Thursday
October 31
ON
THE WHOLE, I PREFER HENRY MOORE, WOT? British culture minister Kim Howells
took a walk through an exhibition of artwork by those chosen as Turner Prize finalists,
and didn't hold back on his reaction to it. On a message board in the gallery
at the Tate, he wrote: "It's cold, mechanical conceptual bullshit ... The
attempts at contextualisation are particularly pathetic but symptomatic of a lack
of conviction." The Independent (UK) 10/31/02
A
NERVOUS ART MARKET: Whenever the economy goes down, the number of artworks
up for auction goes up. "While the monetary total is not unusually high,
the sheer number of works for sale this fall has increased. Some is being sold
by people in financial distress, but many other sellers think this is the moment
to cash in. The question is whether collectors will have the appetite, never mind
the means, to buy." The New York Times 10/31/02
PLAYING
KEEP-AWAY WITH RAPHAEL: "An appeal to raise £30m to save a Raphael masterpiece
for the [UK] has been launched by London's National Gallery. The current owner
of Raphael's Madonna of the Pinks, the Duke of Northumberland, has agreed
to sell the painting to a US gallery to prop up his estate's ailing finances.
But he is giving the National Gallery - where the painting has been on loan for
the last decade - one last chance to keep it." BBC
10/31/02
ART
OF NEWS: The Newseum unveils plans for a $400 million new home located on
a prominent corner of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. It's a museum dedicated
to the art of news and newsgathering... Washington
Post 10/29/02
Wednesday
October 30
SOTHEBY'S
DRAWS BIG FINE: Sotheby's is fined more than 20 million Euros by the European
Union for "operating a price-fixing cartel during the 1990s." Fellow
partner-in-crime Christie's escaped punishment because the company came forward
to provide evidence of price fixing. "The pair handle 90% of the auction
market and have been under investigation by the commission for breaking fair trade
rules. They were accused of inflating commission fees and defrauding art sellers
out of £290 million." BBC 10/30/02
ANOTHER
TURNER CONTROVERSY: This year's Turner Prize shortlist follows a tradition
of nominating controversial art. It includes a work that is a graphic description
of a pornographic movie. "The four shortlisted artists - Fiona Banner, Liam
Gillick, Keith Tyson and Catherine Yass - will learn who has won the coveted prize,
and with it a £20,000 cheque, in December." BBC
10/30/02
- THROWING
UP FOR ART: With Stuckists protesting outside at the absence of traditional
painters on the Turner shortlist, inside art glitterati were upchucking after
watching a movie by one of the finalists (and it wasn't the porn project). The
Guardian (UK) 10/30/02
- HANDICAPPING
THE TURNER: The controversy, the noise, the predictable hype... the Turner
is getting a bit boring. "It is all very undignified and divisive. The art
itself gets kicked around like a football, in a game in which no one knows the
rules. But it doesn't matter - the game's the thing!" Here come this year's
entries. The Guardian (UK) 10/30/02
- WHERE'S
THE BUZZ? "Truthfully, as balanced and fair and good as the 2002 list
is, it is also a tiny bit dull. So that's another thing then: when it comes to
the Turner Prize, the Tate can never win." The
Telegraph (UK) 10/30/02
- DON'T
CARE? This year "mention of the Turner seems to have stirred intense
apathy. The Britpack caught the imagination. But once they had clicked into cultural
place as neatly as the mechanisms of a semi-automatic taking dead aim at the lowest
common denominator, they were commonly announced to be 'over'. And then no one
seemed much to care what was upcoming for the Turner." The
Times (UK) 10/30/02
BATTLE
FOR THE BARNES: Lincoln University is a small black college with control of
an art collectionworth billions of dollars. But the Barnes Collection, claiming
poverty and an unworkable relationship with Lincoln has filed a petition for divorce
and announced its intention to move to Philadelphia. The plan is a blow to the
tiny college, and court battles over the Barnes' right to self determination figure
to drag out a long time. The New York Times 10/30/02
ART
ONLINE: Many museums have resisted putting images of their artworks online
for fear that they would lose control of the images. A project in California seeks
to put museum collections across the state online. "Users can search 150,000
images of artifacts, paintings, manuscripts, photographs and architectural blueprints
from 11 public and private museums. But with more than 2,000 museums in the state,
that's just scratching the surface. 'Our goal is to get every museum, library
and archive in California to have their collections digitized and online'."
Wired 10/30/02
SHOOT
ME: An art exhibition in Soho is drawing criticism for its violent theme,
particularly after the DC-area sniper attacks. "Shoot Me, by the multimedia
artist Miyoung Song, features a basement shooting gallery that enables visitors
to take potshots with a BB gun at random women, children and porn stars in the
throes of sex as they flash by on a video screen equipped with a paper bull's
eye." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/30/02
ART
IN KIDDIELAND: "Parents may not be sure about dragging children along
to see Art with a capital 'A', but the galleries are in no doubt at all. These
days, public art galleries and museums have more kids' courses and activity weeks,
more hands-on, child-friendly, interactive workshops, more family trails, more
learning centres than ... well, Picassos and Matisses. It has got to the point
that, for an art-loving adult, no visit to a gallery is free from the vague dread
that an entire primary school class may be seated in front of your favourite painting,
or gangs of adolescents ostentatiously tittering at the nudes on display."
The Guardian (UK) 10/30/02
Tuesday
October 29
PARIS
MUSEUMS PREPARE FOR SUPERFLOOD: Paris' leading museums, including the Louvre
and the Musee d'Orsay are removing thousands of precious artworks from their basement
storage because of fears about a hundred-year super-flood that could happen this
winter. "We're not saying the great centennial flood is coming this winter,
we're just saying we know it will come some time soon and the signs are not encouraging.
