A Bare-Bones Art Repatriation "The Canadian Museum of Civilization is preparing to return dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of bones taken from native burial grounds to the Algonquin people whose ancestors inhabited the Ottawa area before white settlers arrived in the 19th century and began unearthing Indian graves. The proposed 'repatriation' of human remains... follows a series of [Ottawa] Citizen stories earlier this year revealing that a communal cemetery holding about 20 aboriginal skeletons was dug up 160 years ago on a point of land in Gatineau now occupied by the museum itself." Ottawa Citizen 12/31/02

Guggenheim Drops Lower Manhattan Plan In a three-paragraph e-mail message, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation announced that it had withdrawn its proposal to build a polymorphous, 400-foot-tall building designed by Frank Gehry on Piers 9, 13 and 14, south of the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan." The plan would have cost $950 million, and the museum admits that was an unrealistic goal. The New York Times 12/31/02

British Museum Puzzled Over Missing Goblet "Archivists at the British Museum are scratching their heads after learning that the biggest hoard of Roman treasure ever found in Britain comprised 35 pieces - not 34, as has been believed for the past 60 years - and that the goblet that is missing could be worth more than £1 million." The discovery was made when a 94-year-old man who had worked on cleaning one of the goblets came to visit the museum and discovered it was missing. The Guardian (UK) 12/31/02

The Theme-Parking Of Our Museums "So it’s boom time for British art. As cultural projects continue to appropriate sites left derelict by the decline of hard industry, there has never been so much museum space available." Never so much pressure to mount that blockbuster show. Are our museums turning into entertainment theme parks of little substance? The Times 12/30/02

Mies - Are You Fer or Agin' Him? A new retrospective of the work of architect Mies van der Rohe asks a critic to takes sides. How odd. "You can ask whether Mies was a good architect or a bad architect, an influential architect or not. You can ask whether he has been properly understood and whether he is still relevant today. But to ask whether you are for or against him seems strangely irrelevant, a harking back to half-forgotten battles of an earlier generation." The Telegraph (UK) 12/30/02

Corporations - Collectors For Our Times Why do corporations collect art? "Apart from the profits and tax relief such sales and donations generate for companies, they also produce what social theorist Pierre Bourdieu has called "cultural capital," the prestige and importance that come with a reputation for high-mindedness and civic responsibility. Cultural capital is especially important for companies that make things that can hurt people, such as tobacco and alcohol. It's no accident Philip Morris and Seagram have two of the most respected corporate art collections." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/29/02

Erasing The Past By Demolition Los Angeles issued 1,211 demolition permits in 2001. This 'erase-atecture,' as some architectural historians call it, gives builders room to press forward with their perpetual reinvention of the city, and it often protects the public from unsafe structures. But nobody knows just how much valuable history the wrecking balls obliterate each year, because in most cases, nobody's keeping track. About 85% of the city's standing structures have never been surveyed for historic or cultural significance. Los Angeles Times 12/29/02

The Surrealist's Library - A Record Surrealist artist Andre Breton's collection of art - to be sold next year - provides "the most complete history of the evolution of an iconoclastic group which opposed all forms of moral and social convention and replaced them by the 'values of dreams, instinct, desire and revolt'." The 400 paintings, 1,500 photographs and 3,500 documents are an invaluable record. The Surrealists "1924 manifesto laid the ground for some of Europe's most devastating artistic quarrels, often turning on a love-hate relationship with Marxism, including Breton's falling out with the communist poet Louis Aragon." The Guardian (UK) 12/28/02

Chinese Artist Owns Rights To Mao Yes, China is still a Communist state. But the country's leadership is anxious to show the rest of the world that it respects property rights. So that might explain a ruling by the Beijing Higher People's Court, that ordered the Museum of the Chinese Revolution - a major landmark in central Beijing - to pay an artist's family the equivalent of $31,000 for selling copies of a picture of Mao Zedong without permission. The court ruled "that while the museum is allowed to display Dong's painting, reproduction rights are still held by his widow and children. The verdict would likely have horrified Mao, leader of the 1949 revolution that eliminated most private property." New Jersey Online (AP) 12/28/02

Toronto's New Star Potential Toronto is on the verge of a building boom - and billions of dollars are being spent. "After more than a decade of devastation, Toronto's cultural institutions have regrouped into a position of civic leadership. By the time the cranes are down, Toronto will have works by some of the world's leading architects, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Will Alsop among them. Already, controversy is swirling." Toronto Star 12/28/02

The Picture That Started It all The world's first photograph was taken in 1826. Is it a great picture? "It's all too easy to think that an interesting picture is a picture of an interesting thing—this is the power of photojournalism, some snapshots, certain forms of portraiture, and so on. But the truth is trickier: The quality of a photograph lies not in its subject matter but in the irreducible entanglement of photographer, apparatus, and image." Slate 12/27/02

Grandson Sues to Get Looted Picasso Back A 1922 Picasso painting valued at $10 million is under dispute in the US - the grandson of the woman who had owned the painting before the Nazis stole it in World War II is suing the Illinois woman whose family bought the painting and is now trying to sell it. San Francisco Chronicle 12/27/02

Why The LA County Museum Put On The Brakes How did the LA County Museum of Art go from huge enthusiasm for an exciting $200 million project to rebuild proposed by Rem Koolhaas, to shelving the project indefinitely? M-O-N-E-Y. Los Angeles Times 12/26/02

Australia To Investigate National Museum Is Australia's National Museum too "politically correct?" The country's government suspects so, and has appointed an academic to incerstigate and report back. "The review follows a recent decision by the board to reduce the term of museum director Dawn Casey - an Aborigine - to a one-year contract and brings to a head the conflict between the museum's council and its curatorial staff over the institution's direction." The Age (Melbourne) 12/27/02

San Francisco's Poor Record of Public Art Why is San Francisco's public art so mediocre? In an arguably arts-oriented town, the level of public art that gets up is timid, cautious, or just plain mediocre. San Francisco Chronicle 12/23/02

• Another Chance To Get It Right But maybe the 60-foot-high monumental new outdoor sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen can reverse the city's "embarrassing record" on choices of art in public places... San Francisco Chronicle 12/23/02

The Outsider Who Came In (And Wants To Get Out Again) What is outsider art? "It is eccentric, engaging, and often apocalyptic. It stands outside the standard schools and movements, and is produced by artists who are usually self-taught and often judged insane. It includes some of the most compelling, disturbing, and/or simply strange painting, sculpture, and even literature and music being produced today. Whatever outsider art might be, Joe Coleman is one of its biggest stars, with vivid paintings of riots, demons, serial killers, and sideshow geeks, all rendered in an instantly recognizable style. Yet New York's annual Outsider Art Fair, has decided not to include him when it reopens its doors next month." The problem? Coleman has been to art school, "thus removing him from the ranks of the self-taught." Reason 12/19/02

Guggenheim To Close In Las Vegas The Guggenheim budget is roughly half what it was at the end of the 1990s. So the museum has been cutting back programs and staff. And, as long rumored, the Goog is closing its Rem Koolhaas-designed Las Vegas branch while it looks for more money... The New York Times 12/24/02

