Art On A Shirt "It’s fashion. It’s art. It’s advertising. It’s a political statement. It’s one of the most versatile pieces of clothing ever made. It’s a staple ingredient of 21st-century culture. Once upon a time, Julius Caesar said: "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). These days it’s: "Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt"." The Scotsman 12/30/03

The New Seoul (At Expense Of The Old) Seoul is being remade. "As newly built apartments soar to spectacular and costly heights, some of Seoul's most distinctive neighborhoods and buildings were quietly shown the door this year, to make room for future visions of the city." Korea Herald 12/30/03

Are Corporations Playing Censor? An artist whose image for a London light projection was rejected by sponsors, says corporations are increasingly getting a censorship role in art. "The patrons of contemporary art, the Medicis of today, are the corporations. They give the impression of supporting dissident views and freedom of expression, but if there is any danger that your sponsored work encourages even a modicum of critical debate, you're out the door. The sponsors are in it to ratchet up 'the buying mood'. Censorship of culture is something one does not speak of in the free market - it brings back images of Lady Chatterley and the Lord Chamberlain. But in the visual arts it is an increasing determinant of what people are allowed to see in public spaces." The Guardian (UK) 12/30/03

Protecting The Nude Barbie A US federal court has ruled that a Utah artist can make art depicting nude Barbies being menaced by kitchen appliances. "Noting the image of Barbie dolls is "ripe for social comment," a three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected toymaker Mattel Inc.'s appeal of a lower court ruling in favor of lampooning the popular doll." Yahoo! (Reuters) 12/29/03

The Case Against PowerPoint There seems to be a mounting backlash against PowerPoint as a means of conveying ideas. "Visual artists say Microsoft's popular "slideware" — which makes it easy to incorporate animated graphics and other entertainment into presentations — lulls people into accepting pablum over ideas. Foes say PowerPoint's ubiquity perverts everything from elementary school reports to NASA's scientific theses into sales pitches with bullet points and stock art. One of the internet's original developers, Vint Cerf, gets laughs from audiences by quipping, "power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely"." Australian IT 12/29/03

MoMA's New Curatorial Team As New York's Museum of Modern Art prepares for its new home, a new curatorial team is chosen. "Almost immediately after being chosen as the Modern's chief curator of painting and sculpture in March, John Elderfield, 60, decided he wanted a certain kind of team to help him shape the institution's future. Those chosen should be young(ish), he specified, yet steeped in both classical and contemporary modern art; risk-taking but also willing to collaborate; similar in outlook but different enough to challenge one another. Bold visionaries residing in solitary genius need not apply." The New York Times 12/26/03

Not Many Great Art Thieves, But They're Out There Much of the great art in UK homes is vulnerable to theft, says an expert in recovering stolen art. "Stealing this kind of art is probably the dumbest thing a thief can do. There's no resale market for it and trying to get any kind of ransom paid is not easy. But the great houses are available to these people and they are prepared to target them. They are not taking this art for some Mr Big, they are just taking it to have it - half the time they give it away to their friends - and the police are not very good at getting these paintings back." The Guardian (UK) 12/27/03

Building Plans Altering Landscape Made Famous By Cezanne Plans to cut down trees and build 78 houses near a town west of Paris made famous by paintings by Paul Cezanne has amgered many. "While it is an exaggeration to claim, as some locals do, that the low, curving hill on the road to Claude Monet's Giverny is the Ile de France's answer to Aix's Mont Sainte-Victoire, views of the village are as recognisable today from the opposite bank of the Seine as they were when Cézanne visited his childhood friend Emile Zola 120 years ago." The Guardian (UK) 12/27/03

London Buildings Projected Live London's buildings and monuments are lit up this season with projected images, transforming the architecture into fantasy objects. The Guardian (UK) 12/28/03

Where's The Art In Art History? Roger Kimball doesn't think much of the teaching of art history these days. "Today, the study of art history is more and more about subordinating art—to “theory,” to politics, to just about anything that allows one to dispense with the burden of experiencing art natively, on its own terms. This is accomplished primarily by enlisting art as an illustration of some extraneous, non-artistic, non-aesthetic narrative. Increasingly, art history is pressed into battle —a battle against racism, say, or the plight of women or on behalf of social justice. Whatever. The result is that art becomes an adjunct to an agenda: an alibi for … you can fill in the blank by consulting this week’s list of trendy causes. In a word, what we are witnessing is the triumph of political correctness in art history." The New Criterion 12/03

LA's Billion-Dollar Redeveopment Plan Now that Disney Hall is open in Los Angeles, city leaders have their sights set on redeveloping more of the area. That could be a $1.2 billion collection of new buildings. "Planners envision a spectacular mixed-use project that would combine housing, shopping, dining and entertainment opportunities on both sides of Grand Avenue south of 1st Street." The project has drawn top architects from around the world, say planners... Los Angeles Times 12/24/03

A NC Town And A Difficult Statue The North Carolina town of Rocky Mount wanted to erect a statue to Martin Luther King as a tribute to the fact that Dr. King gave one of the first versions of his "I have a dream" speech. But the sculpture has been problematic - townspeople objected to the likeness of the statue, the sculptor has been protested, and... The Guardian (UK) 12/24/03

Should Barnes Temporarily "Sell" Some Art To Survive? Is survival of the Barnes Collection depandant on moving to downtown Philadelphia? Another "solution" has been proposed by art dealer James Maroney. "The plan, which Maroney considers a form of legal "tenancy in common," appears relatively simple: A selected number of Barnes’ paintings, not currently on display, would be sold to interested art collectors for the duration of the buyers’ lifetimes, but returned to the Barnes Foundation upon their deaths. Maroney said that the novel plan would raise money while imposing less "damage to Dr. Barnes’ vision than certain other proposals … ." Philadelphia City Paper 12/24/03

