Why Rural Museums Are Dying Over the past few decades, while museum attendance at big city museums has soared, the numbers at smaller rural museums have fallen by about half. Why? "Numerous causes have been cited for this precipitous decline, including the weather and 9/11. But one factor stands out among the reasons behind this consistent, decades-long trend: the 1978 deregulation of the airline industry and a new era of cheap air travel." OpinionJournal.com 12/27/05

Japan's Impact On Euro Art Japan has a long and glorious artistic tradition, of course, but you wouldn't necessarily expect the country to come up when discussing the sources of influence in European art. But in fact, Western art reveals plenty of "modern manifestations of the classical Japanese aesthetic." The Times (UK) 12/28/05

Art's Most Underappreciated Continent "If the history of Africa tells us anything, it is that producing great art is no guarantee of winning anyone's respect. It seems incredible, when you look at the masterpieces of African art in the British Museum, that exploiters and imperialists could ever have dismissed the disparate peoples of Africa as lesser breeds, ripe for the plucking. Africa has created some of the greatest art that ever existed, and the brilliance of it has been known to Europeans for a long time... And yet the African experience suggests that even when oppressors acknowledge, quite fulsomely, the beauty of your art, this doesn't stop them classing it as 'primitive' and continuing to treat you as a lower form of life." The Guardian (UK) 12/29/05

Portrait Of An Illegal Antiquities Trade Much of the classical ancient art sold in recent decades is believed to have passed through the hands of three men - Giacomo Medici, Robert E. Hecht Jr. and Robin Symes. They "acquired items that had been illegally removed from Italian tombs and used fake ownership histories, rigged auctions and relied on frontmen to sell the objects with a veneer of legitimacy. Italians say they have traced more than a hundred looted artifacts handled by the dealers to the Getty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and a dozen other major museums and private collections in the U.S., Europe and Asia." Los Angeles Times 12/28/05

Genova Museum Decorates "Genoa has just opened a museum that is endowed with a remarkable private collection of more than 20,000 pieces dating from between 1880 and 1945. It includes paintings, sculptures, furniture, glass, ceramics, wrought iron, textiles, architectural projects (built and unbuilt), graphic design, political and publicity posters and leaflets, books, periodicals and newspapers." The New York Times 12/28/05

Major Italian Stolen Antiquities Bust Italian police have busted a 74-year-old who plundered thousands of ancient artifacts. "Officers who raided the man's home found 9,000 antiquities stolen over a period of years as well a sophisticated restoration lab, metal detectors and other devices used by amateur archaeologists. Thousands of Etruscan and Roman terracotta vases, polychrome mosaic tiles, pieces of travertine and multi-coloured marble that once adorned Roman villas were recovered." The Guardian (UK) 12/28/05

Kapoor Named To Tate Board Sculptor Anish Kapoor has been chosen to replace Chris Ofili as one of three working artists on the Tate board of directors. "He fills a vacancy created when Ofili - whose Upper Room was controversially purchased by the Tate in March - came to the scheduled end of his reign there last month. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who is in charge of re-appointments, is believed to have chosen Kapoor from a shortlist of two given to him earlier in the year." The Independent (UK) 12/27/05

ROM Scores Raves The Royal Ontario Museum unveiled several new galleries yesterday, and the early response is overwhelmingly positive. "The new spaces will feature the art and archaeology of China, Japan and Korea and a gallery will be devoted to artifacts created by Canada's Aboriginal Peoples. This is the first time in 25 years that the ROM has had a permanent location for its First Peoples collection." The museum isn't done yet - construction is continuing on Daniel Libeskind's five-story steel-and-glass addition, which is expected to be completed in late 2006. Toronto Star 12/27/05

So Much Art, So Few Places To Stick It Much has been made in recent years about the sudden emergence of architects as artistic superstars, and many in the art world have begun to question whether museums are focusing on their facades to the detriment of their collections. But even with all the new construction going on across North America, "most United States museums have only about 5% of their permanent collections on display" at any given time. And the crunch goes beyond gallery space to issues of storage: after all, how a museum preserves the art it isn't displaying is just as important as how it presents art to the public, but raising money for storage facilities just doesn't have the allure of getting one's name on a new building. Los Angeles Times 12/27/05

