Examining The Turner Prize Shortlist "All this year's artists are extremely well-known, and in their 30s or early 40s. Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate director and chairman of the judges, conceded: 'This is not a Turner Prize devoted to the newest of the new or the youngest of the young'. The artists were chosen from 150 names, nominated by members of the public and the jury, of which 25 were seriously debated. Sir Nicholas described it as 'a wonderful, strong, diverse shortlist'."
The Guardian (UK) 05/30/03

Penn Lawyers Ask Barnes To Amend Its Request To Move To Philly Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher has asked the Barnes Foundation to change its petition requesting that the Barnes be allowed to move to Philadelphia. Among the requrested changes are "a ban on selling any of the art that is on display in the Barnes gallery, and the preservation of founder Albert C. Barnes' arrangements of the artwork in unique ensembles." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/29/03

What's The Alternative? "Ask the current generation of emerging artists what an 'alternative space' is, and you?ll likely get a vague response. Associated with the 1970s and the experimental art and installations of that period, such venues are no longer as much of an 'alternative' to commercial galleries in the content or opportunities they provide." New York Sun 05/29/03

Cincinnati's New "Titillating" Architectural Experience The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati is the "first major American art museum designed by a woman. It is also the first major American commission completed by the London-based Zaha Hadid, one of the profession's most precocious talents. But the best reason to fall in love with the building is its seductive pull." Los Angeles Times 05/19/03

Turner Prize Shortlist Chosen This year's shortlisted artists for the Turner Prize have been selected. "The four nominees, all British artists under 50, include a transvestite who depicts himself involved in sex acts on the surface of his pottery vases." The Telegraph (UK) 05/29/03

Canada Urges UK To Return Elgin Marbles The Canadian parliament passes a resolution urging Britain to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece (Prime Mininister Jean Chretien, traveling in Athens, says he doesn't know anything about the resolution when asked at a press conference). The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/29/03

The Painting Behind The Painting Dennis Savill was inspecting a painting by Lloyd Rees at Sotheby's when he noticed a second piece of canvas tacked under the painting. He paid $94,500 for the 1957 oil, then took it to a conservateur who removed the canvases from their frame and discovered another Rees behind the first. It might even be a better painting than the painting Savill thought he was buying. Sydney Morning Herald 05/29/03

Looters Clean Out Iraqi Archaeological Sites Waves of looters are combing over Iraqi archaeological sites, picking them clean and disposing of artifacts on the black market. "The Iraqi police force, which disintegrated at the end of the war, is not only powerless but afraid to stop the heavily armed groups that now prowl over dozens of sites. American soldiers are generally too occupied with reducing street crime and restoring basic services like electricity to pay much attention. As for the people who live near the big archaeological sites in southern Iraq, they became so poor under Mr. Hussein that they are grasping at any means to make money." The New York Times 05/28/03

Huge ROM Gift Could Come Today The Royal Ontario Museum is holding a ceremonial groundbreaking today to kick off a $200 million renovation and expansion, and sources say that the ROM may have locked up one of the major gifts it needs to fund the project. "Insiders are abuzz with unconfirmed reports that [Canadian philanthropist Galen] Weston is about to hand over $25 million — which could put the ROM close to its phase one campaign goal of $150 million, and position the museum fundraising blitz to move into phase two, with a goal of an additional $50 million for a total of $200 million." Toronto Star 05/28/03

One Great Big Boring Art Show Richard Dorment describes this year's annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition as "the largest festival of bad art in Europe." The quality of chosen work is mediocre this year after a couple of good years. "Let me start with the amateurs. By sheer chance, I happen to know four people - none is a professional artist - who regularly attend a weekly painting class run by Maggi Hambling. Any single one of them is a better painter than most of the artists chosen from the open submissions this year." The Telegraph (UK) 05/28/03

The New Architecture - Look To Smaller Cities "With buildings by Peter Eisenman in Columbus and Cincinnati, and by Frank Gehry in Toledo, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, the state of Ohio is beginning to seem as hospitable to cutting-edge architecture as the Netherlands. But avant-garde architects are getting commissions from small cities and institutions all over the country, not only because such places are eager to use architecture as a way of establishing their cultural credentials. Smaller cities are less likely to be encumbered by the political and economic pressures that affect projects in big cities, and, these days, they are more likely to take risks." As in two new buildings from Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry... The New Yorker 05/26/03

The ArtWorld's Best-Sellers Who are the best-selling living artists in the world right now? Jasper Johns clocks in at No. 1. "Johns' artworks have sold for more than £92m over the last three decades, the survey by magazine Artreview showed." BBC 05/27/03

Iraq's Archaeological Treasures Are Being Plundered Iraqi's say widespread looting of archaeological sites is continuing, despite please for help to the Americans. "On a visit Sunday, three sites near here were pocked with freshly dug holes and littered with hastily abandoned shovels, indicating looting in the last day or two. At one spot, about two dozen people ran off when they saw approaching trucks. At Isan Bakhriat, site of the ancient city of Isin to the north of here, more than 100 looters were openly digging out and selling urns, sculptures and cuneiform tablets. 'It's happening at almost every site. They are smart. They take the antiquities that they know have value, and they know how to get them out of the country'." The New York Times 05/27/03

A Digital Library To Preserve Artifact Records The recent looting at the Iraq Museum has bolstered a project to digitize images of ancient artifacts. The looting "has graphically shown the need to make images of these tablets. The digital library is arguably the most important project in our field. Digital initiatives should be used aggressively to buffer ourselves against natural or man-made catastrophes. What happened in the Iraq museum is really an object lesson in why it is important." Los Angeles Times 05/27/03

If Museums Ruled The World... Should museums take a hand in running British schools? That's a proposal made last week education secretary, Charles Clarke to representatives of major London museums. "Most museums already work closely with schools through outreach and education programmes. But Mr Clarke's proposals go further, and involve giving museums, which have charitable status and receive government and local subsidies, a role in the management and running of schools." The New York Times 05/27/03

Canada Announces New Political Museum The Canadian government plans to "turn a near century-old train station in downtown Ottawa into a museum on Canadian history and politics. 'Our political history is a rich one that needs to be told. This centre will be a meeting place where academics, students and visitors will be able to learn how Canada came about'." The project is expected to cost $90 million, and museum critics are complaining that the money coule be better spent helping museums that are already struggling for funding. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/26/03

• Previously: New $100 Million Canadian Museum Opposed By Museum Community The Canadian government intends to announce a new $100 million museum of Canadian history and politics. But critics including opposition MPs and the museum community say that "the money would be better spent helping cash-strapped institutions across the country. 'Museums in Canada are desperately underfunded. Some even are verging on bankruptcy."
  The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/24/03

Art Students To Implant Human DNA In Trees? A pair of art students in London plan to implant human DNA in trees and grow them. "If an apple tree was used, it would provide an edible as well as a visible reminder. Like the rest of the tree, the fruit would contain human DNA. 'Implanting your grandmother’s DNA into an apple tree brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Granny Smith’. But would you eat an apple from your grandma’s tree'?" The Scotsman 05/26/03

