had expressed doubts about the authenticity of the
painting before it was sold. Why weren't those doubts disclosed
by the auction house? New
York Times 02/17/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
-
PAY-OFF:
Detroit Institute of Arts pays artist Jeff Bourgeau $12,500
in compensation for canceling his controversial exhibition last
fall. Detroit
News 02/17/00
-
NO
MEMORY FOR DESIGN: Why aren't America's museums interested
in collecting the archives of its famous designers and architects?
New
York Times 02/17/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
-
MUSEUM
MONGER: The new chairman of the British government's new
Museums, Libraries and Archives Commission has got the UK's
museum world in an uproar. He's under attack for describing
British museums as regressive, isolationist, afraid of change,
and ignorant of technical advances. His critics contend he has
only the vaguest idea of what museums are for, how they function,
and what is actually happening in them today. "For someone
who will be responsible for advising the government on the running
of our regional museums, such ignorance gives cause for concern."
London
Telegraph 02/16/00
-
REVERSING
FIELD: Britain agrees to go along with EU plan to grant
artists resale rights on their work. Under the plan, artists
would get a maximum of four per cent on the resale of their
work on art worth up to £30,000, and smaller percentages for
higher-valued work. British Art Federation chairman Anthony
Browne says the damage to London's galleries would be "colossal".
London
Evening Standard 02/16/00
-
BASQUIAT.NET:
The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat threaten legal action against
a Basquiat fan website and shut it down. ARTNewspaper.com
02/15/00
-
SLOW
DOWN: In our frantic race towards modernization and productivity,
we have begun to fear slowness - to equate leisure with the
insidiousness of being idle. In "Slowness of Speed"
eight Korean artists examine the notion of time in the traditional
Oriental sense - where the boundary between past and present
is much less defined than in the West - and the conflict between
traditional values and the needs of modernization. Korea
Times 2/15/00
-
HOLOCAUST
MUSEUM names new chairman - a provocative New York rabbi
and a founder of the museum.
Washington Post 02/16/00
-
PITTSBURGH'S
Heinz Architectural Center has hired Joseph Rosa, an architect
and architectural historian, as its new curator.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/15/00
-
PEOPLE
IN GLASS HOUSES: A Scottish engineer says we're only just
learning what glass can do as a building material. He envisions
skyscrapers built entirely of glass. So why are so many critics
skeptical? Metropolis
Magazine 02/00
-
BUT
IT'S JUST A FACTORY: American investors have bought a Russian
porcelain factory, but encountered resistance when they went
to take control of it. "The struggle for control of the
Lomonosov porcelain factory has all the elements of Russia's
own national struggle. It is a tale of Russians against foreigners,
socialism against capitalism, the Kremlin against private investors,
alleged Russian crooks against brazen interlopers - with a priceless
imperial treasure as the prize." Toronto
Globe and Mail 02/15/00
-
HAVE
A COW: The New York Foundation for the Arts has pulled out
of administrating a major city-sponsored art project this summer
to paint and display 1,000 fiberglass cows. The city had sought
to have the foundation impose a rule on artists stating: "Designs
that are religious, political or sexual in nature will not be
accepted." Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel (New York Daily News) 02/14/00
-
GET
YER RED HOT RODINS... Florida bargain hunter says she bought
a Rodin drawing at a gift shop for $1.99. Yahoo
(Reuters) 02/14/00
-
ALL
ABE ALL THE TIME: Chicago
bookstore wins "Niche-Of-The-Year" award by making
a go of selling only books and memorabilia related to Abraham
Lincoln. Publisher's
Weekly 02/14/00
-
NAZI
PLUNDER: The Nazis stole 600,000 pieces of art in Germany
and the countries they occupied during Hitler's 12 years in
power, says the U.S. government's top expert in stolen art from
that era. The
Oregonian (AP) 02/14/00
-
TIME-SHARE
ART: London group gets together to buy art. Their combined
funds and expertise about contemporary art give them a leg up
on the market. London
Telegraph 02/14/00
-
GAUGUIN
OR BUST: A New Zealand gallery-owner is selling six paintings
he maintains are by Paul Gauguin and worth a fortune. But critics
say the paintings are fake, the work of master forger Karl Sim,
aka C.F. Goldie. New
Zealand Herald 02/09/00
-
"PEANUTS"
CREATOR Charles Schulz dies, one day before his last strip
was set to run. Boston
Herald 02/13/00
-
FIRST
LOOKS AT THE NEW TATE: The Tate Museum's new contemporary
home in London opens in May. ''The Tate's ambition is to be
one of the top three or four modern museums in the world. It's
not as big a collection as the Museum of Modern Art's or the
Guggenheim's. But the only modern art museum in competition
with it in Europe is the Centre Pompidou in Paris." Boston
Globe 02/13/00
-
OUT
OF THIS WORLD: New York's newly rebuilt and expanded Hayden
Planetarium is a monument to wonder. (A package of stories on
the new facility, exploring the building, what's inside and
how it was built.) New
York Times 02/13/00
(one-time
registration required for access)
-
SCREEN
TEST: The Smithsonian has entered the commercial movie business.
