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In the continuing legal soap opera, this just in from Friends of the Barnes, one of the litigants petitioning the Montgomery County Orphans' Court to stop the Barnes Foundation's move to Philadelphia: The Preliminary Objection [filed by the Barnes Foundation's lawyers] attempts to shift the focus from the substantive issues raised in its petitions filed by the Friends of the … [Read more...] about As the Barnes Case Turns UPDATED

---I guess my guess was right: My legal eagles tell me that the Pennsylvania Attorney General and lawyers for the Barnes Foundation "are filing preliminary objections on the issue of standing" against the petitioners who are trying to get Judge Stanley Ott to reconsider his decision to allow the museum to move to Philadelphia. I suspect that the AG will also argue, as I … [Read more...] about Legal Tidbits: Barnes, Fractional Gifts, Salander O’Reilly

I swear this is Brad Cloepfil's revenge for my lukewarm Wall Street Journal review of his new wing for the Seattle Art Museum. Museum press lunches in New York are getting more and more upscale (ah, the superb red and white wines at the Getty Bacchanalia at Daniel!). It's getting so that I'm starting to feel slightly guilty about the funds I'm diverting from the acquisitions … [Read more...] about How Museum Architects Torture Journalists

---Jason Webb of Reuters reports that families of the victims of Basque terrorists are protesting a current photography exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao of work by Clemente Bernad, which they feel is sympathetic to the ETA rebels. Webb writes: The museum said it would not remove the photographs unless ordered to do so by the courts. ---The complicated Salander-O'Reilly … [Read more...] about BoboLinks: Guggenheim Bilbao Riles Anti-Terrorists; Dealers in Trouble; New Director for PAFA

In an article to be published in tomorrow's NY Times but online now, Robin Pogrebin raises the question of why Ronald Lauder is not more forthcoming in publicizing the Nazi-era provenance of his private collection, much of which is shown at the Neue Galerie, the museum devoted to 20th-century German and Austrian art and design that he founded in New York. CultureGrrl has … [Read more...] about NY Times Raises Provenance Questions About Ronald Lauder’s Collection

Here are excerpts from a welcome press release, just in from today's Washington press conference on the new fractional-gifts bill to be introduced in Congress: At a Capitol Hill Press conference today, U.S. Representatives Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Phil English, R-Pa., introduced bipartisan legislation to remedy overly restrictive changes made to the tax treatment of charitably … [Read more...] about Details of the New Congressional Bill on Fractional Gifts

In its continuing battle with Fisk University, Nashville, over the fate of its Stieglitz Collection, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, filed papers in Davidson County Chancery Court on Monday that challenge, largely on procedural grounds, Fisk's latest request for permission to sell a half-share in the 101 works to Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum for $30 … [Read more...] about Latest Developments in Fisk/Walton vs. O’Keeffe Museum Courtroom Wars

When we weren't looking, the Barnes Foundation became a museum. How do I know? The website of the Association of Art Museum Directors told me so. As of June, the Barnes has been an AAMD member. This is one more example of how the current Barnes board and administration are deviating from the wishes of founder Albert Barnes, who was adamant that his foundation was an educational … [Read more...] about The Barnes Morphs Into a Museum

Time magazine art critic Richard Lacayo, in his Looking Around blog, quotes Neal Benezra, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, on the devastating impact of last year's tax-law changes concerning fractional gifts of artworks to museums---a problem about to be revisited by Congress. Benezra laments: We have more fractional gifts than any museum in the country, … [Read more...] about More on Fractional Gifts, San Francisco-Style

… [Read more...] about The First Sacrificial Painting from the Maier Museum

This just in: It looks like Congress may finally get around to trying to address the fractional gifts mess created by Section 1218 of the 2006 Pension Protection Act. A press conference will be held tomorrow in Washington to introduce the "Promotion of Artistic Giving Act of 2007." According to the press release, the bill would "require that donors must complete their … [Read more...] about Congress to Address the Fractional Gifts Mess

...I discover that NY Times art critic Roberta Smith swooped in there ahead of me, to get the first look at Damien Hirst's newly installed shark, lying in wait somewhere on the Metropolitan Museum's second floor. I should have received the announcement of this debut from the Met, not from Roberta: I gave you the first heads-up, before the Times, that the shark was coming to the … [Read more...] about Just When I Thought It Was Safe to Go Back to the Met…

One day after Michael Kimmelman published a puzzling article that almost seemed to be inviting a terrorist attack on Picasso's "Guernica," a "terracotta eco-warrior" managed to put face masks on members of the ancient Chinese battalion now on display at the British Museum. The Daily Mail, which obtained photos of the muzzled sentinels, reports: The man jumped barriers to place … [Read more...] about Who Is That Masked Man at the British Museum?

No, I'm not talking about a fleeting London contemporary art fair. I'm talking about the 2,500-year-old frieze on the flying trapeze, swinging with the greatest of ease from the Acropolis to the New Acropolis Museum, 400 meters below. And, as Reuters reports, Western civilization is watching this death-defying act with bated breath. The delicate task of transporting the … [Read more...] about Acropolis Now: Successful Frieze Launch

Philippe de Montebello, in a Q&A published Saturday in Le Monde (which seemed far more candid than anything he's recently done in the American press), minced no French words in deploring the Louvre's art-for-megabucks deal (and, by implication, the Guggenheim's deal) with Abu Dhabi. Here's what the Metropolitan Museum's French-born director told the Paris newspaper: Q: … [Read more...] about De Montebello Blasts Louvre Abu Dhabi