France Puzzled By Louvre's Expansion Plans Why did the Louvre decide to expand in "one of France's most impoverished regions, due to be built on the site of a derelict coal pit. Lens is currently a cultural desert, famous only for its football team and its deserted coal mines. The city, around 40 miles inland from Calais, was badly hit by industrial crises in the 1990s and unemployment stands at 12.7%, or three percentage points above the national average." The Guardian (UK) 12/01/04

King Tut Returns For the first time since 1979, the treasures of Egyptian King Tutankhamen are visiting the United States. "The exhibit, which is now touring Europe, would open in June at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and go on to at least three other American cities. The exhibit will allow the American public the first glimpse in a generation of the ancient Egyptian treasures." The New York Times 12/01/04

Will Stedelijk Museum Keep Its Maleviches? Is Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum in danger of losing its important collection of 14 Malevich paintings? "The heirs of the Russian avant-garde artist, who have successfully claimed works from the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Busch-Reisinger Museum of Harvard University, are now in pursuit of a significant part of the largest collection of Malevich’s works in the West. They say that the Stedelijk bought the works from someone who didn’t own them and had no right to sell them." ARTnews 11/04

Diana Memorial Closed Again The Diana memorial fountain in London is being closed again for emergency repairs. "Metal bars will be fitted under the bridges which span the £3.6million fountain because of fears that children could become trapped under them. The fountain has been a source of embarrassment since opening in the summer. Four visitors, including a mother and daughter, required an ambulance after slipping on the wet granite during its first two weeks, and another twisted her ankle slipping on damp grass next to the fountain." London Evening Standard 11/30/04

Drawn To New MoMA Peter Schjeldahl has been checking out the new MoMA. "I was amused, at the evening opening that I attended, by a negative consensus that emerged in the crowd, evincing the hysteria of sophisticates who find themselves momentarily at a loss for anything to disdain—apart from the grab-bag miscellany of works in the contemporary galleries, which incurred easy, contradictory complaints. (Some yawned at the predictable names, from Serra to Matthew Barney; others deplored oddities." The New Yorker 11/29/04

A Record Aussie Auction Year Australian auction houses look likely to have a record sales year, surpassing $100 million in sales this year. "The evermore frequent sales and reports of record prices have attracted an increasing number of new collectors. With the property boom slowing and the sharemarket at an all-time high, cashed-up investors have turned to art as a tradeable commodity." The Age (Melbourne) 11/29/04

The Archaeological Site And The Superstore The construction and opening of a Wal-Mart-owned superstore in Mexico near an important archaeological site has upset experts. "The presence of the supermarket near the archaeological site, which lies just north of Mexico City, has outraged environmentalists and conservationists but is proving more popular with residents of the small town of San Juan Teotihuacan, many of whom queued up for early bargains when the store opened on 4 November." The Art Newspaper 11/29/04

What's Going On Inside The Getty? Last month's departure of Deborah Gribbon as director of the Getty Museum has led to swirling rumors about the inner workings of the Getty. Some of the most popular theories about dissention in the Getty don't add up, writes Jason Kaufman. The Art Newspaper 11/29/04

Gardner Museum Plans Major Expansion Boston's Gardner Musweum is announcing a major expansion. "If successful, the project would triple the Gardner's special exhibitions space, move the cafe and administrative offices out of the ornate "Palace," and create a new main entrance. It would mark a dramatic leap for the museum, which has long wrestled with ways to modernize its operation without violating the strict, legal limits Isabella Stewart Gardner created to maintain the museum's distinctive atmosphere." Boston Globe 11/29/04

The Chelsea Backlash? There are now twice as many galleries in New York's Chelsea as there were in Soho at its peak. "As a result of this explosion, the inevitable anti-Chelsea backlash has been on the rise, too. The rap against Chelsea is that it is too big, too commercial, too slick, too conservative and too homogenous, a monolith of art commerce tricked out in look-alike white boxes and shot through with kitsch. This litany is recited by visitors from Los Angeles and Europe, by dealers with galleries in other parts of Manhattan or in Brooklyn and often by Chelsea dealers themselves." The New York Times 11/28/04

Owning Digital Art, Collecting A Problem There's a basic problem with collecting and selling digital art. "As Napster and KaZaA have taught us, once creative works have been digitized, controlling their distribution becomes problematic. In video art, for instance, there is a trading site with everything from Matthew Barney to Nam June Paik available for bartering. Once files start floating around in cyberspace, the certificate of authenticity becomes paramount. And what if that certificate gets lost?" Slate 11/23/04

Stolen Mexican Art In San Diego Museum? "Four years ago, thieves broke into a Mexican church in the tiny community of San Juan Tepemazalco and stole an 18th-century painting of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. U.S. authorities are now investigating a claim by Mexican officials that the Spanish colonial work by an unknown artist has ended up at the San Diego Museum." San Diego Union-Tribune 11/26/04

Authenticating Art, Pixel By Pixel A computer program that purports to be able to authenticate and identify artwork is making waves in the highly subjective and specialized world of art analysis. Most art experts are openly skeptical of the program and its creator, but many also admit that a judicious use of technology could be quite helpful in supplementing the work of trained (human) authenticators. Washington Post 11/27/04

Saatchi vs. Tate, Yet Again "The longstanding rivalry between Charles Saatchi, the British advertising magnate and art collector, and Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate here, is heating up again. Mr. Saatchi says Sir Nicholas turned down his offer to give the Tate his entire collection, while Sir Nicholas says no such offer was made." There has long been bad blood between these two heavyweights of the British art world: Saatchi believes the Tate is stuffy and uninterested in seriously promoting new Brit-art, while the leadership of Tate Modern views Saatchi as a cowboy more interested in generating controversy and winning turf wars than securing the future of art. The New York Times 11/27/04

Corcoran Cancels Cuban Event "Amid questions about the propriety of the event, the Corcoran Gallery of Art yesterday abruptly postponed a cultural program it planned to sponsor next week in cooperation with Cuban diplomats." The gallery is claiming that timing issues were responsible for the cancellation, but pressure from the U.S. State Department may have played a role as well. Washington Post 11/24/04

An Alternative Universe View Of The New MoMA "We just had an election that turned, in part, on cultural values—and we Blue Staters lost! Now we have a new modern art museum with a $20 admission fee to divide us further. The paper called MoMA 'indispensable to our shared cultural legacy,' but there’s nothing 'shared' about the culture on view inside. If the dominant institution in the Red States is the church, then welcome to MoMA, where the Blue States pray! And what a cathedral to Blue State values it is! Looking around the new MoMA, all I saw was sex, death, longing, misery, anguish—and that’s just the café menu." Newsweek 11/22/04