Christo In New York Close to Approval It looks like the Christo and Jeanne Claude project to cover New York's Central Parki with banners might go ahead, after years of trying. "Charlatans? Shamans? With their hard-sell tactics, their followers trailing them like Deadheads from one gig to the next, their feel-good populism and phenomenally expensive, grandiose ambitions, it's no wonder Christo and Jeanne-Claude have made skeptics of people who haven't seen their work, don't understand it or don't want to, and who won't take them seriously." And yet... The New York Times 12 24/02

Will Tate Use Profit to Save Painting? Last week the Tate was mounting a campaign to raise money to prevent the sale and eexport of Joshua Reynolds' "Portrait of Omai". Then the museum came into a £14.6 million profit in a deal that recovered two Turners stolen from the museum in 1994. So will Tate use the money to rescue the Reynolds? Er... The Guardian (UK) 12/23/02

Access To Art - Requiring A Commitment To Buy... The artist you like doesn't produce much work. And people are clamoring for it. So how do you get a piece of the action? "A gallery's waiting list is no first-come, first-served, restaurant-type arrangement. Getting on the list requires collectors to demonstrate a 'commitment' to the dealer's gallery in the form of consistent, long-term buying." That takes a certain amount of work... Christian Science Monitor 12/23/02

Christie's Refuses To Aid In Recovery of Stolen Artwork Do auction houses have an obligation to help owners of stolen art recover their property? The family of a Holocaust victim wants Christie's to reveal the owner of a painting the auction house had planned to sell. "To Christie's, the issue is not so clear-cut. Its lawyers say the auction house has done all it can to help, including contacting the collector and informing him that the painting's ownership may be at issue." But they won't reveal the name.
Chicago Tribune 12/22/02

Inside The World's Most Secret Museum Russian TV has shown what it describes as the most secret museum in the country - a museum documenting the KGB and its predessor security organization. "According to the TV, there is only one poignant item to represent the tumultuous events of the 1930's, in which thousands died at the hands of Stalin's secret police. It is a list of chiefs of the Leningrad directorate and other security personnel executed between 1933-39: a total figure of 22,618." BBC 12/22/02

The Tate's Cloak-And-Dagger Operation To Get Back Its Turners Did the Tate pay a £3.5 million ransom to get back two of its greatest Turner paintings? It was a cloak-and-dagger operation. "A sizeable chunk of the cash they handed to the German authorities went to pay a chain of informers and middlemen for 'information' on the paintings, now worth around £50 million. But the Tate insists no ransom was paid nor were criminals rewarded, at least not directly by them or by the two former Metropolitan policemen they employed." The Guardian (UK) 12/22/02

Couple Arrested in Big Art Heist An Irish couple has been been arrested for holding five stolen paintings. "The five masterpieces - including two by Rubens - were found by police on Friday night, nearly three months after they disappeared from Russborough House, the stately home of the late South African diamond millionaire, Sir Alfred Beit." BBC 12/22/02

Is Toronto Painting Another Rubens? For 15 years, a Toronto businessman has enjoyed a painting he has hung in his livingroom. He "never had the canvas appraised. He just enjoyed admiring it as it hung in his Forest Hill living room. But last summer, after reading that billionaire Ken Thomson paid $117 million for Rubens' Massacre Of The Innocents, the owner became interested in what an expert would say." They say it might be another Rubens... Toronto Star 12/22/02

Taking To The Streets Of Argentina With Art "A century ago, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. But today the country is reeling from record 22 percent unemployment and a poverty rate approaching 50 percent." Artists starve in such conditions. So a benefactor has donated paints and brushes and many have taken to the streets to paint and sell their work... San Jose Mercury-News 12/22/02

WTC - An Argument With Reality So what if ideas for structures on the World Trade Center site seem impractical. "It's only because members of the public have taken the trouble to argue with reality that the official process of reimagining ground zero has taken a turn for the better. What we're learning, at this stage, is how to put the shoe on the other foot." The New York Times 12/23/02

• Imagining The Manhattan Skyline Some of the ideas for rebuilding on the World Trade Center site come straight from fantasy. "At least four of them propose to build the tallest building in the world. And the designs are not only tall. Towers tilt and dance at weird angles as they rise. Often they're linked by bridges in the sky, in the best tradition of your favorite Flash Gordon comic book. This isn't exactly avant-garde architecture." So what's real? Boston Globe 12/22/02

• Ground Zero Solution Blair Kamin believes that one of the seven proposals for the World Trade Center site stands above the others. "Libeskind's plan for the former World Trade Center site at once offers a deeply moving memorial to those who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a joyous but dignified celebration of New York's street life and skyline." Chicago Tribune 12/22/02

• WTC - Why Not Dream? "If the architects have exceeded the design study's requirements, we should be grateful. They've helped to expose a major defect of the entire design process thus far: the attempt to contain architecture within such restrictive boundaries that it cannot perform its legitimate poetic function." The New York Times 12/22/02

Getting Behind The Art-Theft Mentality Stealing paintings from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is an act that hurst us all. "How dare they? Why would they? Van Gogh is so famous, experts argue, the culprits probably will have difficulty selling the works for the millions they're worth. Assuming this isn't the more whimsical scenario of a team of genuine van Gogh fanatics, the audacity of the heist wildly overshadows the practical financial benefit. Yet, such thievery happens." Chicago Tribune 12/22/02

Stolen Turner Pictures Recovered Two paintings by JMW Turner belonging to the Tate that were stolen eight years ago, have been recovered in Germany. "The paintings, both 19th Century biblical works insured for £24 million and now worth about £50 million, were taken while on display in Frankfurt, Germany. Described as two of Turner's most significant paintings, the works were found intact but without their original frames." BBC 12/20/02

Santa As A Work Of Art Where did the popular image of Santa as a jolly old man come from? "What most people don't realize is that Santa's origins were very commercial from the beginning. He was created by mass media artists and invented by Americans in the beginning of the 19th Century. Haddon Sundblom painted a series of portraits of Santa between 1931 and 1964 for Coca-Cola advertisements that helped to shape the modern image of the jolly character known as Santa Claus." Chicago Tribune 12/20/02

Seattle - Where Is The Outrage? Does any art outrage Seattle? "While attendance at museums and galleries is among the highest in America for a city of its size, Seattle can't boast of doing much to fan whatever outrages it encounters." Shows that cause impassioned debate in other cities seem to pass through Seattle without a ripple of controversy. "In Seattle, people don't tend to get mad at art, even if they find it personally offensive. They either like it because it's offensive, because they like the way it's done or they go, 'whatever,' and move on to the next thing." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 12/20/02

Melbourne Museum Disappointment Translates Into Job Losses Two years ago the new Melbourne Museum attracted 800,000 visitors. A year ago attendance was down 20 percent. And this year looks to see further 20 percent decline. What to do? A management shakeup. After all - the museum opened with projections of 3 million visitors a year... The Age (Melbourne) 12/20/02

Christo Central Park Project Clears Another Hurdle A group that helps run New York's Central Park has approved plans by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, to "erect 7,500 rectangular steel gates, each 15 feet tall with golden nylon streaming from it." The artists have been trying to get permission for the project for 20 years "The plan still needs approval from the city's parks department. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he supports it." Nando Times (AP) 12/19/02

Museum-building Craze Slows Is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's decision to put off building the ambitious redesign of its campus an act of cowardice? Or is it really the responsible thing to do? The pace of new museum projects has slowed since 2000, and this might not be a bad thing... The Art Newspaper 12/20/02