WTC - Are Architects The Only Ones Who Understand? Why did we end up with such bad designs for the WTC memorial, wonders Jerry Saltz. "How could something so important and sensitive, something so in need of an inspired touch and more time, go so wrong, so quickly? To answer this we need to look back to a month after September 11, when the air was still acrid with the smell of the smoldering wreckage, and the managerial mindset that brought us to this point surfaced. At a packed assembly of architects in Cooper Union's Great Hall, professionals from all over the globe met and listened to dozens of their own speak about the tragedy in ways I hadn't heard before or, thankfully, since. I love contemporary architecture, but I was appalled by the breathtaking opinion, expressed by many in attendance, that architects were the only ones who understood the site 'in the deepest sense'." Village Voice 12/19/03

Scotland's Year In Art "Monet was the National Galleries’ big hit. You might have thought we knew Monet well enough, but no fewer than 170,000 people visited the Monet exhibition to get a fresh insight into his work. It was the biggest attendance ever for an exhibition in Edinburgh and it must be a comment on something that we have not been doing in between that the previous record of 120,000 visitors was held by the Epstein exhibition in Waverley Market more than 40 years ago." The Scotsman 12/23/03

Light Up London (But No Controversial Images, Please) A holiday project to project images on buildings in London has hit a snag. "The project began with the projection of sunflowers onto the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner on December 2 and has grown slowly, culminating with the illumination of Buckingham Palace tonight. All 10 buildings in the scheme will then be lit up each evening until New Year's Eve. But pictures commissioned by pop star Damon Albarn - one of many celebrities taking part at the request of co-organiser Bob Geldof - proved too contentious to be projected onto London venues such as the National Theatre." The Guardian (UK) 12/24/03

The Power Struggle Behind The Freedom Tower The uneasy agreement between Daniel Libeskind and David Childs that resulted in the new Freedom Tower design unveiled last Friday was "the result of a whirlwind of intense, sometimes fiery meetings over the course of the last week. During most of that time, staffers from studio Daniel Libeskind were banned from the 40 Wall Street offices of [Skidmore, Owings and Merrill,] where the two camps had been working. As a result, both sides were barely speaking to one another." In fact, Skidmore staffers accused Libeskind employees of "a Watergate-style break-in," with Libeskind's camp accusing of David Childs of intentionally diverging from the agreed-upon framework for the design. All in all, it's something of a wonder that a design was ever agreed upon. New York Observer 12/22/03

Missing Turner Mask May Have Been Stolen London's Royal Academy of Arts has acknowledged that the death mask of JMW Turner, one of the Academy's most prized possessions, may have been stolen more than 15 years ago, with no one at the museum noticing the mask's disappearance until another institution asked to borrow it in 2002. However, it is also possible that the mask is still somewhere in the Academy's vast collection, and staffers are hoping to turn it up during an ongoing cataloguing project. BBC 12/23/03

RA: Loved The Lloyd-Webber Show Critics hated the Royal Academy's show of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's art. One wrote: "Really useless. Why can't the man keep his private collection of saccharine Victorian art private?" But more than 226,000 people - an average of 2,693 a day - paid to see his treasures. The doorstep-sized catalogue (£15 paperback, £35 hardback) had to be reprinted three times." The show turns out to be one of the RA's most popular exhibitions of the past decade. The Guardian (UK) 12/23/03

Cooper-Hewitt - In Need Of A Makeover The struggling Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York has plans to give itself a makeover. "Some in the design field say a rethinking is long overdue, but they remain skeptical about the museum's ability to pull it off, given its recent history. 'Under director Paul Thompson the museum has the same blurry identity it has always had. There's still no strong thread holding it together'." The New York Times 12/22/03

Currin Dumps Dealer For Gagosian Artist John Currin suddenly switched his gallery affiliation last week from his longtime New York dealer, Andrea Rosen, to Larry Gagosian. "Artists change galleries all the time, but Mr. Currin's timing drew a great deal of attention. The show at the Whitney is the culmination of his 14-year association with Ms. Rosen, who gave him his first commerical gallery show, in 1992, and worked assiduously to foster and manage his success. Speculation about Mr. Currin's move fueled conversation at art-world Christmas parties over the weekend, with expressions ranging from disgust to admiration for an astute business move." The New York Times 12/23/03

Rijksmuseum Closes For Renovation - Foreign Visitors Mourn The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is closing for renovations for five years. This will have a big impact abroad. "British visitors are crucial to the museum's finances, which are more perilous since privatisation of the Dutch museum sector eight years ago. Britons and Americans each contribute 25% of its roughly million visitors a year, followed by the Japanese and French - with Dutch visitors trailing a long way down the list." The Observer (UK) 12/21/03

Melbourne's Building Boom - Slums In Waiting? Melbourne has been on a building boom, luring thousands of new residents downtown with a wave of new apartment construction. This is slowing growth of the suburbs. But there's a downside. "We are building what will become ghettos of poor quality, cheap, badly built, high-maintenance houses in the sky. These towers will form an urban and social blight within 10 years that will scar the tissue of the city. They are badly built and unsuited for renovation. They will most likely be demolished when their investment use-by date is up." The Age (Melbourne) 12/22/03

Factory 798 - Turning China Upside Down Beijing's Factory 798 is home to an amazing collective of contemporary artists who are remaking modern art in China. "This giant Bauhaus-style collection of workshops somehow manages to confirm the old cultural stereotypes about this nominally communist country, while simultaneously turning them upside down. The setting is a plot of living history." The Guardian (UK) 12/21/03

Havana Biennale Soldiers On Many supporters of this year's Havana Biennale withdrew their support after Fidel Castro jail journalists and allowed some artists to be censored. "But with the Castro government struggling to maintain its place on the world stage, and its population suffering under US sanctions dating back to 1961, the hosting of an art biennial is an important opportunity for Cuba and its artists to engage in six weeks of cultural discourse and exchange, as well as for a much needed injection of foreign spending on the island. And with Cuban artists dominating the display, the exhibition functions as an advertisement for native talent. 'All third world biennials are a strategy to promote the local art. Cuba is no exception'." The Art Newspaper 12/19/03

WTC Tower - It Has To Be Better Than This! The Libeskind/Childs tower for the World Trade Center site is old-school thinking tied to hidebound out-of-date ideas, writes James Russell. "American Class A buildings are no longer regarded as high-standard buildings in London, Germany, Scandinavia, Holland, Japan—not even in supposedly backward China. What’s today’s high-standard tower? One of the most ambitious is Swiss Re, coming to completion in London by Foster & Partners. (You can find it by searching under "projects" in the architect's site.) It features gardens for idea sharing and for blurring the boundaries between floors, an advanced approach to daylight and ventilation, and a floor configuration that offers almost everyone access to windows or views." Sticks & Stones (AJBlogs) 12/20/03

