New Orleans Art Museum Survives Katrina The New Orleans Museum of Art has survived the hurricane. "But when Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives arrived in the area Wednesday, NOMA employees holed up inside the museum were left in a quandary: FEMA wanted those evacuees to move to a safer location, but there was no way to secure the artwork inside. Six security and maintenance employees remained on duty during the hurricane and were joined by 30 evacuees, including the families of some employees." The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) 08/31/05

The Guggenheim Gets A Restoration "The Guggenheim has embarked on $27 million worth of complex work in the hope that it will emerge refreshed in 2007, just two years before it turns 50. All the work is to be done without closing down the museum. 'It's almost an art restoration. We tend to regard the Frank Lloyd Wright building as one of the greatest objects in the collection'." The New York Times 09/01/05

Italy's Endangered Cultural Treasures Many of Italy's most famous cultural sites are in peril, and the government is embarking on a campaign to increase awareness of the problem. "Pollution, vandalism and natural decay have all contributed to the condition of many cultural sites. 'The care and defence of our cultural and artistic heritage isn't only the state's responsibility, it is every Italian's. Italians must care for the great art they have around them today, or it may not be there for future generations'." BBC 08/31/05

Cleveland Museum Set to Receive $90 Million in Bonding The Cleveland Museum of Art's massive $258 million expansion project could be financed in part by bonds issued by the city's Committee for Regional Economic Advancement, under a plan recommended by that body this week. The CREA, which also helped finance construction of the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Browns' football stadium, would float $90 million in bonds through the Cleveland port authority, and the museum would be responsible for repaying the loan as it receives money pledged by private donors for the expansion. The museum is stressing that it would not use its collection as collateral for the bonds. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 08/31/05

Picasso's Pottery A collection of more than 100 pieces of pottery by Pablo Picasso will be sold at auction in London this fall. Included in the sale will be a famous Picasso earthenware vase called "Tripode," which is expected to fetch the highest price. BBC 08/31/05

Boston Considers Public Art Plan "Boston likes to call itself the Athens of America, with its world-renowned symphony and ballet, libraries, and intellectual might. But some officials in a city that has long claimed itself a cultural hotbed worry that Boston has fallen far behind other cities in its promotion of public art. Saying that dozens of other cities have set aside large funds for public art while Boston does little, City Councilor Michael Ross said he will propose today that the city require private developers to put 1 percent of their construction costs into a fund to finance public art around the city... [But] developers already face tough building restrictions and must set aside money for affordable housing and job training, [and] may not be eager to pay more." Boston Globe 08/31/05

Lascaux Cave Replica To Tour A replica of the Lascaux cave in which prehistoric art was discovered, is scheduled for a world tour. "The cave, discovered by teenagers 65 years ago, has been closed to general view since 1963 to protect its rock paintings of bison and other animals, some depicting successive stages of a hunt. The 17,000-year-old images are considered among the finest surviving examples of palaeolithic art and have been described as the Sistine Chapel of the prehistoric age." Sydney Morning Herald 08/30/05

Women Artists Still have a Long Way To Go Despite great progress for women artists, the going has been slow. And how about that list of Britain's greatest art that didn't include work by a single woman? "It seems that women's art that doesn't conform to preconceived notions of feminine loveliness still has a hard time gaining acceptance. That means we can't be complacent about where women's art will stand for posterity, and how a list of favourite paintings will look in 50 years' time." The Guardian (UK) 08/30/05

Aussie Aboriginal Painting Fails To Sell Aboriginal art now accounts for more than 50% of all art sales in Australia, and there were big expectations that a work by the late Rover Thomas, would become the first indigenous painting to sell for more than $1 million (Aus). Instead, the painting has failed to sell at auction. BBC 08/30/05

Gauguin Sculpture Discovered A Copenhagen-area museum says a bust by French artist Paul Gauguin of one of his sons has been discovered in Denmark where a family had unwittingly been using it as a Christmas decoration. The Globe & Mail I(AFP) 08/30/05

Museums - Bribing The Collectors? A new show at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts that displays a collector's boats has observers wondering about the ethics of romancing collectors for their collections. 'Years ago, you got a little quiet thank-you note for supporting a museum. Today, they put your boats outside. But that is essentially killing philanthropy. Everybody is going to want the same thing. If he can have it, why can't I'?" Boston Globe 08/30/05

Tracing "David's" Quarry Scientists have found the exact spot where marble for Michelangelo's David was quarried. "Until now, art historians knew only that the large block came from the Carrara quarries in Tuscany, which still produce many types and qualities of marble. Analysts have now used three tiny samples, retrieved from the second toe of the left foot of David when the figure was damaged in act of vandalism in 1991, to track down the marble's origin. Not only were they able to determine the exact spot of excavation, they also found that Michelangelo's marble is of mediocre quality, filled with microscopic holes, and likely to degrade faster than many other marbles." The Guardian (UK) 08/29/05

Of Self-Image and Self-Portraits Why do so many artists make self portraits? And "what do historical self-portraits do? They concentrate into a single powerful icon not just the appearance of humanity but its feeling, what it is to possess "a self". A sustained self-scrutiny: partly what the artist feels they really are and partly what society pressurises them to be." The Telegraph (UK) 08/28/05