The institution's experts are consulting on the latest Mel Gibson
movie. Washington
Post 02/13/00
-
DALLAS'
NEW ARTS CENTER for the city's smaller arts groups is the
product of an enterprising young developer who happened to be
driving past an old Christian Science Church.
Dallas Morning News 02/13/00
-
USEFUL...BUT
IS IT ART? "In recent years, craft objects made by
hand or machine have become popular everywhere. The techniques
used to make them are taught at universities and professional
workshops. And the objects produced are exhibited in museums
and galleries and are collected with a fervor formerly reserved
for Rembrandts and Rothkos. Increasingly, curators, collectors
and creators in the crafts world ask whether these objects are
art." New
York Times 02/13/00
(one-time
registration required for access)
-
WOUNDED
MASTERS: In November three 17th Century Dutch Master paintings
stolen from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on Christmas
Eve 1978 were recovered in New York. Now San Francisco's de
Young Museum is showing the paintings in unrestored condition.
They dramatically illustrate the effects of neglect on old master
paintings. ``We know from their condition only that they've
been kept in very adverse circumstances, probably someplace
very damp,'' said Lynn Federle Orr, curator of European paintings
at the Fine Arts Museums. San
Francisco Chronicle 02/11/00
-
IN
HONG KONG: Open space gets more protection than monuments
and historical buildings in this land-strapped territory. The
Art Newspaper 02/11/00
-
HAVEN'T
HEARD MUCH from Azerbaijani or Ukraine
artists. Now the curtain is finally pulling back. Not surprisingly,
there's nothing that really qualifies as a unified art scene
here. London Evening
Standard 02/11/00
-
EXHAUSTED
RESOURCES: Rudy Giuliani didn't cotton
much to the idea of a field of naked people in Times Square
posing for a photographer. So now the concept travels - maybe
to Dublin? Irish Times
02/010/00
-
A
NEW TEMPORARY CONTEMP...ER MODERN museum for Queens. MOMA
picks LA architect Michael Maltzan to design the space in Long
Island City. New
York Times 02/10/00
(one-time
registration required for access)
-
Maltzan
worked as an architect in Frank Gehry's Santa Monica
office during the late '80s and early '90s, where he was
project designer for LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall. Since
leaving Gehry in 1995, Maltzan has done a series of major
projects in Los Angeles, establishing a reputation as a
designer of remarkable rigor and maturity. Los
Angeles Times 02/10/00
-
TURNING
TABLES: A German court has issued an injunction to bar the
return of a painting with questionable provenance to its American
owner: the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting is
"Bauhaus Staircase" by Oskar Schlemmer, painted in
1932, considered an icon of the Modern's collection and usually
on view in the permanent-collection galleries. The painting
had been on loan for an exhibition at the National Gallery in
Berlin that closed on Jan. 9. Ironically the Modern has been
in a similar dispute of its own over ownership of an Egon Schiele
painting that had been lent to MOMA.
New
York Times 02/10/00
(one-time
registration required for access)
-
TRUST-BUSTERS:
While the US Department of Justice investigates Sotheby's and
Christie's for commission fixing, Christie's quickly changes
its commission structure to "show its good intentions."
ARTNewspaper.com
02/10/00
-
ANTI-DEFAMATION:
Two Canadian artists created a monument to women killed by men.