Accusations At Baghdad Museum Americans checking out Baghdad's Museum of Antiquities have suggested that museum staff might have participated in stealing from the museum. And that the museum leadership's membership in the Baathist Party might disqualify them from helping to rebuild the museum. But "for the foreign archaeologists who now throng the museum, the idea that their colleagues could have colluded in its desecration is too appalling to contemplate. They tend to take a relaxed view of the Baathist credentials of [museum director Donny] George and the head of the antiquities board, Jabir Khalil Ibrahim; no one in a senior position, they say, was unqualified." The Economist 05/23/03

Bilbao-On-Hudson? What will define success for Dia's new Beacon home north of Manhattan? "Is this the kind of work that will bring in 100,000 visitors a year? That's the number Dia hopes for. So does the State of New York and Beacon and its surrounding towns, which have chipped in $2.7 million toward the project so far and have visions of Guggenheim Bilbao dancing in their heads. Dia: Beacon offers some of the most potent art experiences to be found anywhere, in some of the most well-considered settings. But it was conceived largely to present difficult work for long durations in one space. And for much of what it offers, difficult is the word." Time 05/25/03

• Understanding Dia Dia:Beacon, which opened last week in an old Nabisco factory about an hour north of Manhattan, may be the largest contemporary art museum in the world, with its 300,000 square feet of space. "To understand the ethos of the Dia Center, and how it came to convert such a cathedral-like space as Dia:Beacon, you have to go back to Dia's inception." The Guardian (UK) 05/26/03

Arm Or Armpit? That Is The Question Has the British Museum mislabeled a marble fragment from the Acropolis Marbles? The museum says it is a left arm. An expert maintains it is a right arm from another part of the pediment altogether. "That is not an armpit. They have mistaken the little depression between the tendons behind the arm for the armpit itself. It is a right arm. It won't fit the figure of Iris because it doesn't come from that figure." The Guardian (UK) 05/26/03

Libeskind On The WTC - Now The Tough Part In a classic case of aesthetic symbols confronting political and financial reality, [architect Daniel Libeskind] is fighting to preserve the form - and, with it, the meaning - of his proposal for the 16-acre former site of the World Trade Center. Libeskind also has been forced to confront accusations from a New York City architect that he fibbed when he claimed that, every Sept. 11, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that brought down the Trade Center's twin towers, the sun would shine without shadow on an outdoor plaza he calls 'the Wedge of Light'. While Libeskind seems to have weathered the plaza controversy, it remains unclear if he will be able to retain control over his design -- or whether developer Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease to the former World Trade Center site, will twist it beyond recognition." Chicago Tribune 05/25/03

New Eyewitness Update On Baghdad Museum Looting "British Museum director Neil MacGregor returned this week from Baghdad, which he visited as part of a Unesco delegation. In an exclusive interview with The Art Newspaper, he reported that three separate storerooms at the National Museum had been looted, in addition to the galleries. Although the number of objects which were taken was very much smaller than had originally been feared, they include some which are 'extraordinarily important'.” The Art Newspaper 05/23/03

The $58 Million Saltcellar The Cellini saltcellar recently stolen from Austria's Kunsthistorisches Museum is said to be worth $58 million. How come so much? "The figure they cited is stunning, and no wonder: It comes out of an empyrean that few objects ever visit. Art, like any other commodity, receives its worth partly from the quality of the artifact and partly from its scarcity. But the Cellini is unique—and not just in the sense in which all artworks are unique: Nothing even remotely like it exists. Lose a Warhol, and you can always get another one. Rembrandts are hard to find, but not impossible. But there's only one Cellini table piece." Slate 05/23/03

New $100 Million Canadian Museum Opposed By Museum Community The Canadian government intends to announce a new $100 million museum of Canadian history and politics. But critics including opposition MPs and the museum community say that "the money would be better spent helping cash-strapped institutions across the country. 'Museums in Canada are desperately underfunded. Some even are verging on bankruptcy."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/24/03

The Poet Stadium The model for Herzog and de Meuron's recently announced stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is a crossover from structure to poetry, writes Giles Worsley. "When built, it will rise 67 metres in the heart of the city and hold 100,000 spectators. The model captures the sense of ambiguity that increasingly surrounds the architects' buildings, particularly where façade and structure meet. The Basel-based firm that designed Tate Modern has used the idea of a nest of twigs to give external form to the building, a lattice of massive concrete beams, through which spectators penetrate to the heart of the building – the stands." The Telegraph (UK) 05/24/03

Ode To St. Petersburg (At 300) St. Petersburg is, "without doubt, one of the world's most exquisite cities. Yes, it is flanked by meretricious modern design, encircled by brutal Soviet-era, high-rise apartment blocks and smells of grinding poverty. Its water is often unsafe to drink, its crowded trolley-buses are rusting away and its pavements are forced to tackle the shifts of fetid marshland below them. But, when you walk along Nevsky Prospect or catch sight of any of the city's brightly coloured, set-piece buildings, when you spy the golden spires of fairy-tale fortresses and heavenly churches or the seemingly infinite march of classical arcades, their vaults lit by the sun sparkling from the Dutch and Venetian-style canals, you feel that this is paradise, not urban purgatory." The Guardian (UK) 05/24/03

World's Oldest Sculpture? A 400,000-year-old stone object unearthed in Morocco could be the world's oldest attempt at sculpture. BBC 05/23/03

The Great American Art Scam "In the clubby art world where priceless works are entrusted to dealers and brokers on a promise and a handshake, Michael Cohen, a highly regarded art broker, borrowed millions from prestigious art dealers such as Sotheby's and was handed a Picasso from another prominent dealer. But according to a complaint filed in US District Court in Manhattan, Cohen fled two years ago, swindling the dealers of millions of dollars and taking a valuable piece of art, as well." Boston Globe 05/22/03

Looters Stripping Bare Iraqi Archaeological Sites "Mobs of treasure hunters are tearing into Iraqi archaeological sites, stealing urns, statues, vases and cuneiform tablets that often date back 3,000 years and more to Babylon and Sumer, archaeologists say." The New York Times 05/23/03

Fake Van Gogh Proves Wildly Popular The self-portrait of van Gogh hanging in Oslo's National Gallery is now considered a fake. But the news hasn't proved to be a liability. "The painting of a troubled face on a blue-green background is the only portrait of van Gogh after he cut off his left ear. Visits have nearly tripled at the National since the van Gogh came home, and it had the same effect in Italy where it was on loan when the controversy over the painting's origin erupted." Aftenposten (Norway) 05/22/03

Can'tLive Without His Anna Nicole Seattle artist Jeff Hengst put two paintings outside his studio - an oversized Arnold Schwarzeneger and an oversized Anna Nicole Smith. He woke up this week to find that Nicole had been taken overnight. "Arnold's useless to me without Nicole," he said. He called the police immediately. Although he wasn't expecting them to rush over and dust for prints, he was somewhat taken aback when they declined to come. They took his story over the phone and sent him a form to fill out." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/22/03

Ashen Tribute? A British artist is offering portraits of dead spouses painted with their cremated ashes as a tribute to the dead. "Why not use a fraction of the ashes from an urn sitting on a mantelpiece for a portrait, so you can have that person physically there with you. Some people may think it is a macabre idea, but personally I do not think so, as long as the portrait is done with loving care." SkyNews (UK) 05/22/03