Teachout: MoMA Is Like A Mall (Not In A Good Way) Terry Teachout has tried to like the new Museum of Modern Art. But he's decided it won't happen. "The exaggerated scale of the building swamps the art it contains, and the austere décor is so rigidly uniform in its self-conscious simplicity as to make the museum seem even bigger than it is. As if to compensate—which it doesn't—most of the galleries are as overstuffed with paintings as they are overcrowded with people, making it impossible to concentrate on any one work with anything remotely approaching ease. And while I'm hardly the first person to remark on the mall-like character of the new MoMA, I found it even more oppressive this time around." About Last Night (AJBlogs) 08/28/05

Blair To Bush - A Winston Churchill In 2001 Tony Blair loaned George W Bush a bronze bust of Winston Churchill to put in the Oval Office. "The British government's huge hidden collection is held inside an anonymous underground storehouse in Soho and contains around 12,000 works of art (five times more than the National Gallery owns). The curators are given £200,000 a year to buy new pieces and the art is available for government ministers to request for display in their private offices. It is also sent out all over the globe to foreign embassies and consulates. Intended as a showcase for British cultural life, the work has always stayed inside property owned by Britain. Until, that is, March 2001, when Blair's officials requested the President of the US should be loaned a bust of the British war-time premier." The Guardian (UK) 08/28/05

Copy This Building "Copying in architecture is at least as old as tracing paper. Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia was an effort to import Palladio's neo-Roman vision to the New World. And the first United States copyright act, passed in 1790, made no provision for architecture. It wasn't until 200 years later, in 1990, that the United States added buildings to the list of things - including movies, books and recordings - that qualify for copyright protection. But even among architects with instantly recognizable styles, it's rarely possible to state with certainty which similarities result from direct imitation and which are coincidental." The New York Times 08/28/05

King Tut - Icon Of International Politics The differences between the first visit of King Tut to America and the second are instructive. Both visits served political goals. But "the Cold War is long since over, and the technique of cultural diplomacy that characterized the era has withered as a Washington pastime. Instead, corporatism is the new driving force. The change from public sponsorship to corporate packaging mirrors the political sea change in the U.S. between 1979, when Tut 1 finished its blockbuster national tour, and 2005. It brackets the Reagan-Bush era and the decline of liberal democratic ideals and the rise of corporatist political philosophy." Los Angeles Times 08/28/05

In Search Of Hitler's Art "It remains at the center of one of World War II's most enduring mysteries: Hitler's intended National Socialist museum of art in the Austrian city of Linz was a dream that was never fully realized by the Führer although many thousands of art works were obtained for the project. Speculation has always surrounded the origins of the dictator's collection but since the war ended, this has only intensified as experts attempt to discover where many of the works disappeared to." Deutsche Welle 08/26/05

A Protest Against A New Berlin Castle The German government wants to tear down the old East German parliament building and replace it with a castle. The government hopes to start construction by 2007 on the new building, which the study says could cost $650 million to $950 million. But a vocal group of artists and architects oppose the idea. "Arguing that the building should be preserved as a reminder of postwar history, about 160 artists and architects from around the world banded together this month to create a mountain inside the Palace of the Republic." The New York Times 08/25/05

Smithsonian's Falling Down The Smithsonian is falling apart. And building maintenance is so bad that some of the institutions areb being damaged. "While Congress and Smithsonian officials debate who is responsible for what, some treasures have been lost for good. Among them is the collection of snapping lids and tools developed in the 1940's by Earl Tupper as the earliest prototypes of the now ubiquitous Tupperware." The New York Times 08/25/05

State Of The Art (Not So Good?) A new Rand study on the visual arts, suggests that all is not as rosy as burgeoning museum attendance figures suggest. "At the same time that prices have reached headline-grabbing heights, the arts market has become increasingly like other asset markets. The value of an artist’s work is determined not, as was traditionally the case, by the consensus of experts, but increasingly by a small number of affluent buyers who are drawn to purchase works for their potential investment value." PNNOnline 08/24/05

How To Fix A City Waterfront Many waterfront cities have...well, blighted waterfronts. "How to reclaim all that wasted property? There are plenty of models: the self-consciously quaint shopping mall at Manhattan's South Street Seaport, slowly turning into a dilapidated relic; the strip of skater heaven along the Hudson River; the maritime Pacific Bell stadium in San Francisco; the harborside courthouse in Boston. Everyone with a slice of waterfront to save, however modest, should also make a pilgrimage to the North Fork village of Greenport, where Mayor David Kapell's decade-long quest to restore a patch of bayside blight has finally come to fruition."
Newsday 08/24/05

Donating (Partially) For Dollars Not ready to give that expensive painting to a museum but need the tax break? Give away part of it and collect your writeoff. "Museums ask donors to pledge the remainder of the work as a promised gift, though that can be done years or even decades into the future. A donor who gives 25 percent of a $1 million painting to a museum is entitled to a $250,000 tax deduction, and the museum has the right to show the work three months a year. Should a donor wish to give another quarter of a painting three years after an original gift, it will be re-appraised and the tax deduction will reflect the current fair market value of the work, which may have appreciated." MSNBC (SFBT) 08/24/05

Plea: A Venturi Barnes Who should design the Barnes' new home in Philadelphia? It requires a special understanding of both the collection and the city. Fortunately there's a homegrown solution. "The Venturis, principal architects of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, know and love Philadelphia as no outsider ever can. And they would create a building for the Barnes of incomparable quality that people would flock to from around the world." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/23/05