We have to make sure we can deal with it when it happens." The
Guardian (UK) 10/26/02
SCULPTOR
REGRETS REMOVING CONTROVERSIAL ART: Last month sculptor Eric Fischl's bronze
sculpture of a falling body commemorating 9/11 was removed from Rockefeller Center
after a few people complained. Now Fischl regrets that he allowed the piece to
be taken away so quickly. "I even regret caving in to Rockefeller Center
so fast and saying: 'Yeah, take it away. I don't want to hurt anybody.' I'm sorry
I didn't raise a stink over it. I hate this idea that there are some people who
have a right to express their suffering and others who don't, that there are those
in this hierarchy of pain who own it more than you do." New
York Times Magazine 10/27/02
MILLION
£ SOUP: Andy Warhol's screenprint of Marilyn Munroe sold for more than
$17 million. But the artist's family is selling Warhol's iconic Campbell's soup
can for only £1 million. The Guardian (UK) 10/29/02
BRITAIN'S
WOEFUL PUBLIC BUILDING RECORD: Why are public building projects in Britain
so woefully carried out? "In Britain we have become so used to the idea that
any major public building project will be delivered several years late and costing
some multiple of the figure originally predicted that initial projections are
treated rather like the boasts of an imaginative angler." The UK has failed
to invest in its educational infrastructure. What's needed is a massive education
plan for engineers and architects... The Guardian
(UK) 10/29/02
Monday
October 28
A
RECORD WEEK: "Sixteen auction records were broken in just over two hours
at the 20th-century Italian art sales in London last week. But, bullish as this
sounds, the reality was more sober..." The Telegraph
(UK) 10/28/02
LOOKING
FOR A DIGITAL HOME: Seeing how there are museums for just about anything,
is there a possibility of a museum devoted to digital art? "Efforts to establish
a one-stop shop for the digital arts — a Linkin' Center, if you will —
have been, at best, modestly successful. Donors are tight fisted, especially when
there are no tangible objects that they can call their own. As a result, while
there are small high-tech art centers scattered around the country and virtual
museums sprinkled across the Web, none fulfill the museum functions of organizing,
commissioning, exhibiting, collecting, preserving art works and education. But
two organizations are moving in the right direction." The
New York Times 10/28/02
INVESTING
IN SCOTTISH ART: The Scottish government has come up with a plan to help museums
across the country buy contemporary art. Ten musems will share £350,000
to spend on new work. The government "believes the scheme will revolutionise
local museums, and also provide an opportunity for award-winning artists such
as Douglas Gordon, Calum Colvin, Callum Innes and Roderick Buchanan to be represented
in Scottish collections." Glasgow Herald 10/26/02
MASS
APPEAL: Over the next few years some 3.8 million new houses will be built
in the UK. So "what might they look like, and what might they be like to
live in? After a long sabbatical from the design of mass housing, British architects
are making their way back. They are not finding it particularly easy." The
Guardian (UK) 10/28/02
YE
OLDE OBELISK TRANSPORT COMPANY: In ancient times hundreds of obelisks lined
the Nile. But beginning in Roman times, foreign countries made sport of taking
souvenirs, and it became fashionable to remove the giant stone obelisks and bring
them back for placement in leading cities. One of the last taken was transported
to New York in 1881 to Central Park, where thousands of New Yorkers waited...
Archaelogy 11/02
THE
MAN BEHIND REM, DANIEL, ANISH... Modern architects like Rem Koolhaas and Daniel
Libeskind like to dazzle with theatrical structures. But Cecil Balmond is the
engineer behind them who helps make the ideas possible. "Balmond's structures
tend to look as if they have no business standing up. Instead of depending on
massive walls and simple symmetry for their strength, they rely on what he presents
as being a deeper understanding of nature. In his softly-spoken but determined
way, Balmond is trying to shift the way that we see engineers, as well as engineering."
The Observer (UK) 10/27/02
Sunday
October 27
JESUS
IN ONTARIO: "A 2,000-year-old limestone box that some believe provides
the first archeological evidence of the existence of Jesus will have its international
public premiere next month in Canada... The rectangular ossuary, which dates from
about 63 AD, was excavated by an Arab villager about 15 years ago in a cave near
Jerusalem, then sold to an antiquities dealer. He in turn sold it to an Israeli
collector, who, in March of this year, brought it to the attention of Sorbonne
scholar André Lemaire, one of the two experts who vouched for its great age."
The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/26/02
THE
GREATEST ARTS PATRONS OF ALL TIME: It seems safe to say that the world will
never again see a family like the Medicis, who held up the financial end of artistic
achievement in Europe for more than 500 years. Without the Medici family, there
would have been no Michelangelo, very little of Galileo, and the Rennaissance
might have been little more than an average movement in the history of art. A
new exhibit in Chicago focuses on the last glory days of the Medici, with more
than 200 works on display. Chicago Tribune 10/27/02
EVERYTHING
(EUROPEAN) MUST GO: As part of its new mission of focusing its collection
on American art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is auctioning off 34
works by Europeans artists next week, with the proceeds to be used to beef up
the academy's American collection. "The consigned works... are with several
exceptions by relatively obscure and unfashionable artists, and only a few carry
estimates of more than $100,000." Philadelphia
Inquirer 10/23/02
HOW
MUCH IS THAT AMERICAN NEA BUDGET, AGAIN? In Austria, a country with nowhere
near the wealth and resources of the U.S., governmental investment in 'quality
of life' is a societal mainstay. From subways to buildings to the Vienna Philharmonic,
public money is the key component of success. In particular, the city's architecture,
supported by government funding, is stunning, especially given how little of Vienna
was left after World War II. Boston Globe 10/27/02
Friday
October 25
DEFENDING
THE COLLECTOR: "A group of American collectors has formed a new organisation
to defend the interests of private and public collecting. They see threats to
collecting coming from foreign countries, over-zealous law enforcement and a public
debate, which, according to them, has been driven by the 'retentionist' bias of
many archaeologists." The Art Newspaper 10/25/02
ART
AS GLOBAL IMPULSE: Vicente Todoli takes over this month as the Tate Modern's
new director. He observes that internationalism is an important artistic impulse.