'Ten Chimneys' Finally Opened To The Public For whatever reason, rural Wisconsin is jam-packed with architecturally significant houses built by unbalanced geniuses and wealthy stars looking for an escape from the masses. One of the most remote and interesting structures of the bunch is known as "Ten Chimneys," the sprawling hideaway of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, once known as America's premier acting couple. From humble beginnings, "the compound grew to include a small hunting lodge moved piece by piece from Sweden, a chicken coop converted to a charming house, a swimming pool and fanciful changing house topped by a weathervane that was a gift from fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, an 18-room great house and other structures." The house opened to the public for the first time this week.
Chicago Tribune 05/22/03

The Online Museum - One-Stop Shopping An online archive of 100,000 images of artworks is the self-sufficient collaborative project that allows visitors to compare images side-by side. The digital archive offers "the opportunity to compare far-flung works while staying in one place and would be valuable to art teachers, students and scholars. As much as you want somebody to study your collection, those works get their meaning from context, and context is provided by other works in other collections." The New York Times 05/22/03

Court: No Acropolis Museum Greece's high court has ruled that the Greek government cannot build a new museum at the Acropolis to house the Parthenon Marbles. Sources "are quoted as saying the decision was influenced by fears that the construction work on the slopes of the Parthenon - the proposed site for the new museum - could damage nearby antiquities. Correspondents say such a ruling is a serious setback for the Greek Government's efforts for the return of the Parthenon frieze known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, which once adorned the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, from the British Museum in London." BBC 05/21/03

Should The Barnes Audit Be Made Public? Lincoln University, which has a major role in the oversight of the Barnes Foundation, has petitioned a judge to make public an audit of the Barnes that has been depicted in the media and in a book as being very critical of the Foundation's management. "Keeping the audit confidential does a disservice to the public because the information contained therein in numerous instances reveals diligent and persistent efforts to improve the administration of the foundation." The Barnes is seeking to lessen Lincoln's influence and make a move to Philadelphia. Philadelphia Inquirer 05/21/03

Blockbuster Breaker - Too Many People It's good to know that there's an audience for art, but what about those exhibitions where so many people press in that you can't see anything? "Big, high-profile loan shows are now so crowded it's almost impossible to see what you've come to see - the art. Which raises a question: Has the blockbuster become a victim of its success? Is it now defeating the very purpose for which it was invented?" OpinionJournal.com 05/22/03

The Art Of Venice "Considered in the cold light of reason, a visit to Venice might sound pretty grim. It is underpopulated (except by pigeons), overvisited, chronically polluted and notoriously expensive. Subsiding inexorably into theme-park status, the city that built its reputation on hard-nosed mercantile pragmatism has turned to fleecing foreign tourists for a living. But there's no point in taking a down-to-earth view of Venice. This is a city which seems, quite literally, out of this world. Drifting like a mirage upon the surface of its lagoon, it could almost be set, as one early medieval visitor put it, 'between the star Arcturus and the shining Pleiades'.? The Times (UK) 05/21/03

What Gehry Means To LA Los Angeles is about to get a major new Gehry - the Disney Hall. "For 50 years it's been the world's archetypical sprawling, privatised, centreless city of gated suburbs, fast food, fast, flashy architecture, malls and freeways; a city in which you need never sully your toes by touching a sidewalk. But now that Beijing, Shenzhen and the North Circular are out-LA-ing LA, LA has decided to become Paris. It's been quietly turning its downtown into a proper city centre, like it used to be 80 years ago, before the car screwed it up. It's introduced old-fashioned public space without security guards, lofts, pedestrian (gasp) boulevards, and posh, properly public buildings such as Rafael Moneo's masterly Roman Catholic cathedral, and, the linchpin, the Disney Concert Hall." The Times (UK) 05/20/03

Europe's Most Wanted Art Thief A thief has been entering important libraries in Europe and cutting out pages of rare volumes. "Such is the concern that Scotland Yard has just included him on its 'most wanted' list alongside men wanted for questioning about murders, sex attacks and gangland crime. He is in effect Britain's most wanted art thief." The Guardian (UK) 05/20/03

Museum Director Aquitted In Goldfish Massacre A museum director in Denmark has been aquitted in a case that charged cruelty to animals. "The exhibit at the Trapholt modern art museum in 2000 featured live goldfish swimming in a blender. Visitors were given the possibility of pressing the button to transform the fish into a runny liquid. Artist Marco Evaristti, the Chilean-born bad boy of the Danish art scene, said at the time that he wanted to force people to 'do battle with their conscience'. Two goldfish died after two visitors pressed the button, and the Danish association Friends of Animals filed a complaint against the artist as well as the director of the museum, Peter Meyer, for cruelty to animals." The Age (Melbourne) 05/20/03

A $27 Million Van Gogh - $75 At A Time The owner of the cafe that Van Gogh frequented wants to buy one of the master's paintings and hang it there. He "recently negotiated to buy 'Field and poppies', painted just two weeks before Van Gogh?s death. For most of the past 50 or so years it has been hidden away in a Swiss private collection. The audacious plan is to raise the $27 million in just 30 months, by selling shares for $75 each. Under this scheme, donors will own a tiny share in the painting, which is to belong to the non-profitmaking Institut Van Gogh. A discreet camera will be mounted in the attic room, enabling shareholders to view the painting in 'real time' on the internet. It will require over 300,000 people to take up the offer." The Art Newspaper 05/16/03

Afghan Art Still Being Stolen Art pillaging in Afghanistan hasn't slowed any since the Americans came. "For decades, war and gnawing poverty made Afghanistan fertile ground for thieves and smugglers. Looters have cleared the shelves in Afghanistan's museums and left deep hollows in the earth of its ancient sites, where Buddhist, Greek, Zoroastrian and early Islamic civilizations once flourished. Yet even with the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai in place and an international community eager to support cultural preservation, large-scale looting of Afghanistan's archeological sites goes on." Chicago Tribune 05/19/03

Contemporary Art - The Auction House Winner? An emerging trend in the art market? "It was evident that the market for Contemporary art - made from about 1945 to the present - continues to rise. It seems to be only a matter of time until Contemporary art auctions routinely outshine those of the longtime market leader, Impressionist and Modern art." Los Angeles Times 05/19/03

Found Iraqi Art Being Horded "Thousands of antiquities missing from the Iraq National Museum have been found but not returned because citizens won't hand them over to either their American occupiers or remnants of the hated former government, U.S. investigators say." USAToday (AP) 05/17/03

Art Market Headed For Fall? Is the art market getting ready to tumble? Recent sales were good - but some say the good prices were luck. "So far the art market has defied the doomsayers who predicted a collapse at the top end. Perhaps it is true that art, because of the emotional attachment, is the last thing the financially embarrassed rich will sell. But some believe that it is a only matter of timing." The Economist 05/16/03

Stolen Art - Staking A Claim The Art Loss Register's Sarah Jackson on recovering art stolen by the Nazis: "In the past, provenance was important to establish value. Today, provenance is taking center stage because of liability. The law is changing slowly, but remorselessly, in favor of the victim. Once there is a known Holocaust survivor of a known work of art, it becomes virtually unsalable. For commercial art dealers, the choice is stark, because the buyers will choose an alternative that is not a tainted work of art." Los Angeles Times 05/19/03