Pop Art - Past Its Sell-By Date "I suppose this happens to all art after a while, but now that Pop Art has been going for more than 30 years — Peter Blake keeps the flag flying for Britain, but it’s an increasingly lonely task — I’ve grown tired of its blandishments, its exhortation of the temporary, the cheaply made, the gleeful interest in extreme fame or utter ordinariness. The bigger problem is that while Pop Art originally turned the tables on high art, making the banal significant and the ugly sort of beautiful, the rest of the world has not only since caught up but left it far behind." The Times (UK) 08/24/05

The Greatest Painting? What Does It Mean? "What, exactly, does it mean to call a painting "great", let alone the "greatest"? If greatness in art has any meaning it is at odds with an opinion poll that throws it open to the people's choice. If greatness exists it must be objective and absolute and therefore not ours to vote for. Greatness suggests a world historical significance, a sublimity. It has nothing to do with competition." The Guardian (UK) 08/23/05

Reconsidering Matisse "The key fact is his self-invention as a painter, entering art history from essentially nowhere, as if by parachute. Never having had traditional lessons to unlearn (unlike Picasso, with his incessant industry of demolishing and reconstructing the inherited language of painting), Matisse innovated on something like whim—a privilege, without guidelines or guarantees, for which he paid a steep toll in anxiety. There is even a touch of the naïf or the primitive about him, though it is hard to grasp, because his works quickly assumed the status of classics, models of the modern." The New Yorker 08/22/05

New Paul Klee Centre Opens In Switzerland Switzerland's new SFr110m (£48m) Paul Klee centre, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, has opened in Nern, Switzerland as a focal point for study of the semi-abstract artist's life and works. Financial Times (UK) 08/23/05

Kurtz V. FBI, Round 487 Artist Steve Kurtz is still fighting off the FBI, which wanted to charge him with bioterrorism. "Kurtz used the analogy of a coffee grinder purchase to explain why the stakes in his case are so much weightier than artistic censorship. 'Let's say you go out and by a coffee grinder. And it says on it that you can't grind spices in it, only coffee. And you say, to hell with that, I'm going to grind coffee and spices in it. If you do that and you send in your warranty -- mail fraud. If they pull off that argument in court, it'll make almost anyone vulnerable'." San Francisco Chronicle 08/23/05

Peru, Pyramids And An Ancient Civilization Ruins on Peru’s desert coast are 4,700 years old and suggest civilization in the Americas is far older than previously thought. "The site of Caral, in the Supe Valley north of Lima, covers 66 hectares (165 acres) and includes pyramids 21m (70ft) high arranged around a large plaza. Whether it can truly be seen as a civilisation comparable in attainment with contemporary Egypt and Mesopotamia is doubtful, but it demonstrates that the tradition culminating in the Inca Empire had deeper roots than anyone imagined." The Times (UK) 08/20/05

Brit Arrested In Egypt For Manuscript Smuggling A British man has been arrested in Egypt trying to smuggle 66 ancient manuscriots out of the country. "The texts, identified by experts as being from the Islamic era, are said to have been subject to an export ban. They were found in the man's luggage after an X-ray at Cairo airport as he headed for a flight to Paris." BBC 08/23/05

Police Hunt Eight In "Scream" Theft Norwegian police are looking for eight suspects in the theft last year of Edvard Munch's "The Scream". "The painting was stolen from Oslo's Munch Museum a year ago, when thieves held up staff with a gun and stole the artwork from the wall. Five others have already been arrested, with three remaining in custody." BBC 08/23/05

When Sears Sold Picassos So Costco is selling Picassos online. "But no one seems to remember that what Costco is doing is nothing new. Forty years ago, Sears, Roebuck & Co. was selling Picassos and Chagalls, not to mention Rembrandts, Dürers, Goyas, Whistlers, Mondrians and Wyeths, all of them bearing the imprimatur of a celebrated connoisseur who was better known for making such grisly movies as The Fly and House of Wax." OpinionJournal.com 08/23/05

Danto: Critic Of Post-History "The same year he declared art history to be over, Arthur Danto became The Nation's art critic. With no dominant movement to champion or art-historical future to prophesize, he redefined art criticism as the 'first post-historical critic of art'." The Nation 08/18/05

Artifact Looting Continues In Iraq "We were outraged at what happened and more so at what's continuing to happen at the sites. Numbers of impoverished Iraqis are willing to pillage for antiquities in order to feed their families. It's 200 people a night with equipment. Look at Umma: It's like a lunar landscape [from the digging.]" Seattle Times 08/21/05

LA's New Center What's happened to Los Angeles? It suddenly has a center. "Downtown LA, previously considered a cultural wasteland, has emerged as a cultural centre: an arena for the more mature works of some of LA's, and the world's, finest architects, as well as for the architecture of the next generation." the Telegraph (UK) 08/21/05

LA Times: Getty Has A Problem The LA Times weighs in on matters Getty. "The Getty has long held an exalted place in the art world, with its diverse collections, incomparable setting and unmatched wealth. But these most recent disclosures show the foundation to be exceptional in an entirely different way. They bring back unpleasant memories of the tales of corporate greed earlier this decade, when it seemed that every scandal could be traced to an 'imperial CEO' and his all-too-compliant board." Los Angeles Times 08/21/05