World Bank Loans St. Petersburg $160 Million The World Bank is loaning St. Petersburg, Russia $160 million to help improve its cultrual sites and infrastructure. "The loans are part of the St Petersburg Economic Development Project, a joint initiative between the Russian government and the World Bank which will see some $240 million spent to improve the city’s business climate, notorious for its corruption and red tape, and to restore important cultural sites which are not attracting as many tourists as they could." The Art Newspaper 12/19/03

Dia Closing Manhattan Gallery For Two Years The Dia Foundation is closing its much-loved Chelsea warehouse gallery for two years of rennovations. "The converted warehouse at 548 West 22nd Street was one of the first art venues in the Chelsea district when it opened in 1987, and with some 60,000 visitors annually, it needs new passenger and freight elevators, climate control, roof repairs, and more lavatories. Trustees have pledged $10 million towards a $50-million campaign that seeks $30 million for the Chelsea space and $20 million for Dia's acclaimed new museum in Beacon, New York as well as for other long-term projects, including land art by Michael Heizer and James Turrell." The Art Newspaper 12/19/03

Final WTC Plans Unveiled "After months of bitter disagreement, the master planner and lead architect for the World Trade Center site yesterday unveiled the design of an iconic new tower that will rise 1,776 feet above Ground Zero to become the world's tallest building... The structure would be torqued in shape, giving it an asymmetrical look. And though its grand spire would pierce the sky, the building would house 2.6 million square feet of office space only up to the 60th floor... At the 66th floor, a public observation deck will be built. And at the 67th, the famed Windows on the World restaurant will return when the building is completed in early 2009." Washington Post 12/20/03

• Seeting Aside Ego For The Sake of Art With all the public feuding between architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs, the public had good reason to fear that the eventual design of New York's newest skyscraper would turn out to be a monument to ego and greed. Instead, says Herbert Muschamp, maturity seems to have prevailed, and New Yorkers ought to be thankful that it did. "The architects have come close to transcending what's left of their battered selves. With some shrewd editing, the design could become one of the noblest skyscrapers ever realized in New York." The New York Times 12/20/03

• Kamin: What Happened To Libeskind? The problem with the new Libeskind/Childs design, says Blair Kamin, is that it's pretty good. In fact, it's probably just good enough that no one will seriously object to its being built, thus depriving New Yorkers of a truly great addition to their skyline. "As the banality of the twin towers made clear when they were completed in the early 1970s, there is a critical difference between technical achievement and aesthetic quality." Chief among Kamin's complaints about the new design is that master architect Daniel Libeskind's grand vision seems to have been relegated to the sidelines, and David Childs' glittery clichès have taken over. Chicago Tribune 12/21/03

• Now, About That "World's Tallest" Thing... New Yorkers are fond of leading the world in one thing or another. So it's no surprise that the new Freedom Tower is being pumped as 'the world's tallest building.' But is it, really? "It will certainly be the world's tallest cable-framed, open-air, windmill-filled, spire-studded superstructure, rising atop 70 stories of offices, restaurants, a broadcast center and an observation deck," says David Dunlap, but uninhabitable spires such as the one that will stretch some 625 feet above the tower's occupied space may not count towards the 'world's tallest' designation. The final decision on such things is left to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which we swear we are not making up. The New York Times 12/20/03

What The Barnes Can Teach Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario is expanding, and simultaneously undergoing a bit of an inner identity crisis, with the recent controversial closing of its Canadian wing, and the announcement that it will begin to integrate such decorative arts as pistols and fountain pens into its collection. "Through the history of museums... idiosyncratic tastes have driven great institutions forward -- and hobbled smaller ones in perpetuity." For a sense of what paths the AGO may wish to explore, and which ones it may need to avoid, Kate Taylor suggests a fresh look at the various melodramas surrounding Philadelphia's embattled Barnes Collection. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/20/03

Change of Ownership, But No Change of Plans Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art is in the final planning stages for its new home on the South Boston Waterfront, but everyone involved had to pause this week, when it was announced that the family which owns the land on which the new ICA will sit intended to sell the plot, after deciding not to develop it. ICA officials are saying that the sale should not affect their plans, since any new owner would be required to abide by the terms of ICA's lease with the current ownership. Still, a new developer could choose to build whatever it wished on the non-ICA portion of the land, and observers are wincing at the possibility of a grand new museum surrounded by parking lots. Boston Globe 12/20/03

Saturating The Market? A long-planned project to build a museum focusing on African-American heritage in the nation's capitol has been getting plenty of press lately. But some observers in Baltimore are concerned that the D.C.-based museum could steal the thunder of Baltimore's own fledgling African-American history museum. (Baltimore is less than 60 miles from the District of Columbia.) Still, Baltimore museum officials say they aren't worried, and that the two museums can coexist. Baltimore Sun 12/19/03

Finally, An Art Award For Kids "Art collector Charles Saatchi has launched a £10,000 award which he says is aimed at encouraging more children to become interested in modern art. Schoolchildren will be invited to compete for The Saatchi Gallery Award by sending an essay or project about their visit to the London gallery. The winner will get £7,500 for their school's art department plus a computer worth £2,500 to keep for themselves." BBC 12/18/03

Ex-French Foreign Minister Tried For Art Fraud "France's former foreign minister, Roland Dumas, and the country's leading auctioneer, Jacques Tajan, are to be tried after accusations of an alleged fraud involving artworks left by the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti." The Guardian (UK) 12/19/03

O'Keeffe Painting Stolen From Santa Fe Museum An early Georgia O'Keeffe painting has been stolen out of the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. "The missing painting is worth a significant amount of money - half a million (dollars) plus. And it's not marketable because it's so well documented. It's kind of a crazy theft. Let's hope they just want ransom, or something stupid." San Francisco Chronicle (AP) 12/18/03