The Chicken/Egg Conundrum of Modern Architecture Has modern photography changed the face of architecture? Increasingly, it seems as if every new building that goes up in a big city is designed to make a great poster when photographed from that perfect angle. With the rise of photography as an art, the scale and substance of architecture changed forever, but the jury is still out on which form was more influential on the other. The New York Times 05/18/03

The Art Of Internet Porn Thomas Ruff's nudes are not what one generally expects from a serious artist. He starts with the crass, hardcore images of internet porn, then molds and blurrs colors and shapes, creating works which retain the raw sexuality of the 'net, but with little of its horrifying starkness. It's a dicey art form, Ruff admits, but his work is starting to win admirers all over the world, and inherent in his success is the question of where the lines between art and reality lie these days. The New York Times 05/18/03

A Beacon For The Arts In New York State "The meaning of Dia:Beacon -- a highly touted nonprofit showcase for contemporary art that opens Sunday -- lies in the minds of its beholders. But everyone agrees on one thing: It's big. Big in terms of dimensions, [and] big in terms of image and ambition." The gallery, located along the Hudson River in upstate New York, features a jaw-dropping 240,000 square feet of exhibition space, and will feature the collection of the New York City-based Dia Foundation. Los Angeles Times 05/17/03

• A Chance For New Experiences "Many of today's first visitors to Dia: Beacon -- even the skeptics among them -- ought to come away speechless and with a profound understanding of the art, without the help of tidy explanations. For devotees of the kind of work Dia owns, it is as evidently and immediately great and touching as anything by Leonardo or Monet. Maybe easy-on-the-eyes Old Masters only seem so much less difficult than more current work because most art lovers have been raised on them. Dia: Beacon gives us the chance to feast on art we may not have been fed as kids." Washington Post 05/18/03

Piering Into the Future The seafronts at Brighton and Hove are a shadow of their formal selves these days, and the once-proud piers of the UK are decrepit old wrecks with none of the tourist-drawing power they once held. But the time may be right for a seaside revival in Britain. Architects are being hired, and thoroughly modern plans are being fleshed out for the revival of the old piers. The question is, will the public embrace what is to come, and can a simple pier really generate a great deal of interest in the fast-and-furious 21st century? The Telegraph (UK) 05/17/03

Better Than A Photograph, But Confusing As Hell England's National Gallery is unveiling a new machine which will allow visitors to make instant prints of any of thousands of paintings in the museum's collection,in multiple sizes. The technology is not photographic, but digital, and the images produced are much more faithful to the original colors and textures of the works than a photographic print could ever be. And that's what makes it so disconcerting, says James Fenton. "The fact of the matter is that, the more you study the history of art, the more you are likely to use photographs. Even when you... make a conscious effort to memorise a painting as it is when seen in natural light, there will be other paintings and other artists' work that get stored in your mind through acquaintance with photographs." The Guardian (UK) 05/17/03

Will MoMA in Queens Leave Behind A Legacy? The Museum of Modern Art's Matisse Picasso show closes Monday, and with it the crowds that have thronged out to the museum's temporary home in Queens will be gone. "Everyone in Long Island City, of course, knows that the Modern's charmed visit to Queens will end. But they still wonder whether the museum will leave anything enduring behind. Will it help reshape a raw Queens neighborhood, known for its factories and warehouses and the gridlock around the Queensboro Bridge, into the next SoHo or TriBeCa?" The New York Times 05/16/03

Iraq Museum Damage Estimates Revising Downwards Experts are reassessing the extent of looting and damage to Iraq's National Museum. It looks like the damage is far less than originally reported. " 'We have dodged a bullet. Through some luck and some real preparations by the museum staff, we have saved a lot.' The preparations included moving hundred of boxes of museum treasure to safe storage in an air raid shelter several miles from the museum. Luck spared several priceless pieces that were there for the taking but somehow overlooked by looters." Chicago Tribune 05/16/03

Enron's Art It may be last year's news, but the defunct Enron Corporation is still trying to pay off its accumulated debt, mainly through asset liquidation, and the company's art colection is the latest asset to hit the block. When it was acquiring the collection, Enron hoped to eventually be the caretaker of an eye-popping collection of important contemporary art, but the open disdain of auction attendees would suggest that Enron's taste in art was as flawed as its bookkeeping. Washington Post 05/16/03

A Museum Worthy Of Its Name Washington, D.C.'s new City Museum is an exciting addition to a city which too often seems hesitant to admit that it is a city, says Benjamin Forgey. "Splendidly tucked into the old central library, a century-old Beaux-Arts building in Mount Vernon Square, the new institution is a museum with an attitude. Washington is a capital city, the familiar saying goes, and the emphasis here falls definitively on the city side of that equation. It's a healthy shift of emphasis. The functional and symbolic monuments of the nation's capital do, after all, get plenty of attention. The city itself deserves a space to call its own." Washington Post 05/16/03

DeCordova Expansion Ambitious But Achievable The Massachusetts-based DeCordova Museum is going ahead with plans for an ambitious $10 million expansion and renovation. The plans include a sculpture 'zoo,' a new visitors' center, and loads of behind-the-scenes improvements designed to better protect and house the museum's collection. The fund-raising will be a challenge, but the museum's director insists that "ten million dollars is not really a lot of money," and with no signs of imminent economic recovery nationally, the DeCordova's decision underlines a feeling by many arts groups that forward progress can no longer be put on hold simply because conditions are less than perfect. Boston Globe 05/16/03

A New Museum With Something To Say The Dia Foundation's new outpost in beacon, an hour north of New York City, "changes the landscape for art in Ameria" writes Michael Kimmelman. "The museum, the largest one yet for contemporary art, enshrines part of a generation of big-thinking artists in a former Nabisco factory, a building with nearly a quarter of a million square feet of plain exhibition space." The New York Times 05/15/03

Security Scandal At Austrian Museum Results In Major Theft Security at the Austrian museum where a valuable Celline was stolen last weekend was lax to the point of absurdity. "The Florentine set, valued at about ?50m (£35m), was stolen at about 4am on Sunday. The burglary was bold, but accomplished with ease. Entry through a first-floor window was aided by some convenient scaffolding and the thief then smashed the unprotected glass display case. Entry to escape with the exquisite 25cm object can have taken no more than 54 seconds, according to a police reconstruction. Halfway through that brief period the museum's alarm system rang. The guard switched it off - before it could have alerted the police - assuming that it was yet another false alarm of the type that occurs in the museum once a week on average. It was left to a cleaning lady to discover the theft more than four hours after the event." The Guardian (UK) 05/16/03

CAUTION: Artist Puts Up Sign The artist who painting a big yellow "CAUTION: Low flying planes" on the side of a building in Lower Manhattan says he didn't mean to offend his neighbors who are now complaining. "His 10-by-14-foot painting, he says, is about the terrorist threat. 'It's still out there. . . . [The painting is] a statement saying it's not over'." One resident is surprised by the negative reaction: "If that was a Tommy Hilfiger ad, nobody would be complaining. . . . If it was a 12-year-old with too much lipstick on, that would have been all right. But this is not?" Washington Post 05/15/03