Barnes De-attributes Some Of Its Art The Barnes Collection has just completed its first-ever professional assessment of its collection. "An in-depth study of the foundation's collection has determined that perhaps as many as two dozen of its Old Masters, while still old, aren't quite as masterly as Dr. Albert C. Barnes was led to believe when he bought them." Philadelphia Inquirer 08/21/05

Lists, Lists, And More Damn Lists! Rachel Cooke hates the pointless exercise of a poll to pick the "best" art in Britain. "I am thoroughly sick of lists, but this one takes the biscuit, being neither a true reflection of public taste nor the result of hours of debate by a committee of learned experts. What happened was this: the public voted, then their choices were whittled down by a 'panel' consisting of art critic Martin Gayford, society portraitist Jonathan Yeo, and dancer Deborah Bull." The Observer (UK) 08/21/05

A List Of Worsts Forget about Best Art. What's the worst art in Britain? The Guardian asks ten experts to pick 'em, and the accompanying images are evidenc... The Guardian (UK) 08/20/05

A Surge In French Art Thefts Art thefts are on the rise in France, as the country threatens to become the most-looted in Europe, surpassing Italy. "There has been a huge spike in these kinds of cases recently, largely due to the wrong people realising that there are easy pickings to be had. Few law enforcement agencies prioritise art theft, despite it being linked to drugs, arms and people-trafficking and prostitution. It is only going to get worse." The Observer (UK) 08/21/05

Batman And Robin Kissing? Take It Down! A New York gallery has been told by DC Comics to take down pictures depicting Batman and Robin kissing. "The colour pictures, which depict the superheroes in a number of homoerotic poses, were put on display in the gallery in February. Seven images from the collection were subsequently displayed on the Artnet site." BBC 08/20/05

Art Out Of Doors New York City's Percent for Art program "has become the largest public art program in the city since the Great Depression. There have been more than 200 projects completed in schools, parks, police precincts and branch libraries. Incrementally, usually without much fuss, they have enlarged the city's visual topography." The New York Times 08/19/05

Lego My Art... A couple of artists have made a career of copying some of Brit Art's most famous works... in Lego. "After experimenting with a Lego take on Damien Hirst's formaldehyde shark, the pair have now graduated to their own mini-exhibition of modern art at the Walker gallery in Liverpool. Among the interpretations on display are Tracey Emin's knicker-strewn bed, Salvador Dalí's surreal lobster phone, and a rendering of the Turner Prize-winning transvestite potter, Grayson Perry, in one of his trademark doll outfits. The Guardian (UK) 08/18/05

A New Start For The Getty? Does the appointment of Michael Brand to run the Getty Museum signal a fresh start for the Getty, which ha had a very rough year? "Although it is unclear where Dr Brand will take the mammoth institution, there are indications that he wishes to shift the Getty's gaze to the west and the south, and away from the traditional centres of world art to the east of Los Angeles." The Guardian (UK) 08/19/05

Copenhagen Curator Charged With Art Theft The curator of a Copenhagen museum has been charged with stealing more than 100 items from the museum. "He allegedly stole the items while working at the Danish Museum of Art and Design between 1999 and 2002. Small 'pocket-sized' porcelain, glass and metal items were taken, a museum spokeswoman said." BBC 08/18/05

Identity Crisis - What Makes The Modern Museum Director? Fifteen major American museums are currently searching for directors. Should those directors be art scholars or CEO's? "The current empty posts -- as well as the evolving director's role -- put many high-profile institutions at a crossroads. To be sure, any candidate considered at a top museum will have at least some experience in both management and art scholarship, but the museum world remains divided over the appropriate balance." Wall Street Journal 08/18/05

Getty Calling Are some making too much of the rich Getty Museum soliciting support in the community? "When they are talking about working with collectors to give fabulous collections a public home, how could one argue with that? That's a worthy thing. Having collections of art in the public domain is something that every museum should be doing. The fact that these objects would be preserved and exhibited and interpreted would be a net gain." Los Angeles Times 08/18/05

Wynn - The Most Complex Manmade Structure Ever? Vegas mogul Steve Wynn is irritated. Many critics didn't greet the opening of his new $2.7 billion Wynn hotel casino with the kind of awe he expected. "Comparing a Vegas casino -- each of which is likely to be imploded and rebuilt, by the next century anyway -- to the world's greatest and most enduring structures is an invitation to snickering, even if it might actually be true. But if others question whether his Trump-like hubris has brought him this backlash, Wynn himself wonders why few have asked him to explain the claim." Wired 08/17/05

Christie's Reports Record Sales Christie's auction house reports record sales for the first six months of 2005. "Sales at Christie's, which is owned by François Pinault, were $1.65bn in the six months to June - a third higher than last year. It sold 178 works of art for more than $1m, compared with 132 during the same period last year." Financial Times 08/17/05

• Chinese Power Christie's Art Sales What drove Christie's record sales in the first have of this year? Chinese buyers. "Now if anyone doubts that the Chinese art market is exploding, Christie's has attributed its record sales of £910m for the first six months of 2005 to the emergence of Chinese buyers keen to buy back their cultural heritage. Asian art accounted for £71.3m of Christie's sales between January and June, far short of the £232.3m spent on impressionist and modern art but outstripping the £38.5m spent on old masters." The Guardian (UK) 08/18/05