Tower Dreams The WTC proposals unveiled this week by prominent architects follow some common themes. "In purely architectural terms, the big news was the triumph of the mega-skyscraper. Four of the seven design teams want to put the tallest building in the world at the site. In the end, it's hard to imagine any scenario in which a truly successful master plan—one that's at once architecturally inventive and a good use of urban space—is produced within the allotted time." Slate 12/19/02

Italy To sell off Art Treasures? Is Italy getting ready to sell off some of its archeological treasures to raise money? The government denies that preparations are underway, and that an inventory of assets is "for accounting purposes" only. But critics don't believe the explanation,and "the scheme has raised a tempest of protest, with marches and petitions throughout the country." Discovery 12/19/02

Mummy's Curse Debunked The curse of the mummy was supposed to kill anyone who disturbed the tomb of King Tut. And Lord Carnavon, who financed the 1923 expedition that discovered Tut did die an untimely death at age 57. But a researcher who tracked every one of the 44 people in on the discovery says there were no other early deaths - average age at death was 70 or higher. So no mummy curse... Discovery 12/19/02

Big, Bigger, Biggest - Where Does It End? Ever since Frank Gehry's widely-hailed Bilbao museum opened, architects around the world have faced unprecedented expectations as to what their designs can do, not just for an organization or a neighborhood, but for an entire city. But how much has the "wow" factor actually hurt the practice of serious architecture, and is the movement towards buildings-as-tourist-attractions and architectural star power a sign of growing public interest, or merely the end product of a celebrity-obsessed culture? Los Angeles Times 12/19/02

Freudian Analysis It may not be the most profound gauge of public sentiment, but for what it's worth, the top-selling postcard at the Tate Britain this past year was a semi-nude study by Lucien Freud called "Girl With White Dog." This is notable mainly because the top-selling card had been Millais's serene and Victorian "Ophelia" for a decade. The museum's director hopes the Freud card's popularity is a sign that audiences are becoming more accepting of contemporary art. BBC 12/19/02

More Nazi Loot To Be Returned The small Austrian city of Linz has agreed to return a 1916 Egon Schiele painting to the family that once owned it. The painting, which is known as "View of Krumau," is estimated to be worth $10 million. It was seized by the Gestapo after the family fled Austria during the occupation, and the New Gallery in Linz eventually purchased it without knowing that it was Nazi loot. The Guardian (UK) 12/17/02

WTC Plans - Going Up... Ideas for rebuilding on the World Trade Center site were unveiled in New York Wednesday. In general, Herbert Muschamp was impressed. "In our hype-drenched era, a critic will have to risk raising cynical eyebrows with superlatives adequate to the occasion. Let them rise. Let them arch into furious knots. The architects have risen to the occasion." The New York Times 12/19/02

• What Happens When Reality Sets In? The designs are most impressive, says Benjamin Forgey, and the rollout was "rousing good theater." But at some point, one of these designs is going to have to actually be built, and it doesn't seem like anyone is thinking a great deal about such annoying details as funding, phasing of the project, and what purpose the building(s) will serve upon completion. "For the next month or so, however, attention will be focused on the plans revealed today, and deservedly so." Washington Post 12/19/02

• It All Comes Down To Height The new set of designs presented as possible replacements for the Twin Towers are certainly impressive, says Lisa Rochon, and they're also awfully... um... tall. "There are towers that kiss in mid-air, while others stand up like soldiers aligned in a military grid. Some are beautiful. Most of them carry a tremendous wallop of architectural ego." The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/19/02

Why Thomas Krens Ought To Be Fired With the Guggenheim in financial ruin, why, Hilton Kramer wants to know, is director Thomas Krens still allowed in the building? "The fact is that during Mr. Krens’ 14-year tenure as director of the Guggenheim, the museum virtually ceased to make a significant contribution to the art life of New York. Some of us are old enough to recall the days when the Guggenheim was a vital presence in the city." New York Observer 12/17/02

Surrealist Record On Sale When Surrealist Andre Breton died at 70 on Sept. 28, 1966, his small apartment at 42 Rue Fontaine in the Pigalle district of Paris was "a veritable treasure trove." But what to do with the art? "With the French government unwilling to buy the collection, the largest single record of the Surrealist movement is to be sold next spring at the Hôtel Drouot-Richelieu, where Paris auctions are held. One measure of the size of the sale is that the auction house, CalmelsCohen, plans at least six catalogs to cover the 5,300 lots. The auction, from April 1 to 18, is expected to raise $30 million to $40 million." The New York Times 12/17/02

Scottish Museums Need Emergency Investments The Scottish Museums Council says the country's museums need £14 million to keep them viable. The council's report stresses that "museums have suffered years of under-investment and called for 'funding appropriate to 21st century Scotland'. Ultimately we’re talking about museums closing." The Scotsman 12/18/02

NY Art Student Arrested For Placing Boxes In Subway A New York art student was arrested last week after "placing 38 black boxes, bearing the word 'fear' in white lettering, around the Union Square station, a crucial hub where six lines intersect. The bomb squad was called in and the station was shut for five hours, causing a ripple effect of chaos on the network, as panicked commuters and transit workers feared a terrorist attack." The Guardian (UK) 12/18/02

• Art Of Crime "First things first. What an idiotic project. As the saying goes, art this bad ought to be a crime. So now it is left to hapless, fledgling art students, fresh from Michigan, to keep up the city's gritty reputation for crime. At least New York can still take pride, as the nation's cultural capital, that even our misdemeanors are works of art." The New York Times 12/18/02

Gallery Owner Under Investigation Over Picture of Little Girl A London gallery owner is under investigation by Scotland Yard "for showing a picture of a girl in a bath taken by her artist mother after a passerby complained to the police that it was 'paedophiliac and offensive'." The Guardian (UK) 12/18/02

Losing Her Head Over Art? Should a London man be jailed for decapitating a statue of Margaret Thatcher? He claims the act was art. "The prosecution will attempt to convince you that my actions amount to criminal damage whereas my defence will centre around artistic expression and my right to interact with this broken world. We can ill afford to ever lose our sense of humour. I was left with no choice other than to do this act of satirical humour." The Guardian (UK) 12/18/02

WTC Site - Tower of Greatness? Proposals for rebuilding on the World Trade Center site are to be presented today. "Thanks entirely to public pressure, our great city has taken a giant step toward reclaiming a place of world leadership in the civil art of building. The participants include some of the most influential figures in contemporary architecture. Not since 1947, when an international design team met to plan the United Nations headquarters, has a comparable list of architectural talent set to work on a New York project." The New York Times 12/18/02

• NY State Agency Warns Architects Not To Cooperate With NYT A New York state agency warned architects not to cooperate with a plan by the New York Times to publish in advance plans for rebuilding on the site of the World Trade Center. "Sources tell Newsday that Times' chief architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp, asked the teams working on plans for the trade center site to show him their work in advance of tomorrow's public unveiling by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the state agency charged with rebuilding the site. He had planned to have a story in the Times prior to public disclosure of the designs." None of the architects agreed, according to Newsday sources. Newsday 12/16/02

