Ex-Stedeljk Museum Director Cleared Of Fraud "The investigation into alleged fraud by Rudi Fuchs, the recently departed director of the Stedeljk Museum in Amsterdam, and the artist Karel Appel has been concluded, and there is no evidence of criminal activity by them." The Art Newspaper 12/01/03

Ten-Minute Art "Twenty years after this all began in Mexico City, spray-paint art has an international client base, even though few people in the established art trade have noticed it. Most large cities, in North and South America and in some parts of Europe, have at least one spray-paint artist. Fort Worth has one. Dallas has one. Las Vegas supports two. Club crawlers are prime customers for the $20-$30 pieces of art. And vacationers buy the work as a keepsake of their travels." The Star-Telegram (Fort Worth) 11/30/03

Figuring Out The Great Universal Museums What are the great museums for? Talk to the directors of those museums and you get some very different ideas. The British museum, for example... The Guardian (UK) 11/27/03

Saving Art Without Buying It This idea of "saving" art from being sold and taken out of the UK is unsustainable. "If our museums are going to continue collecting - and everyone agrees that "frozen collections" are a denial of what museums are about - priorities must be set. We cannot save everything." The Guardian (UK) 11/29/03

Italy To Return Ancient Obelisk Italy is finally returning an ancient obelisk to Ethiopia. "In a move that sends a message to all nations attempting to recover looted artifacts, and to the governments and private collectors that hoard them, Italy is finally making good on a promise to return the Aksum Obelisk, capping decades of bitter dispute over the monument's fate and home. The 1,700-year-old obelisk is ranked by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization as an outstanding historic and artistic object and is cherished by Ethiopians as a pillar of their civilization. Aksum was the cradle of Ethiopian Christianity. Benito Mussolini's forces seized the 75-foot-high monument in 1937, during Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, and transported it to Rome as a trophy of fascist imperialism." Los Angeles Times 11/30/03

WTC Memorial In New 3D Finalists for the World Trade Center memorial were presented with new technology. "With the chance to view the designs in this dynamic, strikingly 'cinematic' way, the public was given its first glimpse of a revolution that has been under way for the past few years. Indeed, the memorial competition itself accelerated that revolution, harnessing the explosion in broadband Internet access to allow millions of people around the world to view the animated presentations, more or less at once — something that was never before possible." The New York Times 11/30/03

St. Louis New Contemporary Gem St. Louis' new Contemporary Art Museum is an $8 million gem. "The museum's architect, Brad Cloepfil, eschewed such gestures in a simple but sophisticated design that consists of interlocking concrete planes, not unlike a house of cards. But this house of cards is anything but flimsy. It's at once solid and permeable, a skillful geometric exercise that blurs the divisions between inside and outside, creating a serene but dynamic environment without the benefit of grand stairs, towering atriums or flapping wings." Chicago Tribune 11/30/03

WTC: How About More Time, Less Symbolism? Herbert Muschamp writes that the competition to design a memorial for the World Trade Center site illustrated what's wrong with the WTC design process: "Too much symbolism. Not enough time. A breakdown of cultural authority. Until precise steps are taken to resolve all three issues, the design process will continue to sink deeper and deeper into political quicksand." The New York Times 11/29/03

Did A Jackson Pollock Really Sell For $105 Million? "The hottest rumor in the art world — that one of Jackson Pollock's greatest drip paintings was sold for a staggering $105 million — just won't go away." The New York Times 11/28/03

Closure Of Small Saskatchewan Gallery Draws National Protest The decision to close a small but important gallery attached to the Regina (Saskatchewan) Public Library, has "sent waves of shock and dismay through the national visual-arts community. This nationally recognized institution has been a critical thread in the Canadian cultural fabric since 1949." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/28/03

Caravaggio Experts Gather Caravaggio experts from around world are gathering in Sydney this weekend to examine works by the master. "The exhibition includes nine works experts agree are genuine Caravaggios and about 50 works by his contemporaries or those influenced by him. Some of those works may turn out to be genuine Caravaggios. 'There is no definitive view on what is and isn't Caravaggio'." The Age (Melbourne) 11/28/03

• Best-Selling Caravaggio Author Excluded From Confab An Australian expert of Caravaggio is miffed that he hasn't been included in the Caravaggio Confab. Author Peter Robb, who wrote the award-winning fictional biography of Caravaggio, M, will not be taking part. "He has been 'excluded' from the line-up, claimed his publisher. He has also been 'excluded' as a contributor to the catalogue of essays that accompanies the exhibition. 'We have here someone ... acclaimed around the world as a Caravaggio expert. But here they fly in people from elsewhere when they have someone on hand who is just as much an expert'." Sydney Morning Herald 11/29/03

Australian Aboriginal Art And Fraud Australian aboriginal art is getting more and more popular - "the industry is worth $143 (£83m) annually, growing 10% a year." But along with that popularity there's a growing problem of fraud, including some recent high profile cases. So the Australian government is setting up a database to help ensure what's real...and what's not. BBC 11/28/03

Saatchi Dumps Hirst Work... Did They Feud? Collector Charles Saatchi - long one of Damien Hirst's biggest collectors, has sold a dozen of the artist's works back to Hirst's gallery. "A spokeswoman for Mr Saatchi refused to comment on a report in The Times that he and Hirst had been in 'a feud'. She said visitors to the Mr Saatchi's London gallery could still see famous Hirst pieces such as the pickled shark." BBC 11/26/03

• Did Hirst Get Back His Best Work? Evidently Saatchi's sale to Hirst signals a truce between the two. "There was speculation last night that Hirst had reclaimed arguably his most powerful work, A Thousand Years, a rotting cow's head on which flies hatch only to perish moments later on an electric trap, which had some delicate souls retching when it was first shown at the Royal Academy. The installation has been missing from the Saatchi gallery since September, as has One Little Piggy Went to Market, another example of Hirst's taste for the grotesque." The Guardian (UK) 11/27/03

4th Century Italian Mosaic To Be Buried Under Parking Lot Archaeologists in Rome are dismayed that an important mosaic from the 4th Centuery is to be covered up and buried underneath a parking lot. Along with the mosaic, Italian archaeologists found "traces of warehouses, workshops and offices, along with numerous coins, lamps and amphoras, the tall, two-handled jars that were used to transport oil, wine and garum, a salty, fish-based sauce popular in the ancient world." The Guardian (UK) 11/27/03

