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NOVEMBER 1999
- BRITISH
MUSEUM ACCUSED OF COVER-UP: A new report published yesterday
accuses the British Museum of severely damaging the Elgin Marbles
60 years ago in an ill-advised cleaning, then covering up the
incident. Toronto Globe
and Mail 11/30/99
- TOPPING
THE YBA: Young British Artists might have caused a sensation
in Brooklyn, but on the eve of this year's Turner Prize announcement,
signs that the YBA's have been absorbed into the wider London
art world. New York
Times 11/30/99 (one
time registration required)
- HANDS
ON REMBRANDT: Simon Schama's new Rembrandt book works to make
its subject come alive with every brush stroke. Boston
Globe 11/30/99
- CANCELLATION
SENSATION: Australia's National Gallery of Art cancels planned
visit of the infamous "Sensation" show. Sydney
Morning Herald 11/29/99
- TRADING
WITH THE ENEMY DEPARTMENT: As World War II was winding down,
the British tried to figure out what to do with the German-owned
art it had confiscated. Return it to its rightful owners? Uh-uh
- it was sold at auction. London
Telegraph 11/29/99
- RECONSTRUCTION:
Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi reopened this weekend after
repairs from 1997 earthquake.
London Telegraph 11/29/99
- THE
PROBLEM WITH NET ART: Just where do you hang it? Store it?
Look at it? Wired 11/29/99
- THAT
THEATRICAL QUALITY: A trap for the imagination - remembering
installation art. New
York Times 11/28/99 (one
time registration required)
- RETHINKING
MODERN ART: Shocking developments at the Museum of Modern
Art - a new way at looking at art of (nearly) our time. Dallas
Morning News 11/28/99
- OF
ART AND ARCHITECTURE: Legendary dealer Max Protech reflects
on a career of representing architects. "I cannot imagine
being interested in art and not interested in architecture, and
vice versa," he says. Architecture
Magazine 11/26/99
- DIGITAL
BIENNIAL: For the first time, the Whitney Museum plans to
include digital artists in its Biennial, scheduled for next year.
New York Times 11/25/99
(one time registration required)
- BOUGHTA-BOTICELLI:
They were getting the packing crates ready to ship £15 million
Boticelli from the UK to Fort Worth's Kimbell Museum. At the last
minute the director of the Scottish National Gallery managed to
put the money together and... The
Guardian 11/25/99
- SCAFFOLDING
AND GREY PLASTIC SHEETING EVERYWHERE: Italy is cleaning up
its architecture and monuments for the millennium. Too bad someone
can't stop the cars and industrial pollution that got them dirty
in the first place. ARTnewspaper.com
11/25/99
- WHEN
APES MAKE ART: Observing apes paint can tell us something
about the human impulse to make art. Chronicle
of Higher Education 11/99
- BUYING
PICASSOS ONLINE: But how can you tell if it's a fake? Wired
11/23/99
- FROM
ICON TO DIRTY WORD (AND BACK?): Norman Rockwell is hot again.
New show tours blue-chip museums. And now a generous TV documentary
reappraisal of Rockwell's stature -- Abstract Expressionism be
damned. San Francisco
Chronicle 11/24/99
- RUN
BY 17 PEOPLE?: Debate over Turner Prize has some wondering
if the group making decisions about British contemporary art is
too small. Has this small coterie dictating contemporary taste
lost touch? London Sunday
Times 11/21/99
- ABSTRACT
FAILURE: At Toronto auction last week, the Emily Carrs went
flying out the door. The more abstract contemporary work failed
to sell. "The value of good art is supposed to soar as time
goes by, but with work by a contemporary Canadian artist, it's
more like buying a car: You're likely to lose as soon as you take
it home." Toronto
Globe and Mail 11/22/99
- CRISIS
OF CONFIDENCE: In the wake of the Brooklyn Museum dustup,
it behooves we who write about contemporary art for a living to
ask ourselves: What is it that holds contemporary art back from
the popularity it so richly deserves? Toronto
Globe and Mail 11/22/99
- FORGET
THOSE SNOOTY GALLERIES: Buying art online is starting to take
off. "We're seeing a lot of new buyers who may be intimidated
by the traditional art world environment," says one online
dealer. Wired 11/22/99
- FAKE
O'KEEFFES: Twenty-eight paintings in a Kansas City Museum
may be frauds. CBC 11/20/00
- FOURTEEN
MODELS/THREE DIFFERENT SCHEMES: And it still wasn't enough
to satisfy them. Architects Herzog & de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland
(architects for the new Tate Modern in London), have quit the
$60 million University of Texas Blanton Museum of Art project
in Austin. Trustees insisted on dictating traditional design.