One Million To See Weather At Tate Modern Olafur Eliasson's foggy sunset installation at Tate Modern has recorded its one millionth visitor in just two months. "Eliasson's work, based on the British obsession with the weather, involves 300 mirrors on the ceiling and more than 200 lamps behind a semi-circular screen." BBC 12/18/03

Harvard's Expansion: Where Are The Architects? "The people who read the Harvard tea leaves -- let's call them Harvardologists -- duly noted the absence of an architect from the World's Greatest Graduate School of Design on the newly formed task forces president Larry Summers has appointed to map out Harvard's march across the river into Allston... The word on the street is that Summers has had more than his fill of GSD architecture mavens, who greeted the newly arrived president with Rem Koolhaas's bizarre 'Moses Scheme' for rechanneling the Charles River near Harvard. More recently the GSD championed the Ugliest Building Ever Built, the near-universally reviled 1 Western Avenue, a 235-unit housing facility for students, faculty, and staff in Allston." Boston Globe 12/18/03

The WTC Tower Compromise Later this week, the compromise design of the tower at the World Trade Center by Daniel Libeskind and David Childs is to be released. "As details of that compromise were uncovered, in interviews conducted over the last week, it appeared that except for a few elements, the tower will closely resemble a design forged initially by architects at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, house architects for Ground Zero leaseholder Larry Silverstein, in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. That was long before Ground Zero master planner Daniel Libeskind was involved in the redevelopment process." New York Observer 12/17/03

Man (Alias "The Monkey") Arrested In Van Gogh Threat A Dutch thief known as "the Monkey" has been arrested inconnection with the theft of two Van Gogh paintings from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum in 2002. "Investigators were baffled by the theft at the time because guards patrolled the premises at night and there was tight security inside, including infra-red systems and cameras. The thieves got in through the roof and police found a rope and a 4.5-metre (15-foot) ladder leaning against the rear of the building." BBC 12/17/03

Indianapolis -Museum City Indianapolis is in the midst of a museum building boom worth $300 million, with seven major museum projects underway. Indianapolis Star 12/14/03

WTC Tower Design Compromise A compromise on the design for the design of the new tower at the World Trade center site has been reached, reports the New York Daily News. "Top aides to Gov. Pataki helped push Daniel Libeskind, whose master plan for Ground Zero was picked earlier this year, and architect David Childs, who works for developer Larry Silverstein, into an agreement." New York Daily News 12/16/03

Restoring Baghdad's Culture "Baghdad may once have rivaled Rome as a symbol of urban splendor, but most of its historic landmarks are gone. Many of the uniform beige subdivisions and drab commercial buildings constructed in the last 50 years are crumbling — an apt symbol of the failures of modernization. The city's ornate palaces are painful reminders of the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein, who is now in American captivity. Coping with this architectural and cultural loss is clearly beyond the scope of responsibility of the U.S. occupying authority." Los Angeles Times 12/16/03

Beck's - Seeing The Future "A sculptor, a singer, and a painter were shortlisted yesterday for the Beck's Future Prize. For those who cherish the annual awards as the Where the Wild Things Are corner of the art world, it is some reassurance that Tonico Lemos Auad sculpts cuddly squirrels and lions out of carpet fluff and also draws on bananas; Susan Philipsz records songs and broadcasts them over public address systems; while Hayley Tompkins makes scribbled marks on scraps of school graph paper." The Guardian (UK) 12/16/03

World's Most Endangered This year's list of 100 most endangered cultural monuments is out. "The 2004 list has some surprises. Antarctica appears for the first time. The polar caps may be melting, but surely protection can be found for Ernest Shackleton's expedition hut. The hut is infested with microbes. I can testify that the ruins of Ephesus, the ancient pilgrimage city with the Temple of Artemis, now in Turkey, are infested with tourists. I felt like a total pest when I visited that site six years ago. The place was crawling with us. The list also features sites that straddle national boundaries." The New York Times 12/16/03

MoMA's $40 Million Buying Spree The Museum of Modern Art has bought $40 million worth of art as it builds its new $858 million home. "Most prominent among the acquisitions is "Diver," a drawing by Jasper Johns that is widely considered to be one of the most important works on paper of the 20th century. The museum said it had also bought several other seminal works by modern masters like Picasso and Francis Bacon." The New York Times 12/16/03

Barnes Hearing Concludes - Pew makes Pitch For Move The Pew Charitable Trust s is unlikely to continue supporting the Barnes Collection if it is unable to move to downtown Philadelphia. Pew preseident Rebecca Rimel testified at a hearing to determine whether the Barnes should be allowed to break its founder's trust to move. Philadelphia Inquirer 12/12/03

In Search Of Old Baghdad "Few cities in the world occupy as strong a hold over the collective imagination as Baghdad. Set at the crossroads between East and West, the city was one of the first great power centers of the Islamic world. Its name still conjures up a mix of images, from the rich intellectual heritage depicted in its ancient texts to the exotic fantasies scattered through the pages of the "Arabian Nights." Its emergence as a world capital marked the beginning of centuries of cultural dominance by the Middle East at a time when Europe was floundering through the Dark Ages. Today that legacy has understandably been pushed to the background." Los Angeles Times 12/14/03

• When Baghdad Aspired To Modern Greatness There was a brief time in the mid-20th Century when Baghdad aspired to being rebuilt as an international city. "More construction took place in Baghdad during the second half of the 20th century than at any time since the Golden Age of the Abbasid dynasty came to a close nearly 750 years ago. Most of this new work was Modern in spirit and represented a radical break with Baghdad's past. Among the international architects with major projects here were Frank Lloyd Wright, then nearing the end of his career; Walter Gropius, a founder of the Bauhaus; and the Italian Modernist Gio Ponti. They were soon followed by a rising generation of Iraqi talents who sought to infuse Western architectural forms with a more local sensibility. Together, such architects transformed Baghdad into a modern city — one whose defining urban features were rooted in the cultural traditions of the West." Los Angeles Times 12/14/03