In Memoriam - Getting Past Maya Lin The finalists for the World Trade Center memorial can all trace influences from Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial. "As successful as Ms. Lin’s Vietnam memorial was, the eight finalists prove that it has become a crutch, rather than an inspiration, for American memorial architecture. Indeed, Ms. Lin’s aesthetic presence in the plans speaks volumes about the state of memorial design in America. On one hand, the continued presence of Lin-esque minimalism in American monuments points to the long-awaited emergence of an American memorial style; on the other, the finalists’ failure to move beyond the threshold she set more than two decades ago points to a severe lack of vision in the way Americans build memorials to tragedy." New York Observer 11/26/03

WTC Tower Shaping Up (And Up) In three weeks, designs for the tallest tower at the World Trade Center site must be finished. And there is constant negotiating going on. "Although many aspects of the proposed new tower are still in flux, several features are consistent to every recent draft rendering of the tower. Surviving from Daniel Libeskind’s original proposal is the asymmetrical shape of the tower, along with its narrow spire feature, both of which are meant to simulate the torchbearing arm of the Statue of Liberty seen from the harbor. Also surviving is the slanted roof that gives a spiraling sweep to the shape of the circle of the five skyscrapers, of descending height, called for in his master plan." New York Observer 11/26/03

Rembrandt Etching Saved From The Trash A small Rembrandt etching was found in some junk due to be thrown out in the garbage. "The small image of two beggars was discovered among items at the Emmaus charity shop in Carlton, near Bedford." BBC 11/25/03

Spare Change For A Proud Lady The Statue of Liberty has been closed to the public since the 9/11 attacks, although most Americans are probably unaware of that fact. The statue won't be able to open again until $5 million of security upgrades are in place, but the money has yet to be found. Several large corporations have pledged the majority of what's needed, but the city of New York is still struggling to attract donors to round out the required funds. Even with all the new security measures in place, the days of tourists being allowed to climb up the inside of Lady Liberty are likely at an end. New York Daily News 11/26/03

Young Designs - Youth Reigns For WTC Memorial There were 5000 anonymous entries competing to design the memorial for 911 at the World Trade Center site. Many have been surprised that the five finalists are younger artists instead of older established names... The New York Times 11/25/03

Some Object To Taiwanese Guggenheim Some resistance to building a new Guggenheim is surfacing in Taiwan. "Those who object are mostly worried about a cultural invasion and the danger of an American cultural hegemony taking root." Taipei Times 11/23/03

Didn't Fall For Ostrich Scam? How About Art? The British government is launching a campaign to try to prevent people from being taken in by scam investments. "The investment scam of the moment appears to be art. A few years ago it was ostriches, later followed by whisky, wine and champagne. Thousands of people have been targeted by companies promising big returns if they buy art prints which are then supposedly leased out to hang on the walls of large companies." The Guardian (UK) 11/25/03

Is Western Avant Garde Irrelevant In Asia? A prominant Asian businessman has criticized Singapore's public funding of what he called "elitist, intentionally avant-garde work which 'may have no relevance at all' outside of the West. He suggested that public funding of such 'so-called art installations' had become 'disconnected from the community' which they purport to engage with. Globalisation, he said, was a 'double-edged sword', tending to homogenise indigenous art movements while making them known to the world." The Straits-Times (Singapore) 11/24/03

New York's New Art Sellers A new generation of art sellers has emerged in New York. They "have been mounting shows in unusual spaces, featuring work that is fast, cheap, and exuberant—and produced more often by 'collectives' than by nineties-style art stars (not that any of these artists would pass up their own fifteen minutes). This fall, these players have become their own Establishment: Several of their artists were just tapped for the Whitney Biennial, and a number are members of the New Art Dealers Alliance, which declares that the 'adversarial approach to exhibiting and selling art' is dead." New York Magazine 11/24/03

Buried Evidence "Over the past decade repatriation departments have been set up in museums across America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to return human remains to their places of origin. While research on human remains can reveal information about historic patterns of migration, lifestyle and disease - a substantial amount of energy, time and money has instead been committed to burying the evidence." spiked-culture 11/24/03

Banned DH Lawrence Paintings Go On View "In June 1929 a squad of embarrassed policemen raided the Warren gallery in London, and seized 13 paintings by DH Lawrence. They were spared from being burned on condition that they were never exhibited in Britain again." Guess what - here they are... The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03

Free Museums - So Successful, We're Broke Millions of new visitors have been streaming into the UK's museums since admission fees were abolished two years ago. So the free admission policy has been a big success, right? Maybe not. Museums are broke. They don't get enough money to pay for operations. "Times are indeed so hard for our national museums - who have never had so many visitors - that they are being forced to go cap in hand to pay for bog-standard two-ply tissue." Yes, that's toilet paper... The Guardian (UK) 11/22/03

Prejudice Against Pots (And Potters?) Grayson Perry is the hottest British potter ever. But "what is it about Grayson Perry that makes critics rummage in their tool boxes for monkey wrenches and lump hammers? Partly, it is because he is a potter. What, say critics down their noses, are ceramics doing in an art gallery? People don't seem to have a problem with Picasso's ceramic art, but they do with Perry's." The Guardian (UK) 11/21/03

The Atheneum's New Plan Is Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum Museum $120 million expansion still on track? Museum officials aren't saying for sure. "One can understand why some people at the museum have been a little testy the past year. You would be cranky, too, if you had lost one museum director, one board president, and five trustees in a matter of weeks because of conflicts over the direction of the capital-endowment drive." Hartford Courant 11/23/03

Museum As Profit Center Can a private art museum make money? Charles Saatchi's new London galleryseems to be doing well. "The gallery has had 320,000 visitors since relocating to its new premises in County Hall and opening to the public on 17 April. Ticket prices are £8.50 for adults, £6.50 for concessions and £5 for pre-booked groups. Assuming that just over half pay full price and the remainder pay an average of £6, then, according to our estimate, this adds up to an income of around £4 million a year." The Art Newspaper 11/22/03

Van Goghs - Real Or Fakes? "For the past 100 years, countless pictures in Van Gogh’s style have surfaced in the Breda [Netherlands] area, but except for those bought in the very early years, none have been accepted as authentic by specialists. Now, for the first time, a museum is bringing together 40 of the most important questionable works to give both experts and the public an opportunity to see them and pass judgement." The Art Newspaper 11/22/03