Are Canada's Museums Only Skin Deep? All across Canada, the arts are experiencing a construction boom unlike any other in modern memory, as museums and galleries scramble to open the biggest, best, and most recognizable buildings they can afford. But for all the focus on architecture, Canada's art institutions still face an uphill battle in bringing great art into the country, and keeping it there. "There's still no significant, amply funded international biennial being staged on Canadian soil. Compromised acquisition budgets in the major museums prevent our curators from having real clout abroad... But from what we saw in 2005, at least we can say we are heading in the right direction. 2006 will be a year to keep building, but it should also be a year to think hard about what we are going to look at once all that building is done." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/27/05

It Was A Very Good Year, Eh? Canada's art auction houses had a banner year in 2005, with CAN$46 million in combined profit brought in from sales of Canadian art. "This was almost a 40 per cent jump over last year's total, and affirmation that the boom in the resale art market that started in the mid-1990s is still going strong, with no 'market correction' seeming to loom in the foreseeable future. As usual, it was the painters of wood and water, mountain and sky, horse and sleigh who commanded the highest prices. Yes, more collectors are buying more works by post-Second World War artists -- but in most instances the prices paid for a substantial Jack Bush, Michael Snow, Paul-Emile Borduas or Greg Curnoe are less than what these artists may have received when their works were first sold on the primary market." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/27/05

Italy's New Art Recovery Strategy Italy is negotiating with American museums over artifacts that may have been stolen. "The strategy is part of a broader offensive to crack down on stolen antiquities. Italy has gained additional clout - at least in terms of public awareness - from the current criminal trial of Marion True, a former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and of antiquities dealers with ties to top American museums. There has been a real change in the last year or so in how the Italians deal with the antiquities issue. They have become very creative." The New York Times 12/26/05

Picasso, Chagall Stolen A Picasso and a Chagall have been stolen from a Palm Desert gallery. The Picasso, "Femme Regardant par la Fenetre," is a 1959 linoleum cut in shades of brown and black of a nude woman reclining and looking out a window, printed by the artist and worth about $53,000. The Chagall, a 1964 lithograph titled "The Tribe of Dan," is a multicolored religious work in blues, yellows and reds, also printed by the artist. It illustrates one of a series of 12 stained glass windows Chagall made for an Israeli university, and is worth about $35,000. Los Angeles Times 12/23/05

Hitler Paintings Auctioned On eBay "A painting titled Muenchen, (Munich) bearing the signature of the Nazi dictator and described by the seller as a "rarity", was put up for auction on Monday at an asking price of €2,100 (roughly $2,900) on eBay.at." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/22/05

NY Gallery Declares Bankruptcy From the outside, New York's Berry-Hill Gallery looks prosperous. "But two weeks ago, Berry-Hill filed for bankruptcy in federal court, listing more than 100 creditors, debts ranging as high as $50 million and assets of $50 million to $100 million. And its directors, James and Frederick D. Hill, are at the center of a scandal that has been the focus of whispers in the art world since an ill-fated auction at Christie's in May." The New York Times 12/22/05

Largest Russian Gallery Opens The Yakut Gallery - 100-square metres large - is "located in an early 20th-century factory behind the Kursky train station in the centre of Moscow. To reach it, visitors must first pass by scowling Soviet-style guards and then walk down a decrepit path, past dilapidated buildings, to get to the cylindrical red-brick gallery, which was built as a natural-gas cistern 100 years ago. This stands in sharp contrast to most Moscow galleries, which are located in upmarket neighbourhoods. None of this seems to bother art collectors in Moscow. In fact, they seem to positively enjoy the poverty of the area." The Art Newspaper 12/22/05