Knight: Getty Fundraising Is Troubling Michael Brand seems like a good choice to lead the Getty Museum, writes Christopher Knight. But his charge coming into the job to raise money for projects for the richest museum in America is troubling... Los Angeles Times 08/17/05

What To Make Of "Britain's Best Paintings"? The list, to be voted on by the public, is a familiar one. "These are the paintings in Britain's galleries most often written about, most regularly reproduced. People love them precisely because they are as familiar as old friends. Pablo Picasso is out while Sir Henry Raeburn is in. In a sense, this list - chosen by a panel but based on public nominations - is a tribute to art education. It may be predictable, but it is wide-ranging." The Telegraph (UK) 08/16/05

The Dallas Art Collectors A gift of 800 contemporary artworks valued at $215 million by three couples to the Dallas Museum of Art earlier this year, vaults the museum to a new level. But the gift was only part of a remarkable pattern of support by patrons trying to build a civic collection. Dallas Morning News 08/16/05

And Just Who Is Michael Brand? "Brand, 47, a native of Australia, is considered to be a rising star in the museum world and has been on short lists for several other museum directorships. He became the assistant director of the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia at 38, and took the director's job four years later in Richmond, where he embarked on an aggressive mission to build the museum's holdings, shepherd donations of major collections and raise $100 million for an expansion." Brand: "One of the reasons why I've come to the Getty is that it's already a great museum. I'm not coming here saying that it needs to be saved or anything like that." The New York Times 08/16/05

Getty Hires Brand To Run Museum The J. Paul Getty Trust has hired Michael Brand as director of its museum. "The new director has headed the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts since 2000 and previously served as a museum executive in his native Australia. At the J. Paul Getty Museum, Brand will oversee the acquisition, education, exhibition, service and outreach operations." Los Angeles Times 08/15/05

• Brand Steps In To Getty's Big Job "Michael Brand, a native of Australia and an expert on Indian art and architecture, inherits a museum with a $5 billion endowment and world-class collections of antiquities, photography and illuminated manuscripts." The New York Times 08/16/05

Britain's Top Ten Paintings? Radio 4 has posted the top ten contenders in its poll picking the greatest painting in Britain. Any painting hanging in a British collection is eligible, regardless of its country of origin. BBC 08/15/05

• Best Art. Best What? So Britons are picking the best art in Britain. What kind of exercise is this? "Cognoscenti may dismiss the list as the work of a country that does not know much about art but knows what it likes on a nice birthday card. Populists may hail it as a triumph of popular taste over critics, conceptualists and postmodernists. And regionalists may regret that only two of the works on the list are in galleries outside London." The Guardian (UK) 08/15/05

A History Of Architecture In Denver Branch Libraries Want an architecture tour of Denver? You could do worse than tour the city's branch libraries. "Virtually from the beginning of Denver's library system, its leaders have believed that form was as important as function, more or less consistently investing in high-quality architecture." It's "a surprisingly comprehensive lesson in 20th and 21st century architecture from arts and crafts and other historic styles through modernism and post-modernism." Radical or not, all the libraries have been accepted by patrons, and most have become local landmarks. Denver Post 08/14/05

Chicago's Corkscrew To The Sky Catches On With Public Architect Santiago Calatrava's proposed twisty spiral skyscraper has caught the imagination of the public. "Whatever it expresses, the twisting tower clearly has struck a chord with the public. Consider the nicknames already given to Calatrava's skyscraper -- the drill bit, the big screw, the twizzler, the birthday candle. The twisting tower also is a hot topic today among architects and architecture students. As designers explore new ways to break out of the old box, they prize buildings that suggest motion and feeling. Calatrava's design promises to bring to the skyscraper the same Baroque exuberance with which Frank Gehry has infused fresh vitality into the once-staid world of art museums and concert halls." Chicago Tribune 08/14/05

Demolish This (Not Hardly) Is the UK's Channel 4 show "Demolition" one of the dumber shows ever aired? The show has viewers vote on their most-hated building, and the show promises to buy the building and tear it down. "How can you seriously argue that, when heading the list of 'vile' buildings scheduled for consideration by the demolition jury, is the new Scottish parliament? The same parliament, designed by the late Enric Miralles, that is currently hot favourite to win this year's Stirling Prize as the best building in Britain. Whose life is going to be made better if the Scottish parliament is demolished? And how do Channel 4 think that they are going to demolish it anyway, should it win?" The Observer (UK) 08/14/05

• Killing Buildings Isn't Sport "The case against Channel 4's Demolition is clear. This programme is a crude way of bringing what is supposed to be an informed debate on the state of contemporary architecture to a mass audience. Yet all it really does is pander to the shamefully destructive spirit that lurks somewhere in all of us." The Guardian (UK) 08/14/05

Artists, Collectors Sue Storage Company Over London Fire More than "50 artists, galleries and collectors are suing the art storage and shipping company Momart, following the disastrous fire in their East London warehouse on 24 May 2004. Total claims are expected to amount to around £20 million." The Art Newspaper 08/12/05

In LA: Care For Important Architecture? Recent attention on the condition of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in LA have preservationists hoping that Angelenos will decide "that care of the buildings is a civic responsibility. But in a city where distinctive architecture has been overwhelmingly driven by the resources of affluent owners, it is no easy task. For one thing, while the city's popular midcentury modern houses have come to represent a way of life that is appealing to many wealthy people, Wright's crumbling concrete buildings, remain an acquired taste. They bear little resemblance to his earlier and later work, and none of them were designed for conventional family living." The New York Times 08/14/05