• Towering Idea(l)s Wednesday, a group of some of the world's most well-known architects will gather in a room across from the World Trade Center to show some ideas for building on the WTC site. "Perhaps not since the United Nations competition has there been such attention placed on internationally prominent architects. This is our chance for transformational thinking, not architecture as commodity." San Francisco Chronicle 12/17/02

A Whitney Museum In Miami's Future? Miami is hot off of hosting Art Basel Miami Beach. And the city is trying to flesh out its population of resident museums. The city is in talks with New York's Whitney Museum to open a branch in South Florida. And "Miami Mayor Manny Diaz hopes to capitalize on the energy created by Art Basel and is looking to museums in Europe, where he's already written to the president of Madrid's Museo del Prado." Miami Herald 12/17/02

Beck's Futures Features Nuts The Beck's Futures Awards - Britain's richest art prize - has chosen its shortlist of artists, and it's "the most bizarre, outrageous and plain nutty group of young artists and pranksters ever shortlisted for a big award. The eight individuals and one collective in the running for the £65,000 prize include a man who apparently sewed short planks of wood to the soles of his feet, carried a bucket of water around for a week and spent another week avoiding eye contact with anyone." The Guardian (UK) 12/17/02

More Raves For Fort Worth Critic Paul Goldberger is impressed with architect Tadao Ando's work on the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. "Many museums these days look their best before any art is installed in them. This is the first great museum building in a generation that gets even better when art is added." The New Yorker 12/16/02

Note To Readers Earlier today, we had two items posted from The Art Newspaper about financial difficulties at the Dia Foundation and Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Central Park project. The items were posted last night, but this morning editors at The Art Newspaper decided to pull them after important details were disputed by the principles. We'll post more information when we get it. UPDATE: A spokesperson for Dia emails with a statement concerning the Foundation's finances. Click the link at the top of this item to read it. 12/16/02

The Canaletto Under Our Noses After an extensive cleaning, a painting that had hung in Scotland's National Galleries for 150 years, has been identified as a Canaletto worth £2 million. "The picture, which shows gondoliers and sailors at work in 18th century Venice, was identified at the time as a Canaletto copy by an imitator or student of the artist, and had been valued at no more than £5,000." The Guardian (UK) 12/16/02

Liverpool's Building Of Bilbao Proportions Liverpool is building a citry-changing architectural project. "The £225 million project on the Pierhead is the centrepiece of Liverpool's urban regeneration plans. It's big, both physically and in its ambitions, and includes half a million square feet of shops, a 20-storey block of flats, bars, a hotel and a museum. Above all, it will be overpoweringly visible. It is one of those skyline busting landmark structures that changes everything around it. If Liverpool needed a Sydney Opera House, this would be it." The Guardian (UK) 12/16/02

An Art Market Gone Dry The weakening supply of Old Master paintings on the market has been an issue for several years in the auction business. But "last week the weakest line-up of Old Masters that dealers could remember for years totalled only a paltry £13.8 million at the two auction houses. Faced by scores of dull, substandard paintings, the market either bought cautiously or did not bid at all." The Telegraph (UK) 12/16/02

Dia Foundation May Have To Close New York Headquarters New York's Dia Foundation is in a financial crisis. It's "a major liquidity problem for Dia who if not actually bankrupt are in the midst of the most serious cash-flow crisis they have yet weathered. According to some reports the whole Dia building, (pioneer of the NY art world’s move to Chelsea) will be closed for the next three years or however long it takes to get back to something approaching solvency." The Art Newspaper 12/13/02

Christo's Central Park Project To Get Go Ahead Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been trying for years to get approval to mount their ambitious "Gates" project in New York's Central Park. But a variety of objections, including concern for the health of the park, have blocked the plan. Now Mayor Michael Bloomberg, "always at the forefront of city-wide public art" has okayed the project and "is a major motivator behind the fruition of this work." The Art Newspaper 12/13/02

National Gallery Review Motivated By Politics? The Australian government is launching a review of the activities of the embattled National Museum of Australia. "While some see it as a necessary process for any new cultural institution, others fear the agenda is primarily political." Particularly as it looks like the museum director's contract will be cut short. Sydney Morning Herald 12/16/02

The Getty - High Culture On The Hill The Getty Center is celebrating its fifth anniversary atop its hillside overlooking Los Angeles. The $1.3 billion complex has attracted 7 million visitors since opening, and the complaints that chased its unveiling seem to have quieted down. "On days like this it may appear that people go to the Getty to do anything but look at art. But no, every gallery is crowded, and for each person who strolls through, there's someone engaged with an artwork." Los Angeles Times 12/15/02

Southwest Success Takes More Than Money The merger between Southern California's Southwest Museum and the Autry Museum pairs a great collection with (finally) the resources to build on it. But it will take more than money to turn around the Southwest. "Inadequate display and storage facilities, employee theft from the collection, shoddy record-keeping, daunting conservation needs, a chronic lack of funding and an incompetent board were among the Himalayan-size hurdles faced by L.A.'s oldest museum." Los Angeles Times 12/15/02

$2 Million, And For What? A Frank Lloyd Wright lamp sold at auction this week for nearly $2 million after less than a minute of furious bidding. One of the four losing bidders was an anonymous collector who planned to buy the lamp in order to return it to the Illinois home (now a museum) for which it was specifically designed. To some observers of the auction world, the lamp is just one more example of an art treasure being sacrificed on the altar of the free market at the expense of the public interest. Washington Post 12/14/02

Subtly Impressive, And Ready For The Public "Not much has gone wrong at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Japanese architect Tadao Ando's $65 million addition to the city's Cultural District that opens Saturday. For a major work by an international superstar, it is a surprisingly discreet building. No swirling titanium walls like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, no fluttering butterfly sunscreens as in the Milwaukee Art Museum. It sits politely, almost corporately on its site, five gleaming rectangles of aluminum and glass enclosing the second-largest postwar art museum in the United States." Dallas Morning News 12/14/02

• Putting Fort Worth On The Architectural Map Tadao Ando's design for the new Fort Worth Modern Art Museum should establish him once and for all as one of the world's architectural masters, says Benjamin Forgey. "There is no mystery or ceremony in approaching the high, off-center entryway of the Ando building. You just go in. And then, right away, you begin to experience the magic, generosity, subtlety and self-confidence of Ando's art." Washington Post 12/15/02

Picasso As A Disposable Asset "Debt-ridden media giant Vivendi is to sell a celebrated family art collection, including a 22-foot (6.7-metre) curtain painted by Picasso... The collection, valued at around £15m, also includes major works by Joan Miro and Mark Rothko and was put together over 30 years by the Bronfman family." BBC 12/13/02

Charming Man In A Thankless Job Given the current belt-tightening climate, director of the UK's National Gallery is hardly the plum position it ought to be. And Charles Saumarez Smith is under tremendous pressure not only to preserve the institution itself, but to match the success of his predecessor, the legendary Neil MacGregor. On top of that, the Getty Museum in L.A. recently swiped a priceless Raphael right out from under the National's nose. What's a director to do? The Telegraph (UK) 12/14/02

Get Your Art At A Christmas Discount And you thought only the malls were crass and commercial enough to blitz you with Christmas sales! As it happens, lots of galleries and art dealers are looking to cash in on the holiday buying spirit as well, and there may be no better time to pick up some smaller pieces for your collection. "Smart art shoppers have come to rely on the annual discounts to stuff stockings or fill out their own collections, and little guilt is expressed over taking home art by the famous or the nearly-famous at garage-sale prices." The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 12/15/02