A New $550 Million Museum At The Pyramids Plans have been announced for a massive new "$550 million Great Egyptian Museum, to be established near the Pyramids near Cairo. It will be among the world’s largest museums, and is by far the biggest to be built from scratch. The venture is expected to attract up to five million visitors a year, slightly more than the British Museum in London, which is the world leader. There will be some 100,000 Egyptian artefacts on show (compared with the British Museum’s 80,000 displayed objects, covering all major cultures)." The Art Newspaper 12/19/05

Tate Paid For Return Of Stolen Turners The Tate paid a lawyer for return of two stolen Turner paintings two years ago after previously denying it had paid the money. "Now the museum is admitting that it paid a German lawyer who claimed to be in contact with holders of the paintings, but it says the 3.1 million pounds was given in return for 'information.' However, it admits the possibility the money was passed on to thieves as 'an unavoidable and inevitable consequence of recovery operations of this nature'."
CBC 12/22/05

Children's Museum Joins Boston's Museum Boom Boston's Children's Museum is about to begin construction of a $45 million expansion. "With the announcement, the Children's Museum joins an unprecedented cultural building boom in Boston. Other projects include the Museum of Fine Arts, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Museum of Science, and a pair of museums slated for the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The closest in proximity to the Children's Museum is the Institute of Contemporary Art, set to open on nearby Fan Pier in September." Boston Globe 12/21/05

Christie's Is Champ In France Christie's maintains its three-dominance as the leading auction house in France. "Christie's, the biggest art seller, had French sales of 115 million euros ($138 million) in 2005, up 33 percent from 86.4 million euros last year. It is now selling 2.6 times more art in France than Sotheby's Holdings Inc., the No.2 auction house." Bloomberg 12/20/05

The Art In The Midst Of The Wasteland Six months ago, the New Orleans Museum of Art was on the verge of launching a $100 million capital campaign and planning a major expansion of its building. Hurricane Katrina and its devastating aftermath, of course, changed everything, although the museum and its collection escaped largely unscathed. Six weeks after the storm, the museum was forced to lay off all but a skeleton staff. Now, the museum's director finds himself attempting to sketch out a future in a city that may not have one of its own. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 12/20/05

Leaner, Meaner, and More Tech-Savvy As museums around the country struggle to make themselves relevant to a generation raised in front of computer screens and conversant with high-tech gadgetry, some institutions seem to be having more luck than others. In Pittsburgh, which like many mid-sized cities boasts one dominant museum and an array of smaller, more specifically targeted ones, it has been the less prominent museums which have made the most progress in integrating new technologies into their existing collections. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 12/20/05

EU, UK Clash Over Art Sales Levy A years-long dispute between the UK and the European Union over art sales and those who benefit from them is coming to a head this month, with the EU set to try and force Britain to accept the "artists' retail rights levy" already in force on the continent. "Supporters of the levy... say that artists and their descendants should benefit from rising prices, while opponents argue that it will drive business away to nations that do not impose it, such as the United States and Switzerland." UK officials say that they would be disproportionately hurt by the levy, since the country accounts for better than 50% of the European art market. The Telegraph (UK) 12/20/05

A Revolution In Full Color Andre Derain painted 30 landscapes of London during two brief visits in 1906 and 1907. Inspired by Claude Monet's paintings of the River Thames just below the Houses of Parliament, Derain's works in fact changed the face of landscape painting, and caused a generation of artists to rethink their use of color. "By saturating his London views in colours so fierce it hurts to look at them, Derain was entering into unknown aesthetic territory - territory in which colour had become independent of the form it was used to construct, a pictorial element in the picture subject only to the painter's expressive intentions." The Telegraph (UK) 12/20/05

BBC Reverses Course on Newfangled Architecture "When the BBC commissioned three landmark new buildings it was praised as a patron of cutting edge architecture. But now the architects of two of the projects have been dropped and the third may not even happen... The BBC has hardly been forthcoming about these expensive schemes - understandable, perhaps, considering the regular bashings it has had in recent years - but isn't it fair to ask what, exactly, it has been doing with the vast sums of the public's money earmarked for these buildings?" The Guardian (UK) 12/20/05