Treasure Hunters Looking For Nazi Art Threaten Lake At the end of World War II, the Nazis used military trucks for months and months to dump in crate after crate of stolen art, money and treasure into Austria's Lake Toplitz. "The Nazis eventually commissioned locals to do the deed, bringing the crates by oxcart, transports which occurred more and more frequently in the frantic last days of the war." While some of the treasure was recovered after the war, much is still there, and authorities are now worried that repeated search missions are harming the lake. San Francisco Chronicle 08/14/05

Even Greenspan Pictures Make Money An art student painted 20 unauthorized portraits of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Hoping to raise some money, he put them on sale in a gallery in Sag Harbor. "From the moment the Greenspan images appeared, people began wandering in off the street to gaze at the paintings, which capture the Fed chairman's face in a variety of expressions ranging from exasperation to perplexity to mirthful amusement. Titles of the works include "If You Say So," "I Gotta Tell Ya" and "Humpf." Several visitors to the gallery bought paintings, telling stories of how they adored the Fed chairman, how he had saved the world and made them millions." Washington Post 08/13/05

Security Measures Discourage Crowds In Italy Added security at Italian cultural sites is causing higher admission fees and longer waits to get in. "At the Uffizi, the first site where security was tightened after the deadly London bombings on July 7, the new measures are prompting crowds to turn away. The thousands who brave long lines and summer heat to glimpse Botticelli's Birth of Venus have found the wait is getting longer because of metal detectors and a limit of 780 visitors allowed inside at a time. Ticket sales fell by 11 percent at the Uffizi in July, but rose by 1 percent at all of Florence's museums combined." Boston Globe 08/11/05

London Art Sales Beat New York London has pulled aheaad of New York in art sales. "London racked up a 38.2-per-cent share (or $854 million)of the $2.23-billion of fine art sold by Sotheby's Holdings Inc., Christie's International and other houses between Jan. 1 and July 18, Artprice said in an e-mailed report. New York sales in the period totalled $833-million or 37.3 per cent of the total, which rose 10.2 per cent from a year earlier, it said." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/11/05

Drawing Center Pulls Out Of "Freedom" Center "The small but established downtown museum was to have shared a spangled new building near the memorial with the International Freedom Center, a still-unborn institution that is trying to coalesce out of murky good intentions. Pressured by families of the 9/11 victims, Gov. George Pataki and a coterie of cringing officials at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. tried to force both institutions to declare that their exhibits would not be used as a platform for anti-American views." The Freedom Center agreed, and the Drawing Center said no thanks. Newsday 08/12/05

• Test Of Freedom: Museum Told To Prove Its Allegiance In an apparent concession to some Sept. 11 victims’ relatives who said that the World Trade Center Cultural Center could disrespect the dead and America, John Whitehead, director of the redevlopment effort, gave the International Freedom Center until Sept. 23 to work with family members and produce specific plans for its museum. If the plans do not satisfy the LMDC, he said, 'we will find another use or tenant consistent with our objectives for that space'.” New York Daily News (AP) 08/11/05

Oops... "The Miami muralist who misspelled Shakespeare, Michelangelo and nine other famous names on a mosaic outside the Livermore (CA) library slipped into town to correct her errors -- at a cost of $6,000 to the city. And this time, city officials promise they have checked her work before it gets set in stone." San Francisco Chronicle 08/10/05

Vote For Your Most-Hated Building... Then Knock It Down A British TV show is soliciting votes for viewers' most hated building. Then it proposes to knock the building down. "Many of the buildings that have been put up for the TV experts to knock down for us on Channel 4 will be ones that some love, others hate. More will be of the sort that simply need to hide away until fashion, or a truly streetwise property developer comes to their rescue." The Guardian (UK) 08/10/05

Russia's New Contemporary Art Galleries Russia's gallery scene is booming, and contemporary art is selling well. "Europe's second-most-populous city, Moscow has one of the highest concentration of billionaires in the world -- 27, according to Forbes magazine. Oil and metals income, boosted by prices at record highs, has transformed the Russian capital into a construction boomtown and the new rich want art to furnish their houses and apartments." Bloomberg.com 08/10/05

Settlement In Nazi Art Looting Case "As the result of an out-of-court settlement, Bay Area resident Thomas Bennigson will receive $6.5 million from Marilynn Alsdorf of Chicago for a Pablo Picasso painting reportedly stolen by the Nazis from Bennigson's grandmother years before Alsdorf acquired it in 1975... The settlement ends a protracted legal battle over Picasso's 1922 oil 'Femme en blanc' (Woman in White). The dispute began in 2002, when Bennigson sued to have the painting returned to him." Los Angeles Times 08/10/05

Critic Hughes Disparages BBC Art Poll The BBC is polling its audience to choose Britons' favorite piece of art. "In what the BBC has described as the first ever national survey of paintings to be held anywhere in the world, the public have been invited to vote for any painting in Britain to determine the nation's greatest work of art. The poll has attracted such artistic luminaries to discuss their favourite painting as Jack Vettriano and Boris Johnson, but held no attraction for Time Magazine critic Robert Hughes who was scheduled to appear on Saturday's broadcast. Yesterday, he dismissed the poll as a 'minor circulation-building exercise' and said he refused to discuss it because it was of 'no relevance'." Scotland On Sunday 08/07/05