Giant Pickles & Bicycle Helmets: This Is London? As a rule, London does not do skyscrapers. Or it didn't, until recently. But with a new wave of British culture is coming a new look to the London skyline, and one of the centerpieces is a building which is best described as a 40-story pickle. "The architect is Norman Foster, a man famous for his audaciousness. He designed London's city hall, an eye-catching if utterly weird structure that looks like a bicycle helmet attacked by a madman wielding a large, dull ax." The New York Times 11/23/03

Hey, Wait, I Own That Painting! "Art auctioneers are only human or so it's said, and they and their staff are as prone to making mistakes as the rest of us. But how did the international saleroom Christie's manage to list a painting by Ray Crooke for its art auction tomorrow night that it sold in August to Australia's biggest-spending dealer, Denis Savill?" The new catalog lists the painting with a different title than the one it had when Savill purchased it, but all sides agree that it is the same work. This isn't the first time that Savill has had a problem with Christie's: the auction house "previously 'mislaid' three paintings he had bought at various auctions, and... recovering them took nine months in one instance and two years in another." The Age (Melbourne) 11/24/03

Bringing Culture To Big D Dallas may be better known than Fort Worth, but until recently, if you wanted to see great art in the Texas Metroplex, you had to head west, to Fort Worth's impressive museum district. But that was before Raymond Nasher decided to keep his extensive sculpture collection at home, and put it to good use in downtown Dallas. "As I strolled through the Nasher's light-filled galleries, this new urban shrine to modern sculpture seemed remarkably understated, unusual in image-conscious Dallas... Finally, Dallas can claim, without the braggadocio the city is famous for, that it too is an art destination." The New York Times 11/22/03

Armchair Quarterbacking the WTC Finalists As the process of selecting the architect who will design and build the memorial to the victims of 9/11 progresses, other architects are weighing in on the finalists. Some say all the designs are too complex, while others complain that minimalism is too dominant across the board. "Many of the architects had practical questions: What happens to all those water features in case of drought? Can such vast spaces underground be free of columns? How many people can cross a narrow bridge at one time?" The New York Times 11/22/03

Beer Flies At Smithsonian The Smithsonian will not remove beer ads adorning a famous plane when it goes on display. "Twenty members of the House of Representatives had complained in a letter to the Smithsonian's museum that the beer logos represented commercialization and alcohol advertising." Washington Post 11/21/03

• Previously: You Mean Beer And Aviation Don't Mix? Twenty U.S. legislators are asking the Smithsonian Museum to remove beer logos from a historic stunt plane being displayed there. The logos were added to the plane twenty years ago as part of a sponsorship deal, but the legislators say that they are an inappropriate advertisement and inducement to young people to drink. Not surprisingly, the company which paid to have its logo splashed all over the plane is objecting to the attempt to have it removed. Washington Post 11/19/03

Previously Unknown Van Gogh On Display "A Dutch museum opens an exhibition this weekend of what it claims is a previously unknown painting by Vincent van Gogh, and says there may be more among a collection of 250 works once regarded as worthless." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/21/03

Could Pew Control The Barnes Collection's Move? "If the Barnes Foundation wins court permission to move its famed art collection to Center City, the Pew Charitable Trusts, not the Barnes itself, could take charge of administering the $150 million needed to build a new Barnes museum and endow it." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/20/03

Buying Art - The Fog Of War "I've been covering the art market for a decade now, but I usually don't bother to attend the sales. Every time I do, I'm reminded how mysterious, confusing, and surreal art auctions are. Historians talk about "the fog of war," which makes it virtually impossible for even commanding generals to know what's really happening during a battle. Well, when it comes to generating fog, war doesn't have anything on an art auction." BusinessWeek 11/18/03

Journalism as Relevant Art When AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus snapped a photo of an Italian soldier standing in front of his bombed-out military barracks last week in Iraq, she created an image which would wind up on the front pages of more than 50 newspapers around the world. That unanimity of editorial taste proves once and for all that news photography can rise to the level of art, says Alan Artner, and Niedringhaus' photo is a perfect example of the undervalued genre of war photography. "Some war photographs record destruction; others present human reaction. Niedringhaus' combines the two. Or does it?" Chicago Tribune 11/20/03

Why Visionaries and Budget Sheets Don't Mix In 2002, architect Jean Nouvel was hired by Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center to design a $90 million addition to its building. But "Carnegie Museums terminated Nouvel's contract in May for failing to produce a scheme that could be built for that amount," and withheld a chunk of the money it had promised the architect. A legal battle ensued, but now it appears that a settlement is near. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/20/03

Taiwan Guggenheim Hits Funding Snag The Taiwanese government putting together financing for a $400 million Guggenheim outpost on the island, has told the Guggenheim it can't yet raise the money it had promised, and has asked for a six month extension of the deal. Thomas Krens said "he could not understand why the budgeting should be a snag. He wanted Taichung mayor Jason Hu to give him a timetable for the establishment of the Guggenheim museum in Taichung. No timetable is available, however. Hu is not certain if and when the Legislative Yuan would approve the special funding." China Post (Taiwan) 11/19/03

WTC Memorial Finalists Chosen Eight finalists are announced for a memorial at the World Trade Center. "It's a very moving moment. The memorial is at the heart of the site. It defines everything around it." The New York Times 11/19/03

• Muschamp: Simplicity Is What's Required For WTC Memorial "For better or worse, we are living in baroque if not byzantine times. Some of our most impressive contemporary architecture reflects this. All eight designs chosen as finalists for a memorial of the World Trade Center disaster bear strong traces of it, to a greater or lesser degree. Each of them suffers as a result.
  The New York Times 11/20/03

• Youth Figures In WTC Memorial "As far as visuals go, the coolest design is, without much doubt, the project by Gisela Baurmann, Sawad Brooks, and Jonas Coersmeier, all three of whom live in New York. The center of their design is something called the Memorial Cloud, a field of tubes that is flat and see-through on the top, at street level, and has an undulating ceiling, one whose shapes recall church architecture, when seen from underneath. The tubes are lit dramatically from below: one beam for each victim." Slate 11/19/03

• WTC Memorial Judges A list of the 13 judges for the World Trade Center memorial. The New York Times 11/19/03

You Mean Beer And Aviation Don't Mix? Twenty U.S. legislators are asking the Smithsonian Museum to remove beer logos from a historic stunt plane being displayed there. The logos were added to the plane twenty years ago as part of a sponsorship deal, but the legislators say that they are an inappropriate advertisement and inducement to young people to drink. Not surprisingly, the company which paid to have its logo splashed all over the plane is objecting to the attempt to have it removed. Washington Post 11/19/03