Antiquities Market Strong Despite True Trial "The antiquities market appears to be thriving in spite of adverse publicity from the trial in Rome of Marion True, the former curator for antiquities at the Getty Museum in California... At Christie's £8.2 million antiquities auction this month, its second highest total ever, a 4,000-year-old, 14in statue of a family group made a record for any Egyptian antiquity, selling for £1.6 million to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas... Looking ahead, another local market worth watching could be Greek art of the 19th and 20th centuries. Proceeds from the Greek art sales at Bonhams and Sotheby's in London have nearly doubled in the past four years, rising to more than £8 million this year." The Telegraph (UK) 12/20/05

UK's National Portrait Gallery: 150 Years Of Art Crossed With Celebrity "It is not always easy to grasp what Britain's National Portrait Gallery is for. Is it about fame or the art of portraiture? And, if the former, how to differentiate it from Madame Tussaud's or a historical [celebrity magazine]? ... It was on a different wave of self-confidence that Lords Stanhope, Ellesmere and the others floated the idea of a National Portrait Gallery 150 years ago. They wanted a gallery that would reflect the Whig view of history, a parade of personalities who could fairly be seen as the cultural and political ancestors of what had only recently become an administratively centralised world empire. What they got, and we have still got, is rather different: a gallery that shows art in the service of human individuality." Financial Times (UK) 12/20/05

Six Indicted In Scream Theft Six indictments have been handed down by Norwegian prosecutors in the August 2004 theft of Edvard Munch's masterpieces, The Scream and Madonna, from an Oslo museum. "Three of those indicted are already in police custody. Five of the suspects are charged with aggravated robbery tied to organized crime, which could result in prison terms of up to 17 years. The sixth is charged with fencing, because he allegedly helped store the stolen paintings. Neither has been recovered." Aftenposten (Oslo) 12/19/05

Architect of Faith Whether for better or for worse, religion is becoming an important global issue once again, and more often than not, matters of faith seem to be fodder for bloody conflict and bad feeling between nations. So a prominent architect who specializes in designing houses of worship can be counted not only as a progressive development, but a profoundly unusual one. But Mario Botta's driving inspiration goes beyond simple religious faith, and crosses over into a complex and deeply felt belief in "ethical" design. The Guardian (UK) 12/19/05

Paris's Rodin Reinvents "Big changes are afoot at the Rodin Museum in Paris. There is a new and more spacious entrance on the Rue de Varenne, and a new and more generously stocked bookshop. Orientating oneself through the gardens and into the main body of the museum in the Hotel Biron feels less bemusing than in the past. What is more, a new director, Dominic Vieville, has just been appointed, and the museum's 19th-century chapel, closed for restoration for almost a decade, has reopened as a space for twice-yearly temporary exhibitions." Financial Times (UK) 12/19/05

The Golden Age Of Art Collecting? "That rarefied practice of collecting high art — from canonized old masters to contemporary works by both international art stars and marketable young upstarts — is experiencing a surge it hasn't seen since the explosive moment in the late 1980s when the market ballooned to a thinly stretched bubble, before bursting, finally, along with the stock market, in the 1990s. According to Artprice, a Paris-based information service that lists auction prices from more than 300,000 artists, prices for contemporary art alone had risen 40 per cent this year, pushing past even the heyday of the '80s explosion... Contemporary art, traditionally a tough sell, has also caught the fever... Put simply, the art world is in a full-blown boom." Toronto Star 12/17/05

ROM Offers An In-Progress Preview The Royal Ontario Museum, in the messy midst of a $200 million expansion project, is unveiling ten new finished galleries for public viewing, beginning December 26. Kate Taylor is impressed with ROM's direction, up to a point: "[The museum's planners] are exercising a particular museum philosophy here. They wanted to restore rather than hide the heritage building, and the galleries are now being asked not to impinge on the architecture." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/17/05