Light Where Budddas Once Stood International outrage was sparked in 2001 when Afghanistan's repressive Taliban regime ordered two 1,600-year-old statues of Buddha in the country's Bamiyan Valley destroyed, but despite pressure from Western countries to preserve the massive artifacts, the statues were wiped out. Now, a Japanese artist plans to commemorate the Buddhas with a laser-based installation in the Bamiyan Valley which is drawing funding from the United Nations. "Fourteen laser systems will project 140 overlapping faceless 'statues' sweeping four miles across Bamiyan's cliffs in neon shades of green, pink, orange, white and blue." Toronto Star (AP) 08/09/05

The New Highrise - Homes, Not Offices Los Angeles is seeing a boom in tall buildings. "In all, 32 towers are on the horizon for downtown, though some still need city approval as well as financing. Twenty are considered skyscrapers because they climb more than 240 feet, or about 20 stories. From 1986 to 1992, almost two-thirds of towers 20 stories or more built in the U.S. were for office use. But recently this has really flipped. "Between 2003 and June 2005, about 84% of new towers were for residential, multifamily use — an indication of investor and consumer appetite for multifamily condo development. Luxury high-rises are what's being demanded." Los Angeles Times 08/08/05

The Egyptian Museum's Sorry State "When the Egyptian Museum was built about 100 years ago, it was host to only 10,000 artifacts. The architecture was French colonial, with a lush, cozy garden and a Nile view. Today, the museum is surrounded by a concrete jungle of overpasses, skyscrapers, five-star hotels and an endless stream of cars. Moreover, it holds at least 150,000 antiquities from Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic civilizations. The rooms in the King Tut exhibition area were brushed up and supplied with air-conditioning a few years ago. But many others still lack ventilation and humidity control, and some even have their windows open wide, allowing the noise and smoke of the streets to pour in." Los Angeles Times 08/08/05

Christo - Covering a Colorado River Christo and Jeanne-Claude come to Colorado to talk up their plans to cover a river. "The artists and their collaborators plan to stagger a total of 6.7 miles of fabric over 40 miles of the river, with interruptions ranging from 15 miles to a few hundred feet - the latter to accommodate trees, rocks and other encumbrances along the banks.The couple already has spent more than $2 million on the project, including a wind-tunnel test of the fabric and a simulated installation of several of the panels over a river running through a ranch near Grand Junction." Denver Post 08/07/05

Museums - Vault Or Bazaar? How do museums balance security with easy access to art? "The Munch Museum had been at one extreme of the vulnerability spectrum. "The Scream," for example, hung from an easily cut wire, like an ordinary painting in an ordinary home. The museum's upgrades have moved it to the opposite extreme. With X-ray machines, bulletproof glass, metal detectors, and paintings bolted to the wall, the revamped museum has been dubbed Fortress Munch." International Herald Tribune 08/05/05

UK - A Challenge To The Design Establishment? Richard Rogers and Norman Foster have dominated English architecture for the past decade. But "as London embarks on eight years of major regeneration to transform the city's East End and the Thames Gateway, an impassioned debate has begun about the practices and philosophies that should shape a new era. Amid the steadily increasing clamour of building and hype, the two lords' hold on British architecture is under challenge." The Guardian (UK) 08/06/05

Verdict: We Hate The Scottish Parliament Building "Less than a year after the Scottish Parliament building opened its doors, the public have delivered their verdict: knock it down. The £431 million flagship at the foot of Edinburgh's Royal Mile, already mired in controversy after running 10 times over budget and opening three years late, has suffered the final indignity of joining a list of eyesores including Gateshead Car Park, Northampton Bus Station and Rugby Cement Works on a list of Britain's 12 'most vile' buildings as voted by up to 8,000 viewers for a forthcoming Channel 4 series, Demolition." The Observer (UK) 08/07/05

Dia - The Un-Guggenheim? New York's Dia Foundation gives a look at what will be its new home. "Dia could well be described as the art world's un-Guggenheim. Both institutions are developing a network of spaces; both embrace contemporary art. But while Mr. Krens has pursued outposts around the world designed by big-name architects like Enrique Norten and Frank Gehry, Mr. Govan is fashioning a network of spaces closer to home that are as unobtrusive as possible." The New York Times 08/07/05

Carmel - Too Many Galleries? Carmel California has built a tourist trade on its galleries. "But now galleries outnumber artists, and Carmel faces a clash between creativity and commerce that may be painfully familiar to residents in other scenic tourist spots across America. Today, galleries selling everything from Impressionist landscapes to cartoon dog portraits make up one of every three businesses along Carmel's stone walkways. In all, 105 stores sell art in this town of a little more than 4,000 residents. For a while, the city was approving a new gallery every week." Los Angeles Times 08/05/05

Will New Tall Buildings Wreck London? "Nine enormous and hugely unsophisticated skyscrapers are being mooted by the world's architectural mega-corps. The London model dictates that, where a skyscraper is built, open space must be left around it, creating dim plazas. Consequently, tall buildings, while they do increase office space, fail to increase the density of the city, instead merely prodding the skyline with primitive architectural fingers, the sole aim of which is to create a recognisable logo. This leaves blank, unnecessary plazas, inevitably filled with the usual coffee shops and chain stores, the city becoming in effect suburbanised." Financial Times 08/03/05