"Art has always been moved by individuals. Before businessmen, artists were
the precursors in breaking down frontiers. Globalisation is the essential spirit
of art. The world is wider today and art has always had an openness of viewpoints
because that is its nature. The only problem today is tremendous commercialisation
which is killing much creativity and controls the mind of some artists who take
decisions dictated by it." The Art Newspaper
10/25/02
BIG
NEW ART PRIZE: Wales has launched the world's most lucrative prize for visual
artists. The £40,000 Artes Mundi biennial competition "will be open
to artists from across the globe whose entries will in turn be shown in Cardiff
at the National Museum and Gallery. The organisers are hoping the prize will give
to the arts the same kind of stature that the hugely-popular Cardiff Singer of
the World has given music." BBC 10/25/02
THE
GREAT COVERUP: Two sculptures that Renaissance artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini
made for a church almost 350 years ago, have finally been unveiled. "The
two sculptures, which represent the virtues of Truth and Charity, were designed
by Bernini in the 17th Century for the chapel of a Portuguese aristocrat, Roderigo
de Sylva. They have been located in the chapel since they were completed in 1663,
but were deemed offensive by religious leaders two centuries later, and covered
up." BBC 10/25/02
THE
PAINTING PACHYDERMS: Zookeepers have long observed that elephants like to
pick up sticks and doodle in the sand. "Elephants are highly intelligent
animals who don't particularly like to stand around all day." Now a group
of Balinese elephants are painting and earning a following (and cash). "Their
work has been exhibited at several museums worldwide. And recently, the handlers
of a dozen or so painting pachyderms in Asia formed a website. Within two months,
sales broke $100,000. Half of the profits go to elephant-rescue sanctuaries in
Southeast Asia." Christian Science Monitor 10/25/02
Thursday
October 24
REVOKING
FREE ADMISSION? London's Natural History Museum saw a 70 percent increase
in attendance last year after it dropped entry fees. In return for free admission,
the British government promised museums more money. But "museum bosses have
told MPs the extra volume of visitors is costing them £500,000 ($773,000)
a year more than they receive in return for giving up charging." So the museum
is thinking about reinstating the entry fees... More museums may follow, given
the government's disappointing funding promises earlier this week. BBC
10/24/02
DEALING
WITH THE BRITISH MUSEUM: The British Museum is getting a raw deal in the government's
new funding plan, writes former Culture Secretary Chris Smith. But the museum's
present predicament is not entirely a funding issue. "The museum has to put
its own house in order too, and run itself more efficiently." The
Guardian (UK) 10/24/02
LOOTING
THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION: "Since Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf
War in 1991, thieves have been stealing anything they can Because Iraq's antiquities
bureaucracy collapsed after the war and even today only is a fraction of what
it once was, the country's 10,000 known ancient sites - plus many more yet to
be documented - have been easy targets for the last decade. The frenzy of looting
has panicked experts on ancient Mesopotamia, long seen by scholars as the cradle
of the first civilizations." Detroit News 10/23/02
STATUES
DAMAGED BY CLEANERS: Four busts of Great Britons Isaac Newton, William Hogarth,
Joshua Reynolds, and John Hunter have stood watch over London's Leicester Square
in central London for almost 130 years. They have survived war, pollution and
the elements. But not, apparently, a restoration cleaning in the early 1990s.
"It appears the cleaners used a highly corrosive, concentrated solution of
hydroflouric acid. If the busts are left outside, they will continue to deteriorate.
Within two decades they could be just meaningless lumps of rock." The
Guardian (UK) 10/24/02
- STATUES
IN JEOPARDY: Oslo's famous Vigeland bronze statues are being destroyed by
moisture. "At the same time, the original works are covered with a layer
of dirt that cannot be removed without destroying the statues." Aftenpost
(Norway)10/16/02
Wednesday
October 23
MUSEUMS
ATTACK LOW FUNDING PROMISE: UK museum directors fretted yesterday after a
government announcement that £70 million in funding would be allocated to
the country's museums. "A government-sponsored report found that, unless
£167 million was found, many institutions with world-class exhibits would
be pushed into irreversible decline. The response from museums was angry and swift."