Now the murder conviction of the husband of one of the women
named on the memorial is overturned, and the man's attorney
threatens a defamation suit against the artists. CBC
02/10/00
-
A
GRANDER VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE: The great accomplishment of
New York's newly-rebuilt Hayden Planetarium is "to make
the unimaginable understandable." Philadelphia
Inquirer 02/10/00
-
Previously:
PLANETARY
ADVENTURE: After six years of
work, the Hayden Planetarium at New York's Museum of Natural
History is set to open its ambitious addition. "Designed
by James Stewart Polshek and Todd H. Schliemann, the $210
million space is glass enclosed and luminous, a bright contrast
to the heavy neo-classicism of the rest of the museum. Newsweek
02/04/00
-
NEW
VENICE GUGGENHEIM in 18th Century customs house will concentrate
on contemporary art, leaving 20th Century to current Venice
Guggenheim. Chicago
Tribune (Reuters) 02/10/00
-
BEYOND
THE LOUVRE: A group of French museum
directors begins a tour of American regional museums. Last fall
officials from nine French and nine American art museums formed
a consortium to promote exchanges of artworks, technical expertise
and exhibitions. The organization is called FRAME, an acronym
for French Regional and American Museum Exchange. Cleveland
Plain Dealer 02/09/00
-
MORE
THAN A MUSEUM: Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol
Museum has become a major repository for the work of the pop
artist. Now, "it wants to become an adventurous and vital
cultural center that also hosts dance performances, plays, performance
artists and concerts, offers lectures and symposia on topical
issues, acts as an incubator for the region's avant-garde artists
and serves as a gathering place for young people." Pittsburgh
Post Gazette 02/09/00
-
CHRISTIE'S/SOTHEBY'S
PRICE FIXING SCANDAL could have big
repercussions for art Down Under. Sydney
Morning Herald 02/09/00
-
ALOOF
BALTIMORE MUSEUM reopens its front
doors, redefines its mission and invites in the community. New
York Times 02/09/00
(one-time
registration required for access)
-
TOWER
OF TREASURES:
The Chester Beatty Library, which holds one of the greatest
collections of oriental manuscripts in the world, has been
a more or less well-kept secret on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin.
This week the library was relocated to the newly-renovated tower
in Dublin Castle where number of visitors is speculated to increase 2500%.
Irish Times 02/08/00
-
PORTRAIT
OF INDIA:
How paintings have defined the identity of a nation. Art
India 02/00
-
WHERE'S THE
ART? Four years ago San Francisco opened a brilliant new museum
for modern art. But while SFMOMA's building was impressive,
many wondered where the art to go inside it was. Wonder no more.
"In less than two years the trustees have helped the museum
acquire more than $130 million worth of art by contemporary
masters like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly
and Mark Rothko. Their shopping habits -- paying top dollar
for the best available -- are more aggressive than those of
any museum in the world right now." New
York Times 02/08/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
-
PLANETARY
ADVENTURE: After six years of work,
the Hayden Planetarium at New York's Museum of Natural History
is set to open its ambitious addition. "Designed by James
Stewart Polshek and Todd H. Schliemann, the $210 million space
is glass enclosed and luminous, a bright contrast to the heavy
neo-classicism of the rest of the museum. Newsweek
02/04/00
-
THE
NEW NEW THING: So what new art trend is chasing New York's
Chelsea galleries? Computers. New
York Press 02/08/00
-
NEW
MILLENNIUM DOME CHIEF says he'll make
the dome the hottest ticket in town. After all, he helped transform
EuroDisney into a success.
Times of India (AP) 02/08/00
-
STAN
THE MAN LEE RIDES AGAIN: Comics legend
Stan Lee ("Spider Man" Fantastic Four") has a
prescription for fading comics. Take 'em to the web with a new
way of making them: "simple online animated shorts Lee
calls "webisodes." Designed to accommodate slower
modems, they will run between 3 and 5 minutes--complete with
bone-crunching, cape-swishing sound--and take between 1 1/2
and 3 minutes to download at 28.8K." Time
02/14/00
-
PORTRAIT
OF WAR: During the First World War,
Canadian artists painted war scenes, though not in the heroic
European tradition. These are canvases to discourage the proposition
of war. The canvases, packed away for decades, are now to be
seen again. Maclean's
02/14/00
-
"A
SCANDAL TO SHAKE THE ART MARKET TO ITS FOUNDATIONS":
Christie's auction house has turned state's evidence and told
anti-trust investigators from the United States Justice Department
about an alleged deal with Sotheby's to limit competition on
sellers' commissions. Watch for the lawsuits to start flying.