Money vs. Art: Guess Who Wins? There may be two sides to every story, but Lisa Rochon sees the current dust-up over the new World Trade Center design as nothing more than art squaring off against pure American capitalist greed. "Pay attention to the American way. Appreciate it fully. A calamity like 9/11 cannot weaken the aspirations of Larry Silverstein, the private developer who wants to broadside Daniel Libeskind's winning scheme in order to build his own version of unfettered capitalism. At this rate, he will triumph. And when he does, any doubt as to why the WTC was targeted in the first place will be, like the twin towers, obliterated." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/19/03

• Previously: Fighting Over How Things Look (Traditionally Speaking) Disputes between architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs over the tower above the World Trade Center site are the latest chapter in a long history of architectural disputes. "The absence of knife play over the Freedom Tower does not guarantee that the intended partnership will run smoothly. A meeting between the architects last Monday was described as positive by both sides. History, however, suggests that the turmoil will continue. There is a long tradition, in New York, of architectural bargaining and bickering that has produced gems like Rockefeller Center, duds (let's be honest now) like the World Trade Center and compromises like Lincoln Center and the United Nations. Not only is the record a rancorous one, but Mr. Libeskind and Mr. Childs are navigating challenges unlike any faced by their predecessors." The New York Times 11/16/03

Lost Van Gogh Apparently Found "A Dutch museum says it has found a painting by Vincent Van Gogh which had been unrecognised for years after being given away by his mother. The Breda Museum said the painting was found during research on an exhibition about the artist. The piece, dubbed Houses In The Hague, was found in a collection owned by a 'trustworthy collector', it added. The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam said it was yet to confirm whether or not the painting was genuine." BBC 11/19/03

Met Museum Neighbors Sue To Stop Expansion The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which attracted 5 million visitors a year, has expansion plans. But those plans have run afoul of the museum's neighbors on Fifth Avenue. "A coalition that represents residents of 15 buildings, mostly along Fifth Avenue, sued the Metropolitan and the City of New York on Thursday in an attempt to block the museum's longstanding plan to expand." The New York Times 11/16/03

Canada's Bull Market Run On Art "For at least the last six years, the resale market for Canadian art has been decidedly bullish, with the last three or four being especially buoyant. Indeed, since the spring of 1999, close to 10 paintings by Canadian artists have either come close to or surpassed the $1-million selling mark at auctions in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary." Can the enthusiasm continue? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/18/03

Turner Colors Result Of Bad Eyesight? An ophthalmic surgeon is "convinced JMW Turner was slightly colour-blind, and this particularly affected his perception of red and blue. The blues are all wrong, either too dark or too bright, and the reds get stronger and stronger, which is exactly what you would expect. And I have no doubt that later in life he had untreated cataracts, which would have made the centre of his field of vision very blurred, with some objects at the edges in focus - and with exactly that effect of dazzling shimmering light we see in the paintings." The Guardian (UK) 11/18/03

Franchise - Curator Plans French Museum Chain A French curator plans to build a chain of private museums across France. "Privately owned museums may be commonplace in the United States, but in France the government owns, subsidizes and operates all but the smallest museums. So Mr. Restellini's initiative is at the very least unusual. But he runs up against still more entrenched attitudes when he argues that it is also possible to make money out of private museums and glitzy exhibitions." The New York Times 11/17/03

Is The White Cube Dead? Is the "white cube" approach to showing art still viable? "The question is not the death of the white cube, the question is how we work with artists in order to find the right way to make each work of art a glorious experience, and there is no general rule here: some need just a space in the mind; others a web site; some a sumptuous hall of mirrors; some a white cube." The Art Newspaper 11/14/03

WTC Site: The Stars Come Out With the addition of architects Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel, and Fumihiko Maki designing for the site of the World Trade Center, (joining Daniel Libeskind, David Childs and Santiago Calatrava)the Lower Manhattan site is beginning to look like a playground of archi-stars. The Art Newspaper 11/14/03

How Much Time Does It Take To "Appreciate" Art? Kenneth Baker writes that visitors to museums don't seem to take much time looking at pieces of art. "Research has shown that people spend between 20 and 60 seconds per art object. The figure sounds shockingly low -- until we reflect on our own viewing habits. So how much time should we devote to an artwork? How much time do we need to 'get it,' and who says?" San Francisco Chronicle 11/16/03

Collings Turns Back On BritArt - "Postmodern Art Is Rubish" Matthew Collings, like all critics, "has made a career out of parasitism. Without Damien's shark and Tracey's bed, we wouldn't know his name." He was the critic who talked us through all the wierdnesses of BritArt and the YBAs. But now he's in a different mood: "We don't live in a great time for art; we live in a time when art is very successful as a leisure activity. Art is very amusing, but within that culture there's still a hierarchy of better and worse. I'm interested in that hierarchy but I recognise that modern art and pre-modern art were very important, and postmodern art is rubbish, really." The Observer (UK) 11/16/03

What Disney Means To Gehry David Dillon writes that Disney Hall "confirms Mr. Gehry's standing as the boldest and most inventive architect of his generation. Looking at the hall's billowing facade – a sail, a kite, a lotus blossom, the visual analogies are endless – it's easy to forget that Mr. Gehry started out designing shopping malls and spec office buildings for James Rouse and other developers. And when he won the competition for Disney Hall, he was known primarily as the kooky guy who put chain-link fence on his house and asphalt on his kitchen floor – not the sort of architect who should be trusted with a major civic building, thought the culturati. The breakthrough came with CATIA, a computer program used to design the French Mirage fighter." Dallas Morning News 11/14/03

Museums: Let Me Sell You Something With That Show Museum stores are increasingly an important part of any museum's bottom line. "A survey of more than 800 institutions published in May by the American Association of Museums in Washington showed that the median gross income of museum stores contributed more to total operating budgets (6.8 percent) than admissions (6.2 percent) and membership fees (5.8 percent)." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/16/03

Why Did The Bellevue Art Museum Suddenly Close? The Bellevue Art Museum, in a suburb of Seattle, had a signature architect and significant community support when it opened three years ago. So why did the $23-million museum suddenly close its doors this fall and its managers declare the organization was out of money? "The museum's unexpected closure left Bellevue leaders stunned and arts patrons baffled that a cultural institution serving some of the country's wealthiest communities could fold for lack of money. Even the timing of the closure was bizarre, announced just two days before a new exhibit opened." Seattle Times 11/16/03