American Court Says Woman Can Sue Austria Over Paintings A US court has ruled that an elderly Los Angeles woman can sue Austria to recover six Gustav Klimt paintings worth $150 million seized by the Nazis in 1939. The contested paintings by the Austrian artist are now displayed in the government-run Austrian Gallery in Vienna. The "decision marked the first time in Holocaust reparations litigation that a federal appeals court has ruled that a foreign government can be held accountable in a U.S. court." Los Angeles Times 12/13/02

New In AJ LETTERS "I found the article by Andrew Eaton in the Scotsman on the Turner Prize very poorly wrought. I, for one, am perfectly willing to admit anything into the category 'art' that comes into being to evoke response. But being art doesn't necessarily imply that something has value..." AJ Letters 12/12/02

No Refunds No Returns? So what do other museums think of the declaration this week by some of the world's major museums that they shouldn't return ancient artifacts to their countries of origin? "The British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles was dismissive of the declaration by the museums, which included the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, and the Berlin Museum. 'Such unilateral, absolute 'declarations' are not sustainable in the modern world,' it insisted. 'Declarations of this kind should be the outcome of discussion and consultation beyond the small circle of self-styled 'universal' museums'." The Guardian (UK) 12/13/02

Why Museums Are Protective So why did great world museums issue a statement on Repatriation of historic monuments? "The museums' statement, which never mentioned the Parthenon Marbles, was meant as a collective defense of collections that were put together in another era, before countries like Greece became more protective of their cultural patrimony. The statement argued that museums, as the guardians of artifacts from civilizations around the world, had become international institutions with missions that transcended national boundaries." The New York Times 12/13/02

Aristocratic Greed Endangered British Art During WWII Blitz During World War II, the British worried about the safety of their art. So they devised places to hide it. One of the plans was to hide it in the rich country houses, but owners of the houses were less than helpful. "A forthcoming book discloses that their behaviour led them to be compared to collaborators with Hitler. The attitudes wrecked plans to save art treasures by holding them in such houses. Instead the works had to be stored at high public cost in specially built underground installations in Wales and Wiltshire." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/02

Free Museums Don't Attract The Poor So attendance has soared at British museums that dropped their admission charges last year. But the increased visits aren't coming from low-income people for whom the entry fees might have been a barrier. "Free admission is a welcome bonus for all those who already appreciate our museums' riches, but it is not a very effective way of attracting anyone else. Instead, the extra visitors increase museum running costs for the museums, which they have to meet out of grants so limited that their custodianship of our heritage may be compromised." London Evening Standard 12/12/02

• Previously: Free Museum Admission Costs Museums Since London museums dropped their admission charges last year, attendance at museums is up 62 percent. This is a good thing, and something the government has pledged to continue. But the move has "cost the Government more than £70 million - the cash was given to the institutions over three years to make up for loss of revenue." And the museums say it isn't nearly enough - they need more compensation... London Evening Standard 12/11/02
  

Not In Vogue Conde Nast, the giant magazine publisher and owner of Vogue, has blocked British artist Graham Dolphin from showing a piece based on Vogue covers in a show at the Barbican Centre in London. The company said that "the reputation and goodwill built up in this title over many years as the world’s leading fashion authority, is the most valuable asset this company owns, and we are not prepared to allow anyone to exploit it in an unauthorised way.... It is our policy to follow up on every case of unauthorised usage whether it be commercial or artistic, with the assistance of our lawyers whenever necessary.” The Art Newspaper 12/09/02

Elgin Marbles Explained The Parthenon Marbles have been attacked and degraded over 1600 years. But one has only to compare the pieces left at the Acropolis with those preserved in the British Museum to appreciate that Lord Elgin's removal of the marbles to London has helped preserve them. In this context, the claim that the removal of the Elgin Marbles are is an "object lesson of greed, xenophobia and intransigence” is "in part incomprehensible and in part deeply offensive." The Art Newspaper 12/09/02

Why Can't We Just ask If Art Is Good? (Rather Than If It's Art In The First Place) How tiresome - another Turner Prize, another controversy - and why?. "We just can’t get past it. For some reason it seems far more pressing to ask whether something can actually be called art than to ask whether it’s good or bad. This barrier is more important and more damaging to art itself than it may sound. A lot of people - teachers, curators, critics, funding bodies - have to agree something is art before it can get nominated for an award such as the Turner Prize. Unless all these people are conspiring to make fools of us, that’s a pretty convincing consensus." The Scotsman 12/12/02

Free Museum Admission Costs Museums Since London museums dropped their admission charges last year, attendance at museums is up 62 percent. This is a good thing, and something the government has pledged to continue. But the move has "cost the Government more than £70 million - the cash was given to the institutions over three years to make up for loss of revenue." And the museums say it isn't nearly enough - they need more compensation... London Evening Standard 12/11/02

All About The Art Over the past 10 years there has been a succession of new museum buildings that seem to want to compete with the art inside - as if the permanence of the structure trumps the objects that can be rearranged inside. Tadao Ando's new Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is different - it "assumes that art remains a vital part of our existence. As an architect, his aim is to allow us to understand that relationship more clearly, to bring us into closer contact with both the art and ourselves. It is architecture for art's sake, without condescension." Los Angeles Times 12/12/02

Shell Game? The Guggenheim's financial fortunes are reeling. It "ran a $6.7 million operating deficit last year on a $57.71 million budget. Its endowment should reach about $42 million by the end of the year, still far short of the $100 million level," and many of director Thomas Krens' initiatives are on the rocks. "Perhaps the only good thing to emerge from the Guggenheim's financial woes is its shift in exhibitions from superficial eye-poppers such as motorcycles and haute couture toward an increased reliance on treasures from its permanent collection." And yet, is the empire crumbling? OpinionJournal.com 12/10/02

Burrowing Under Stonehenge The British government proposes to bore a 1.3 tunnel for cars under Stonehenge. "The costly u-turn, with a bill shared for the first time between the highways agency and the Department for Culture, is intended to end the embarrassment over the world's most famous prehistoric monument, still clenched in the fork of two roads 13 years after a parliamentary committee described Stonehenge as 'a national disgrace'. The Guardian (UK) 12/11/02

Policy Against Fire Fails In Norway A devastating fire destroyed a block of historic buildings in Trondheim, Norway last week. Critics charge the government hasn't done enough to protect the country's historic structures. "Fires leading to the loss of irreplaceable national cultural treasures shall not occur," reads a state declaration from last year. "The fire in Trondheim shows that this goal hasn't been adequately followed up." Aftenposten (Norway) 12/11/02

Merger of collections and Money On-again-off-again plans for a merger between the rich Autry Museum for Western Heritage and the impoverished Southwest Museum is on again. "The merger rescues Los Angeles' oldest museum from a life-threatening financial crisis and brings the Southwest's 350,000-item inventory, one of the world's leading collections of Native American art and artifacts, under the same umbrella as the Autry's $100-million endowment." Los Angeles Times 12/11/02