The Sex And Sizzle In Chicago's New Skyline Chicago has long had a reputation for great architecture... home of the skyscraper, and all... Now a new generation of great Chicago architecture is going up, and boy, is it sexy... WBEZ (Chicago) 05/13/03 [Audio file]

Telstra Underwrites Free Admission for Sydney Museum After Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art got a grant in 2000 to drop its admission charges, the museum saw a dramatic increase in visitors. Now Telstra - the free-admission underwriter - has agreed to continue the sponsorship for three more years. "Telstra will inject more than $500,000 annually into the MCA in a three-year arrangement to underwrite the free-entry policy. The deal continues an original sponsorship arrangement that allowed the gallery to scrap its $12 admission fee in mid-2000." Sydney Morning Herald 05/15/03

Discovering Italy's Jewish History "Dozens of Jewish sites, artifacts, documents, rare books and manuscripts are being discovered, analyzed and restored in southern Italy and Sicily. This work by scholars and government authorities is beginning to flesh out the largely unknown story of vibrant yet long-lost communities of Jews that inhabited the region from Roman times to the end of the Middle Ages. Jews were expelled from southern Italy, known then as the Kingdom of Naples, in the 16th century. Few returned even after the ban was lifted in the 18th century." The New York Times 05/15/03

All Sealed Up And No Place To Go - But It Wasn't Always That Way "Contemporary architecture has erected innumerable barriers between inside and outside, building and nature. It's there and we're here, and that's that. It wasn't always so. Access to light and air were starting points and first principles of 19th- and early 20th-century buildings, rights instead of accidents. Until air conditioning and tinted glass made them seem passe, sunscreens, deep windows and natural ventilation were standard features, as though architecture itself were a living, breathing thing." Dallas Morning News 05/15/03

Why Museums? Because They Teach Us "Over the past decades, museums have come to play multiple roles in our lives, but surely none is more important than their ability - in the current period of international turmoil and political realignments - to connect each of us with what other people value culturally and artistically." OpinionJournal.com 05/15/03

New York Museum Leaders Are Pessimistic "Hit with cut after cut in city funding, a steep decrease in corporate and foundation giving, and rising security and insurance costs, the city's cultural leaders are expressing the lowest level of confidence in the future of their industry since Sept. 11. Museums and performing arts organizations are scaling back on visiting exhibitions and productions, and canceling long-term expansion plans altogether." Crain's New York Business 05/12/03

Controversial Mural Moved Protests over a mural hung in a Milwaukee courthouse have resulted in the art being moved to a much less prominent place. "When the mural - commissioned by Marquette University's Haggerty Museum of Art as a pictorial history of the Watts area of Los Angeles from the 1965 riots to today - was first hung on the first floor of the courthouse Friday, the work triggered complaints from sheriff's deputies and other officers, who objected to what they saw as the mural's anti-law-enforcement images, including the Rodney King case. Court officials raised concerns that the work's bold images could bias prospective jurors." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 05/13/03

A Study Of African American Art "The study of African American artistic production has emerged as a growing field within art history, while its subjects have proven equally amenable to visual culture studies. But a dearth of quality reproductions, institutional holdings catalogues and subject indices, and the number of out-of-print texts continue to slow our scholarly labor." American Art 05/03

London - Capital Of The Art World London is the world's new art capital. "New Yorkers see their town as the source of all creation, a one-stop shop for culture. But London has become the art capital of the world. London has hot artists and a new museum every other year. New York is between generations and cannot get new buildings off the ground. It lacks coherence and unity. Visiting Americans will soon be offered a combined ticket for the Tate, the Saatchi, the Aquarium and the Eye. " London Evening Standard 05/13/03

Sydney Opera House Considered For World Heritage Designation The Sydney Opera House is being considered for World Heritage listing. "Australia already has 14 World Heritage sites but they are mostly natural and cultural icons. The Government said listings boost the economy and continue to form 'our national identity . . . that we are morally bound to pass on to future generations'." The Mercury (Australia) 05/14/03

Artist's Sign Warns Of Low-Flying Planes In Lower Manhattan An artists has painted a big sign on a building near the site of the former World Trade Center in New York. It says: CAUTION: Low Flying Planes. "The painting, which includes an image of a flickering flame, has angered neighbors and provoked complaints to the city Landmarks Preservation Commission." WNBC 05/13/03

Concerns For Stolen Cellini Sculpture The saltcellar stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna over the weekend was crafted by the great Renaissance sculptor and metalworker Benvenuto Cellini in the 1540s. It was called by some the "Mona Lisa" of sculpture to give a sense of its importance, and is said to be worth $57 million. "It was extremely fragile. It wasn't cast in solid gold, but hammered into its delicate shape. I think if it comes back it will reappear all in pieces or as a ruin. The whole thing happened in less than one minute; in such a hurry [I can't imagine] that a piece of this fragility could survive." Washington Post 05/13/03

• Previously: Stolen: The "Mona Lisa of Sculpture" A valuable sculpture was stolen from the Art History Museum in Vienna. "The 16th century 'Saliera' (salt cellar) is considered 'the Mona Lisa of sculptures,' the museum said. The 10-inch-tall piece was the only remaining authenticated example of Italian master sculptor Benvenuto Cellini’s work as a goldsmith. This is an art theft of gigantic proportions. The 'Saliera' was worth at the very least 50 million euros ($57 million)." MSNBC (Reuters)

Can The Guggenheim Really Be Global If It's Not In Antarctica? Even in the face of financial setbacks, the Guggenheim presses on with expansion. Latest addition was Rio, announced a few weeks ago. Where will it stop? How about Antarctica? "Two ice-walled galleries will display the last 10 artworks from the permanent collection of the Guggenheim, the rest having been gradually sold off to cover debt service and other costs associated with the museum's 18-year expansion program. 'We cannot be a truly Global Guggenheim until we have a foothold on each continent,' observed Mr. Krens at last week's Guggenheim Summit in New York, attended by the directors of the Guggenheims Venice, Berlin, Bilbao, Rio, Taichung, Nairobi and Perth." OpinionJournal.com 05/13/03

Tate Modern, Three Years On In its first year, the Tate Modern drew five million visitors; it quickly became the hottest thing in modern art. The numbers have tailed off some, but "despite a drop in visitor numbers, Tate Modern has reigned as the only major gallery offering contemporary art in the capital on a massive scale. But after nearly three years it saw its first threat to its crown with the opening of the Saatchi Gallery, at nearby County Hall." BBC 05/12/03

Whitney Museum Director Resigns Maxwell Anderson has resigned as director of the Whitney Museum in New York. "Rumors of trouble between Mr. Anderson and the Whitney's board had been circulating around the gossipy art world for some time. Mr. Anderson said in a statement that it had "become clear in recent months that the board and I have a different sense of the Whitney's future, in both the scale of its ambitions and the balance of its programming." The New York Times 05/13/03