Fighting Over How Things Look (Traditionally Speaking) Disputes between architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs over the tower above the World Trade Center site are the latest chapter in a long history of architectural disputes. "The absence of knife play over the Freedom Tower does not guarantee that the intended partnership will run smoothly. A meeting between the architects last Monday was described as positive by both sides. History, however, suggests that the turmoil will continue. There is a long tradition, in New York, of architectural bargaining and bickering that has produced gems like Rockefeller Center, duds (let's be honest now) like the World Trade Center and compromises like Lincoln Center and the United Nations. Not only is the record a rancorous one, but Mr. Libeskind and Mr. Childs are navigating challenges unlike any faced by their predecessors." The New York Times 11/16/03

Life Of Kahn American Architect Louis Kahn was a brilliant architect and a flawed man. Herbert Muschamp pronounces that a documentary of his life is a "wonder of a movie" That "should put a stop to the notion that architecture is a less creative form of practice than music, painting, literature or dance. I have never seen or read a more penetrating account of the inner life of an architect — or of architecture itself — than that presented in this movie." The New York Times 11/09/03

• Kahn - Figuring Out The Mystery Even though he was one of the 20th Century's premiere architects, Louis Kahn was a remote presence. "Who was Kahn? A genius? A cad? A man whose accomplishments transcended such judgments? In the end, not even Kahn himself seemed to know. He was found dead in New York's Penn Station in 1974, his body unclaimed for three days because he'd crossed out his address in his passport. Why?" Philadelphia Inquirer 11/14/03

• Louis Kahn - A Life In Pictures A new documentary about the life of architect Louis Kahn is one of the best movies of the year, writes Carrie Rickey. "The most penetrating insights into Kahn come not from the mandarins of modern architecture, nor the architect's fiercely intelligent mistresses Anne Tyng and Harriet Pattison (Nathaniel's mother), nor his children, but from the janitors in Dhaka who pray in the mosque of the capital building that a Jew built for Muslims. For these men who mistakenly call the architect Louis Farrakhan, the building is a vessel of the spirit." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/14/03

• Kahn: One Of The Best "There is something about walking into a Louis Kahn building that makes analysis seem superfluous, if not silly. The best ones just succeed—not simply at keeping out the rain or the cold but at suggesting something important about our relationship with the built world. It may sound too basic, or too sappy, to say that the reason for Kahn's continuing appeal is that he sought an architecture that was more concerned with the timeless than the fashionable. But it's also the truth." Slate 11/14/03

Saling Young - Strong Contemporary Art Sales This week's Phillips auction of art made since 1945 set record prices for several artists. The buyers were younger than the average blue-chip auction crowd, and "the growing appetite for these newer works was more apparent than ever. There are new young collectors drawn to contemporary art. These are really the blue-chip artists of tomorrow." The New York Times 11/14/03

A "Bento Box For Art" Herbert Muschamp says the New Museum of Contemporary Art's planned building for the Bowery, is a "seven-story bento box for art." "Like every substantial building that has gone up in Manhattan in the past decade, Saana's design demonstrates the fecundity that occurs when the idea of context is distinguished from mere adjacency. Add to, rather than fit in with: this is the crux of the distinction. When a building is dedicated to contemporaneity, as the New Museum will be, the design should add to the present." The New York Times 11/14/03

Cargo Handlers Arrested For Stealing Freud Two cargo handlers at JFK airport have been charged with stealing a Lucien Freud painting from a cargo warehouse. "The pair allegedly broke into a carton at the United Airlines cargo building on Tuesday and removed the artwork. Police identified the two men after viewing airport security video with officials from United Airlines." CNN 11/14/03

How To "Save" Art With £25 Million Should the UK be spending vast sums to try to keep precious artworks in the country? Tate head Nicholas Serota thinks so. So what would be a good use for the £25 million that some are proposing to spend to keep a Raphael from being sold and taken to the US? Critics and artworld folk offer some suggestions. The Guardian (UK) 11/14/03

Seattle Art Museum - Time To Expand The Seattle Art Museum shows off its expansion plans. "SAM's downtown expansion is a unique, mutually beneficial partnership with Washington Mutual Bank that allows the museum to expand incrementally into its new 300,000-square-foot space. In the first phase, SAM will occupy about 95,000 square feet. The bank will lease the unused upper floors from the museum, allowing it to amortize the financing of the $63 million expansion. When SAM fully occupies its new building, it will triple its current size to 450,000 square feet." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 11/13/03

Who's This? So the Tate mis-identified a portait in a painting last week. And it was embarrassing. And insulting. But "how do you identify portraits, anyway? The names often come down by tradition, and if a portrait was named as such and such a person in an inventory a hundred years after it was painted, historical fact is hard to separate from myth. The best mistakes have some plausibility, and some are inevitable, even poetic." The Guardian (UK) 11/13/03

• Previously: Tate's Muslim Gaffe The Tate has offended many Muslims with a Pre-Raphaelite painting in a current show. "First, the picture's caption described it as depicting one of the wives of the prophet Mohammed. It was a concept that many Muslim visitors condemned as an act of blasphemy - since the Muslim faith prohibits human representations of the prophet, his wives or relatives." The Guardian (UK) 11/11/03

Up With Southern Art (Whatever That Is) The Ogden Museum of Southern Art opens in New Orleans. But just what counts as "southern" art? "I'm not aware that there is such a thing as Southern art, at least not if you're defining it by technique. If there's something distinct about it, it's subject matter and also inner heritage. All Southerners who try to express themselves in art — whether it's writing or painting or anything else — are very much aware that they are party to a defeat, which is something most other Americans didn't feel until Vietnam." The New York Times 11/12/03

Digging Up "Little Rome" "After 10 years of digging, 'Little Rome,' as the great Roman orator Cicero called it, is coming to light near Naples, in what could be the most important discovery of an ancient Roman town since the excavation of lava-entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century." Discovery 11/12/03

Cleveland Picks Up A Krasner "The Cleveland Museum of Art closed a major gap in its collection last night by bidding $1.9 million at auction at Christie's in New York for a mural-sized painting by American Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner. The price is a record for the artist, who died in 1984 at age 76." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 11/12/03