Quantifying The Art Market's Rise What's the art market doing? Well, it's going up. Here're the stats: Prices generally rose 4.1 percent in the first six months. The number of records set rose to 4,614 from 3,920 in 2004's first half. The general increase in art prices generated a sharp rise in the number of auction records. Bloomberg 08/04/05

Save This House "In a last-ditch effort, a consortium of preservation groups has assembled a plan to save the Ennis House, a striking 1924 building by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Los Feliz Hills above Los Angeles. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, together with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the Los Angeles Conservancy, has created a foundation to raise the millions of dollars needed to rehabilitate the house, which suffered critical damage in a 1994 earthquake and again in heavy rains last winter." The New York Times 08/04/05

San Francisco's New Museum Row San Francisco is getting three new museums on the doorstep of the SF Museum of Modern Art. "It has been a long road for the Contemporary Jewish and Mexican museums and the Museum of the African Diaspora, struggling to raise funds in the post-Sept. 11 world as well as deal with design and construction challenges that have delayed opening in the Yerba Buena area." San Francisco Examiner 08/03/05

Thieves Steal Fake Munch Paintings Thieves broke in to a hotel that has 12 Edvard Munches in its collection. "Two unarmed men burst into Oslo's Hotel Continental, threatened staff and removed three pictures from the walls. But the hotel had swapped the originals with duplicates after two real Munch works were stolen from the Munch Museum in the city almost a year ago." BBC 08/03/05

Fighting Over Michelangelo's Mountain? An Italian quarry wants to lop 300 feet off the top of a mountain. But it's been said Michelangelo quarried marble from the place and so a dispute has ensued. The historical record, including Michelangelo's own abundant correspondence, shows clearly that he never took any marble from Monte Altissimo. He did open two quarries farther down the Serra gorge and nearly lost his life extracting enormous columns and blocks. But he never got to use any of them; the project for which they were intended, an overambitious façade for Florence's San Lorenzo Church, was aborted and his hard-won marble scattered and purloined. OpinionJournal.com 08/03/05

The Camera Doesn't Lie (It Just Spins A Bit) A new exhibit at the London Portrait Gallery sheds a great deal of light on the shady world of celebrity image-making. "The show takes 10 of the most familiar faces from the photographic age, from Queen Victoria to Gandhi to Greta Garbo and Adolf Hitler, and shows how they manipulated their images in order to further their aims, whether political or artistic or megalomaniacal." The show also points up the media's complicity in such makeovers, noting that many celebrity photos meant to look candid were, in fact, entirely staged. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/03/05

Saving A Whole Lotta Painting Conservators are working to save one of the largest paintings in the world - a 45 feet-by-195 100-year-old religious work in California. "Using 4-foot-long brushes, Polish artist Jan Styka completed the painting in 1897 after working on it 12 hours a day for five years. Styka originally had hoped to show the painting at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 but there was no room so Styka displayed other works instead." Los Angeles Daily News 08/02/05

Would You Buy This Art Online? A few years ago the internet was full of companies trying to sell art online. "These days, with New York-based e-commerce firm JupiterResearch projecting that 2005 Internet spending will top $79 billion in the U.S. alone and Web sales will continue to post double-digit growth until at least 2009, the wrangling over art's future on the Internet has been reignited. Critics still insist that unlike books, clothing, and other consumer goods, art really has to be experienced in person before deciding whether or not it's the right fit. But with some 126 million Americans already buying an increasing number of goods electronically, a new batch of entrepreneurs is banking on a bright future in online art." BusinessWeek 08/02/05

Australia National Gallery To Close One Day A Week To save money, Australia's National Gallery of Victoria will begin closing one day a week. "The decision by the gallery's board of trustees comes months after the Victorian Government granted it an extra $1.2 million a year for three years. But the costs of running the two new complexes meant the gallery recorded losses of $1.9 million last financial year and $6.8 million in 2003-04." Sydney Morning Herald 08/02/05

Pompidou Expands With Satellite Museum The Pompidou is planning a new satellite museum in the shape of a Chinese peasant hat. "The Pompidou Centre Metz in eastern France, due to open in 2008, will show rotating exhibitions from the museum's 56,000-strong collection. Only about 1,300 works can be shown at one time in the Paris museum." The Guardian (UK) 08/01/05

A Paint Roller That Paints Images A new high-tech paint roller allows images to be transfered in the paint. "The Pixel Roller picks up paint from a tray, like any other paint roller, but is controlled electronically by a computer to transfer pixilated images onto any surface — floors, walls, ceilings, brick, concrete and glass — and at just about any scale." Discovery 08/01/05

London - Is Taller Better? Giant highrise buildings threaten to transform London's skyline. "So far only the Swiss Re tower has been built, but a dozen or more are in the pipeline. They reveal that London's problem is not that it is turning itself into a Dallas or a Houston, as we used to worry. To judge by the wave of new developments on the way, London is going to be the nearest Europe comes to Shanghai. Footloose international finance, a mayor intoxicated by high-rise architecture, and a developer-friendly planning system have unleashed a wave of developments that are bigger, and brasher, than anything the city has yet seen." The Observer (UK) 07/31/05