Stolen: The "Mona Lisa of Sculpture" A valuable sculpture was stolen from the Art History Museum in Vienna. "The 16th century 'Saliera' (salt cellar) is considered 'the Mona Lisa of sculptures,' the museum said. The 10-inch-tall piece was the only remaining authenticated example of Italian master sculptor Benvenuto Cellini’s work as a goldsmith. This is an art theft of gigantic proportions. The 'Saliera' was worth at the very least 50 million euros ($57 million)." MSNBC (Reuters)

Monet, Giacometti - Artists Caught On Film The Artists on Film Trust has collected rare films of famous artists at work. The collection "constitutes a virtually unknown body of art historical sources. These films are certainly a fascinating historical source for the techniques of artists." The Art Newspaper 05/09/03

Rethinking The British Museum Neil MacGregor has been director of the British Museum since last August. He says the museum's relationship with the government is better. And that the museum is thinking on new ways of displaying its collections. "It is clearly possible to construct many different narratives. One of the questions is where the universal story should begin: where do you site prehistory? Do you then want visitors to move from prehistory into Mesopotamia? Or, as much of our material is British, do you want to start the sequence of British archaeological galleries? Or do you want to go on to the hunting societies of North America?" The Art Newspaper 05/09/03

London - Skyline Busting London is contemplating building Europe's tallest building. It's designed by Renzo Piano, and the design has been greeted positively. But many are reluctant to see the city bust out of its current gracious skyline. "London is under siege from tall buildings and tall building proposals. We do feel a bit conflicted opposing something so wonderful. Piano's design is exciting. It's just the wrong scale in the wrong place." Los Angeles Times 05/12/03

The Barnes - Art Held Hostage A new book chronicles the decline of the Barnes Collection's fortunes. With a collection valued at $6 billion, the Barnes today finds itself broke and unable to pay its bills on its own. Here's the story of how it finds itself in this predicament... The New York Times 05/11/03

In Opposition To Modern Art The founder of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow has little use for modern art. "I have met plenty of people who have told me that I ought to like modern art. There is some place for 'ought' in life, but none at all in art; art is a gift, not a duty. A benighted view of art has a stranglehold on the few who choose what little art we are aloud to see. And the public acquiesce, because what else can they compare it with? It is one of the most pernicious myths of modern art that we have discovered the great art of our age when, in fact, we have hardly begun to look for it." The Times (UK) 05/08/03

Guggenheim Closing Vegas Outpost "The Venetian Resort said yesterday it is closing its Guggenheim Museum, ending a high-profile commercial effort to deliver culture to the gambling masses. The museum's only show featured the history of the motorcycle as art." Los Angeles Times 05/10/03

Sorting Out What's Missing At Iraqi Museum Reports of what's missing from Iraq's National Museum after looters got done have been contradictory. "The number of items stolen during and after the war from one of the world's premier collections of early-civilization antiquities appears now to be much smaller than first suspected. Thousands of pieces, however, are missing. Although many of the thefts are being attributed to looters, some appear almost certainly to be the work either of insiders or experts." Los Angeles Times 05/10/03

• Western Scholars, Curators Offer To Help Iraq Museum Concerned archeologists, scholars, conservators and arts administrators in the West have been meeting in recent weeks to try to find ways to help Baghdad's National Museum, which was looted in April. There still isn't enough information about losses at the museum to take definitive definitive action, but "we are also very concerned that the inventory of the museum's collection be done by individuals with academic and museum qualifications, not the military, and that guards and other people who worked in the museums be rehired." Los Angeles Times 05/10/03

Looking For Canadian Art Sarah Milroy goes looking for what's new in Canadian art across the country. "Art schools in Canada pump out more than 23,000 graduates a year, and a zippy, techno-friendly bunch they are too. After a few days on the trail, though, I started to realize that most of the best artists I spoke to, or heard about, shared a common tendency: an interest in the disposable, the futile, the abject, the slightly unravelled." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/10/03

Brooklyn Museum Closing This Summer To Save Money The Brooklyn Museum is closing for two weeks this summer to save money. "Closing the Brooklyn Museum from Aug. 4 through Aug. 19 will save $250,000, said Robert S. Rubin, chairman of the museum. The nearly 300 union and nonunion employees will rotate shifts for the two weeks so that everyone will be on furlough for at least a week, he said." The New York Times 05/09/03

Go West Young Collector Traditional Western art is getting serious attention these days. "The trend is to de-ghettoize Western American art and integrate it into the mainstream traditions of American scholarship. Much the same is true, according to dealers, of the market value for these works: prices for 19th- and early-20th-century artists of the West are now approaching the same levels as those for their East Coast peers." ArtNews 05/03

Iraq Art Recovered American agents report that they have recovered "about 40,000 manuscripts and 700 other artefacts" that had been stolen from Iraq's National Museum." BBC 05/08/03

Troves Of Iraqi Art Located Americans in Iraq have located much of the art thought to have been looted from Iraq's National Museum. "The investigators located the vaults in Baghdad over the last week, including five within the museum complex, and forced them open, revealing hundreds of artifacts that had apparently been stored away to protect them from being damaged in an American assault. The finds included ancient jewelry, pottery and sarcophaguses, officials said. The discovery of so many valuable artifacts would support the view of Iraqi museum officials and American investigators who have said that while many irreplaceable antiquities were looted from the museum during the fall of Baghdad last month, the losses were less severe than thought." The New York Times 05/08/03

Walker To Lay Off Staff Minneapolis's Walker Art Center is laying off 5% of its staff in an effort to cut costs without jeopardizing a major expansion of the museum, which focuses on contemporary art. Among the casualties is the Walker's director of New Media Initiatives, a groundbreaking curatorial position which had won the museum acclaim when it was created. A Walker spokesman said that the major reason for the layoffs was the dismal performance of the museum's endowment, which has fallen from $200 million to $145 million in the last few years. Saint Paul Pioneer Press 05/08/03

Boston Museum Set To Buy Degas Masterpiece "A day after successfully selling three significant artworks at Sotheby's auction house in New York, officials from the Museum of Fine Arts said they didn't anticipate any delay in closing the deal to buy a coveted Degas painting said to be worth as much as $40 million. But the museum wouldn't offer details about how it will make up the difference between the $16,264,000 it earned at auction Tuesday night and the price of [the Degas] which has been part of a private collection in France. Experts said it was possible that the MFA would turn to a trustee or donor with a particular interest in Degas." Boston Globe 05/08/03

• Previously: Sell Three, Buy One, Everybody's Happy Boston's Museum of Fine Arts took a major step yesterday towards fulfilling its goal of purchasing an 1876 Degas masterpiece entitled Duchessa di Montejasi With Her Daughters Elena and Camilla. The painting is expected to cost between $20 million and $40 million. To raise the money for the purchase, MFA auctioned off three valuable paintings from its permanent collection. "It took just five minutes for the works - two Degas pastels and a Renoir painting - to go, with the pieces approaching Sotheby's top estimate of $17 million." Boston Globe 05/07/03

Airline Sells Magritte Painting To Help Pay Employees The bankrupt Belgian airline Sabena has auctioned off a Magritte painting it owned to help pay laid-off staff. "The picture, appropriately of a sky bird - L'Oiseau de Ciel - has sold at auction for €3.4m (£2.4m) to help the staff that the line was forced to pay off when it went into bankruptcy in November 2001." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/03