Judge Halts Riopelle Auction A Quebec judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking a planned auction of several dozen works by the late artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, which was to be held tonight. In making the ruling, the judge granted a major victory to Riopelle's three children, who claim that the hastily organized auction of so many works at once will diminish the artist's legacy unnecessarily. "Left in the lurch are art collectors who were said to be flying in from around the world for the sale at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel - and Riopelle's estate, which says it urgently needs to hold the auction to pay off mounting debts." Montreal Gazette 11/12/03

• Previously: Legacy And Profit: The Riopelle Battle "Jean-Paul Riopelle's three children fear some of their father's key works of art will be sold at the same fire-sale prices that purchased his beloved vintage cars... Yseult, Sylvie and Yann, the three children of the noted abstract artist, are asking the [Quebec Superior Court] for an injunction to stop what they describe as an unnecessary, amateurish auction. They say if so many Riopelles are sold at once on short notice, the value of Riopelle's art will diminish." Montreal Gazette 11/11/03

All For One, One For All In Winnipeg "Winnipeg artists are collectively playing the numbers game. In the past, the city established a reputation for producing individual artists of singular talent -- Ivan Eyre, Don Reichert, Wanda Koop, William Eakin and Eleanor Bond are all painters and photographers whose careers have been solo affairs. But recently, with the meteoric success of the seven-member Royal Art Lodge as an example, Winnipeg artists have been banding together to form associations in which their collective identity is as important as their individual one." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/12/03

Disney - Half As Spectacular As Bilbao? David Littlejohn is not very generous in his praise for Frank Gehry's new Disney Hall. "The result is about half as spectacular as Mr. Gehry's 1997 Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, with which it will inevitably be compared. Bilbao has a far more impressive location, equal excitement from all directions, and more dramatic interior spaces that visibly reflect its exterior." Still, "it is one of the most agreeable modern concert halls I have been in (though one heard complaints about steep stairs and tight legroom), reminiscent of Alvar Aalto's classic halls, and Mr. Gehry's most humane interior space." OpinionJournal.com 11/12/03

Major Archaeological Find In Vietnam Archaeologists say they have discovered a 1,300-year-old citadel in Vietnam. "This is the biggest and most important archaeological find in Vietnam's archaeological history." Yahoo! (AP) 11/11/03

Iraqi Artifacts Returned Hundreds of artifacts have been returned to the Baghdad Museum. Two important pieces were found in a field and returned. "It is another bright day in the life of the Iraqi museum. We have two masterpieces not only of the Iraqi museum, but also masterpieces of the mankind. So, it is a great day today" Yahoo! (AP) 11/11/03

Serota: Why Spend Millions On "Saving Art? Perhaps it's a mistake for the UK to spend millions of pounds trying to "save" art from being exported from the country. "Sir Nicholas Serota said it was not necessarily better to buy pieces to display in the UK rather than abroad just because they were already here. Speaking at an acquisitions conference, he suggested more should be spent on 20th Century and contemporary art." BBC 11/11/03

Legacy And Profit: The Riopelle Battle "Jean-Paul Riopelle's three children fear some of their father's key works of art will be sold at the same fire-sale prices that purchased his beloved vintage cars... Yseult, Sylvie and Yann, the three children of the noted abstract artist, are asking the [Quebec Superior Court] for an injunction to stop what they describe as an unnecessary, amateurish auction. They say if so many Riopelles are sold at once on short notice, the value of Riopelle's art will diminish." Montreal Gazette 11/11/03

• Previously: Family Squabbles The estate of Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle has announced plans to sell 43 of the abstractionist's works at auction this month, sparking controversy over the issue of who is calling the shots in the preservation of Riopelle's legacy. At the center of the debate are Riopelle's daughters, who are not executors of his estate; Riopelle's longtime companion, who is an executor; and the director of the Musee de Quebec, who is also an executor, and therefore in a potential conflict of interest regarding the sale. The announcement of the auction, which came only ten days before the auction itself, has many observers questioning whether the market value of Riopelle's work could be lowered by such a hasty selloff. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/04/03

Goya And The Art Of Violence Goya's images of war atrocities were shocking and appalling to the audiences of his time, which isn't surprising, since 'war art' in the early 19th century tended to consist of "generally heroic allegories, made to present a larger story of conquest and nobility through grand compositions and bold lighting." But why should the same images still shock us today, in an age when wars are broadcast live on television? Could it be because contemporary art has simply never found a serious way to deal with the horror of war? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/11/03

Good Thing They've Got Those High Ceilings... "The world's largest signed Pablo Picasso canvas, which has not been seen in public for 20 years, was unveiled in London on Tuesday. A 10-metre high reproduction of his work Deux Femmes Courant Sur La Plage is on show at the Royal Opera House. The painting was copied from the original in 1924 by a scene painter for use as a stage curtain in a ballet. It will go on permanent display at London's Theatre Museum as part of a £12m redevelopment." BBC 11/11/03

Tate's Muslim Gaffe The Tate has offended many Muslims with a Pre-Raphaelite painting in a current show. "First, the picture's caption described it as depicting one of the wives of the prophet Mohammed. It was a concept that many Muslim visitors condemned as an act of blasphemy - since the Muslim faith prohibits human representations of the prophet, his wives or relatives." The Guardian (UK) 11/11/03

Canadian Museum - Oh Yes, And Some Doors Would Be Nice Too... A new Canadian heritage museum - a pet project of outgoing Prime Minister Jean Chretien - won't cost $90 million as the Prime Minister announced last May; the bill will be at least a third higher. "Officials estimated it will cost $125-million in a letter to the Department of Canadian Heritage prior to the Prime Minister's announcement. The department had only $90-million to put toward the project, to be built in the century-old Rideau Canal train station near Parliament Hill, so expensive items were taken out of the budget to bring the cost down for the hurried announcement." However, some of what was taken out was essential to the project - humidity controls, anyone? National Post 11/10/03

In Praise Of Traditional Nudes "Traditionalists distressed by the alleged distortion of the female form in modern art are hitting back by launching the Society for the Appreciation of the Female Nude (SAFN) to encourage artists who depict beautiful female nudes, whether in a classical or modern style. The founders, a group of wealthy art-lovers, believe that contemporary artists who follow a tradition stretching from Botticelli to the Victorians Leighton and Millais are being sidelined by Britain's national galleries." The Independent (UK) 11/10/03

Stolen Iraq Art Recovered In London Some artifacts stolen from Iraq's National Museum earlier this year have been recovered in London. "The men were arrested in connection with allegations of handling stolen goods - one of them was said to be a 76-year-old man. He is believed to be a British passport holder of Iranian descent. A stone sculpture found there, but stolen before the war, is thought by detectives to be worth between three and five million pounds. The frieze, showing sacred winged animals was taken from the ruins of a palace in the ancient city of Nimrud." BBC 11/09/03