Fireworks At True Trial "Tempers became heated [Friday] as the Italian state presented new evidence in its case against Marion True, a former antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, who is on trial [in Rome] on charges of dealing in looted antiquities. Ms. True's defense lawyers shouted out objections when Maurizio Pellegrini, a document and photography analyst with the Italian Culture Ministry who testified as an expert witness for the state, began commenting on correspondence between Ms. True and the antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici, a co-defendant in the case who was sentenced to 10 years in prison last December." The New York Times 12/17/05

Art Theft Writ Large It can't be easy to make off with a bronze sculpture that measures 3.5 meters long, and better than one meter high. But that's exactly what someone (or, more accurately, three someones and a crane) have done with a Henry Moore sculpture north of London. The theft took place Thursday night, and officials at the Henry Moore Foundation are afraid that the thieves could be planning to melt the work down to sell as scrap metal, since it would be difficult if not impossible to sell as is. The sculpture, entitled "A Reclining Figure," is valued at $5.3 million. Yahoo! News 12/17/05

• Getaway Vehicle Found Police have recovered the truck believed to have been used in the Henry Moore sculpture theft. The truck itself was also stolen, and was abandoned by the thieves some distance from the scene of the crime. BBC 12/18/05

The Importance of the Critical Eye In today's world of instant information and do-it-yourself media, the world of the critic, based as it is on an assumption of expertise and some vague notion of "the eye," seems increasingly old-fashioned. But Jerry Saltz writes that the trend towards art criticism that is all ideas and no expertise is a dangerous one. "Having an eye in criticism is as important as having an ear in music. It means discerning the original from the derivative, the inspired from the smart, the remarkable from the common, and not looking at art in narrow, academic, or "objective" ways. It means engaging uncertainty and contingency, suspending disbelief, and trying to create a place for doubt, unpredictability, curiosity, and openness." Village Voice (NY) 12/16/05

Czech Court Awards Nazi-Looted Art To Canadian Family A Czech court has awarded a Canadian family a European art collection assembled by their Jewish grandfather before the Second World War and later confiscated by the Nazis and then the Communists. "The family has been fighting for more than 14 years to gain title to and possession of some of the estimated 140 art works -- including paintings by Gustav Klimt, James Ensor and Oskar Kokoschka -- owned by their grandfather, businessman Oskar Federer. Many of the works are housed in small public galleries in the cities of Ostrava and Pardubice." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/16/05

A New Kind Of 21st Century Art Center? Peter Noever, the "globe-trotting head of Vienna's MAK Center" has a plan for a new art center in an old WWII antiaircraft tower in Vienna. "The idea is to build a collection of the 21st century. And to do it on site, and step by step. It will be very slow — 15 to 20 years. You invite one artist, and then see what he has done, and then see what you do next. It is the very opposite of the kind of collection that's offered on the market, which changes as parts are bought and sold." Los Angeles Times 12/16/05

Chihuly Sues Glassbowers Over Copyright Glass artist Dale Chihuly is suing two glassblowers, claiming they are copying his designs. "How does an artist go about proving — or disproving — copyright infringement? How do you differentiate between Chihuly's influence on other glass artists and artistic plagiarism? Can he claim exclusive rights to designs that are modeled on things such as Navajo blankets and sea life? And what does it mean for the world of art glass?" Seattle Times 12/16/05

New JetBlue Terminal - How To Wreck A Modernist Classic Eero Saarinen's 1962 masterpiece TWA Terminal at JFK airport is a classic. It's now being used by JetBlue, which in only a few years has become the airport's biggest carrier. So now the airline is expanding. "JetBlue's new terminal, unfortunately, shows just how low air travel can go. At $875 million, it's $125 million cheaper than the bare-bones JFK barracks that American Airlines opened last summer -- and looks it." Bloomberg.com 12/16/05

What Went Wrong With Our WTC Plans? "Why has it been so difficult to replace the twin towers of the World Trade Center? Four years after the attacks of 9/11—four years of design competitions, planning studies, and public forums—the design that has emerged is an unlovely and unloved fortress of a skyscraper, which seems to inspire no emotion deeper than a kind of resigned chagrin. This was to have been the building of the century: what went wrong?" New Criterion 12/05