The Guardian (UK)10/23/02
- Previously:
BRITISH
MUSEUM GETS CASH: The British government announces a £70 million funding
package for the British Museum and regional museums. The BM's financial crisis
has been so bad it has had to close galleries and reduce hours as it deals with
a large deficit. "The BM will receive £36.8m, with an extra £400,000
in 2003 to re-open the Korean Galleries and others currently closed." BBC
10/22/02
GETTY
CAN EXPAND VILLA: After the Getty Museum moved into its new home in 1997,
the museum announced plans to add an outdoor theatre to the Getty's former headquarters
in its Malibu villa. Neighbors sued to block the plan. Now a judge has ruled in
the Getty's favor. In addition to the theatre, "the villa complex would grow
to 210,000 square feet, including a new restaurant to replace the site's old tea
room, expansion of the bookstore and renovation of museum galleries for display
of the Getty antiquities collection." Los Angeles
Times 10/23/02
MEMORIES
OF EMPIRE: The British Empire is today referred to but seldom examined very
closely. "Is it shame, guilt, post-colonial exhaustion or plain ignorance
that has obliterated the memory of an empire that lasted 500 years and changed
the face of the world? Probably all of these. But no one in Britain today can
understand what has shaped our multiracial society, what links this country to
the Commonwealth and what has made English the tongue of more nations than any
other unless they understand the Empire." The
Times (UK) 10/23/02
Tuesday
October 22
BRITISH
MUSEUM GETS CASH: The British government announces a £70 million funding
package for the British Museum and regional museums. The BM's financial crisis
has been so bad it has had to close galleries and reduce hours as it deals with
a large deficit. "The BM will receive £36.8m, with an extra £400,000
in 2003 to re-open the Korean Galleries and others currently closed." BBC
10/22/02
AUSSIE
ARTS COUNCIL EXPLORES ARTIST TRUST ACCOUNTS: The Australian Arts Council is
investigating the idea of setting up trust accounts for artists. Gallery sales
would be deposited into the accounts directly for the artists. "There are
a whole range of other businesses and services that require that the intermediary
- the real estate agent, the travel agent, the lawyer - holds funds in a trust
account. The point is, if a work has been sold then the value of that work, less
the agent's fee, is the artist's money." Sydney
Morning Herald 10/22/02
THE
GREAT PAINTING CONTEST: In the 16th Century on of the most extraordinary public
art collaborations ever, teamed Michelangelo and Leonardo to paint side by side
paintings in the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Art historians
call the project "the turning point of the Renaissance." But Giorgio
Vasari, the famous chronicler of Renaissance painters' lives, had the wall painted
over, obliterating the art... The Guardian (UK) 10/22/02
THE
VIETNAM WAR IN ART: "Vietnam had no great tradition of visual art before
the 20th century, with even its sacred buildings austere compared to those of
neighboring China. By the time the Vietnam War erupted, however, local artists
had been shaped by two quite different imported traditions: what was known as
poetic realism, introduced by French colonial teachers, and Socialist Realism,
borrowed from the Communist regimes in Moscow and Beijing." The
New York Times 10/22/02
Monday
October 21
WHERE'S
THE QUALITY WORK? The number of art and antiques fairs has zoomed in the past
decade. But some of the fairs are starting to struggle. There are "too many
events and not enough dealers offering the kind of quality material demanded by
collectors in the market's present selective mood." The
Telegraph (UK) 10/21/02
THE
PRADO'S INVISIBLE RENOVATIONS: Madrid's Prado Museum is in the middle of a
$45 million renovation. "The Prado will belatedly join a host of other museums,
from the Louvre in Paris to the National Gallery in Washington, that have built
annexes for art and assorted services. But the Prado is different: it wants its
$45 million extension to go largely unnoticed." The
New York Times 10/21/02
IN
PRAISE OF THE BILBAO EFFECT - FIVE YEARS ON: Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim
Museum is five years old. "The Bilbao effect is viewed by many as a triumph
of style over substance, a type of global branding that used to be confined to
items such as fashionable shoes and whatnot. And the style itself - especially
the 'signature' buildings whose complex, odd-looking forms could never have been
designed and built without the aid of advanced computer technology - is considered
highly suspect." Washington Post 10/20/02
REMEMBERING
LEWIS AND CLARK: Artist Maya Lin is designing a project to mark the voyage
of Lewis and Clark across the American West. "Known as the Confluence Project,
the $15 million effort scheduled to open in 2005 marks the last stops on Lewis
and Clark's epic, cross-country journey that began on the Missouri River and ended
up here, along the Columbia River. There could be as many as eight sites total."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10/18/02
BEIJING'S
NEW KOOLHAAS: Architect Rem Koolhaas has "just won the international
competition to design the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in
Beijing. The project, costed at about €600m ($585m/£377m), will be
the most prestigious the capital has seen for decades. It will be [Koolhaas's]
greatest challenge to date: CCTV, the world's biggest television network, reaches
nearly 300m households, or more than 1bn people, and runs 12 channels of programmes."
Financial Times 10/21/02
Sunday
October 10
IS
MEXICO THE NEW CUBA? Mexico seems to be the hot place for art these days.
At least that's what it seems like as planeloads of international curators descend.
They're there, they say "because these artists have shown such wit, energy
and international perspective - the sort of sophistication that the conventionally
wise expect from art capitals like New York and Berlin. But these are artists
schooled in skepticism, and some can't help but wonder: What if it's really just
Mexico City's turn to be the art world's flavor of the month? Or worse, what if
all this attention isn't really about art at all?" Los
Angeles Times 10/20/02
COWTOWN
TAKES THE STAGE: The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and its new 53,000 square-foot
building will be the second largest museum devoted to art after World War II in
the United States. What does it mean "when a place known as Cowtown suddenly
takes the stage? After all, contemporary art is supposed to be a big-city sport,
and Fort Worth is asking the world to rethink that concept." Dallas
Morning News 10/20/02
ODDS
AND ENDS: Is Matthew Barney "the most important artist of his generation?
His art can feel like a bizarre conglomeration of everything that has come before,
from Celtic myths to the Baroque and on to the most recent movies, novels, conceptual
art and sculpture. Barney stuffs it all in, and leaves your head spinning."