Italy Returning Obelisk To Ethiopia Italy is finally sending a stolen obelisk back to Ethiopia. "The monument is one of a group of six obelisks erected at Axum when Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century A.D. It was stolen by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937 and turned into a symbol of fascist power during his short-lived efforts to revive the grandeur of imperial Rome. Despite signing various agreements that promised to return the 1,700-year-old monument, the Italian government showed no signs of doing so until the obelisk was badly damaged by lightning in a thunderstorm in 2003." Discovery 11/22/04

Indian Museum Off To Good Start In its first month of operation the new National Museum of the American Indian attracted 275,400 visitors. "If that pace continues, the museum is likely to attract about 4.2 million people in its first year. That is in line with the low end of its curators' original estimates. At the time of its opening in September, they projected that the museum would attract 4 million to 6 million people and instituted a system of timed passes to spread out the crowds." Washington Post 11/23/04

Scots Royal Museum To Get Makeover Edinburgh's Royal Museum is a sprawling place, made so by numerous renovations over its 150 years. It's difficult to navigate, and not up to 21st Century museum standards for storing and displaying art. So now there's a major plan to make over the complex... The Scotsman 11/23/04

Indianapolis Museum Director Resigns Anthony Hirschel has resigned as director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, just shy of the opening of the museum's $74 million renovation. Hirschel, who said he was leaving for personal reasons, had led the museum since 2001. Indianapolis Star 11/20/04

Christo Gates To Begin Central Park Installation Installation of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 7,500 gates in New York's Central Park will begin next week. "The Gates," as they are called, will be festooned with saffron-colored fabric panels and will line 23 miles of pedestrian paths from Feb. 12 to 27. They are being made in Queens and are nearly finished. The artists say they have been working on the project for 20 years." The New York Times 11/23/04

MoMA: A Building That Disappears (That's Good) AJ blogger John Perrault is impressed with the new Museum of Modern Art. "I was surprised that the complex is as successful as it is. It's all a 3-D grid, fittingly so, given the midtown street grid. If the truth be known, neither façade is much to look at. But once inside, except for the atrium, the building disappears. This is an artist's and an art-lovers dream." Artopia (AJBlogs) 11/22/04

Carmel Says Stop! No More Galleries! "With 120 art galleries in a town of 4,058 people, or one gallery for every 34 residents, the city council of Carmel-by-the-Sea voted last month to limit the number of new galleries moving into town. Carmel's leaders decided that the city, which earns no sales-tax revenue when out-of-state tourists snap up a watercolor, has reached aesthetic overkill." Time 11/22/04

Colorizing The Classics (Like They Were Meant) "It has long been known that classical statues were painted. Indeed, their creators sometimes chose different kinds of stone for different parts of their statues according to the way they reacted to paint and wax, using types that could be highly polished for the fleshy parts and coarser varieties that would absorb paint for the drapery. Some art history books have included coloured photographs to give an idea of how the statues of the Greeks and Romans would have looked to contemporaries. But I Colori del Bianco (The Colours of White) is the first show to confront us with three-dimensional copies created with the help of meticulous scientific investigation." The Guardian (UK) 11/22/04

How Britain Embraced The Modernists "The past year or two has seen a total and astonishing reversal in the reputation of modernist architects. These days, who but the most blinkered retired actor would refer to Denys Lasdun's National Theatre as Treblinka? The once mocked and scorned Colin St John Wilson has become a national treasure, knighted by the Queen, whose scion once reviled Wilson's British Library building as resembling an academy for secret police. How come this change of heart?" The Guardian (UK) 11/20/04

Afghan Treasures Surface Much of the Afghan art missing after the American invasion has been surfacing. "The bulk of the newly inventoried items were found in April 2003 when a presidential palace vault in Kabul was cracked open to reveal a trove of famed, intact Bactrian gold pieces. But many more artifacts, including giant Buddhist sculptures and ancient ivory statues, have been found in recent months in unmarked boxes and safes stashed for safekeeping during the Soviet-led coup and then during the years of hard-line Taliban rule." MSNBC (Reuters) 11/21/04

MoMA - Art In A Frame "After a period in which strongly sculpted museum buildings have dominated, often upstaging their contents, Taniguchi's MoMA represents a return to the time-honored way of housing art in lofty rectangular rooms. Because it looks so coolly cerebral, it is hard to imagine people making pilgrimages just to see the architecture, as they do with Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim in Spain. Taniguchi's exquisite white-walled spaces are so understated that they verge on invisible, which is exactly what MoMA wanted. The art remains the main draw. The architecture merely provides the frame." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/21/04

Cost may Kill Berlin's Museum Island Restoration An ambitious plan to renovate Berlin's remarkable Museum Island is in danger. "A federal accounting office spokesman said the €130m (£93m) plan was too expensive. 'We have nothing against the architecture. It's simply a question of finance'." The Guardian (UK) 11/21/04

Stonehenge Under Attack (For 150 Years) Debate is roaring over a plan to redo the Stonehenge site to accomodate tourists. But photographs over the past 150 years show that successive generations have meddled with the site trying to make it more "user friendly." The Observer (UK) 11/21/04

MoMA Opens To Long Lines And Cheers The new Museum of Modern Art reopened Saturday with a line of thousands that stretched around the block. "Many arrived hours before the 10 a.m. opening to be among the first to see the museum's collection of world-class modern and contemporary art. At 10 a.m. sharp, the doors swung open to cheers." Miami Herald (AP) 11/21/04

• MoMA - A New Way Of Looking At Art "The new Modern is not just beautiful, though Yoshio Taniguchi's building is that and then some. It offers a new way of looking at art, a new way of living with it and a bracing enthusiasm that has not been felt for years." The Guardian (UK) 11/21/04

• Was New MoMA Worth It? "With the reopening yesterday, one naturally asks, was it worth it? Has the museum effected a corresponding improvement in its ability to coherently display and interpret its superb collections of painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, architecture, and design? On balance, no. In some ways, the reborn MoMA is exciting, almost a different museum. However, much of that feeling has to do with the architecture. In other ways, it's much less revolutionary than promised, and it sometimes seems confused about what it's trying to achieve." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/21/04