London
Telegraph 02/07/00
-
FRENCH
ART APRES LA GUERRE: Given the profound effect the First
World War had on the future of French art, it's curious that
so few attempts have been made to explore it. Now a "tentative,
ultimately disappointing" show at the Museum of Modern
Art. New
York Times 02/06/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
-
NEW
ERA IN BRITISH ARCHITECTURE: That's how interesting the
new £21 million lottery-funded Art Gallery in Walsall is. "Here,
at last, is an alternative to the ever-present high-tech of
Richard Rogers and Norman Foster."
London Times 02/07/00
-
MICKEY
MOUSE TO THE RESCUE: London's Millennium Dome has been ailing
- critics have been harsh and the crowds are staying away in
droves. So the British government has sacked the Dome's director
and replaced her with a Mouseketeer - a top executive from EuroDisney.
London Sunday Times 02/06/00
-
DEPARTURE
follows a series of shouting matches between Dome company
executives and ministers ordered by the British Prime Minister
to rescue the failing project and make it work. Relations
between the company and the Government were said to have
become untenable, as the Dome has turned into a major embarrassment
for Tony Blair's Labour Party.
London Telegraph 02/06/00
-
Just
how did such a project get built? And who's to blame?
(take credit?)
BBC 02/07/00
-
PAINTING
RETURN: "After confirming that one of its most prized
paintings had been stolen by the Nazis during World War II from
an Austrian Jewish art collector, the North Carolina Museum
of Art announced plans this week to give the painting back to
its rightful owners, two sisters in Austria." New
York Times 02/06/00
(one-time
registration required for entry)
-
REICHSTAG
ROW: German conceptual artist's proposal for a project for
the courtyard of the German Reichstag has created a furor.
Die Welt 02/05/00
- PLAYING
FOR ALL THE MARBLES: Cultural plunder has been going on for
centuries. If the Elgin Marbles are finally returned to the Greeks,
will the floodgates open with demands for other countries and
museums to return what they took? Salon
02/06/00
- GOING
WARHOL: What's
happened to David Hockney? In the past decade "he has refused
to simplify his signature style, choosing instead to interrogate
the rules of representation and reproduction. He's done photomontage
art and fax art, and has written books on what it means to see.
He has, in other words, gone Warhol, a wise PR move for an artist
always erroneously (yet profitably) associated with Pop, but a
disaster for one of the few living painters who can command respect
for his traditional skills." Feed
02/04/00
- THE
NUMBERS ARE IN: The Art Newspaper surveys the international
museum world of 1999 and tallies up the winners and losers. The
most-visited show? "Van Gogh's Van Goghs" at the Los
Angeles County Museum, with 821,000 visitors. The
Art Newspaper 02/04/00
- YOUR
GUGGENHEIM HERE: Residents of the town
of Greater Geelong in Australia describe their region as "Tuscany
with beaches." Geelong has mounted a campaign to persuade
the Guggenheim Museum to build a branch there. The building would
cost $300 million and the town would invite Frank Gehry to design
it. "We just became sick of feeling sorry for ourselves,"
explains the Chamber of Commerce president, Peter Landers. "We
have a good product here." The
Age (Melbourne) 02/04/00
- GETTING
THEIR ACTS TOGETHER: Museums often don't get it together enough
to win what they want at the auctions. But surprise - January
saw some smart bidding by museums on Old Masters, and they beat
out private collectors and dealers. Artnet.com
02/04/00
- MARBLE
MAZE: Records of negotiations between the British Museum and
the Greek Government over return of the Elgin Marbles have recently
been declassified. In 1994 the Greek government seems to have
been willing to end the dispute over the Elgin Marbles by accepting
only a small number of those at the British Museum. The
Art Newspaper 02/04/00
- PORTRAIT
GALLERY DIRECTOR RESIGNS: National Portrait
Gallery Director Alan Fern, who recently lost a bitter public
battle over how much space his museum would have in the building
it shares, will retire. The gallery is part of the Smithsonian,
and uses art to tell the history of people and events. Under Fern's
direction, the gallery's collection doubled to more than 18,000
pieces and began including popular cultural and sports figures.