End of Abstraction? Abstract art is so imprinted on our conciousness that it seems odd to question its ongoing viability. Yet Hilton Kramer believes there are important reasons that "the place occupied by abstract art is now so radically diminished not only on the contemporary art scene but in cultural life generally... I mean its power to set the kind of agenda that commands the attention of new and ambitious talents—and at times, indeed, even the emulation of established talents." Can that even happen anymore? The New Criterion 12/02

Why The New York Times Needs Another Architecture Critic Architecture is one of the most important arts. Unfortunately it doesn't get a lot of thoughtful attention in the world's daily press. The New York Times' Herbert Muschamp is a vigorous and effective critic. But he's only one voice - and one with a very specific point of view. "Another talent could write in parallel with Muschamp, counterbalancing aggression with desire, particles with waves—someone to cover the subject when he cannot or isn’t interested, one who will reach outside Muschamp’s territory and complete a column when he does not. The time is right; the subject of design, on everyone’s lips, deserves the commitment." Architectural Record 12/02

A Culture Minister With A Critical Streak UK culture minister Kim Howells made headlines a few weeks ago by trash-talking the art chosen for this year's Turner Prize shortlist. Now that a winner has been chosen, he renewed his attack this describing Turner judges as "black-wearing elites who talk in psychobabble. He said that the competition, which was won by Keith Tyson on Sunday, had been overrun by self-serving colonists of the 'incomprehensible classes'."

• Previously: 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

New York's New Museums The economy may be dragging, but a handful of new museums is in the works in New York. They include a museum devoted primarily to Himalayan and Tibetan painting. Also, "the New Museum of Contemporary Art in SoHo, the quarter-century-old bastion of cutting-edge art, is planning to build a new $35-million, 60,000-square-foot home along a motley stretch of the Bowery." The New York Times 12/11/02

We're Keeping The Loot How did the directors of 18 of the world's major museums come to sign a declaration against returning long-held antiquities in their collections to countries of origin? Evidently it was instigated by the British museum, even though the museum is not listed as a signatory. "Today museums would not condone what people did 200 years ago. But you cannot rewrite history. Those were different times, with different ethics and different mores." The New York Times 12/11/02

• Previously: For The Good Of The World - We're Keeping The Art Directors of 18 major museums from around the world have signed a declaration that their institutions act as "universal museums" for the good of the world, and therefore they will not hand back ancient artifacts to their countries of origin. "The universal admiration for ancient civilisations would not be so deeply established today were it not for the influence exercised by the artefacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public in major museums." BBC 12/09/02

Revolt Of The Volunteers Members of the Junior Associates of the Art Gallery of Ontario wanted to "run their events their way, they say - events that generated as much as $90,000 for buying art" and they wanted to say how the money they raised was spent on contemporary art. When the Toronto museum refused (who's running the place anyway?) the volunteers left the museum en masse to start their own organization. "In the world of volunteer management, the AGO power struggle is a classic, if somewhat extreme, cautionary tale of our times - the ramped-up needs and expectations of the female baby boomers pitted against the institution in financial and administrative extremity." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/10/02

LA County Museum Kills New Home? "The decision last Wednesday by the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to put on hold its extensive $200 million-$300 million renovation and expansion plans at its Hancock Park campus is all but a death knell for the project, one of the city's most important cultural initiatives." Los Angeles Times 12/10/02

How The Van Gogh Burglers Made Their Score Over the weekend they pulled off their heist at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. "Employing low-tech cunning against the hi-tech security features of a heavily protected modern gallery, the cat burglars thwarted CCTV cameras, alarms, motion sensors and 24-hour security guards by simply leaning a ladder against the back of the museum, climbing in through the roof and taking what they wanted." The Observer (UK) 12/08/02

Canada's New "Turner" Prize? The new $50,000 prize for a young Canadian contemporary artist is meant to draw attention. "The Sobey Art Award is the new Turner Prize, the Giller of the visual art world. With only one award behind it so far, it's not as prestigious as either yet, but give it time. It's rich, it's backed by a bona fide collector of fine Canadian art and it's truly national in scope." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/09/02

Chicago Buildings In Peril Chicago - land of historically-significant skyscrapers - has a plan to preserve important buildings. Only one problem - the department that's supposed to protect the buildings is so laughably understaffed, the system is unworkable. That's how embarrassing mistakes are made... Chicago Tribune 12/09/02

SFMOMA - The Big Push San Francisco's highest-profile art museum? SFMuseum of Modern Art. "SFMOMA stands reinvented in its landmark - though not universally admired - downtown building designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta." San Francisco Chronicle 12/08/02

For The Good Of The World - We're Keeping The Art Directors of 18 major museums from around the world have signed a declaration that their institutions act as "universal museums" for the good of the world, and therefore they will not hand back ancient artifacts to their countries of origin. "The universal admiration for ancient civilisations would not be so deeply established today were it not for the influence exercised by the artefacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public in major museums." BBC 12/09/02

"Mad Professor" Wins Turner Prize Keith Tyson has won this year's Turner Prize. "The 33-year-old former Cumbrian shipyard worker, dubbed the 'mad professor' for his fondness for exploring ideas from the outer limits of cod science and his outlandish proposals for giant neon dinosaurs and the like, had been the bookies' favourite. As the artist with the best jokes, he was also the public's first choice." The Guardian (UK) 12/09/02

• Best Of The Lot? "Though art critics were underwhelmed by Tyson's submissions to the Turner Prize exhibition, describing him as being at the soft end of the conceptual movement, he will probably escape the hilarity and condemnation which greeted last year's winner, Martin Creed, whose sole exhibit was a room in which the lights turned on and off every few seconds." The Telegraph 12/09/02

• Chew You Up, Spit You Out Think being nominated for the Turner is the answer to an artist's prayers? Not always. "The Turner Prize picks up little-known artists and throws them, albeit briefly, into the eye of a news storm. Unlike actors at the Oscars, artists tend to be among the least well equipped to deal with the sudden, intense attention." The Observer (UK) 12/08/02

Building As Picture Frame The new Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is a signature art building like most new museum buildings. But curators say the building ought to be a supporting player to the art. "My job is to represent the artist. If an artist makes a big painting, they want it to look big. What I want is small spaces where I can make small paintings look big and big paintings look big, without compromise." Houston Chronicle 12/06/02

Thieves Steal Van Goghs Thieves broke into Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum overnight and stole two of the artist's drawings. "Police were studying video tapes recorded by security cameras, while curators rearranged the paintings to cover the blank spaces on the walls before opening the museum to the public." Yahoo! (AP) 12/07/02

The Ruin Of Angkor Wat "It was a year ago that a high-ranking Cambodian official said the time had come to rev up the old ruin with things like sound-and-light shows, zigzag escalators and hot-air balloons. 'Angkor is asleep. We will wake it up'. Since a rough-edged peace came to this battered country in 1997, tourist visits to the Angkor temples have risen from almost zero toward a projected one million in 2005. The temples are already swarming." The New York Times 12/07/02

Hi, I'm Phil From Devon...I Carved The Parthenon... The Belgian newspaper De Morgen printed a blockbuster scoop last week - the Parthenon Marbles weren't really made by a Greek but by a "wandering stonemason from Devon called Phil Davies who changed his name to Pheidias to ingratiate himself with his ancient Athenian patrons." That means that the English would have a stronger claim to retaining the Marbles in the British Museum. The story included denials from the Greeks and quotes from the gloating Brits. Of course the story was a hoax, and the newspaper later printed a sheepish retraction. "It was a stupid mistake. It all happened on a Sunday when we had a skeletal staff. We noticed it ourselves the next day and ran a correction. What can you say." The Guardian (UK) 12/07/02