• How Sadaam Rebuilt Baghdad Sadaam Hussein remade Baghdad. "Like other dictators of the past, Hussein saw himself as a great arbiter of taste, an architectural patron cast in the mold of a Cosimo di Medici. He was a familiar figure in architectural circles and on construction sites, where he would often sketch out his ideas on scraps of paper. The competitions Hussein sponsored attracted some of the world's most celebrated architects. His aim, he often claimed, was to reestablish Baghdad as one of the world's great architectural capitals." Los Angeles Times 12/15/03

London's Shortage of Old Masters "The yawning gap between the best and the rest in the art market has rarely been wider than at last week’s Old Masters sales in London, where there was precious little of the former on offer." The Telegraph (UK) 12/15/03

2003: Buildings Of Bombast Which were the great buildings of 2003? "Structural bombast and aesthetic razzmatazz were the order of the year. Blobby, amoeba-like buildings competed with wacky tours de force... The Guardian (UK) 12/15/03

When Art Gets Too Big For Ideas The art commissioned for Tate Modern's giant turbine hall has been getting bigger and bigger. But is bigger really better? "Art that overwhelms, 'total immersion' art, invites suspicion. Some think it intellectually, ethically, and politically dubious. Big art is routinely called "fascistic" - after all, Hitler's architect Albert Speer dealt in mega-structures and the Nuremberg rally was a triumph of number and mass." The Guardian (UK) 12/15/03

Why The WTC Memorial Will Be A Failure In the next few weeks a decision will be made on which memorial at the World Trade Center site will be built. "The decision will be hailed by the powers that be as a victory for the people, for the open process by which it was conducted, for democracy. It will also almost certainly be a failure. The eight designs under consideration are widely considered uninspiring, banal, needlessly complicated, unimaginative and insufficient to evoke the horror of Sept. 11. But if you believe the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is overseeing the redevelopment of ground zero, they are the best that democracy can provide, and that ought to be good enough for anyone." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/15/03

Big Art = Big Box Office Modern sculpture has become big box office. Not just any sculpture though. The great big oversized sculpture found recently in the enormous turbine room at Tate Modern. "None of these works are necessarily great art. They have nothing much to do with Moore or Donatello. They are made not of bronze or marble but of ignoble materials such as plastic and neon. But they fit triumphantly into the 21st-century urban scene." The Telegraph (UK) 12/13/03

I Don't Get It - Why Is This Guy's Art Suddenly Hot? Painter John Currin is hot at the moment. But Blake Gopnik wonders why. "Within the art world, where Currin's career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he's doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don't get out enough. It's as though the elites of contemporary art are so engrossed in their own world that they're not aware of what's already going on in the American mainstream - at shopping malls, on boardwalks and in Sunday painting classes." Washington Post 12/14/03

Art By Celestial Navigation Portable GPS locators are being used for art. One "technique involves holding a G.P.S. device, which records their path as a kind of line drawing, and then posting the results on the Web (www.gpsdrawing.com)." The artists travels in a shape as his progress is tracked by the GPS unit. "As G.P.S. receivers have become smaller and cheaper, a growing number of digital artists are exploiting the technology. Like much digital art, the ideas are often spiffier than the visuals." New York Times Magazine 12/14/03

Italy On Sale A bill likely to pass in the Italian parliament would allow the state to sell off state assests - including buildings and possibly artworks. "Although the Colosseum and the Uffizi, for example, are both State property, no one believes that these will be carrying For Sale signs. Most people agree that the State owns vast numbers of former barracks, redundant post offices and stations, holiday homes for civil servants, and other unimportant buildings that can usefully pass into private hands. There might, however, be unrecognised treasures among these." The Art Newspaper 12/12/03

A Museum With No Art Three years ago, the Calder Foundation announced that Philadelphia would be the site of a $70 million museum dedicated to showcasing the work of sculptor Alexander Calder. "But what looked in early 2001 like a done deal has turned out to be just the beginning of an intricate courtship. Unlike other foundations devoted to the work of a single artist, such as the Warhol Foundation, the Calder Foundation does not have unilateral control over the artist's estate. Six family members, including Rower, his mother and his aunt, control the artworks that would anchor the museum." So far, the museum hasn't managed to reach any agreements with the family to display Calder's work. Philadelphia Inquirer 12/14/03

The Rise Of Miami Beach "At first glance, Art Basel Miami Beach may seem an incongruous group of words. But this bizarre-sounding conjunction of ice-cool Swiss business and hot-blooded Latino glamour is fast becoming the biggest event in the art-world calendar. Now in its second year, the ABMB sees a massive influx of collectors, dealers and global operators converging on the luxury, art-filled hotels of South Beach... While the Florida climate is clearly an attraction, what has made Miami the art world's most magnetic new destination is its impressive infrastructure." The Telegraph (UK) 12/13/03

Is It Or Isn't It? "Van Gogh" Auction Delayed "The auction of a controversial painting attributed to Vincent Van Gogh has been delayed to re-examine its authenticity. The work was spotted at a Paris flea market in 1991 and bought for 1,500 euros ($1,800). It was expected to fetch more than 1 million euros ($1.2m) at auction on Saturday, but was withheld to allow further scrutiny by experts." BBC 12/12/03

Mies House Goes To The Preservationists The legendary "Farnsworth House" designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, has been purchased at auction by a group of preservationists backed by the National Trust, which intends to open it to the public. "The sale lays to rest months of fear that the 1951 steel-and-glass house in Plano, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, would be sold to a developer and moved from its site." The winning bid was for $7.5 million, and followed a quick but intense bidding war between the preservationists and an anonymous telephone bidder. The New York Times 12/13/03

Desperate Times Call For Desperate PR Missteps When the Art Gallery of Ontario announced, at the end of November, that it would be temporarily shuttering its Canadian wing, it took some time for the significance to reverberate with the public. But now that it has sunk in that the public will no longer have access to one of Canada's most important collections, negative reaction is building. Sarah Milroy writes that the AGO has some legitimate business motives behind its decision, but that it is making all the wrong moves for all the right reasons. What could AGO have done differently? "The contrast to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum is instructive," says Milroy. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/13/03

Rijksmuseum Under The Knife Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum packed away its most famous Rembrandt this week as the museum begins four years of renovation. "The museum was built for 250,000 visitors a year, has been getting more than a million, and is being remodelled to accommodate twice that number." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/03