Last year it had 432,000 visitors. Washington
Post 02/04/00
- MILLENNIAL
BUST? Only 366,000 people - or 11,000 per day - visited London's
much-mocked Millennium Dome in January. The publicly-financed
Dome must attract 12 million visitors this year to break even
financially. BBC
02/04/00
- RETURN
TO SENDER: The US Postal Service had
to destroy 100 million stamps of the Grand Canyon because they
placed it in Colorado instead of Arizona. Now, the corrected version
is flawed... Singapore
Straits Times (AP) 02/04/00
- BLOCKBUSTERING: It was another
great year for the museum blockbuster show. Record crowds everywhere,
and the number of big-time shows increased. The numbers may be
great, say some, but the challenge is to broaden interest beyond
the wildly popular Impressionists and antiquities shows.
New York Times 02/03/00
(One-time
registration required for entry)
- THEFT-TO-ORDER:
Police believe that the theft of a Cezanne from Oxford's Ashmolean
Museum over New Year's was a theft-for-hire job. Such art thefts
aren't unusual. Art is easily transported and convertible to cash,
and the steal-to-order trade is flourishing. New
York Times 02/03/00 (One-time
registration required for entry)
- ARTFUL
ESTATE: You're an artist and you've worked all your life for
fame, honor and sales. And you've had some success, selling a
few important pieces to museums and collectors. But the vast majority
of your works sit in storage racks in your studio, unsold and
unloved, except by you. But if you die tomorrow, the IRS could
assess devastating taxes against your estate, based on the proven
market value of the few pieces you've sold. What's an artist to
do? In Cleveland, a plan. Cleveland
Plain Dealer 02/03/00
- NEVER
MEANT TO BE SHOWN: "Hitler practicing his oratory in
front of a bedroom mirror; the Ayatollah Khomeini being stripped
by souvenir hunters at his funeral; Parisians caught in a bomb
attack on the Metro" - these photos, never meant to be seen,
are part of a new show in London. London
Evening Standard 02/03/00
- HIGH
RENT DISTRICT: Seattle rents are forcing out many of the city's
artists. A new set of evictions points up a much more complicated
problem than the traditional greedy-old-developer-against-helpless-artists
scenario. Seattle
Post-Intelligencer 02/03/00
- THE
NEW STORY OF ART: "Narrative," has lately acquired
an almost mystical significance in museum circles, especially
those most concerned with what we used to call the history
of modern art. Top directors of modern art museums gather to explain
the future of the "modern" art museum. New
York Observer 02/02/00
- SOFA-SIZE
ART: Weekend oil-painting sales attract big crowds. The pictures
sell for as little as $12. The Garden of Eden is big. So are purple
mountains' majesty. And whales. Abstract pictures used to sell
but not any more. What people are buying for their living rooms.
Washington
Post 02/02/00
- "AN
ATTRACTIVE NUISANCE": Badly neglected public sculpture
"Marianthe" at Florida community college to be destroyed
because of deterioration, despite protests of the artist. Artstar.com
02/00
- LIVING
IN THE FUTURE: The London of the future will have to support
a much higher population density than the one- and two-story rowhouses
currently house. Some architects take a shot at showing how it
might be. London
Times 02/01/00
- THE
REAL ARTIST: "For a painter whose name we're not even
sure of, who aggressively discouraged imitators, whose stormy,
rumbustious life was curtailed by an early death, partly as a
result of his own violent, impetuous nature, Caravaggio occupies
an extraordinarily important role in the history of European painting.
It's hard to imagine Rembrandt's work without him, for example,
and Rubens and Velasquez were among an army of admirers He was
an arrogant, violent brawler and a sexual outlaw as well as an
artistic and social revolutionary who changed our perception of
space." Two new books shed new light on one of art's most
important yet unknown characters. Irish
Times 02/01/00
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