Trying To Make A Go Of High Art In Las Vegas The Guggenheim had to close its large gallery in Las Vegas. But the museum is importing its most ambitious show yet to its smaller remaining gallery in the bottom of the Venetian Hotel. "Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, said he's committed to Las Vegas. He said the museum would take a new strategy by reaching out to the community in an educational capacity. He has no intention of abandoning the Hermitage, which he claimed was the best small exhibition space in the world." SFGate (AP) 11/09/03

Saatchi Fighting With Landlord The Saatchi Gallery in London is in the middle of a feud with its landlord. After a sculpture was damaged by a vandal last week, the gallery is now moving some of its art out of the gallery. But the fight has gotten nasty... The Observer (UK) 11/09/03

Towering Disagreement Architects David Childs and Daniel Libeskind are disagreeing over the tower for the site of the World Trade Center. "Libeskind continues to press for the design he sketched in his competition-winning master plan - an asymmetrical tower roughly 70 stories tall, with a slender spire that would echo the upraised arm of the Statue of Liberty and culminate an upward spiral of a group of slice-topped office buildings. Childs, who heads the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, wants a more monolithic form -- a muscular tower that twists as it rises, topped by a latticelike crown that includes antennas. His design, however, has not been made public. Can the two architects compromise without compromising the form - and thus, the meaning - of Libeskind's brilliant ground zero vision? Chicago Tribune 11/09/03

Iraq Art Treasure To US? Plans to send Iraq's greatest art treasure to the US for a tour are being considered in Baghdad. "Sending the Nimrud gold to the US, whose armed forces are now occupying Iraq, would undoubtedly disturb many Iraqis. Parallels are being drawn with the controversial US decision to show Germany’s greatest paintings in America in 1948, although the circumstances are different." The Art Newspaper 11/07/03

Auction Market Roars Back The art market is roaring back. Last week "both Sotheby’s and Christie’s had very little difficulty finding buyers for their top lots. The two evening sales totalled $242 million, doubling the $125 million made for the same sessions last May. Adding in the Part II sessions, a total of $283 million was spent on Modern and Impressionist art between 4 and 6 November." The Art Newspaper 11/07/03

Man Attempts To Slash Renaissance Painting At National Gallery A man has attempted to slash a priceless Renaissance painting - Bronzino's Allegory With Venus And Cupid - at London's National Gallery in front of horrified museum visitors. He was caught before the painting could be damaged. Evening Standard 11/07/03

When Vandalism Is Art? (There's A Tradition) "The 'comedy terrorist' Aaron Barschak faces a possible jail sentence, after being convicted last week by Oxford magistrates of criminally damaging works in the Chapman brothers' summer exhibition The Rape of Creativity. What makes the case unusual is that some of the artworks concerned, now part of the Chapmans' Turner prize show, have themselves given rise to accusations of vandalism: they include an edition of 80 rare original impressions of Goya's The Disasters of War, on which faces of clowns and puppies have been drawn." The Guardian (UK) 11/06/03

Sotheby's Opens Big "In the auction world, all it takes is three determined people with big egos and bank accounts to match. That's why a 1917 Klimt landscape sold for $29.1 million last night at Sotheby's sale of Impressionist and modern art. The price surprised even the auction house experts. The painting, which depicts a house and its flowering gardens in a rich tapestry of colors, wasn't the only bright spot of the evening. The best works fetched high prices, but some of the rest went unsold without so much as a nibble." The New York Times 11/06/03

Michelangelo's Moses Sees New Light A five-year restoration of Michelangelo's "Moses" in Rome has been unveiled. "Restorers in the Italian capital have been quietly working away on the majestic sculpture of a seated Moses since 1998, careful to steer clear of a heated debate over the best way to clean the sculptor's monumental David nude in Florence." Stuff.nz (Reuters) 11/05/03

Will Warhol Market Crash? So one in six Warhols is said to be fake. Now "New York is bracing itself for a Warhol washout at next week's sales after a two-year price boom that has seen as much as £4 million change hands for a wallsized Warhol canvas." London Evening Standard 11/05/03

Record For Modigliani Steve Wynn put down some serious cash for for a Modigliani image of a nude. "It brought $26.8 million, above Christie's $25 million high estimate. After the sale, art experts were quick to point out that Mr. Wynn had paid nearly $10 million more for the painting when he bought it privately in the mid-1990's." The New York Times 11/05/03

Sculptor's Payday Henry Moore's 15-foot bronze sculpture, Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped, sold at auction for $6.2 million this week, the highest price ever paid for a work by a British sculptor. "The previous best for a work by Moore, regarded as one of the UK's top sculptors, was $4.1m , in 1999. Collectors also paid record prices for works by French painter Fernand Leger Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. Tuesday's auction of impressionist and modern art [at Christie's in New York] sold pieces worth a total of $117m." BBC 11/05/03

Critic Vs Corcoran - Gopnik Causes Stir Some at Washington's Cordoran Gallery are buzzing about the scathing criticism Washington Post critic Blake Gopnik has heaped their way. "Gopnik has been most personal about the Corcoran. Gopnik tells Post Watch he wants the Corcoran board 'to know there are repercussions to having shows like that.' His review blamed Corcoran board chair Otto Reusch. Corcoran director David Levy calls Gopnik’s review 'unethical' and says the critic often displays 'immodest immaturity' in his reviews." Washingtonian 11/03

Architectural Battle In The Shadow Of St. Paul's London's Paternoster Square, in the shadow of St. Paul's, has opened after decades-long battles as to what whould be built there. "To those sickened by the damage inflicted on Britain's cities and towns by modernist planners and architects, Paternoster Square was a battle cry. If the setting of St Paul's was not sacred, then where in Britain was? To modernist architects and their supporters, it was no less emotive. If the classicists could capture such a major site in the heart of the City of London, who knew where the counter-revolution might end? It was, of course around the figure of the Prince of Wales, then at the height of his campaign to roll back the boundaries of modernism, that the battle raged and swirled. Like Verdun, the end result was stalemate." The Telegraph (UK) 11/05/03