• The Once And Future MoMA "The new MoMA is so different a place from any time in the museum's 75-year history that its original commitment has been pushed to a middle ground, from which it will continue to recede while the institution pursues related interests. This is not conjecture. The new building and how it is used send a message that had been sounded with increasing frequency since the last expansion." Chicago Tribune 11/21/04

• MoMA's New Frame "The new Museum of Modern Art, which reopened to the public Saturday after a $425 million renovation and expansion, is that bracing shower: a work of architecture that is serene, urbane and blissfully understated." Chicago Tribune 11/21/04

UK Sets Museum Standards The British government is launching a set of standards for museums. "The initiative will govern how museums look after their collections and the information their visitors should expect to receive. The scheme is expected to become a "kite-mark" of quality for the smallest to largest institutions." BBC 11/18/04

Let's Save Taliesin (We Need It) What's America's best building? Robert Campbell suggests that Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin ought to be considered. But it's in bad repair. "Wright is arguably the greatest American artist in any field of the visual arts, and Taliesin is perhaps his masterpiece. If we don't save it, we have no claim to call ourselves a culture. The cost of restoration has been estimated at $60 million. The Big Dig is costing 250 times that." Boston Globe 11/21/04

Cincinnati Gets A Renoir The Cincinnati Museum of Art has acquired its first Renoir -Brouillard a Guernsey" ("Fog at Guernsey") - the most expensive art the museum has ever bought. "The painting fills a gap in the museum's Impressionist collection. 'We have a lovely collection of Impressionists -- Pissarro, Monet, Sisley -- but Renoir was conspicuous in his absence'." Cincinnati Enquirer 11/19/04

The American Indian Story In Its Own Way If you're looking for a traditional art museum experience, the new National Museum of the American Indian is probably not the place for you. But "visitors not conditioned by art-museum preconceptions begin to feel the stirrings of Indian spirit as soon as they enter the museum's majestic 120-foot-high rotunda." Wall Street Journal 11/18/04

Attention Thieves: Art Is Where The Money Is If you're a thief, maybe banks aren't the place you want to hit these days. Art is where the money is. "The worldwide market in stolen art and collectibles is worth an estimated $4 billion, according to Scotland Yard." CNNMoney 11/20/04

Art? What Art? Let's Dance! "At a growing number of museums around the country, party nights aimed at younger patrons are bringing in everything from D.J.'s spinning house music to double-Dutch jump-ropers (at the Seattle Art Museum's Thursday After Hours series, which sometimes lasts until midnight)... Museums have plenty of reason to look for younger crowds. According to a survey sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and conducted by the Census Bureau, the median age of Americans who visited art museums rose by five years, from 40 to 45, between 1992 and 2002, reflecting a sharp drop in museum visits by people 18 to 34." The New York Times 11/19/04

MoMA Should Have Gotten More For Its Money New York's Museum of Modern Art has always viewed 20th-century modernism as the core of its collection, and the museum's new home pays appropriate tribute to that tradition. But while the collection is virtually beyond reproach, Michael Kimmelman sees many flaws in the new MoMA's finished product, beginning with the somewhat boxy and cold feel of the architecture, and exemplified by the "appalling and cynical" $20 admission price. An additional disappointment is that "the Modern is clearly still not sure what to make of the art of the last 30 or 40 years - what its role and mission, as well as its taste and judgment, are in an art world that has changed and expanded." The New York Times 11/19/04

• This 'Modern' World MoMA may have a new look, but patrons will have no trouble finding their familiar old favorite works, and that brings up an interesting conundrum for an institution purporting to be about all that is new. "Art museums have come to be petting zoos. They are places where strange, wild, difficult, potentially dangerous objects are brought, stripped of their histories and confined to 'neutral' settings for safe observation. This way, objects start to change, to lose their volatility, their bite and sting and, at the Modern, their modern-ness. And what does modern-ness mean, applied to art? A zillion things." The New York Times 11/19/04

Philly Art School To Sell Off Its Collection "The Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, a tuition-free art school and an active part of Philadelphia's cultural community, will auction nearly all its remaining artwork [this weekend]," raising as much as $100,000 for the school's endowment. But the school is stressing that the sale, which will include 50 Russian religious icons and a treasure trove of works by local artists, was not precipitated by budget problems, but by a desire to find a home for the works where they can be seen by the public. The school has no exhibition space of its own, and in fact, the existence of its collection came as a surprise to many in the art world. Philadelphia Inquirer 11/18/04

MoMA - Architecture That Disappears Richard Dorment is thrilled by the new Museum of Modern Art. "Everything about the building radiates expensive reticence, conservative good taste. Externally, its sheer façade of subdued black granite, aluminum panels, and white and grey glass gives little hint of the wonders inside. But, when you step over the threshold, something extraordinary happens. Taniguchi's serenely minimalist architecture draws you gently but inexorably forward with the promise of what I am tempted to call enlightenment." The Telegraph (UK) 11/18/04

A Hockney For £35. Or Not The Royal College of Art is holding a secret art sale. "Most of the 2,000-odd works in the show are by RCA students, present or past. Some, however, are by extremely well-known artists - including David Hockney, Bill Viola, Perry and Damien Hirst. All are on sale for £35 - but the catch is that as a buyer you won't be told whom your work is by until you have handed over the cash. You could be walking away with the most fantastic bargain. Or not." The Guardian (UK) 11/17/04

Norman Foster's Fabulous Bridge Norman Foster has designed "one of the world's most breathtaking" bridges. "A sublime marriage of British and French architecture and engineering, the Grand Viaduc du Millau outdoes even the stirring 10-year-old Pont du Normandie that spans the mouth of the Seine between Honfleur and Le Havre. With a 2.5km span, the Millau bridge is far from the longest in the world, yet it is surely one of the most beautiful. In terms of artistry, it challenges the Garabit viaduct, which Gustave Eiffel built across the River Truyère in 1884." The Guardian (UK) 11/17/04

Art Basel Miami Commits To Miami Art Basel Miami Beach has re-upped its commitment and will stay in Miami indefinitely. ''We are certainly pleased that the show has garnered the international reputation that it has and that it was generally acclaimed as the most important contemporary art fair in North America after its first incarnation.'' Miami Herald 11/17/04