Decommissioning Northern Ireland's War Murals "Over the past 20 years, Belfast has become famous (perhaps infamous) for its paramilitary murals, visual depictions of its "troubled" times. In Catholic republican areas, street paintings celebrated the Irish Republican Army; in Protestant loyalist areas they paid tribute to a host of splintered violent outfits such as the UDA, the UVF, the UFF. Things are starting to change. With the help of generous city government funding, community activists are replacing these symbols of war with advertisements for peace." Christian Science Monitor 12/16/05

Director: Detroit Historical Museum Won't Close Contray to what the mayor and city say. Bob Bury, executive director and chief executive officer of the Detroit Historical Society, said the society has "adequate funding" to keep the museum open. The mayor had announced closure because of budget needs. Detroit Free Press 12/15/05

Trove Of Nazi Images Now Online A Nazi archive of 60,000 digital colour images of wall and ceiling paintings in German buildings has been put online. The pictures were taken for the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda and the Department of Buildings and Monuments between 1943 and 1945, and show the interiors of 480 buildings—churches, monasteries, castles and palaces, dating from the 10th to the end of the 19th centuries—in what was the 'Greater German Reich'." The Art Newspaper 12/15/05

World's Top Museums Vie For Hong Kong Project Some of the world's top museums are competing to be part of the world's biggest arts project, the multi-billion-dollar Kowloon Cultural District. "Last month it emerged that two former rivals—the Guggenheim and the Pompidou Centre—have joined forces to increase their chances of securing the lucrative deal. It also appears that other museums angling to get in the frame include the Art Institute of Chicago and Asia Society in New York, the Royal Academy of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Musée d’Orsay and Musée Guimet in Paris, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto." The Art Newspaper 12/15/05

Computer Declares Mona Lisa's Smile Mona Lisa is, in fact, smiling, says a computer analysis. "The painting was analysed by a University of Amsterdam computer using 'emotion recognition' software. It concluded that the subject was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry." BBC 12/15/05

Britain's Most Popular Building (Or One Of Its Biggest Eyesores?) The new Scottish parliament building was voted the UK's 8th most popular in a poll, just a day after it was voted in another survey as one of the country's biggest eyesores. The Eden Project in Cornwall has been voted the UK's best-loved modern building. The Scotsman 12/14/05

What It's Like To be An Art Critic? "The days on your feet. The camaraderie of the galleries. The athleticism of aestheticism. A fellow art critic recently told me the story of an important figure who, in important tones, once asked him to explain how he goes about criticizing art. Well, the critic replied, I see art … and I write about it! The response, he reports, was met with bewilderment." New Criterion 12/05

Kramer: The Shady Practices Of "Deaccessioning" Hilton Kramer wishes museums would be more direct when the talk about "deaccessioning." "As far as I have been able to discover, we have no reliable figures on the number of paintings and other types of cultural property that have been lost to the public as a result of “deaccessing” works. The practice is not illegal, but it is often suspect or even shady, especially when the transaction relies—as it often does—on a high degree of secrecy and speed in order to lower the risk of public intervention." New Criterion 12/05

A Solution For The Museum Looted Art Mess? American museums should not grudgingly cough up artifacts piece by piece, like thieves caught with swag. They should make a virtue out of adversity and offer to share their disputed antiquities en masse with plaintiff countries--this applies above all to the Getty, which can afford to lead the world by example and precedent. The Getty should flaunt its courage with a grand public change of heart. It should offer to build Getty museums abroad in the Guggenheim Bilbao manner to house its antiquities in style and to create a system of permanently shared collections." OpinionJournal.com 12/14/05

Detroit Mayor Closes Historical Museum Acting quickly on a re-election mandate to fix the city's finances, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on Tuesday announced the layoffs of 400 city workers, the closing of the Detroit Historical Museum and transfer of management of the Detroit Zoo. Detroit News 12/14/05