The Telegraph (UK) 10/19/02
A
NEW LOOK FOR NY BUILDINGS: A big new hotel in Times Square has people thinking
ugly. But perhaps it's just a change of aesthetic coming to a city that has rarely
been touted for good-looking architecture. "The city's shifting demographic
is one reason our architecture seems destined to become increasingly Latinized
in the years ahead. A more important reason stems from the exhaustion of the northern
European version of the Western tradition. That linear, 19th-century view of history
has fallen apart as a measure of urban architecture. Post-modernism, a movement
that tried to extend that line beyond its natural span, had the opposite effect
of running it into the ground." The New York
Times 10/20/02
Friday
October 18
POLICE
RAID ART: Police in Toronto raid a gallery to investigate photographs by AA
Bronson, one of Canada's outstanding artists. "I asked to talk to an officer
and he told me a concerned parent from the neighbourhood voiced a complaint and
they had to bring in the sex crimes unit to take pictures of the window to determine
whether it was obscene." Toronto Star 10/18/02
NEW
HISTORY MUSEUM CHIEF: Brent D. Glass, head of the Pennsylvania Historical
Commission, has been named director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American
History. The museum is "home to the original Star-Spangled Banner, Archie
Bunker's chair, Duke Ellington's music collections and the wooden lap desk on
which Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence. Opened in 1964,
the museum is now the third most visited in the world." Washington
Post 10/18/02
JAPANESE
SELL OFF ART: In the 1980s Japanese art collectors bought some of the world's
most expensive and high profile art. When the country's economy tanked in the
90s, much of the high-priced art was quietly sold. "Now the Japanese recession
is digging so deep that individuals and even respected museums are being forced
to sell pieces acquired well before the Bubble period, including pieces officially
listed as Important Art Objects." The Art Newspaper
10/15/02
TRACKING
DOWN THE QUEEN'S WHISTLERS: By the time she died, Queen Victoria owned 157
Whistler prints - more than any British museum. Then they were sold off, and some
experts believe that many of the etchings ended up in American collections. So
what provoked the sell-off? The Art Newspaper 10/15/02
Thursday
October 17
COMMUNAL
BUY: There's a long tradition of museums sharing exhibitions and artwork for
exhibitions. Now some are also sharing ownership of artwork. "Aside from
economic considerations that lead museums to collaborate, the kind of art being
produced today lends itself more readily to group ownership." The
New York Times 10/17/02
MAFIA
TURNS TO ARCHAEOLOGY: "Mafia groups in the Ukraine are pursuing a lucrative
sideline in archaeology, looting valuable artefacts to be sold on the black market,
in addition to their traditional criminal enterprises such as selling drugs, prostitution
and protection rackets. Their latest target is Crimea, in the southern Ukraine,
which is host to vast quantities of buried treasures from Greek, Roman, Byzantine
and Bronze Age settlements." Scotland on Sunday
10/14/02
Wednesday
October 16
POLL
SAYS BRITS FAVOR RETURNING MARBLES: Forty per cent British respondants in
a poll say that they thought Britain ought to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
Only 16 percent said they should stay in the British Museum. "The figures
are almost identical to a similar poll conducted in 1988." BBC
10/16/02
NAZI
LOOT ONLINE: How to track down artwork stolen by Nazis in World War II? "American
museums now think that the Web can help in their attempt to uncover the Nazi loot
that may still be hanging on their walls. In September 2002, the American Association
of Museums received a $240,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and
Library Sciences for the creation of a Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal: a
registry of objects in American museums of questionable ownership."
Salon 10/16/02
BLAME
IT ON THE COMPUTERS? "The buildings of the public realm in corporate
New Britain are the stuff of dreary private finance initiatives, concerned with
delivering numerical targets rather than creating beautiful spaces and buildings.
When you look back to a time when architects, sculptors and writers got together
to mull over the direction and design of new buildings, to challenge architectural
orthodoxies and plan ideal solutions for public projects, it all seems so long
ago, and so improbable, that it might as well be the stuff of fiction." The
Guardian (UK) 10/14/02
Tuesday
October 15
BRITISH
MUSEUM CONSIDERS SELLING A BUILDING: The British Museum has a £6 million
deficit after a major expansion and a decline in expected income. So the museum
is considering trying to sell off one of its Central London buildings. "The
building, a former post office just a couple of hundred yards from the museum's
main site, is reportedly worth some £35 million. It has been derelict for
some years." BBC 10/15/02
BUT
IS IT ARCHITECTURE? The unorthodox Gateshead Millennium bridge has won this
year's Stirling Prize for Architecture. Judges for the Royal Institute of British
Architects' annual prize said the "simple and incredibly elegant £22
million bridge was not only an innovative and bold engineering challenge, but
also the one piece of architecture that would be remembered by people this year."
The Guardian (UK) 10/14/02
NASTY
PICTURES: The Brooklyn Museum's show of Victorian nudes "is yet another
chapter in the so-called culture wars," writes Roger Kimball. "Over
the past decade or so, it has become increasingly clear that this war is a battle
about everything the Victorians are famous for: the 'cleanliness, hard work, strict
self-discipline,' etc., that one of the people responsible for this exhibition
speaks of with such contempt. Do those values, those virtues, articulate noble
human aspirations? Or are they merely the repressive blind for … well, you
name it: narrowness, hypocrisy, the expression of a 'white, patriarchal, capitalist,
hegemonic,' blah, blah, blah?" New Criterion
10/02
EXPANDING
MASS MOCA: The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, (MASS MoCA), in North
Adams, is expanding. The museum is renovating the complex at the former Sprague
Electric Co. Within two years, they expect to add 45,000 square feet of commercial
space at the site, and by 2008, 140,000 square feet of new galleries. Since it
opened three years ago, Mass MoCA has spent $26 million of state money to open
some 180,000 square feet of galleries and commercial space in a rehabilitated
mill." Boston Herald 10/15/02
FRIDA
FETISH: Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is "currently the height of radical
chic, and is likely to be even more in vogue when Julie Taymor's movie Frida,
starring Salma Hayek, opens next year. But it is hard not to feel that there is
something distasteful and unhealthy about the way we like our artists - particularly
if they are women - to suffer. Would there be half as much interest in Kahlo's
paintings if her life had been half as colourful and tragic?" The
Guardian (UK) 10/14/02
Monday
October 14
DEFINING
MOMENT: Connecticut arts leaders were surprised when Kate Sellers resigned
as director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art earlier this month in the
middle of raising $120 million for an expansion. "Sellers' walking away from
what would have been a career-defining moment, at one of the most pivotal periods
in the museum's 160-year history, makes one wonder what was going on..."