London Art Commission Rejects Mandela Statue There has been a campaign to erect a statue of Nelson Mandela in London's Trafalgar Square, "close to South Africa House, the scene of 40 years of anti-apartheid demonstrations and 28 years of protests against Mr Mandela's imprisonment." But the government's public art commission has rejected the statue on aesthetic grounds. London's Mayor Ken Livingstone disagrees with the decision. "I am appalled that an all-white committee sitting in Westminster can dismiss the idea of putting a great international statesman in this prominent place." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/03

The Artist And The Subway Stop Artist Anish Kapoor's work has grown so large in recent years it could be mistaken for architecture. Now he's been asked to produce some architecture. The city of Naples has asked Kapoor to "design a new underground station - a complex piece of infrastructure that is usually the preserve of architects and engineers. 'They're mad,' he says. 'It's folly. They don't know what they've let themselves in for. But it's wonderful; I can't imagine anything better than doing a tube station'." The Guardian (UK) 05/08/03

Museums - How Do You Cut Back Without Becoming "Living Dead?" Museums squeezed by tough financial circumstances are trying to cope by shaving budgets. This is okay for the short term, But Adrian Ellis writes that "the risks creating a sort of 'living dead' institution, in which variable costs (programmes, exhibitions etc.) have been squeezed disproportionately because fixed costs are just that — fixed. Many museums in the sector are therefore going to need to take more radical steps if they are to thrive rather than simply survive in some semi-inert limbo, the usual non-profit alternative to actually closing the doors. The question is, of course, what sorts of steps?" The Art Newspaper 05/03/03

Iraq Museum Director Says Staff Saved Much Of Museum's Artifacts The director of Iraq's National Museum sits down with The Art Newspaper to talk about what happened to his museum. Donny George says the museum's staff managed to hide away most of the museum's collection for safekeeping before the war. "Presumably the vast majority of the 170,000 items in the collection were therefore in the vaults. How much was lost from the vaults?" George: "We have only looked through a hole and shone a torchlight into the vaults. We don’t yet know what is missing, but a lot of the objects are still there."
The Art Newspaper 05/03/03

Looters Going After iraq's Archaeological Sites The Iraq war has been over for a month, but looters are targeting archaeological sites and carrying off whatever they can find. "This isn't about museums anymore. This is about the last resource of our history: what's underneath our soil." Chicago Tribune 05/07/03

Sell Three, Buy One, Everybody's Happy Boston's Museum of Fine Arts took a major step yesterday towards fulfilling its goal of purchasing an 1876 Degas masterpiece entitled Duchessa di Montejasi With Her Daughters Elena and Camilla. The painting is expected to cost between $20 million and $40 million. To raise the money for the purchase, MFA auctioned off three valuable paintings from its permanent collection. "It took just five minutes for the works - two Degas pastels and a Renoir painting - to go, with the pieces approaching Sotheby's top estimate of $17 million." Boston Globe 05/07/03

• Previously: The MFA's Big Art Deal Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is after a painting - it won't say which, but it's rumored to be a major Degas - that would be one of the biggest purchases made by an American museum in years. To finance the deal, the MFA is hoping to sell off two Degas and a Renoir at auction, expecting to take in $17 million... Boston Globe 05/04/03

Crooked Manhattan Dealer Held in Brazil "An art dealer has been arrested in Brazil on suspicion of selling a stolen Picasso painting for $4.5 million and trying to sell a Monet painting that belonged to a Holocaust victim. French-born Michel Cohen, 49, who owned a gallery on Manhattan's Madison Avenue before fleeing the US in 2001, was held while the US began extradition proceedings." The Picasso in question had been loaned to Cohen by a Manhattan gallery in order for him to show it to a prospective buyer, but before the gallery knew what had happened, Cohen had sold the painting in a secret transaction at a Newark airport. He fled the country shortly thereafter. BBC 05/07/03

Ashcroft Pledges US Will Find Iraqi Artifacts American Attorney General John Ashcroft tells an international audience that his country will recover artwork looted from Iraq's National Museum. "Regardless of how sophisticated these criminals are or how hard they work to avoid detection, United States law enforcement and our colleagues at Interpol will not rest until the stolen Iraqi artefacts are returned to their rightful place; the public museums and libraries of Iraq." The Guardian (UK) 05/07/03

Curator Says Iraq Looting Of Art Overestimated How many works of art were stolen or broken during looting of Iraq's National Museum? John Curtis, a curator at the British Museum estimates that "30 or 40 major works - some extremely significant - that remained on display last month are missing and that 15 are broken. The number missing from storage areas is still unknown. Initial reports suggested a much higher toll, which Curtis attributed to 'poor information'." New York Daily News 05/06/03

• British Museum Curator: Location Of Iraq Art Known American and Iraqi officials probably know where most of the art from Iraq's National Museum is, says a top curator from the British Museum. "In a news conference at the museum and a subsequent interview, John Curtis said he believed that American authorities now knew the locations of the artifact repositories but that as a precaution against further looting were not disclosing them. In Iraq yesterday, American and Iraqi officials appeared to support this assessment, saying they still did not know precisely what was missing from the National Museum, because they had not yet had access to sites where art objects may have been hidden, or to rooms inside the building that were among the looters' targets. But Mr. Curtis said the officials 'certainly know' where the hiding places are." The New York Times 05/06/03

• Ashcroft: Iraq Museum Looting By Criminals US Attorney General John Ashcroft told an Interpol meeting that "organized crime was involved in the looting of Iraq's national museum and the United States will fully back international efforts to retrieve the stolen artifacts. The comments came at a conference of art experts and law enforcement officials aimed at creating a database listing items looted in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq." The Star-Tribune (AP) 05/06/03

• Making Sense Of Iraq Museum Looting The story of looting of Iraq's National Museum is confusing. "Questions abound. What exactly was stolen? How significant was it? Can it be recovered? The story seems to change every day. Experts do agree on one thing: The losses at museums, libraries and other places were catastrophic even if smaller than first feared." Denver Post 05/06/03

Smithsonian Beefs Up Security "For decades, the Smithsonian Institution museums had quick and easy access for visitors. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, security concerns increased for all of Washington's attractions. The National Air and Space Museum served as the Smithsonian's test site for visitor inspections, adopting hand searches of pocketbooks and backpacks and, eventually, installing metal detectors and X-ray machines. The addition of walk-through metal detectors at the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of American History was completed in the past two weeks. The two museums do not have X-ray machines, but may add them at some point. Bags are searched only if the metal detectors indicate a problem." Washington Post 05/06/03

Cost Of MoMA Construction Going Up "The cost of the Museum of Modern Art's new complex is going up. "Since the museum broke ground in May 2001 the expansion has grown significantly in both scope and expense. To date there have been $31 million worth of changes to the original plans, along with unbudgeted expenses totaling $21 million. That brings the total cost to $858 million from the original figure of $806 million. And with 18 months to go before the Modern is to open its doors once again on West 53rd Street in Manhattan, museum officials still need to raise more than $200 million to pay for the project." The New York Times 05/06/03