Italy Seeking Indictment Of Getty Curator "In Rome, prosecutors are seeking the indictment of Marion True, curator for antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and three art dealers on charges of illegally exporting cultural goods, receiving state-protected cultural property and criminal association. Italy, a pioneer in police work to crack down on illicit antiquities trafficking, forbids selling or exporting ancient artifacts found in the country. Getty officials defended True’s work." MSNBC (AP) 12/07/03

Barnes Has Lost Hundreds Of Items The Barnes Collection has lost "hundreds of items" including artwork by Matisse, Renoir and a Steinway piano. "It was unclear how the pieces disappeared, whether they were stolen, or when they might have been taken from the foundation." Philadelphia Inquirer 12/11/03

Bamiyan Buddhas Stabilized "Italian engineers have completed work to prevent the collapse of the cliff niches which house the remaining fragments of Afghanistan's ancient Bamiyan Buddhas which were destroyed by the Taliban." The Independent (South Africa) (AFP) 12/11/03

What Becomes A Plinth There are four plinths in Trafalgar Square, but one of the pedestals has been empty since 1837. Now there's a plan to rotate art onto the plinths, and the artists have been selected and their projects chosen. So what's going up? Their work includes "a car covered with bird droppings, a statue of a handicapped, pregnant woman, a sculpture of anti-war demonstrators and a pigeon hotel." BBC 12/11/03

• Fun With Plinths Proposals for Trafalgar's empty plinth are startlingly different from one another. "By 7.54am yesterday somebody had posted a plea on the Fourth Plinth website seeking the public's reaction: 'Put something fun there'." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/03

Outsider Art Comes Inside "During the 1990s, the field of outsider art—a term for work by self-taught, often visionary artists, made in idiosyncratic styles or folk-art traditions—gained increasing respectability and value. In 2001, at the same time as a new headquarters for the American Folk Art Museum opened in midtown Manhattan, a wave of contemporary artists, many with M.F.A.s and major gallery representation, began to exhibit works that unapologetically resembled the style and intensity of the best of their self-taught predecessors." ARTnews 12/03

Two Rembrandts Stolen Two Rembrandt etchings were stolen from a home in Melbourne last week. "Police said the etchings were taken along with their certificates of authenticity during a break-in at the family home. One of the etchings depicts a self portrait of the artist and the other a portrait of Rembrandt's mother." The Age (Melbourne) 12/11/03

US, France Compete For Afghan Gold Competing groups from France and the US are proposing to tour Afghanistan's greatest treasure - the Bactrian gold. "The finds from Tillya Tepe, in northern Afghanistan, date from a 2,000-year-old tomb which was discovered in 1978, but they have never been on display for security reasons. The gold alone numbers 20,000 items. Afghanistan still has nowhere with sufficient security to exhibit the material, since the bombed and looted Kabul Museum on the outskirts of town is an extremely damaged building. A touring exhibition would raise money, at least part of which would go to rebuild the museum or establish a new purpose-built museum in the city centre." The Art Newspaper 12/05/03

Australia's $39 Million To The Visual Arts Australia's various levels of government have united to pump an additional $39 million in funding to the visual arts. The money is the direct result of a Federal Government-initiated inquiry. In a joint announcement the governments said they would allocate the funds to support infrastructure, including giving more money to 40 arts and crafts organisations, expand the market through more art fairs and touring, give more grants to individual artists and provide more support for indigenous art." The Age (Melbourne) 12/10/03

Pew's Barnes Connection... John Anderson wonders if the Pew Charitable Trust's recent change in legal foundation status is a positive thing for the Barnes Collection. "If indeed under its new identity the Pew can control the Barnes's purse strings, it will put a whole new complexion on the proposed plan should it be approved by the court. It makes it look less like the 'rescue' it has been portrayed as and more like the "takeover" critics (such as myself) have called it. For in controlling the money, the Pew would have de facto control over the Barnes Foundation itself, with a powerful role in determining the future character and direction of the Barnes." OpinionJournal.com 12/09/03

Screaming At Volcanos For more than a century art historians have wondered what event inspired Edvard Munch's most famous painting "The Scream." Now some astonomers in Texas have come up with a theory based on a major natural event... The New York Times 12/09/03

Power(Point) To The People! Former Talking Heads musician David Byrne has turned to PowerPoint as his latest artistic medium. "His art presentations make babble of business-speak, and question whether the form of what we communicate can affect its truth: Rebellious flow charts stream backward, screens overflow with clip art gone wild, deliverables and leave-behinds assume surreal new roles, and renegade bullet points assault the viewer in a rapid-fire barrage." Wired 12/09/03

Barnes Collection Makes Its Case In Court A hearing to determine the fate of the Barnes Collection began Monday. The Barnes wants to break its founder's trust and move to downtown Philadelphia. Museum officials testified the Foundation will go bankrupt if it is not allowed to move. Philadelphia Inquirer 12/09/03

I Wanna Be Taller (The Tallest) "The tall building is the symbol of all that we hope for—height, reach, power, and a revolving restaurant with a long wine list—and all that we cower beneath. It is a symbol of oomph and of waste, the lighthouse of commerce and the outhouse of capitalism, the tallest candle on the biggest cake, and the cash-economy prison made up of countless anonymous cells. When the Empire State Building was being built, as Neal Bascomb reveals in his new book, the motive for its height was insistently said to be commercial—it was more economical, and the spire would be a place for wandering zeppelins to find a mooring—even though everyone knew that the real motive was just to be . . . taller. The New Yorker 12/08/03

Is Tate Modern Building A Failure? Architect Will Alsop says that Tate Modern has been hugely overhyped, and that it should never have been located in a former power station. "I don't think [Tate Modern] is a great building. It casts a very large shadow over the river edge. They should have pulled the existing building down. When I go around I feel I'm being guided in the same way I might be guided round a shopping centre." The Guardian (UK) 12/08/03

Perry Makes Difficult Turner Choice Choosing Grayson Perry to win this year's Turner Prize was evidently no slam dunk as far as the judges were concerned. "The judges' verdict was anything but a foregone conclusion: it took hours longer than usual to reach a decision, and they went out of their way to praise 'the outstanding presentations produced by all four artists'. But, in the end, Perry's use of the traditions of ceramics and drawing, and his "uncompromising engagement with personal and social concerns" put him out front." The Guardian (UK) 12/08/03