Dead Woman Mistaken For Art Visitors to a Berlin art space mistook a dead woman for a performance art piece. "Authorities said the 24-year-old woman, who apparently leapt from a window, discussed suicide in a videotaped interview with a group of artists the day before." Yahoo! (Reuters) 12/05/02

From Obscurity To Greatness When the new $60 million Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth opens this weekend, it will be the second-largest modern art museum in the US. "This museum has changed identities, names and directors more times than most people can count. Its meteoric rise of late is all the more remarkable given its checkered history and inauspicious beginnings. A museum that started as an adjunct to the public library, with volunteers footing the bills and guiding its fate, now stands poised to be one of the most influential institutions of its type." Dallas Morning News 12/07/02

Rothko Returns In the 1950s, Mark Rothko won the "most prestigious public commission that had ever been awarded to an abstract expressionist painter" to produce "600 square feet of paintings for the most exclusive room in the new Four Seasons restaurant at the Seagram Building in New York." But in 1959 he "suddenly and unexpectedly repudiated his agreement" and in the 1960s sent nine of the paintings to the Tate in London. Why? The Guardian (UK) 12/07/02

Basel In Miami For the first time, Art Basel, which is one of the world's top contemporary art fairs, is putting on a show outside its hometown. Where? Miami. And it's being called America's hottest art fair of the season. "While the most cutting-edge art raised some eyebrows, connoisseurs were keenly eyeing the more mainstream offerings, which include some of the best-known artists from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Keith Haring, Fernand Leger, René Magritte, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/07/02

• High Ambitions "Years in the making, Art Basel Miami Beach was scheduled to debut last year, but it was postponed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 'We want this to be the most important art show on the American continent, a cultural and social highlight of the Americas'." Los Angeles Times 12/07/02

• Branding Miami ''This is the most important branding event that has happened in Miami in the last 10 years.'' Miami Herald 12/01/02

Canada's Record Austion Year It was a record year for the art auction business in Canada, with new highs set for individual artists plus the business as a whole. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/07/02

A New Gehry In Jerusalem "The Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, named for the dedicated Nazi hunter, commissioned Gehry for the $150 million Jerusalem Center of Human Dignity and Museum of Tolerance. The SWC opened its education arm, a Museum of Tolerance, in 1993 in Los Angeles. Last spring, it opened another such museum in New York." The Idler 12/06/02

The Rise And Fall Of The Guggenheim Thomas Krens cut the figure of museum director as all big ideas and fearlessness - redefining the modern museum in an age of global branding. But he's also a polarizing figure, an easy target for those who lament his big-business approach to art. With a pursestrings-attached gift to Krens's Guggenheim Museum, the era of the Guggenheim as lavish spender and worldwide art brand seems to be at an end. "Global culture sounded inevitable a few years ago — all those plane-hopping travelers and multinational collaborations. But Sept. 11 put an end to that. The world became more divided, people less willing to travel, the American public poorer, more attuned to protecting itself and what it has." The New York Times 12/06/02

Auction Houses Or Discount Bins? As the American economy continues to tank mightily, art auction houses are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of putting masterpieces on the block for far less than they are worth, at least according to the inflated price scales of the 1990s. Case in point: a mature Rubens painting set to be auctioned soon for $4-$6 million, down from its original asking price of $25 million. In other tough news for the industry, Sotheby's New York is facing another round of layoffs, less than a year after the company let go 375 employees. The New York Times 12/06/02

It's Our Award And We're Going Home The American Institute of Architects has chosen not to award it's annual Gold Medal for the 36th time in the 95-year history of the prize. The decision doesn't necessarily mean that no new building was deserving of the honor, merely that 3/4 of the judges could not agree on a single winner. And since the list of nominees is kept confidential, we can all do our own speculation on whether 2001 architecture was a disappointment, or whether two or more worthy finalists managed to split the vote. Washington Post 12/06/02

One Less Starving Artist "A Canadian grocery magnate handed out a $50,000 contemporary art award yesterday to Vancouver artist Brian Jungen... The jury of curators from across Canada limited their selection to artists who were under 40 years old. The Sobey Art Award will be handed out every two years and is among the richest in the Canadian art world." Toronto Star 12/06/02

Visual Art - In Need Of Reinvention? A visit to this year's exhibition of Turner Prize finalists shows that visitors aren't much interested in the art there. "Is it just that this year's shortlist is lacklustre? Or is this year just part of a larger problem? The answer is the latter. If there is a big message in the Turner prize exhibition, it is that there is a huge public demand for the arts, but it is not being met by the artists. Admittedly, this is a charge which has often been made in all the arts in the past, and has been made in many different societies, and by some very unsavoury figures. But it continues to be made, and it seems to be a particular problem for the visual arts." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/02

Digital Art Accepted - Now What? Digital art is finally gaining acceptance and finding its way into museums. But "the very existence of a market for digital work, with pieces priced as high as $150,000, is creating conflict among practitioners in a medium that was, until recently, a proud part of the artistic fringe. The ability to 'objectify' digital art and make it as palpable, and salable, as a sculpture or painting is raising questions as to whether a genre based on the community-focused ethics of open-source computer programmers has lost the edge that made it exciting in the first place." ArtNews 12/02

Royal Art Replacement (Are They Fakes?) Is a senior member of England's royal family selling off art masterpieces and replacing them with fakes? A report claims that "the female royal, who was not named, is said to have sold two watercolours by Thomas Gainsborough to an antique dealer for £100,000. The paintings were said to have been replaced in their original frames by photographs of the watercolours, specially aged to look like old masterpieces." Edinburgh News 12/04/02

Finding Out What's In The Hermitage The Hermitage Museum "reportedly has three-million paintings, sculptures, drawings and decorative objects on its six-block site. But it's not entirely sure of that number or precisely where among its 400-plus rooms all that stuff is located, since it's never done a complete inventory in its 250-year history." Now a consortium of foundations is helping the museum to audit its holdings and bring the Hermitage into the modern age, more or less, and on a footing equal, more or less, to that of the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the British Museum." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/05/02

Interpret This There are curators. And then there are "Curators of Interpretation" who in the UK are "increasingly important people in the world of art, under a government that makes its grants to public galleries conditional upon the 'accessibility' of the works they display. It is their job to make the exhibits accessible to the masses, by helping Joe Public to see the point of what he is being shown. They also have an expanding role in deciding how exhibitions should be mounted, so as to make them welcoming and instructive to philistines like me." The Telegraph (UK) 12/05/02

Pyramidal Efficiency The Egyptian Council of Antiquities reports that one million stones were used in the building of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. "The number is under half of the previously estimated amount of 2.3 million stones, indicating that the Egyptian pyramid builders were even more organized and efficient than previously thought." Discovery 12/05/02

Guggenheim Gift With Big Strings Attached "Peter B. Lewis, the philanthropist who recently stunned Cleveland, his hometown, by announcing a boycott of charitable contributions there, this week gave the beleaguered Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum a $12 million gift, but only after forcing the institution's ambitious director to accept a pared-down budget. Mr. Lewis, who is chairman of the museum's board of trustees and its largest benefactor, said he had presented Thomas Krens, the museum's flamboyant and controversial director, with a 'tough love' choice: he could either bring the museum's tangled financial affairs in order, or start looking for another job." The New York Times 12/04/02