MoMA - New Envelope For Great Collection "The new Modern is an elegant envelope for an unsurpassed collection of 20th Century art shimmering against expanses of pristine white." But "anyone expecting a museum in the theatrical, exuberant vein of the Guggenheim extravaganza that Frank Gehry bestowed on Bilbao will be disappointed. MoMA is not thrilling, dazzling or emotive. It seduces with a murmur. There are no panels crammed with historical background, no interactive gizmos, no flashy displays, not even a peach-hued wall -- nothing to distract from the stark potency of the work." Newsday 11/18/04

Kramer: New MoMA Is Cold, Elephantine Hilton Kramer registers his disappointment with the new Museum of Modern Art: "The first and gravest of our disappointments is with the ill-conceived architecture. Yoshio Taniguchi’s redesign has at every turn in its cold and elephantine structure the look and feel of a Japanese parody of the kind of American modernism that has itself long outlived its expiration date. Thus the galleries are essentially an architectural assemblage of—what else?—bleak, oversized white boxes in which the scale of the interior space and the unrelieved whiteness of the walls conspire to discomfort the viewer while diminishing the aesthetic integrity of works of art marooned in an environment remarkably hostile to the pleasures of the eye." New York Observer 11/17/04

• MoMA In Middle Age The Museum of Modern Art reflects a change in the museum's character. "MoMA is no longer the edgy institution of its youth, a place of argument, sharp elbows, and missionary zeal. It remains a vital museum, but one whose energies now seem older and more contemplative. In its early days, the museum’s celebrated garden was a place of retreat—not just from the hurly-burly of the city but from the metaphysical racket within the museum. Now, in this new building, Taniguchi has imbued the entire museum with the spirit of the garden, creating a light-filled temple." New York Magazine 11/17/04

New MoMA - The Best New Place To See Art? In many ways, the new Museum of Modern Art is the "anti-Bilbao. Notched with neat precision into the urban fabric of midtown Manhattan, it is a secret garden of the mind, setting out with dazzling clarity one of the great art collections of the world. The results can be as stupendous as they are because of the benefactors, donors and museum professionals who focused on the acquisitions along the way." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/17/04

The New MoMA - White, White, Everywhere... Robert Campbell feels letdown by the new Museum of Modern Art. "It isn't bad, it's just uninteresting. It's the old MoMA all over again, only bigger. Here are the same-old same-old white walls and ceiling track lights, and then more white walls and more ceiling track lights. You feel like a lab rat in a snow maze. There's no attempt to create memorable architectural space for the artworks to inhabit. Instead, seeing them spotlighted on these placeless, anonymous white walls is like seeing isolated images on a screen in an academic slide lecture." Boston Globe 11/17/04

• MoMA - Ah, But The Art! "The new museum wasn't the only thing being built: The collections were, too. The MoMA has acquired hundreds of works since the exodus. The words "New Acquisition" appear on label after label. While museums that ignored the 20th century lament that it's too late now to catch up -- the art isn't available and its cost would be prohibitive -- the MoMA has received from its supporters a windfall that would make up an entire 20th-century department in any other institution. And these new additions match the quality of the existing holdings -- which is staggering. Very few things are less than the finest of their kind." Boston Globe 11/17/04

Is Barnes-To-Philly Saga Almost Done? "Within days - possibly by Thanksgiving - a Montgomery County Orphans' Court judge will rule on whether the Barnes Foundation can move its multibillion-dollar art collection from Lower Merion to a site along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The ruling will culminate more than two years of legal wrangling since the Barnes board of directors, saying the foundation was nearly broke, petitioned for the right to move its gallery to a more-accessible location downtown." Philadelphia Inquirer 11/16/04

Museum Tension - Collect Or Promote? Outgoing Getty Museum director Deborah Gribbon's statement that "museums best serve the public by collecting, exhibiting and interpreting works of art of the highest quality" has "pricked up ears in the art world. It was widely viewed as an indictment that the Getty is not serious enough about acquiring masterpieces, despite its fabulous wealth left by its namesake patron after his death in 1976. Gribbon's resignation cuts to an ongoing struggle for museums: How should precious money be spent in an expensive enterprise: on art or on programs promoting the arts?" Chicago Tribune 11/16/04

Handle With Extreme Care MoMA's move from Manhattan to Queens and back to Manhattan may have been a public relations triumph, but it was a logistical nightmare the likes of which would cause the most experienced moving company to break out in a collective flop sweat. The woman who has single-handedly overseen the moves is named Jennifer Russell, and her job over the past two years has demanded the combined skills of curator, stagehand, travel agent, and international diplomat. The New York Times 11/17/04

Raphael As A Product Of His Environment(s) A new exhibit of the work of Raphael, as well as the work of those who influenced him, is a new way of looking at an artist whose impact on the art world is immeasurable. "'Influence' scarcely covers the relation to Raphael’s work not only of Michelangelo and the other titan of the High Renaissance, Leonardo, but also of Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi; Perugino, who may have been his teacher; Pinturicchio; and Fra Bartolommeo. The show, which incorporates works by most of those elders, demonstrates that the prodigy from the Marches extracted the formal essence of each man’s art to feed a synthetic style that would become a beau ideal of Western painting for the next four centuries." The New Yorker 11/22/04

V&A's New Architecture Gallery Opens London's Victoria & Albert Museum unveils a spectacular new architecture gallery this week, and the curators have an astonishing collection on which to draw. "The display can be changed almost infinitely, encouraging repeat visits and allowing keen visitors to construct a picture of how buildings have been commissioned, designed, built, perceived and appreciated - or not - over hundreds of years... Although handsomely designed in a perfectly rational manner by the Glaswegian architect Gareth Hoskins, the collection of architectural riches is the museological equivalent of a box of expensive, gift-wrapped chocolates: temptation layered upon temptation." The Guardian (UK) 11/17/04

Welcome To Wales, Home Of The Bloated Armadillo "Rarely has a building attracted quite so many similes. Some locals think it looks like a slug, or a bloated armadillo. Glimpsed from sea it seems very like a whale emerging from the deep... For some it is already a white elephant - the latest example of a witless public-sector mentality. The comparisons multiply because nobody knows what exactly Wales's all too multi-purpose Millennium Centre really is. The latest, and the last, of the big millennial lottery-funded projects opens next week - the legatee of more than a decade of wrangling about what should be built in the middle of the reconstructed Cardiff Bay." The Guardian (UK) 11/16/04