American Marines Say Iraqis Hampering Search For Artifacts "The US Marines in charge of tracking down antiquities of Iraq's National Museum say their search is "being hampered by strained relations between the US marine corps and officials of the Iraqi National Museum. The marines, who have been given responsibility for finding the missing treasures, say the staff are not cooperating. Colonel Matthew Bogdanus, who commands the taskforce conducting the search, said the officals had yet to provide an inventory of the museum's possessions. Without that it was impossible to establish how much had been stolen. Baghdad is awash with people offering antiquities, real and fake, to foreigners. In the markets, at street corners and roundabouts, statues and seals said to be more than 5,000 years old are on offer." The Guardian (UK) 05/06/03

Is Bureaucratic Bungling Destroying Prehistoric Lascaux Paintings? The prehistoric caves at Lascaux have pictures painted 17,000 years ago. "Because the cave had been naturally sealed for millennia, the paintings were freshly preserved in vivid yellows, reds, and blacks. But in its April issue, the respected French science magazine La Recherche sounded an alarm, announcing that thanks to bureaucratic incompetence a good part of Lascaux may be permanently destroyed. In a story headlined 'Lascaux, the big mess,' it reported that the site has been suffering devastating damage from a reinfestation of fungi and bacteria for almost two years - since September 2001. One hundred fifty of the world-famous paintings have developed mold. OpinionJournal.com 05/06/03

High-Tech Archaeological Vandalism "Most of the ancient artwork carved and painted into the rock walls and boulders of America's West survived for thousands of years in quiet obscurity. But technology has changed that. These days, art that once took years for a person to stumble upon can be quickly pinpointed with a GPS, and discoverers can post the coordinates on the Internet. That leaves the ancient, priceless art vulnerable to what the Bureau of Land Management calls 'digital vandalism.' A quick peek at the Internet auction site eBay confirms the sites are being plundered and sold piecemeal." Los Angeles Times (AP) 05/05/03

Americans Say Only 38 Artifacts Stolen From Iraq Museum, Not 170,000 American investigators who compiled an inventory over the weekend of the ransacked galleries have concluded that 38 pieces of art are missing from Iraq's National Museum, not the 170,000 that had been reported stolen or broken. "The inventory, compiled by a military and civilian team headed by Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos, rejects reports that Iraq's renowned treasures of civilization - up to 170,000 artifacts - had been lost during the U.S.-led war against Iraq. It also raises questions about why any of the artifacts were reported missing." Chicago Tribune 05/05/03

See Our Collection..No Wait, we Can't Show you These... The Tate Museum put up a website Friday that it claimed would "let internet users around the world see the entire permanent collection from its London gallery plus loaned exhibits. But just hours after it was launched with a fanfare by comedian Michael Palin, almost four out of 10 pictures were replaced with a message saying they were unavailable for copyright reasons." BBC 05/04/03

Leonardo Online "Using digital technology, the Louvre Museum is making [Leonardo] da Vinci accessible as never before, photographing 12 of his notebooks - which have not been exhibited together for 50 years - so visitors can flip through them with the click of a mouse. The effect is breathtaking - like touring the great genius's mind. Normally kept in a Bank of France vault, each yellowing sheet testifies to the insatiable curiosity of the artist, architect, engineer, inventor, theorist, scientist and musician some describe as the ultimate embodiment of a universal man." Toronto Star 05/04/03

The Barnes - Saving It Might Also Kill It Edward Sozanski considers the Barnes Collection's desire to move to downtown Philadelphia. The move might improve the art collection's financial condition, but the Barnes unique character would be destroyed. "The collection might survive the eight-mile trip from Merion to the Parkway intact, but the ineffable spirit of the Barnes, the quality that makes it a special place, will not. That would be a tragedy, pure and simple." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/04/03

As The Barnes Turns The drama over the Barnes Foundation's future is about to get publicly nasty again. "A potentially explosive internal investigative audit of the Barnes's finances in the 1990's, long withheld by the foundation, was turned over late Friday to a judge, who may decide to make it public. And a new book, "Art Held Hostage," published today by W. W. Norton, casts an unflattering light on machinations at the Barnes and its estranged partner, Lincoln University, that are drawing comparisons to the litigious mire of Dickens's 'Bleak House'." The New York Times 05/05/03

The MFA's Big Art Deal Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is after a painting - it won't say which, but it's rumored to be a major Degas - that would be one of the biggest purchases made by an American museum in years. To finance the deal, the MFA is hoping to sell off two Degas and a Renoir at auction, expecting to take in $17 million... Boston Globe 05/04/03

Outsider Art - 100 Years Since Gauguin "Exactly 100 years ago next Thursday, Paul Gauguin died alone and in agonising pain in his shack on the Marquesas Islands near Tahiti. He was 54, heavily in debt, his paintings were almost universally derided and he was addicted to morphine ? he may even have been killed by an overdose of the drug, which he took for the suppurating syphilis sores on his legs..." The Telegraph (UK) 05/03/03

Photographs Vs Painting - Hockney Makes His Case David Hockney says photographs misrepresent war. "For a New York exhibition, Hockney has made a watercolour based on Picasso's painting 'Massacre in Korea'. He has called it 'Problems of Depiction' and added a note which suggests that both the Picasso and this new spin on it are 'a painter's response to the limitations of photography, limitations that are still with us, and need some debate today'." The Guardian (UK) 05/03/03

Theft, Damage Estimates At Iraq Museum Are Cut It's starting to become clear that estimates of the theft and damage of Iraq's National Museum were too high. "While many museum officials watched in horror as mobs and perhaps organized gangs rampaged through the museum's 18 galleries, seized objects on display, tore open steel cases, smashed statues and broke into storage vaults, officials now discount the first reports that the museum's entire collection of 170,000 objects had been lost. Some valuable objects were placed for safekeeping in the vaults of the Central Bank before the war. Other objects were placed in the museum's own underground vaults; only when power was restored this week could curators begin assessing what was lost. Even in some of the looted galleries, a few stone statues are intact. Still more encouragingly, several hundred small objects — including a priceless statue of an Assyrian king from the ninth century B.C. — have been returned to the museum." The New York Times 05/01/03

• Most Stolen 1991 Gulf War Art Was Never Recovered After the 1991 Gulf War, a list of artifacts stolen from Iraq museums was compiled - about 2000 objects were missing. "Eleven years later, experts say, no more than half a dozen of the pieces have been tracked down. Many others are presumed to have been traded away through a thriving international market in antiquities. The poor record of returning artifacts lost after the gulf war suggests the daunting obstacles that museum officials and police investigators face as they commit to finding items recently sacked from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad and other sites." The New York Times 05/01/03

Museum Attendance Surges Back To Normal In NY After a slump after 9/11, museum attendance in New York has returned to normal or increased, according to the Association of Art Museum Directors in New York. The report says that "museums have mostly been able to maintain, or even increase, their pre-9/11 staffing and programs." Christian Science Monitor 05/02/03

Up On The Roof: A Sure Sign Of Spring "Few rites of spring are quite as delightful as the opening, each May, of the sculpture garden atop the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year the honor goes to the late Roy Lichtenstein. One of the prime movers of Pop Art, Lichtenstein was not exactly a bad sculptor, but he certainly wasn't a good one, either. And yet, such is the magic of the sculpture garden that absolutely anything you put up there will look good." New York Post 05/01/03