• Does Perry Deserve The Turner? Why did Grayson Perry win this year's Turner Prize, asks Adrian Searle. "Grayson Perry is, at least in terms of his self-constructed public image and his candid interviews, an interesting, complicated character. But he makes middling, minor art. What counts most, perhaps, is Perry's invented alter ego, Claire, who is exactly the kind of creation the media loves. Yet I have always wondered what the pots, the drawing, Perry and Claire have to do with one another - apart from all being Perry's invention, all aspects of Perry." The Guardian (UK) 12/08/03

• Just Who Is Grayson Perry? "Born in Chelmsford, Essex, in 1960, his parents split up when he was five and his stepfather, the milkman, was a bully..." BBC 12/08/03

Kimmelman: Start Over With WTC Memorial Michael Kimmelman believes that all the candidates for the WTC memorial ought to be thrown out. "This is in part a memorial to extreme bravery in the face of overwhelming force. Here's a chance to be brave. We know you still haven't presented your winning choice, which will no doubt be modified from the plans we now see. But don't bother. Nothing short of extreme, last-ditch action has a chance of succeeding, because the process has been crucially flawed from the start. Instead of beginning with a firm idea about the meaning of the memorial, we started with a timetable. Instead of guaranteeing that the best artists and architects participated in the process, we pandered to the crowd." The New York Times 12/07/03

Saddled By The Vietnam Memorial Cliche The Vietnam Memorial was a revolution in thinking about memorials. "Twenty-one years later, the wall of names has become a visual cliche and memorial designers are straining to reach the profound synthesis of form and meaning that the Vietnam memorial so eloquently achieved. The finalists in the World Trade Center memorial competition have many of the superficial attributes of the Vietnam Memorial -- the stark materials, the abstract vocabulary, the striving for elemental simplicity. Yet at this point, they are simply Maya Lin wannabes, not the real thing." Chicago Tribune 12/07/03

Perry Wins Turner Prize Pottery artist Grayson Perry has won this year's Turner Prize. "Perry accepted the award in a dress, as his female alter-ego Claire, thanked his wife and said he was 'stunned'. A popular choice among the public, he beat off competition from the favourites, the Chapman brothers." BBC 12/07/03

Australian National Gallery Courtyard Attacked A courtyard at Australia's National Museum in Canberra has come under attack. "The public is overwhelmingly hostile towards the courtyard. They don't like it and something has to be done," says the chairman of a council set up to review the work. "Conservatives, led by former Howard speechwriter and council member Christopher Pearson have decried the museum's futuristic design and complex architectural symbols since it opened in March 2001." The Age (Melbourne) 12/08/03

The Museum Shopping Experience More and more museums are opening stores - often in malls and shopping centers far away from their homes. "Totaling more than 1,800 nationwide, such stores generally offer a range of products tied to their museums' missions. You typically don't need to pay admission to shop, and purchases help provide vital financial support, up to as much as a third of some museums' operating budgets." Miami Herald 12/07/03

Museums And The Issue Of Who Owns Culture Western museums have traditionally resisted requests to return cultural heritage to their countries of origin. "Yet museums and claimants may be inching toward some common ground. American museum directors said recently that they are revising guidelines for addressing repatriation claims. And some combatants are working toward creative solutions. Even the Elgin sculptures could make a visit home for the Olympics. Greece and the British Museum reportedly are discussing a possible loan. And while they defend the idea of a 'universal museum' with the common heritage of humankind on display under one roof, museum directors are looking for new missions." US News 12/07/03

Greek Parliament Considering Parthenon Museum Approval The Greek parliament is considering a bill that would legalize construction of a new museum at the Parthenon. Backers of the museum are trying to build the 50-million-euro museum to try to pressure the British Museum into returning the fifth-century-BC Elgin, or Parthenon, Marbles before the 2004 Olympics. "But critics who argue that important ancient ruins found on the museum plot will be destroyed during construction have successfully challenged parts of the project before the Council of State." Kathimerini (Greece) 12/06/03

Ivan and Dinos and Jake Bat About Conceptual Art Ivan Massow and the Chapman brothers debate conceptual art. But the exchange gets off to a rocky start, with the Chapmans firing back a dismissive shot: "We must apologise for agreeing to collaborate in a discussion on the merits and downfalls of modern art, since we now find ourselves forced to decline further participation. The first point of contact with Mr Massow has baffled us with so many negatives that any productive exchange seems doomed..." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/03

This Rubens Is Mediocre? Hmphhh! It's easy to disparage great art, comparing it to other works. That's not a reason not to collect it though, writes James Fenton. "Don't imagine, when you read that some declared expert has spoken out rather forcefully against this Rubens or that Raphael, that this is the first time in history that this daft game of disparagement has been played. Whenever a strong claim is made on behalf of a work of art, there are plenty of dim individuals (inside and outside the art world) who are simply provoked into opposition - offended that something should be admired when they have had no say in the matter." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/03

Toronto's Fly-In Art - Where Are The Canadians? The expansion of Toronto's airport has generated some major new public art by some of the biggest names in contemporary sculpture. But. "Costing approximately $30-million, less than 1 per cent of the total budget, it will no doubt still be perceived as wild extravagance in a country where the idea of tourism promotion through the arts is still a weakly flickering light bulb. But the controversy should not be about the money; it should be about the heavy emphasis on non-Canadian artists." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/06/03

WTC Memorial - The Impossible Dream Everyone want the memorial at the World Trade Center site to be special, writes Martin C. Pedersen. "Unfortunately, the more I studied the designs, the less promising I found them. None are fully realized. They all feel provisional, like ambitious first drafts. Still I am reluctant to condemn them, because the designers were handed a near-impossible brief." Metropolis 12/03

Art Basel, Miami Branch Art Basel converges on Miami Beach after a successful first outing last year. "The Art Basel people have utilized the Miami location to make it a fun event, creating something of the same atmosphere that they have in Basel. It becomes the event. Equally important is that museum directors, curators and patrons are coming. So it's not just a place for sales. It's a meeting place." The Sun-Sentinel (Florida) 12/05/03