Lucking Wins Schweppes Photo Prize The $28,000 Schweppes photographic portraiture prize has been awarded to German photographer Jens Lucking for his stark and engaging shot of three young Japanese women. The picture, which was posed, stood out for the way in which its subjects stared defiantly into the camera, and the jury also praised Lucking's use of classical arrangement techniques. The Guardian (UK) 11/16/04

MoMA Party: A Great Collection Of Artists "Those attending the first of the society soirées, on Tuesday, will be rubbing shoulders with probably the largest assortment of famous and almost-famous living artists ever to sip cocktails under one roof." The Independent (UK) 11/15/04

Atlantis Discovered? An American archaeologist says he's found the long lost city of Atlantis. "Robert Sarmast said sonar scanning of the seabed between east Cyprus and Syria revealed man-made walls, one as long as 3 kilometers (2 miles), and trenches at a depth of 1,500 meters (1,640 yards). 'It is a miracle we found these walls as their location, and lengths match exactly the description of the acropolis of Atlantis provided by Plato in his writings'." CNN.com 11/15/04

Smithsonian Museums Get $25 Million Boost Washington DC's historic Old Patent Office building gets a $25 million gift to help transform it into a new museum complex. "The Kogod money will enable the museum to proceed with a dramatic glass enclosure over the courtyard of the building, which will reopen in 2006 as the restored home of both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery." Washington Post 11/16/04

MoMA's Hard-To-Please Architect Likes What He Sees MoMA's sparkling new Manhattan home is getting mainly rave reviews from press and public. But what does Yoshio Taniguchi, the architect who designed the $855 million building, think about how his vision has taken shape? "I think I'm quite satisfied," he said. The New York Times 11/16/04

Putting Art On Layaway England's Arts Council is proposing a new program of interest-free loans to encourage aspiring art collectors to invest in works which they might otherwise consider beyond their price range. "The scheme, called Own Art, works through a network of 250 participating galleries, all of which have been vetted for quality, so punters cannot spend the loan on doing up the kitchen or going on a cruise. All that buyers have to do is possess a bank account which can handle direct debit, have proof of identity and address, and be over 18. The loan - between £100 and £2,000 - is paid back in 10 monthly instalments." The Guardian (UK) 11/16/04

British, V&A Museums Robbed Within A Single Month "Within less than a month thieves have stolen Chinese antiquities from two London museums. The Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum both suffered apparently professional thefts of small portable decorative objects from cabinets on public display. It is likely that both thefts took place during museum opening hours." The Art Newspaper 11/15/04

Architect To The Art Stars For two decades, Richard Gluckman, now 57, has been known as the artists' architect, designing luminous gallery spaces in Chelsea for clients like Larry Gagosian and Mary Boone and larger projects like the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and the Museo Picasso in Málaga, Spain. But now, in a case of career following title, he actually has become an architect for artists, designing the personal work spaces for some of the most prominent figures in contemporary art." The New York Times 11/14/04

Redefining MoMA Here is a new building for the Museum of Modern Art that respects history. "The building, which reopens on Saturday, may disappoint those who believe the museum's role should be as much about propelling the culture forward as about preserving our collective memory. Its focus, instead, is a conservative view of the past: the building's clean lines and delicately floating planes are shaped by the assumption that Modernity remains our central cultural experience." The New York Times 11/15/04

A Chinese Art Boom China's newly wealthy are buying up entire collections of art, sending prices soaring. "Awakening at last to their own cultural heritage, which was sold off to the West at knock-down prices at the turn of the century, the new rich are reversing that trend and are bringing the art works home. Former peasant farmers, who now wear diamond-studded gold watches, are investing in private museums to put their new-found works on display." The Independent (UK) 11/15/04

MoMA At 20 Paces... The new Museum of Modern Art building is a fun place to walk through, writes Adrian Searle. "Whether Moma is the museum best placed to collect not the art of our time but the art of the future is another matter. Current American art doesn't seem to matter to the degree it once did. And Moma shows us that, to a large extent, the art that has counted most in its history has been made elsewhere." The Guardian (UK) 11/15/04

"Fonetography" - Pictures Worth Keeping? A dozen of Britain's leading visual artists were given camera phones and asked to snap away for an exhibition of "fonetography." "The gallery said the brief for each of the artists involved was 'simply to capture the moment'. Organisers said they wanted to see what some of the leading visual artists could do with camera phones, which have had an impact on everyday photography." BBC 11/14/04

India To Bulldoze Lutyens' Legacy The architecture of Edwin Lutyens may be the only good thing that came of British colonialism in India, but "almost every Lutyens bungalow in private hands has gone, destroyed in the welter of demolitions that took place between 1980 and 2000. Now it has been announced that the same fate awaits the remaining 60% of the Lutyens buildings still owned by the government... The idea is to replace them with 'ultra-modern day fuel-efficient apartment blocks', which, if the mock-ups published in the Times of India are anything to go by, will resemble bland 1960s student housing projects of grey windowless concrete." The Guardian (UK) 11/12/04

Maybe A Moat And Some Crocodiles Might Help, Too Oslo's Munch Museum is seeking permission from the City Council to make all the blueprints of its buildings inaccessible to the public, as part of a new round of security upgrades in the wake of the much-publicized theft of two masterpieces from its collection. There are legal questions involved in classifying what are usually public documents, but the council believes that it can keep at least some of the blueprints secret. Aftenposten (Oslo) 11/14/04

Of Course, Retro Tends To Look Nicer Than Glass And Steel There is a major downtown building boom going on in Minneapolis, with riverfront lofts, high-rise condos, and mixed-use developments adding to an already thriving urban core. But architects are beginning to wonder what it will take to get Minneapolitans to embrace new design ideas - every time an architect proposes a modernist design for one of the new residences, neighborhood groups scream objections and demand a building that will "fit in" better. The result is a brand spanking new collection of faux-classic buildings that are giving a relatively young city a decidedly retro look. Minneapolis Star Tribune 11/14/04

Is "Dan Flavin" A Health Hazard? Staff at Washington DC's National Gallery have been complaining of physical ailments because of a new Dan Flavin exhibition. "Ever since the gallery’s Oct. 3 opening of “Dan Flavin: A Retrospective,” staffers watching over the sprawling display of 44 illuminated works by the fluorescent-tube-obsessed minimalist have complained of headaches, anxiety, and nervousness—all allegedly brought on by excessive wattage. A combined 48,600 watts, to be exact. One staffer is said to have passed out." City Paper (Washington, DC) 11/12/04