Hartford Courant 10/14/02
Sunday
October 13
ATTACKING
ART, LITERALLY: Cultural terrorism - the destruction of public art and artifacts
in the name of political gain - has yet to reach American shores, but is a major
concern around the world. "The shelling of the Bosnian National Library in
Sarejevo in August 1992, by Serbian nationalists dug in the hills surrounding
the city... and the fire it caused, destroyed thousands of priceless manuscripts
and books, as well as gutting a historic and beautiful building." And who
could forget the Taliban's destruction of the massive Bamyan Buddhas in Afghanistan
as the world's cultural leaders pleaded with them to stop? Such acts of wanton
destruction are often minimized when placed alongside terrorist attacks on human
life, but the cold reality is that the cultural death toll may be more permanent
than the human one. Toronto Star 10/12/02
NEW
TRENDS AT THE AUCTION BLOCK: The new auction season is officially on, and
some interesting broadening of views on old schools of art seems to be occurring
in London. A Sotheby's auction of mainly modern masters this week "projected
a new image of German Avant-garde trends in the first half of the 20th century
by bringing out the continuity of mood from the Expressionism of 1908 to 1914
to the Abstractionism of the 1920s and 1930s. Most works shared an intensity in
the color schemes, a thrust in the brush work, an energy bordering on fierceness
and a sternness that was sometimes grim. Lighthearted subjects took on a gravitas
at odds with their nature." International Herald
Tribune 10/12/02
WHO
SAYS JOURNALISTS ARE NEGATIVE? "Something has clicked in the consciousness
of New Yorkers. After lying down in the waters of sorrow, New Yorkers are standing
up to speak about the florescence of an idea. Architecture matters. The gaping
wound of Lower Manhattan could never be healed by the conventions of real-estate
development, in which parcels of land are arranged like slabs of meat on a plate.
They see this now with a sanguine clarity even while the grief for their hometown
still lingers. What the post-Sept. 11 city needs more than ever is architecture
by the world's most intelligent creators -- that is what New Yorkers have demanded
and that is exactly what is about to be dished out." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10/13/02
GEHRY'S
BUSINESS SCHOOL: "Dedicated Wednesday, the $62 million [Frank Gehry-designed]
Peter B. Lewis Building for the Weatherhead School of Management at [Cleveland's]
Case Western Reserve University is by no means a triumph like Gehry's Guggenheim
Museum in Bilbao, Spain. But to measure every building by that epoch-defining
structure is to set an almost impossibly high standard. Not every design can be
a masterpiece. Some turn out to be steps along the journey rather than a final
destination. This one certainly takes us on a trip. It marks a decisive break,
at once flawed and fabulous, out of the typical B-School box." Chicago
Tribune 10/13/02
A
JETTY REEMERGES: "The most famous work of American art that almost nobody
has ever seen in the flesh is Robert Smithson's 'Spiral Jetty': 6,650 tons of
black basalt and earth in the shape of a gigantic coil, 1,500 feet long, projecting
into the remote shallows of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where the water is rose
red from algae." The visual effect is stunning, when the coil can be seen,
but it has been years since the murky waters of the lake yielded up Smithson's
work to the eyes of visitors. But with drought sweeping the American West, the
water level is lower than it has ever been, and the jetty has reappeared, at least
for the time being. The New York Times Magazine 10/13/02
Friday
October 11
ART
SALES DOWN THIS YEAR: The Art Sales Index shows that the value of art sold
in the past year declined 13-14 percent. "In the wake of 11 September, collapsing
stock exchanges and high international tension, the art market has had a tough
season, and while some stellar prices have been achieved, this has tended to obscure
a very real weakness in the middle market." The
Art Newspaper 10/11/02
TURNER
FAMILY MAY WANT PAINTINGS BACK: William Turner's descendants are threatening
to take back the painter's work from London museums. "Relatives say the Tate
and the National Gallery ignored the artist's wishes that his collection, now
worth an estimated £500million, should be kept in rooms specifically for
his work. They are considering legal action to try to force the galleries to return
the paintings." London Evening Standard 10/10/02
TAKE
ALL YOU WANT. WE'LL MAKE MORE: "Guests at the Lake Placid Lodge, a longtime
wilderness camp turned year-round posh resort on the shore of Lake Placid facing
Whiteface Mountain (and the singer Kate Smith's former lakeside compound), don't
have to confine themselves to taking a towel as a souvenir of their stay. They
can take the whole antlered room. It's fine with the management. As long as they
pay for it, of course. That's because the Lake Placid Lodge — where the 34 rooms
and cabins go for $350 to $950 a night with breakfast and afternoon tea — doubles
as an art gallery and what the owners call the largest showplace of rustic art
furniture in the country." The New York Times
10/11/02
SCALING
BACK IN L.A.: "The Children's Museum of Los Angeles has put on hold plans
to build its $60-million museum in Little Tokyo, one of two new proposed branches,
because of the weak economy, the president of the museum's board of trustees said
Thursday... The decision to defer Art Park and focus the museum's resources on
Hansen Dam was made last week after months of debate by the museum's board of
governors." Los Angeles Times 10/11/02
Thursday
October 10
UK
MUSEUMS LOOKING FOR PROMISED HELP: UK museums are hurting. A survey last summer
uncovered "a litany closures, decaying buildings, collapsing morale and inadequate
acquisition funds," warning that "unless £167 million was found
for museums outside London, the 'brain drain' from the provinces after years of
underfunding would be hastened, driving many museums into irreversible decline."
The government promised help. But months later, that help is not assured, and
some are beginning to wonder... The Guardian (UK)
10/10/02
MISSING
MORE THAN A RIB: Experts at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art are assessing
the damage to a 15th-century statue depicting Adam eating the forbidden fruit,
after the statue tumbled off its pedestal and shattered this week. Despite extensive
breakage, the museum believes that it has "a good chance of returning the
statue to public view with no signs of destruction visible to the untrained eye."