Dallas Morning News
11/19/99
- SAY
HIGH TO HOUSTON: High Museum director Ned Rifkin will leave
Atlanta to direct Houston's Menil Collection. Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 11/19/99
- "THE
WORLD'S BIGGEST GRADUATE STUDENT SHOW": In "theatricalizing
Bruce Nauman's already devastatingly theatrical take on late 20th
century social life" artists in Brooklyn Museum's "Sensation"
show have produced only an unassimilated pastiche. Christopher
Knight reviews it.
Los Angeles Times 11/19/99
- MORE
MOVEMENT AT THE MFA: Shakeups continue at Boston's Museum
of Fine Arts. Wednesday, longtime star curator Theodore E. Stebbins
Jr. abruptly resigned. "I have now worked long enough in
this job, and have experienced enough of the restructured `one
museum' that is the MFA today, that in good faith I cannot continue,"
he writes. Boston Globe
11/18/99
- "ONE
OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT FINDS IN YEARS": Cezanne stolen
21 years ago has been recovered in a police sweep. Prosecution
of the thieves is said to be unlikely. The painting will be sold
at auction in London - said to be "one of the most important
paintings offered in London this decade. It was completed when
Cezanne was at the peak of his powers."
BBC 11/18/99
- EVEN
AT THESE PRICES, A BARGAIN: Latest art auction scrum "a
blast" to watch. Artnet.com
11/18/99
AND: LATEST
AUCTION CONFIRMS BOOM: Wednesday's contemporary sale "felt
more solid" than the night before.
New York Times 11/18/99 (one-time
registration required)
PREVIOUSLY:
"LIKE
SPOILED CHILDREN": Bids at the Christie auction of contemporary
art Tuesday night set record prices for 18 artists from Jeff Koons
to Damien Hirst. Prices were so high and so reckless they were
"unhealthy." New
York Times 11/17/99 (one-time
registration required)
AND: Click
here for AJ's fall auction stories archives
- WHIFF
OF COLOGNE: Three hundred dealers/70,000 people sniff out
the latest in contemporary art at the Cologne Art Fair, Europe's
biggest new-art bazaar.
Financial Times 11/17/99
- OUT
OF AFRICA: Smithsonian, undergoing $100 million renovation,
has difficulty finding funds for large new gallery on African
culture, set to open next month.
Washington Post 11/17/99
- COURTING
CONTROVERSY - NOT: Reforms in public art since "Tilted
Arc" have improved process, blandized art. The
Nation 11/29/99
- MAKE
NICE SUBVERSIVES: Installation art at Pittsburgh's Carnegie
International - "the thrill is always finite, comprehensible
and either fun or morally uplifting, digestible and quickly gone."
New York Times 11/17/99 (one-time
registration required)
- GEHRY
AT MIT: A "drunken barn dance as it might be represented
in a Disney cartoon." That's what Frank Gehry's proposed
computer center for MIT strikes one observer. Boston
Globe 11/16/99
- OBJECTS
IN MIRROR ARE LARGER THAN THEY APPEAR: Disappointing Diego
Rivera retrospective fails to show range, sweep of artist's work.