Acropolis Museum To Be Finished By 2006 Greece's new government says it plans to finish a new museum at the Acropolis by 2006, at a cost of 129 million Euros. "The previous, Socialist government had sworn to have the building ready before the Athens Olympics, at a cost of 94 million euros. But nothing happened." The Greek government hopes that one day the museum will house the Parthenon Marbles. Kathimerini (Greece) 11/12/04

Dealer Finds Stolen Art Online An art dealer in Taos, New Mexico found a $38,000 piece of art that had been stolen from his gallery a few months before listed for sale on the internet. Now it appears other stolen art is turning up here... Albuquerque Journal 11/12/04

A Digital Update On Performance Art "These projects take what conceptual artists did in the 1970s -- projects such as sitting in a room for a year, or making one painting that depicts the day's date every day for 40 years -- and let computers do much of the work. It is not clear if these projects are meant to honour or mock the original art works, but then the original projects were often done in a spirit of great playfulness themselves, so it hardly matters." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/12/04

MoMA's New Art The Museum of Modern Art's new building won't be the only new acquistion on display when it opens next week. "In the last three years, the museum has added well over $100 million worth of art and objects, officials there estimate. Some have been purchases, others gifts from trustees or museum lovers." The New York Times 11/12/04

The Economics Of Art Theft Stealing valuable works of art seems like a sucker's play. With the art world on the lookout for stolen art, selling what you stole is highly problematic. "Nevertheless, art theft can be an extremely lucrative endeavor. Interpol has estimated that it is the fourth most profitable crime in the world, behind drug trafficking, money laundering and illegal arms trading. Recovering stolen art is a tricky endeavor." ABCNews 11/11/04

Curating China Contemporary art is booming in China. But who is choosing art to be shown? Before 1980, curators were unheard of in China. "Not until in 1993 when a curator from the famous Venice Biennial came to China, did we know that holding an exhibition needs a curator. From then on, as more and more contemporary artists went overseas to give shows, this word and this function became better understood." China View 11/12/04

MoMA Vs. Tate Modern For the past few years Tate Modern has been the preeminent modern art museum. But the new Museum of Modern Art will reclaim the title soon. "As a theatre of contemporary art, Tate Modern is exceptional. But as a place where we can learn why Picasso matters, it fails - and wants to fail. A couple of weeks from now, Moma will once again be the place to learn about 20th-century art. Maybe Tate Modern can never tell the story of the modern world's art as well as Moma; but it could try." The Guardian (UK) 11/12/04

V and A: Architecture Matters Again The Victoria & Albert Museum used to care deeply about architecture. Then came 1909, and a rough century... "Now it is all change again. Architecture is back. For a start, the V & A is taking its own building, its primary architectural exhibit, seriously. An intelligent new master plan that works with rather than against the building and should culminate in the restoration of the astonishingly rich South Court, carved up and hidden in an outrageous act of vandalism in 1949." The Telegraph (UK) 11/11/04

Scream - Why No Insurance? Why wasn't Munch's "The Scream" insured before it was stolen? It was “not insured against theft because the city of Oslo has decided it is simply too expensive—the collection is of enormous value. We’re insured against fire and water damage but not against robbery.” ARTnews 11/04/04

Yale Student Sues "Freedom Tower" Architect A Yale architecture student is suing architect David Childs, claiming that Childs stole his design and used it for the Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center. "Thomas Shine says he created his "Olympic Tower" for a Yale architecture class and presented it in December 1999 to a panel of jurists that included Childs. Shine says Childs complimented the design in a Yale architecture magazine: "It is a very beautiful shape. You took the skin and developed it around the form - great." New York Daily News 11/10/04

The Met's Most Expensive Acquisition Ever The Metropolitan Museum has made its most expensive purchase ever - more than $45 million for a painting by the early Renaissance master Duccio di Buoninsegna no bigger than a sheet of typing paper. In reporting the acquisition, the Met would not discuss price beyond confirming that it was the most costly purchase in its history. (In such deals, buyers are often legally bound not to reveal the sale price.) But art experts familiar with the deal, insisting on anonymity for fear of jeopardizing the sale, said the price was $45 million to $50 million. That would top the Met's previous record purchase, of Jasper Johns's "White Flag'' (1955) for more than $20 million in 1998." The New York Times 11/10/04

Sotheby's Posts Loss "Sotheby's says its third quarter losses were less than a year ago because of some high-profile sales. The "hammer price" of goods sold at auction was $194m (£105m) in the summer when sales were brisk. Auction and related revenue surged 48% to $42.9m. For the quarter, it reported a consolidated net loss for continuing operations of $28.3m, compared with a loss of $29.5m a year ago." The Guardian (UK) 11/09/04

Italy Considers Privatizing Archaeological Treasures A plan proposed by Italian legislators would legalize private ownership of archaeological treasures. Archaeologists are horrified by the idea. "At present, all antiquities found in Italian soil are deemed to be the property of the state and are meant to be handed over to the authorities. But under the proposed legislation, treasure hunters who declare their finds can keep and own them if they pay the state 5% of the object's estimated value. Supporters have argued that it would bring to light previously hidden treasures." The Guardian (UK) 11/09/04

Tiny Bubbles (But Will The Art Market Pop?) Prices for contemporary art have soared in the past year. Collectors are paying huge prices for art that only a few years ago was inexpensive. "Bubble? Did someone say bubble? In talking to over a dozen contemporary art world leaders, I heard wildly differing opinions as to whether one exists. Not everyone sees imminent danger, particularly those sellers currently managing the enviable problems of swelling client waiting lists and packed auction houses. From where I sit, though, a bubble looks real. When will it pop? Who knows?" Forbes.com 11/09/04

Ancient African Rock Paintings Endangered International experts on ancient rock art in Africa say the paintings are in danger of being destroyed. "These early works of mankind have survived the continent's harsh weather, but not, increasingly, Africa's burgeoning population." BBC 11/09/04

Know Thyself - MoMA's New Home The new Museum of Modern Art building is essentially conservative. "This museum wouldn’t have wanted Bilbao if Frank Gehry had done it for nothing. The Modern has supported, collected, and celebrated architectural design more than any other museum in America, but it has never allowed its identity to be defined by any architecture of its own. It is one thing to display Frank Lloyd Wright models inside your galleries; it is quite another to have Rem Koolhaas design your building." The New Yorker 11/08/04

