Archives for July 2006

No doubt feeling some remorse about slapping CultureGrrl around (she can take it), Anthony Calnek of the Guggenheim made a friendly phone call yesterday evening to say that AP's cost figures for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi came from none other than Frank Gehry, the architect for the proposed 322,920-square-foot museum. Still, Calnek says the numbers are wrong: Gehry was just … [Read more...] about Gehry Does the Math

Did the AP get the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi cost figures wrong? Anthony Calnek, the Guggenheim's deputy director for communications and publishing, writes me following: I happen to have seen preliminary estimates, and although I can't tell you the right number, I can tell you the AP got it wrong, both in terms of what the museum will cost and what the collection will cost. I'm … [Read more...] about Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Update

Now it's the sheiks who crave Guggenheim chic. The Associated Press story about the planned Frank Gehry-designed Middle Eastern Gugg, filed by Jim Krane yesterday from Abu Dhabi, was far more illuminating and flavorful than today's NY Times report, filed from New York, which didn't even provide cost figures for the project. According to AP, the 322,920-square-foot building, … [Read more...] about There He Goes Again: Krens in Abu Dhabi

Like the first installment of the series, this week's episode of PBS's five-part How Art Made the World took the one expert's opinion (this time, about prehistoric art) and elevated it to the status of the most authoritative word on the subject. Real art scholarship is never this simple. Host Nigel Spivey accepted the explanation by David Lewis-Williams, professor emeritus of … [Read more...] about How Art Made the Mini-Series—Part II

Titian (c. 1490 - 1576) Noli Me Tangere, c. 1514, © 2006 The National Gallery, London While I was in Washington recently for the WSJ, I of course dashed over to the National Gallery to see its glorious exhibition Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting. But the painting that most fascinated me was nowhere mentioned in today's NY Times review by … [Read more...] about The Titian that Moved a Nation

Is architectural ingenuity enough? I'm all for designing cultural facilities with as much creativity as the art presented inside them. (I'm a great fan, for example, of the Guggenheim Bilbao.) But the cultural clients of big-name architects must take care that the structure doesn't subvert the substance and that the design concept, while strong, is not oppressive. In the end, … [Read more...] about Architecture vs. Art: When Form Ignores Function

In its press release announcing its Nov. 8 sale of Picasso's 1903 "Angel Fernández de Soto," Christie's calls the work "arguably [emphasis added] one of the most important of this period in the artist's oeuvre." So let's argue! The painting in question is the artist's distorted depiction of his wild and dissipated close friend. In a drawing of the same notorious libertine, … [Read more...] about Lloyd Webber’s “De Soto” is No Star Vehicle

This is the first time I've reneged on a promise to my gentle readers: After drafting my post (which I promised you for today) on the upcoming sale of Andrew Lloyd Webber's blue-period Picasso, I realized it might work as a newspaper opinion piece (for which I actually get paid). So please be patient. Like many of you, your conscientious commentator is going to take July 3rd … [Read more...] about Lee Takes the Third

Right again, art-lings! I was in Washington, D.C., for the openings of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, now collectively known as the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. George Washington himself, fetchingly arrayed in his Landsdowne Portrait ensemble, was there to entertain the kiddies while Martha looked on … [Read more...] about Awash in Washington