BBC 10/10/02
ART
STANDS IN FOR REALITY: Absent a decent picture for its cover a couple weeks
ago, the New York Times Magazine hired an artist to transform a blurry photo into
a clear portrait. "Times policy, like that of this paper and many others,
forbids the manipulation of news photos... So the magazine had one of them turned
into a more striking blurry painting, on the principle that fine art can rework
reality any way it pleases, without answering to issues of journalistic ethics."
But, wonders art critic Blake Gopnik, does calling it art solve the ethical issues?
Washington Post 10/06/02
Wednesday
October 9
SCOTLAND
BUYS BEUYS: The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art has scored a coup.
For £605,000 - "hardly enough to buy you the pickled hind quarters
of a Damien Hirst" - the gallery has purchased a major collection of the
work of Joseph Beuys. "The drawings, lithographs, photographs, books and
sculptures amount to a third of the German artist's multiples, editionalised versions
of his works he produced to bring his art to the widest public." The
Guardian (UK) 10/09/02
AUSTRALIA
FIRST: There seems to be consensus that this year's Melbourne Art Fair was
a success. Except if you were a European gallery. There was plenty of buying,
but sales were mostly by Australian artists, not Europeans. Is it parochialism?
"Usually, in Europe, if you like something, you go for it, especially if
it's affordable, because you trust your taste. And then you inquire about the
artist. But here (potential buyers) need five people to tell them something is
good. Here, collectors have, say, three artists. They know them forever and stick
to them. It's very narrow-minded." The Age (Melbourne)
10/09/02
THERE
ONCE WAS A PAINTING FROM GHENT... In 1934 a panel painted by van Eyck was
stolen from in Ghent's St Bavo Cathedral. In the decades since, the mystery of
its disappearance deepened. Was it hidden elsewhere in the church? Was it sold
to a collector? Was it destroyed? Last week a taxi driver claimed to have some
answers... The Guardian (UK) 10/09/02
MET
STATUE CRASHES TO FLOOR: Sunday night a 15th-century marble statue of Adam
by the Venetian sculptor Tullio Lombardo at the Metropolitan Museum in New York
fell off its pedestal and crashed to the floor. "The museum has now tentatively
concluded that the 6-foot-3-inch statue fell to the ground when one side of the
4-inch-high base of its pedestal apparently buckled, tipping over both the pedestal
and statue." The New York Times 10/09/02
RETHINKING
PICASSO: Was Picasso a "selfish, miserly old goat who destroyed the lives
of those closest to him?" That's certainly been the picture painted of him.
But the artist's grandson begs to differ. He's "tired of half-baked theories
that misunderstand Picasso's life and work." The
Telegraph (UK) 10/09/02
Tuesday
October 8
FUN...BUT
CONFUSING? The Seoul Media Art Biennale is opening, and organizers hope they've
learned some lessons from the last biennale, which didn't draw large crowds. "But
a general Korean audience, the target of the exhibition, may not be ready for
the experimental pieces in the show. While many of the entries use fun, high-tech
gadgets - DVD technology, video games, computer monitors and hard drives, digital
photography, multiple television screens - and are visually entertaining, many
invoke confusion, possibly distancing art further from the general public."
Korea Herald 10/08/02
BIG
DEAL: The Tate Modern is unveiling a giant sculpture created by Anish Kapoor
for the museum. "The work, which measures almost 150m in length and is 10
storeys high, spans the entire entrance of the art gallery. 'It's a big thing
because it needs to be a big thing. One hopes that it's a deep thing'." BBC
10/08/02
LONG
ROAD AHEAD FOR THE BARNES: The Barnes Collection outside Philadelphia is trying
to move inside Philadelphia. Though the Barnes has lined up plenty of support
from civic leaders, funders and foundations, and though many in Philadelphia are
anxious to get the Barnes to come to town, Albert Barnes' will must be challenged
in court. "This is not something that will be decided in the court of public
opinion. This is going to be up to the courts, and it could be a very long process."
Washington Post 10/08/02
Monday
October 7
ALTERED
STATES: Just before the Royal Academy's new show Galleries opened last
month, a work by the artist collective Inventory, an "anti-imperialist tirade,
sprayed directly onto the RA’s walls", was sprayed over to cover up
its anti-American references. Wasthe RA being tactful in removing "rude"
material, or were the artists being censored? The
Art Newspaper 10/04/02
THWARTING
KHAN: The Aga Khan has been trying to buy property on the Thames in London
to build a museum for his art collection - the largest collection of Islamic art
in the English-speaking world. But the National Health Service wants the land
(owned by King's College) so the hospital next door can expand. Though the Aga
Khan offers more than twice the money for the property, the sale is likely to
be made to the Health Service, prompting some to worry that the Aga Khan might
take his collection out of England. The Observer 10/06/02
ANCIENT
ASTRONOMERS: Three years ago looters in Germany, "equipped with a metal
detector and basic household tools...stumbled upon one of the greatest archaeological
finds of this century." It's a disc 30 centimeters in diameter weighing approximately
2 kilograms, and thought to be around 3,600 years old. "The disc shows that
northern Europeans, probably Celts, made a science of astronomy at roughly the
same time as the Stonehenge astronomical cult site was built in Britain."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10/04/02
Sunday
October 6
THE
DRAMATIC GESTURE: Of the seven finalists for this year's Stirling Prize for
architecture, the oddsmaker's favorite isn't a building, but a dramatic bridge.
"The Gateshead Millennium Bridge makes a great photograph, an elegant structure
that perfectly marries engineering and architecture, it represents the epitome
of design for the High-Tech generation." The
Telegraph (UK) 10/05/02
ART
AS A CONCEPT (FIRST): For 30 years Ronald Feldman's New York gallery has served
up art that wasn't exactly the obvious sell. "Remaining on the edge for Mr.