Dallas Morning News
11/14/99
- GET
A LIFE: TV addict spent years of commercial breaks drawing
intricate, architecturally accurate blueprints of TV sitcom buildings.
Discovered by LA art dealer, he became toast of West Coast art
scene. National Post
(Canada) 11/15/99
- DUMMIES
FOR ART: Say it loud. Say it proud. New "Art For Dummies"
book works to appeal to those happy to proclaim their educational
deficiencies.
Globe and Mail 11/13/99
- STRONG
BUT THIN: Last week's auctions at Sotheby's produced sales
of $144 million, including 5 paintings which went for more than
$10 apiece. Here's a scorecard. Artnet.com
11/12/99
And: The
story behind the star - Picasso's Femme Assise dans un
Jardin (painted in 1938), goes for $49.5 million. Artnet.com
11/12/99
- THE
OUT-OF-TOWN ARCHITECT: Let's put this puppy to bed once and
for all. Chicago Tribune
11/14/99
- ROCKWELL
ROCKS: What does it say about us and our point in art history
that Norman Rockwell is getting some positive critical attention?
The Idler 11/12/99
- PILFERED
PAINTINGS PRODUCED: Twenty-one years ago thieves broke into
a San Francisco museum and made off with four paintings - including
one thought to have been painted by Rembrandt. Now three of the
works have mysteriously turned up. New
York Times 11/12/99 (Registration
required for access)
- MIDLIST
LIVES: The top of the art market auctions has bloomed. But
it's the middle range where the really interesting action is.
Artnet.com 11/12/99
- ART
OF THE GAME: When artists invade construction of sports stadiums,
the "public" in public art is challenged. New stadia
are working out complicated relationships with public artists.
FoxSportsbiz.com 11/11/99
- GOING
ONCE...Antique dealers and auction houses have always had
a complicated relationship. Now, one of London's grandest names
in Oriental art decides to sell off its Japanese collection -
at auction. Financial
Times 11/12/99
- NOT
POP ART: But popular culture - the raw, vulgar, greasily commercialized
stuff disdained by artistic traditionalists and modernists alike.
LA curator puts pop into traditional art spaces. His specialty
is not public art, not political or gender-driven art, not multicultural
art -- often, it's not even contemporary art -- but pop culture
and its "artifacts" as art. New
Times LA 11/12/99
- ART SINCE THE WALL: A
new New York show takes a look at visual art in Berlin in the
decade since the wall fell. And there's not a painting in sight.
New York Times 11/12/99
(Moved to paid archives)
- FINALISTS
for this year's Turner Prize are announced in London. Winner to
be announced November 30. ARTNewspaper.com
11/21/99
- NEW MUSEUM: To show Austrian
and German fine and decorative art from first half of the 20th
Century. Has prestigious 5th Ave. New York address and blue-chip
founders. New York Times
11/12/99 (Moved to paid
archives)
- SOMETHING
ABOUT MARY: In the past few months in South Central Los Angeles
someone has been defacing community murals depicting the Virgen
de Guadalupe. Art critics? fanatics? vandals?
LA Weekly 11/12/99
- NOT
BAD FOR A DAY'S WORK: Picasso's "Nude on a Black Armchair,"
which he painted in one day, sold at auction for $45 million in
New York. The art market roars back to life. New
York Times 11/10/99 (Registration
required for access)
- FALLING
MARBLE: Last week a big section of marble fell from the ceiling
of the Medici Chapel in Florence. The chapel's stone has eroded
and the structure has now been closed. The Italian press calls
it a disaster. ARTnewspaper.com
11/9/99
- A
MONET FOR $22.5 MILLION: Latest round of art auctions begins
in New York. New York
Times 11/9/99 (registration
required for access)
- ANOTHER
NAZI ART CLAIM: Two sisters in North Carolina make claim on
a 16th Century Madonna.
CBC 11/9/99
-
NEW
JEWISH MUSEUM opens in Berlin, ten years after the wall
comes down. It's "one of the city's most striking new structures."