London, She Is A'Changin' London's art world is changing, writes Jerry Saltz. "The best way to understand the change taking place in London is to think about what's not going on: scandal. Although Jake and Dinos Chapman's realistic sculpture of two bronze blow-up dolls engaged in mutual oral sex, unveiled last week in the Turner Prize exhibition, is sure to raise a ruckus, a new generation of British artists appears to be turning away from the shock tactics of yesteryear." Village Voice 11/04/03

French Police Find 250 Stolen Paintings In Van "More than 250 stolen paintings have been recovered from a parked van in Paris, French police have said. The haul includes one Picasso, two works by French painter Raoul Dufy and one by Dutch artist Kees van Dongen." BBC 11/04/03

Canadian Landscapes Coming Home "Thirteen exceptional 18th-century watercolours including views of Montreal and Quebec City as they looked in the 1780s are among a collection of rare paintings that have been bought in Britain by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City and Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa... Bonhams, the auction house that negotiated the private sale, says the collection is worth at least $194,000. There is speculation, however, the Canadian officials might have paid a bit more to have them withdrawn from public auction." Montreal Gazette 11/04/03

Family Squabbles The estate of Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle has announced plans to sell 43 of the abstractionist's works at auction this month, sparking controversy over the issue of who is calling the shots in the preservation of Riopelle's legacy. At the center of the debate are Riopelle's daughters, who are not executors of his estate; Riopelle's longtime companion, who is an executor; and the director of the Musee de Quebec, who is also an executor, and therefore in a potential conflict of interest regarding the sale. The announcement of the auction, which came only ten days before the auction itself, has many observers questioning whether the market value of Riopelle's work could be lowered by such a hasty selloff. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/04/03

• Previously: Riopelle Sale Worries Historians The estate of the late artist Jean-Paul Riopelle is "putting 40 of the abstract painter's works up for sale at an auction in Montreal in November, and some art historians are concerned about the impact of the sale on the international reputation of the Montreal painter." CBC 10/30/03

The Art World's Most Important Doorman On a list of the world's most influential art people, Gil Peretz ranks No. 50, according to Art Review Magazine. And who is Gil Peretz? "He's a 52-year-old Puerto Rican who lives in Queens with his wife, his 22-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son. And what does he do? Are we soon to be favoured with one of his installations in Tate Modern's turbine hall? Not even close. Has he got an unexpectedly large collection of hitherto unseen Breughels in his house in the Hamptons? Hardly. No, Perez is arguably the world's most important doorman. He stands at the door of the Christie's Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in New York greeting clients and helping to organise auctions." The Guardian (UK) 11/04/03

Chunnel Project Yields Major Archaeological Finds Important archaeological finds were made all along the route of the high speed trains for the Chunnel between England and France. "Hundreds of archaeologists, working over a period of 15 years, have salvaged vast stores of finds from the path of the 185mph trains, as well as recording scores of sites which will remain safe but buried beneath the tracks. One long string of pearls seems to be everyone's favourite description." The Guardian (UK) 11/03/03

Versailles To Get A Restoration; Will Take 20 Years The Palace of Versailles is to be given a €400 million restoration that will take 20 years. "The Sun King's 700-room palace and 800-hectare (2,000-acre) garden are to be given a long-overdue facelift aimed at restoring their lost sparkle - recapturing their architectural purity and rendering them safe for the 10 million people who visit each year. This is the first big restoration programme for Versailles since the early 1800s, and the biggest such undertaking in France since the remodelling of the Louvre in the late 1900s." The Guardian (UK) 11/03/03

Britten Sculpture Condemned as "Eyesore" A scuplture commemorating composer Benjamin Britten in his beloved town of Aldeburgh has provoked protests, with many townsfolk calling it an eyesore. "The eyesore is a glorious thing, four tonnes of steel cut and shaped into giant scallop shells, which will rear up from the beach. From the shore the cut-out letters against the sky will read as a line from Peter Grimes: 'I hear those voices that will not be drowned.' The artist is despondent over the reception his work is getting: "It never crossed my mind that it would be in any way controversial. I thought that people might come up and say thank you - more fool me. My own newsagent just said to me, 'Hello, how's the eyesore coming along?'" The Guardian (UK) 11/03/03

Turner - Once You Get Beyond The Damn Hype... What's with all the "controversy about the Chapmans' Turner entry this year? "Nobody I know who has actually seen the Chapman brothers' Death, as the sculpture is called, thought it anything other than oafish. To my mind, it is by far the duffest work they have ever produced. The sense is of a stand-up comic who has lost his sense of timing and is reduced to begging for a laugh." Meanwhile, the rest of the show is pretty good... The Observer (UK) 11/02/03

Loving To Hate You - 20 Years Of The Turner Prize The Turner Prize is the art prize people love to hate. "In its early days the award was criticised for its emphasis on established names, but in 1991 it was relaunched with a hip new sponsor, twice the prize money and an upper age limit. It was thus perfectly positioned to pick up on the whole Britart phenomenon." Now it fuels controversy after manufactured controversy. Here's the Guardian's look back at 20 years of the Turner... The Guardian (UK) 11/02/03

Chapman Attacks Tate Modern: It's Bad Jake Chapman, a Turner Prize finalist, and "half of the pair dubbed 'the Brothers Grim', has unleashed an excoriating attack on the Tate Modern and Saatchi galleries, accusing them of threatening the future of art by bowing to the lowest common denominator. He called the Tate a 'monument to absolute cultural saturation' and said he would rather take a ride at Alton Towers than look at some of its contents. Charles Saatchi's gallery was 'simply an expression of one man's ownership'." The Observer (UK) 11/02/03

The World's Most-Desired Art (A Top 10 List) What are the most-wanted pieces of art in private hands? ARTnews has made a list of the ten most-coveted artworks. "Yearning — the more discreet the better — makes the art world go ’round. Dealers and auction specialists at the top of their game know where the most wanted artworks are at any given moment and what price might wrest a coveted object from its owner. Museum curators keep track of the same information to court loans and gifts. Collectors, meanwhile, no matter how desired the works in their own collections, always have an eye on something else." ARTnews 11/03

Studying The Venice Water Gates Venice is under threat of a major flood - not if, but when. So it's time to get on with building gates to help control water. The controversial flood control plan has been in the works for decades. "The barriers are to be completed by 2012 at a cost of 2.5 billion euros. A prototype section of the barriers was successfully tested as long ago as the 1980s, but their execution has been delayed by objections from the Green Party, which believes, among other things, that they would cause the lagoon to become dangerously polluted if closed frequently." The Art Newspaper 10/26/03