• John Updike Strolls Through MoMA "Is more truly more? moma, which I first visited in the late nineteen-forties, was a relatively intimate collection of human-scale works in non-palatial rooms. You could hustle through it in an hour or two, on a one-way route. With the expansion of 1964, which added the great Picasso-Matisse room, some choices for ambulation were offered; but it was still, on the second floor, a single experience. Now four floors, plus soundproof galleries for video and media, beckon from all sides. One of the charms of a museum for modern art was that there wasn’t too much of it, just as a lifetime of history wasn’t too much. After seventy-five years, a life is a stretch and the cathedral may have too many chapels." The New Yorker 11/08/04

A Record Auction Of Photographs An auction of contemporary photography cleared $9.2 million Monday night, including a record $600,000 for a photograph - Barbara Kruger's "I Shop Therefore I Am." "This was a historical sale for a market born in the 80's that came to age in the 90's." The New York Times 11/09/04

The Whitney's New Expansion Plan The Whitney Museum has proposed expanding in the past, but the timing (or building design) hasn't seemed right. "Now the Whitney is trying a gentler approach. A new design by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, approved last week by the museum's board, is conceived as a stoical nine-story tower that would rise alongside the existing 1966 landmark. The tower's simple form and silvery copper-and-aluminum-alloy skin would be a dignified counterpoint to Marcel Breuer's brutal dark granite masterpiece." The New York Times 11/09/04

Can Contemporary Chinese Art Avoid Selling Out? Contemporary Chinese art is hot right now. "For a country that has virtually no contemporary art history, where artists' training is dominated by an ultra-traditional grounding in Chinese painting techniques, where the first clues as to what was happening in the postmodern western art world trickled through as recently as the late 1980s, the scene has mushroomed and transmuted with staggering velocity, artists running through mini-movements (political pop art, the much discussed trend for body art in the mid-1990s, through to a strong focus today on installation, film and video) with alarming speed." The Guardian (UK) 11/09/04

Shanghai's Sinking After a decade of building skyscrapers, Shanghai is now the world's most densely populated city. But now the city is sinking. "The rock bed is about 300m from the surface and the underground water table is higher, about 1-1.5 m from the surface. There are now more than 4,000 buildings more than 100m tall in Shanghai. That results in extremely severe ground settlement." It's just one of the reasons why city planners are now desperately trying to halt the architectural annexation of Shanghai's skies. Dearth of greenery, horrible pollution, inadequate transport and an almost unbearable press of humanity on the streets are others." The Guardian (UK) 11/09/04

Report: 90 Percent Of Iranian, Pakistani Archaeological Sites Looted A British archaeologist says that 90 percent of major archaeological sites in Iran and Pakistan have been looted. “Although the illegal destruction occurs abroad, much of the looted material is channelled here to Britain and is sold in London. The best material is coming to London. His research found that Iran is being plundered of treasures dating from 3,000BC to AD500, and Pakistan is being robbed of antiquities created between 500BC and AD400." The Times (UK) 11/08/04

Impressions At Auction Last week's New York auctions of Impressionist and Modern art hit records and signaled a strong market. "What detracted from what was in most respects an astonishing sale was that Sotheby's marketing machine had hyped it so much and set such high estimates to get the business from vendors that the prices almost seemed disappointing." The Telegraph (UK) 11/08/04

Report: Taj Mahal Isn't Sinking An investigation has concluded that India's Taj Mahal is not sinking. "Indian authorities launched an investigation in October when historians reported that the Taj Mahal was leaning and in danger of sinking.But the four Taj minarets were observed to be inclined at various angles by the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI’s) first scientific survey in 1941, which examined the position and verticality of the minarets as well as the foundations' stability." New Scientist 11/08/04

Munch Museum: Bolting Art To The Walls Oslo's Munch Museum might be closed until next summer as the museum deals with recommendations for new security measures. "National and international art icons must be shielded using glass bolted onto the wall. The remaining pictures must be fastened onto the wall or made so heavy that they are difficult to run away with. The report also suggested metal detectors, a surveillance control room, a labyrinth to delay possible robbers and an automatic gate to lock them in." BBC 11/07/04

Should Smithsonian History Museum Be Representing Current Events? The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has put up a new display dealing with the current war in Iraq. Some historians disapprove. "Treatment of current events without benefit of historical distance and analysis is a risky enterprise... the choice to include the operations in Iraq under the "Price of Freedom" title "presents a partisan view of the current war and is counter to our neutral public mission." Washington Post 11/07/04

Bucking The Trend: MoMA's Fundraising Triumph As New York's Museum of Modern Art settles into its spectacular new Manhattan home, it's worth noting that the process MoMA underwent to reach this point was a triumph of modern non-profit fundraising. In the middle of a recession, in a period during which New York suffered a horrific terrorist attack, and at a time in which many non-profits all but threw in the towel as far as fundraising, MoMA managed to raise $858 million to design and construct its new building. The New York Times 11/07/04

Baltimore Museum To Unveil Big Expansion Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum gets a major upgrade this month with the unveiling of the "Jim Rouse Visionary Center, a sweeping, $9.3 million expansion of AVAM that will open to the public in a week and a half. Set in a 28,000-square-foot historic building that was originally a whiskey warehouse, the three-story center will double [AVAM's] footprint." Baltimore Sun 11/07/04

Tracing The Political Line There may be no more powerful editorial tool than the cartoonist's pen, and a sharp-eyed reader can trace the political fortunes of those in the public eye by observing the way in which they are depicted by those merciless caricaturists. A new exhibit in London examines just such a progression by displaying British cartoonists' visions of Prime Minister Tony Blair over the course of his career at the top of the Labour Party. "A decade ago, cartoonists emphasized Blair's broad smile, intense gaze and large ears. But over the years they have become crueler -- and funnier -- as Blair himself has changed." Chicago Tribune 11/06/04

At Auction: A Mixed Night Of Impressionists An overly ambitious auction of Impressionists at Sotheby's Thursday night brought mixed results. "While nobody at the auction house would admit it, the evening probably cost the company a lot of money. But while many works may have fallen short of the auction house's expectations, there were still several high, record-breaking prices." The New York Times 11/05/04

• Record Price For Gauguin Highlight of Thursday's Sotheby auction was the sale of a Gauguin for $39 million, a record for the artist. "Sotheby's also was offering Impressionist and modern works on Thursday, including the painting from Gauguin's second Tahitian period. The painting, the property of a private collector, was estimated to sell for $40-million to $50-million." The Globe & Mail (Canada) (AP) 11/04/04