English Heritage In Peril "According to some of our top art conservators, Britain’s heritage is slowly deteriorating, mouldering away in museums, stately homes and churches. Some of the nation’s treasures will be lost within a couple of years unless they are properly treated. Britain’s heritage is being exposed to the ravages of time, humidity and pollution because public institutions simply cannot afford to pay for its proper upkeep." The Times 12/04/02

Trying To Save What's Left of the Bamiyan Buddhas Efforts are underway to preserve what's left of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban last year in Afghanistan. "Scaffolding will be erected to prevent the final collapse of the caves in which the giant statues stood for centuries. Local guards are on duty to combat further looting. And several countries are offering money and assistance to the international venture." According to UNESCO, "damage extends beyond the statues and artwork in the niches that housed them. In about 25 of 700 nearby caves, are remnants of Buddhist murals - but only an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of what existed in the 1970s." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/29/02

Best/Worst Of Times For LACMA Fundraising The LA County Museum of Art just got $10 million for its education programs. But fundraising for the museum's new Rem Koolhaas-designed building (estimated to cost between $200 and $300 million) has stalled out in the bad economy. "That fund-raising campaign, still in its "quiet phase," suffered a setback in last month's general election when a $250-million bond measure for improvements at county museums failed to pass. The bond would have given $98 million to LACMA, provided that the museum raised $112.5 million on its own." Los Angeles Times 12/03/02

The Genius Of Flushable Art Art Truism #873: The Public does not appreciate art which includes toilets. The Public is particularly irked by artistic toilets combined with religious imagery. But any toilets at all, even immaculate ones with books on top, are unlikely to be well-received at your next exhibition. Nonetheless, artists continue to use the porcelain repositories in everything from sculpture to photography, and a few galleries have even dedicated whole shows to them. Boston Globe 12/04/02

Most Powerful List Short On Artists Who are the most powerful people in the artworld? ArtReview Magazine names them, but there are very few artists on the list. So who makes it? Mostly "collectors, businessmen, a pub landlady... The top 10 "list includes just one artist, German painter Gerhard Richter, with the rest mainly coming from the business sector. Advertising tycoon Charles Saatchi heads the list, which is chosen by critics, dealers and other experts, for his contribution to the British art scene." BBC 12/02/02

Italy On Sale? So the Italian government wants to 'lease or even sell off some of the national treasures"' in its care. Will the private sector do any better at managing them? The government "strongly denies that Italy’s world-famous culture is under threat," while critics fear that is. "At issue is a law passed in June, setting up an agency to make an inventory of state-owned monuments and 'artistic and cultural assets', with a view to selling them, leasing them or using them as security for loans. The measure was hotly contested by the centre left opposition." The Times (UK) 12/03/02

• Never In England Could the British government try to sell its way out of financial hardship by doing an Italy, selling off assets? Couldn't happen. "The British genius, during nearly two centuries, has been in hiving off various parts of the cultural patrimony and placing them under the control of a motley crew of quangos, boards of trustees and other bodies that have the reputation of independence without, necessarily, the joy of it." The Times (UK) 12/03/02

Architecture Through The Lens If ever there were a figure who proves that architecture is as much about process as end result, Grant Mudford is it. The photographer specializes in taking pictures of buildings in progress, and claims that the half-finished structures he captures are as much art as the finished buildings themselves. "I see buildings that are accepted as being great works of architecture, and I've always experienced them through photographs before I've actually experienced them firsthand... But there's a whole bunch of mediocre works of architecture that look great in photographs, a lot more interesting than they really are." Los Angeles Times 12/03/02

A Distinct Pleasure (Not) "In the era of customized consumer capitalism, distinction is mass-produced, and connoisseurship has been democratized. The wide availability of a variety of beautiful, unusual things - at Pottery Barn, on eBay, at stores that turn the junk of earlier eras into today's collectibles - increases the pressure, the sense of responsibility, that attends every purchase. Like the food revolution, the design revolution is built on the lovely paradox that what is special should be available for everyone's enjoyment and that good taste can at last shed its residue of invidious social differences. Which means that indifference is unacceptable." New York Times Magazine 12/01/02

The Iron Lady Of Russian Museums Irina Antonova has been director of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow for 41 years. "Such longevity would be remarkable anywhere — even in the United States Senate — but Russia is a particular case. Mrs. Antonova's career at the Pushkin, which began one month before the end of World War II, has survived Stalinism, democracy and everything in between, including unresolved disputes over looted and lost art." The New York Times 12/03/02

Power To The Pub Lady Sandra Esquilant's East End London pub has been a gathering place for a generation of BritArt conceptual artists. Now, "for her role as a homely mother confessor to the angry generation of British conceptual artists, has won the improbable reward of 80th place in a list of the 100 most powerful figures in contemporary art." The Telegraph (UK) 12/02/02

Italy, Inc - Privatizing The Monuments "According to one UNESCO estimate, Italy is the cultural repository of more than two-thirds of western civilisation. But the state spends little on culture—just 0.18% of GDP—and an absence of tax breaks for donations gives the private sector little incentive to help." So the way Italy's cultural assets are run is apalling. Could the private sector do a better job? The country's Prime Minister says yes... The Economist 11/28/02

Britart's New Palaces BritArt is hot, and the Britartists are getting wealthy. So they're building. Studios. Homes. Architecture that expresses their sensibilities. Judging by their projects, "this is the most affluent generation of British artists since millionaire Royal Academicians took over Holland Park and Chelsea a century and a half ago." The Observer (UK) 12/01/02

The "Un"-Turner The "Alternative Turner Prize" is a plea "for a wider and more generous choice of art and artists" than is recognized by the Turner Prize. This year's shortlist of eight has three painters, two internet artists, a sculptor, a photographer and a graffiti artist. It will be judged by a panel of critics drawn from conceptualist and traditional schools. Organizers "insist it is not an anti-Turner event, and is at great pains to distance itself from the Stuckists, who protest outside the Turner Prize ceremony every year." The Guardian (UK) 11/30/02

Why Mies Stayed When the Nazis closed the Bauhaus School in the 1930s, Mies van der Rohe chose to stay. He believed, he said, in "something more noble than politics, the ruthless pursuit of the perfect modern building, the true heir, he thought, to Greek temples and gothic cathedrals - buildings constructed on earth in order to escape it. These were cathedrals for the new religion, commerce and industry - factories, office blocks, skyscrapers and apartment towers, the modern urban landscape, whose architecture had yet to be invented. The form lay out there for him to discover." The Guardian (UK) 11/30/02

One (Bad) Way To Choose Public Art Art for the walls of Denver's main performing arts complex is put up on a first-come-first-served basis. Artists sign up and wait until their turn comes up. But the art is democratic, it's almost nearly always bad, writes Kyle MacMillan. "It is only logical that what is shown on the walls of the Boettcher and Buell should be of the same caliber as the dance, music and theater presented on the stages of the two halls. Anything less demeans the performers who appear there, and it reflects badly on an otherwise vibrant local art scene and the city at large." Denver Post 12/01/02