Lasting Memories - What's It Take? "As we move into the final stages of the World Trade Center memorial competition, it's worth recalling this city's forgetfulness about tragedy. Perhaps if we make the monument sufficiently majestic - and devote enough resources to change the light bulbs, clean the pumps and scrub the glass - we can prolong the event's resonance, but we must also build for the future ebbing of emotions." Newsday 12/01/03

Regina Gallery Closing Reconsidered The mayor of Regina, Saskatchewan has reversed a decision to close a popular art gallery in the city's public library. The gallery was to be closed to save money, but protests from the arts community led the mayor to reconsider. The City Council must still be convinced to spare the gallery The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/05/03

• Previously: 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

Out Of Nature Can you make art about nature anymore? "I still find my hackles rising at the glibness with which nature, according to ancient wisdom our nourishing mother, has been dismissed from the scene. In particular, I wonder whether artists, for whom, since the time of the cave-painters, nature has been the chief fount of inspiration, have been too hastily complicit in this dismissal." The Spectator 12/06/03

View From The Top - Museum Directors Speak Out A roundtable of blue chip museum directors talks about the challenges faced by museums. “The more art museums look like multinational corporations and the more their directors sound like corporate CEOs, the more they risk being cast by the public in the same light.” ARTnews 12/03

American Natural History Museum Cutbacks Lead To Questions About Its Mission "After a decade in which it doubled both its staff and its operating budget, the American Museum of Natural History is now retrenching. Faced with a drop in visitors and financial support, including a $1.4 million cut in funding from the city, the museum has shed 300 full- and part-time employees since the fall of 2001, bringing its staff down 17 percent, to 1,400. A hiring freeze was put in place after Sept. 11, 2001." New York Observer 12/03/03

See-Through Toilet Is A Work Of Art A public art toilet made of one-way glass is being installed across from Tate Britain. "Sitting on this lavatory you can see everything outside; pedestrians and, across the road, Tate Britain. This has been achieved by surrounding the lavatory with glass that allows you to see out but no one else to see in. This £30,000, not-so private privy was created by Italian artist Monica Bonvicini." London Evening Standard 12/04/03

Denver Museum Narrows The Field "The Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver has chosen six internationally known architects as finalists to design a $3.6 million to $4 million building in Lower Downtown." The finalists range from southwestern specialists to New York glitterati, and include London's David Adjaye, Tucson's Rick Joy, New York's Gluckman Mayner Associates, and Mexican modernist group 'TEN Arquitectos.' Denver Post 12/03/03

Hirst Dove Similar To One By Street Artist? A picture of a dove by Damien Hirst looks awfully familiar to one by a street artist. Taalat Elshaabiny is "not resentful that Hirst can knock out what is very nearly the same image and sell it for so much. 'He's famous. And of course he has the right to paint the picture. If I were famous I would ask the same price. But I am poor and work on Bayswater Road'." London Evening Standard 12/02/03

Can Barnes Prove It Is Financially Unsustainable? This month the Barnes Foundation goes before a court to try to win approval to move to Philadelphia. As part of its case, the Barnes wants to prove that its financial situation is so precarious it is unsustainable in its current home. "Yet while it is clear that many factors that are beyond the current management's control have put the Barnes in dire straits, the Barnes management failed to control one important thing it has had power over: working within a budget." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/30/03

Ancient Chariot Under Road Highway builders have discovered an ancient chariot buried in their path in West Yorkshire. "Buried for 2,500 years, the find is a complete chariot containing the skeleton of a tribal leader, with the remains of at least 250 cattle, probably slaughtered for the funeral feast." The Guardian (UK) 12/03/03

Out Of Italy (There Was More Going On) Art historians used to believe that Italy was the only game in town during the Renaissance. But new understanding has come: "The picture that has emerged is of a Europe in which the courts of the Burgundian, French and German princes were at least the equal of those of northern Italy in their magnificence and political ambition, and of course the patronage and ostentation by which they were expressed. Europe was open, international travel common, and the traffic and exchange between north and south, as much cultural as commercial, flowed in a constant stream." Financial Times 12/02/03

New African Museum For SF A new $11 million Museum of the African Diaspora is scheduled to open in the summer of 2005. The museum aims to "explore and celebrate the history, culture and contributions of African-descended people around the world." San Francisco Chronicle 12/01/03

Reforming The Louvre (And What A Big Job It Is) By most accounts, management of the Louvre Museum is chaotic and antiquated. But that has recently begun to change, as some long-needed reforms take hold. "It's not that we are free to do any old thing. We have now reached the right balance between exercising autonomy and complying with national policies. Still, from a strictly management point of view, this is one of the most radical changes at the Louvre since it was founded as the Muséum Central des Arts by France's first revolutionary regime in 1793. It will now be run as a museum, not as a government department." The New York Times 12/02/03

Broken Vista - Residents Want Art Torn Down A piece of public art in West London has residents in a mood to pull it down before it's even been completed. Why? "What people were promised, what everyone who bought flats here wanted, was unobstructed river views, and your sculpture is blocking the view." The Guardian (UK) 12/02/03

UK Gov To Museums: Get More Kids, Poor People In The Doors (Or Else!) The British government says that if museums don't increase the numbers of children and economically poor visitors, they may lose funding. "A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) told us that if a museum fails to achieve its targets for no good reason, “we could withhold extra grant which might otherwise have been allocated to it in the next spending review.” He added that “we could also seek changes in the museum’s governance”—which means that trustees or the chairman might be replaced." The Art Newspaper 12//01/03

A New New History Of Art (That Prefers The Old) Paul Johnson's much-discussed "Art: A New History," is unexpected, writes Joe Phalen. "Johnson's book differs from the academic tradition best exemplified by Janson's and Gombrich's classic histories of art in two points. He goes out of his way to explore and praise many neglected artists of the 19th century: Realist painters well worthy of attention. Secondly, Johnson dismisses the dominant trend of 20th-century modernism as being too much in the nature of "fashion" art, which is to say a combination of novelty and skills with an unhealthy emphasis on the innovation." Artcyclopedia 12/03