A talk with the architect Daniel Libeskind. CBC
11/9/99
-
THE
NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB: "Preponderantly representational,
and hung more to practical than to museum standards," but
it offers more artists the opportunity to show, and the public
a wider range of work to see and buy, than any other exhibiting
venue in Britain.
Financial Times 11/9/99
-
IN
HIS IMAGINATION, Paul Mellon - son of the founder of the
National Gallery in DC - hung out with painters. In real life
he collected paintings. Now a "modest show" of some
of his collection in the museum's East Wing, which he commissioned.
Washington Post 11/9/99
-
THE
BLOOMSBURY BUNCH: Snobs with the morals of a chimpanzee.
They painted like chimpanzees and poisoned the good name of
modernism for the entire century. The Tate does a show. London
Sunday Times 11/7/99
-
ADDING
ON: A row over a proposed Michael Graves-designed addition to
the WPA-built Arts Council of Princeton. Sometimes a building's
not just a building. New
York Times 11/8/99 (registration
required for access)
-
E-CURIOUS:
The internet has completely changed the world of collecting.
From antiques to baseball cards, the good stuff is increasingly
found not in the shops but online. Hartford
Courant 11/6/99
-
REWRITING
THE RULES: Computer design is allowing forward-thinking
architects the freedom to redefine their craft. London
Telegraph 11/8/99
-
BETWEEN
NAKED AND NUDE: Idealism and reality blur in contemporary
explorations of the unclothed body. Artnet.com
11/4/99
-
BEHIND
THE PRITZKER: Carnegie International celebrates 20 years
of architecture's Nobel.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
11/4/99
-
AWKWARD
EQUINE: US entrepreneur donates bronze "Da Vinci"
horse to Milan. City relegates it to obscure location at race
track. The reasons are not so obscure. New
York Times 11/4/99 (registration
required for access)
-
HOPE
ALL THOSE T's ARE CROSSED: New York City attorneys say they'll
closely examine Brooklyn Museum's funding arrangements with
sponsors of controversial "Sensations" show. Meanwhile,
more support for museum from city arts institutions.
New York Times 11/4/99 (registration
required for access)
-
TIME
TO SELL: The stock market's booming, the economy's good.
Discretionary art sellers wonder if now's a good time to sell.
Next week some $4 million-worth of art goes up for sale in New
York's fall art auctions. Observers ponder return of 80s art
boom.
New York Times 11/4/99
(registration required
for access)
-
READER
RESPONDS: taking on Kenneth Baker and "pretentious"
art reviews in the newspaper. "Just because we disagree,
doesn't mean we're Velvet Elvis lovers."
San Francisco Chronicle 11/3/99
-
DEFENDING
THE BROOKLYN: Judge's ruling in favor of museum Monday wasn't
a surprise, but museums gave a sigh of relief anyway. Museum
went too far with private collectors, but that's just the way
things are.
New York Times 11/3/99
(registration required
for access)
AND: New
York mayor attacks judge on ruling. NYT
11/3/99
-
GIANT
12th-CENTURY FRESCO measuring 500 square meters is discovered
in a church near Rome's Coliseum. ARTnewspaper.com
11/1/99
-
JUDGE
TO GIULIANI: Hands off the Brooklyn Museum. "There
is no federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort
by government officials to censor works of expression and to
threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution as punishment
for failing to abide by governmental demands for orthodoxy."
Giuliani calls decision "knee-jerk." New
York Times 11/2/99 (registration
required for access)
AND: Toronto
Globe and Mail story,
Washington
Post story 11/2/99
PREVIOUSLY:
FEDERAL
JUDGE ORDERS New York City to resume funding of Brooklyn
Museum in ruling delivered Monday morning.
CBC 11/1/99
-
HERMITAGE
MUSEUM announces plans to open a branch in London. Here's
how the collaboration happened.
London Telegraph 11/1/99
AND: New
York Times account. (registration
required for access)
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