Feldman has meant staging ambitious installations and group exhibitions that could
never recoup their costs. 'I didn't start with a concept or a business plan —
I just did it. The real challenge was to see art in your time and become an advocate
for it'." The New York Times 10/06/02
Friday
October 4
TURIN
FIRE WASN'T ARSON: In 1997, fire destroyed the newly-restored Chapel of the
Holy Shroud. An investigation has finally conculded the fire wasn't arson. "Twelve
cathedral custodians have been accused of sounding the alarm too late. Contractors
undertaking restoration in the chapel stand accused of failing to switch the electricity
off at the mains, a terrible oversight which is believed to have caused the fire.
Experts say the fire was started by an electrical arc flash which set fire to
the restorers’ wooden scaffolding crowding the baroque chapel." The
Art Newspaper 10/04/02
SCULPTURE
TO THE FORE: At Washington's National Gallery, the sculture collection has
always taken a back seat to the museum's impressive displays of painting, possibly
because of the physical and aesthetic difficulties of exhibiting large quantities
of sculpture. But a suite of new galleries at the National has been carefully
designed to showcase 800 three-dimensional works, and Roberta Smith, for one,
is impressed. The New York Times 10/04/02
DEEP
THINKING AT STANFORD: "After many nervous hours of careful maneuvering
onto a pedestal Monday, The Thinker, one of the world's most recognizable
sculptures, was home again at Stanford University's Cantor arts center after a
three-year journey overseas. The contours of its freshly waxed bronze gleamed,
heralding a confluence of events this week to honor not only the works of its
famous creator, Auguste Rodin, but also the posthumous publication of a catalog
of Rodin's work by one of his greatest advocates, Stanford art Professor Albert
Elsen." San Jose Mercury News 10/01/02
Wednesday
October 2
CUTS
PLANNED FOR THE GUGGENHEIM: The Guggenheim is facing a budget crisis, even
after laying off staff and closing its Soho branch last year. Now the museum is
planning further staff cuts and reducing its exhibition hours in New York. "Asked
to confirm reports that the museum’s operating budget was cut to $25.9 million
in 2002 from $49 million in 2001," museum officials acknowledged big cuts
but were “not comfortable discussing exact numbers.” There are also
rumors the Guggenheim's Las Vegas museum might close in 2003. New
York Sun 10/01/02
ITALY
RETURNING PIECE OF THE PARTHENON: Italy plans to return a piece of the marble
frieze from the Parthenon that it has held since the 1700s. "The fragment,
held at a museum in Sicily, consists of a goddess’s foot and part of her
tunic and once formed part of the frieze on the east side of the Parthenon."
Italy's president calls the move a "gesture of friendship." The
Times (UK) 10/01/02
BRITISH
MUSEUM SAYS CLAIM IS "COMPELLING": The British Museum says there
is "compelling evidence" that four Old Master drawings it owns were
looted by the Nazis. The museum's trustees described the claim as 'detailed and
compelling'. The artworks - thought to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds
- are said to have been stolen between 1935 and 1945 from a collection owned by
Dr Arthur Feldmann, of Brno, in the Czech Republic." BBC
10/02/02
WRITING'S
ON THE WALL: In Milwaukee, Coca Cola is sponsoring an art contest in which
winners designs are painted onto walls. But city officials aren't happy. Some
believe that the art might encourage graffiti artists. "Some businesses may
welcome a winning picture as a mural on a wall, but [one official] says the presence
of graffiti-style art only inspires others to express themselves on other walls
without permission." The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)
10/01/02
AN
AMERICANA (LAWSUIT) STORY: The Saturday Evening Post is suing a Connecticut
museum to get back a painting by John Falter that was once used on the cover of
the publication. The museum "got the painting as a gift in 1977 from Kenneth
Stuart. The lawsuit claims that Stuart, the Post's art director from 1942 to 1963,
took the Falter piece without permission and didn't legally own the work when
he donated it. Stuart died in 1993." Hartford
Courant 10/02/02
Tuesday
October 1
LOOKING
FOR ART THAT MATTERS: Jed Perl wonders about a cure for the malaise that has
long dogged the artworld. "Although gallerygoers are stirred by contemporary
art and museumgoers are having extraordinary experiences, there is a widespread
belief that nothing really adds up, either for the artists or for the audiences.
No matter how eye-filling the experiences that people are having, those experiences
can end up feeling disconnected, isolated, stripped of context and implication.
The art may not disappoint, but there is so much disappointment and confusion
built up around the very idea of art that people find themselves backing away
from their own sensations." So what is the answer? "What we find ourselves
craving now is art's immediacy, art's particularity. But how do you build an aesthetic
out of immediacy and particularity?" The New
Republic 09/30/02
EARTHQUAKE
DAMAGES SICILIAN MONUMENTS: Officials are toting up damages to monuments and
buildings in Sicily after an earthquake September 6. Hundreds of buildings , including
the home of the Sicilian parliament, have been declared unsafe. "Of about
40 damaged monuments in the province of Palermo, so far about 10 have been declared
unfit for use" and the number could double, say officials. The
Art Newspaper 09/27/02
CALL
ON QUEEN TO RETURN RARE BRONZE: The former director of the Lagos [Nigeria]
National Museum is calling on Queen Elizabeth to return a rare Benin Bronze given
to her as a gift in 1973 by Nigerian President Yakubu Gowon. "General Gowon
wanted to give something very valuable to The Queen and the fact it had been bought
for our museum made it seem even more important. He gave the gift out of love
for The Queen, but it was done out of ignorance.” The
Art Newspaper 09/27/02
MORE
THAN JUST A BATH: The painstaking year-long effort to clean Michelangelo's
David is a sophisticated process. "The year-long campaign will include microclimatic
surveillance and gamma-ray testing to reveal the exact nature of the atmospheric
deposits, staining and erosion on the statue. Working in tandem with computer-generated
models of the statue in a lab in Pisa, the intervention is the largest-scale study
ever of what happens to monuments over time - sort of a gerontological study of
public art." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/01/02