Found: Italy's Largest Ancient City? An archaeologist believes he has found what would have once been Italy's largest city. It's the ancient Etruscan city of Clusium, which was at its peak in 500 BC, and for which generations of treasure hunters have been searching. The Economist 11/04/04

Taking Some Early Shots At SF's New Museum The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum currently under construction in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park is inspiring some hostile talk before the museum even opens its doors. The Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron-designed building has been described as "hideous," "totally out of place," and "antiseptic and soulless" by denizens of the city, but John King points out the obvious: the building isn't done yet, and given the intricate nature of the design, as well as the plan for it to be partially covered in greenery, the amateur critics are passing judgment far too early. San Francisco Chronicle 11/04/04

A Serious Look At Designer Art This year's Carnegie International art exhibition in Pittsburgh is focusing on "designer art," displaying work by 38 artists from across the world. It's an interesting attempt to show how pop culture trends can intersect with the world of serious art, but "the problem with designer art is that it can be difficult to distinguish from everyday commercial art... The brainier designer-directors tend to produce work that is more interesting to philosophize about than to experience." The New York Times 11/04/04

Painting George Washington A new exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Arts provides a survey of the portraits of America's first president and war hero, General George Washington. 15 of the most famous and interesting likenesses are the work of the American master Gilbert Stuart, and behind the series lies a fascinating tale of the evolution of an artistic relationship between painter and subject. Washington was not an easy personality to capture on canvas, but over the years, Stuart managed to break down the president's defenses, and earn the trust of the most powerful man in a new country. Chicago Tribune 11/04/04

Christie's Auction Nets $128 mil A 1904 Monet oil painting of the British Parliament has sold at auction for $20 million. "It was the first time the painting - titled Londres, le Parlement, Effet de Soleil dans le Brouillard - had been offered on the open market. The sale, which also included works by Miro and Van Gogh, fetched a total of $128.2m." BBC 11/04/04

Biotech In The Service Of Art Preservation "Biochemists at the United Nations University in Caracas, Venezuela, are using DNA sampling to identify materials from which artifacts are made and the pests that are feeding on them. They then use biotechnology techniques to create weapons that target the pests specifically, without damaging the artwork." Wired 11/03/04

How Did The Pompeians Get That Red? "An Italian researcher has discovered the formula of Pompeian red, the shiny and intense color that dominated Pompeii's wall paintings 2,000 years ago." It turns out the secret was in the processing. Discovery 11/1/04

Scotland: Museum-Going A "Cultural Right?" Scotland's museums say schoolchildren should get free transportation to museums as part of students' "cultural rights." "Schools have to work within their curriculum but there’s a real richness on their doorstep if it can be accessed properly. You’ve got collections all over the country but they can’t be seen. Kids are entitled to so many swims a year, and they have developed minimum standards of physical education in schools." The Scotsman 11/03/04

Did British Museum Buy Smuggled Scrolls? "A Norwegian television film is alleging that the British Library in London has acquired looted Buddhist scrolls. The birch bark scrolls in Kharosthi script, from the 1st century AD, are the oldest surviving Buddhist texts and the earliest known manuscripts in any Indic language. They have been dubbed ‘the Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism’." The Art Newspaper 11/02/04

China Invites In The Auction Houses For the first time, China is opening up to foreign auction houses, beginning in December. "The move opens up what is potentially the world’s largest market with its growing number of collectors to Western auction houses although the crucial question of what the firms will be allowed to sell has not yet been answered." The Art Newspaper 11/02/04

MoMA Entry Fee Sign Of Future? There have been howls about the Museum of Modern Art's decision to charge $20 to enter its new building. But "though MoMA's new price tag seems to have caused sticker shock, museum admission prices are clearly headed higher. To keep the public interested, museums must keep booking blockbuster shows housed in new, jaw-dropping buildings designed by architectural superstars. Neither comes cheaply." Crain's New York Business 11/02/04

China's New Accessibility The Metropolitan Museum's big fall Chinese show would not have been possible a few years ago. "Behind this prodigious exhibition is a story of curatorial obsession and adventure, as well as a glimpse at how China's internal bureaucracy has subtly opened up recently, at least vis-à-vis the art world. American specialists found their Chinese museum counterparts accessible in a way that would have been unheard of just a few years earlier." The New York Times 11/02/04

The Fall Sales (A Billion Dollars Of It) "More than half a billion dollars worth of paintings and sculptures, led by a Gauguin worth $40m (£22m), will go up for auction at Sotheby's and Christie's annual autumn sales tomorrow as owners seek to exploit the bullish art market." The Guardian (UK) 11/02/04

Duveen - America's Art Connection In the early years of the 20th Century, art dealer Lord Duveen helped America's wealthiest become important art collectors. Their collections form the basis of the country's great museums. But "the most important legacy of their collaboration has been its toxic effect on the intellectual culture of art: it accelerated a divorce of connoisseurship from criticism. Duveen subsumed fine discrimination to the legitimatization of wealth, a function that, augmented by modern forensic technologies, it continues to perform." The New Yorker 11/01/04

A New Virtual Tourism? "A European Union-funded project is looking at providing tourists with computer-augmented versions of archaeological attractions. It would allow visitors a glimpse of life as it was originally lived in places such as Pompeii. It could pave the way for a new form of cultural tourism." BBC 11/01/04

Needed: A Plan To Save Egyptian Tombs From Tourists Tourist traffic is destroying Egypt's Valley of the Kings. "Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities has asked the archaeologists, architects and engineers of the Theban Mapping Project - launched 25 years ago simply to make a detailed map of the 62 tombs and temples of the pharaohs and nobles buried more than 3,000 years ago - to complete a plan for the conservation of the valley by the end of 2005." The Guardian (UK) 11/01/04

Piece Of The Berlin Wall Goes Back Up A Berlin museum has re-erected a portion of the Berlin Wall. "The rebuilt concrete barrier stands at the former Checkpoint Charlie border crossing, next to a field of 1,065 crosses meant to represent the people who were killed as they tried to escape the former East Germany between 1961 and 1989." The Guardian (UK) 11/01/04

British Museum Raided A theif managed to steal jewelry out of the British Museum over the weekend. "The raider beat sophisticated security systems and pocketed around 15 items, including ornate hairpins and fingernail guards. He is thought to have posed as a visitor and grabbed the items from under the noses of staff." Evening Standard (London) 11/01/04