Italians To Help Rebuild Iran Museum A group of Italian experts has undertaken to refurbish Iran National Museum as part of Italy's program to develop cultural and economic cooperation. Iranmania 12/13/05

Dumping On The Turner Prize (No Matter What) "Over the years since its low-key beginnings the Turner has provided the media with many healthy inches of outrage. Now this year they complain that the show was not shocking enough. The Daily Mail says of Starling’s Shedboatshed: 'To the casual observer it is just a shack.' Maybe 'casual observers' should stay out of art galleries." The Times (UK) 12/14/05

Earliest-Known Mayan Painting Discovered A major find of an ancient Mayan painting changes what we know about the history of Mayan culture. "The find, a 30-by-3-foot mural in vivid colors depicting the ancient culture's mythology of creation and kingship, is the centerpiece of a larger mural, parts of which were first discovered and exposed in Guatemala four years ago. New radiocarbon tests revealed the painting to be 200 years older than originally estimated, dating to about 100 B.C." The new York Times 12/14/05

The New Art: Everything And The Kitchen Sink "Whether you call it the New Cacophony or the Old Cacophony, Agglomerationism, Disorientationism, the Anti Dia, or just a raging bile duct, the practice of mounting sprawling, often infinitely organized, jam-packed carnivalesque installations is making more and more galleries and museums feel like department stores, junkyards, and disaster films. It is an architecture of no architecture, a gesamtkunstwerk or "total artwork," whose roots are in opera, Dada, the Merzbau, and the madhouse." Village Voice 12/13/05

Is There A Moral In This About How To Dispose Of Stolen Art? Police in california arrest three men after they "allegedly brought a stolen painting valued at more than $40,000 into Atherton gallery Sense Fine Art for appraisal." San Francisco Examiner 12/13/05

Montreal Modern In A Grain Silo? The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal wants to build a home in a grain silo. "The museum's project, titled Silo No. 5: Musée d'art moderne, imagines the revamping of three historic grain silos on the western edge of Old Montreal, a project that would include a luxury-condo complex and a museum devoted to modern and contemporary art with a special emphasis on the emergence of abstraction in Quebec. The proposed museum would be housed on the 10th and 11th floors of a concrete grain elevator built in 1957 by C. D. Howe and Co. and would showcase the permanent collection of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/13/05

Serpentine Gallery Fails To Summit An plan to build a mountain above London's Serpentine Gallery has failed. "The proposal, put forward by the Dutch architect MVRDV, was hailed as the most ambitious project to date in the Serpentine's annual programme of temporary summer pavilions. It called for a 23m-high steel frame, enclosing the gallery and covered in artificial grass, which visitors could climb to admire the views of London. However, practical and financial problems led to the design being shelved indefinitely." The Guardian (UK) 12/12/05

Nero Palace Closes For Emergency Repair The palace of Nero is closing abruptly for emergency repairs and will be closed for at least two years. "Leaking water is threatening the palace’s frescoed walls. The estimated the cost of repairs is five million euros ($6.8 million). Ministry archaeologists said a full-blown restoration of the palace and the surrounding area would cost 130 million euros ($179 million) over 10 years. CBC 12/12/05

What Basel Miami Is All About "If Venice is about the artists, and discreet Basel about dealers and collectors, brash Miami is about money. It is money that you can not only taste in the air; you can hear it discussed, and see it being spent all day long. The effect is strangely distorting. Twenty-four hours in, and you feel a touch under-dressed. Forty-eight hours in, and you wonder WHY you don't own any Chanel couture. Thirty-six hours in, and you no longer turn clammy when you're told the price of things. 'It's $68,000,' the bald guy in the Prada suit will tell you. "Hmm, not bad," you think, aware that the woman with the stretched face to your left has just written a cheque for six times as much." The Observer (UK) 12/11/05

TV's Building SmackDown "Modern architects have always been sensitive about the public's ambivalence towards their buildings, and the last thing they wanted was a programme highlighting their dislike of a string of high-profile modern buildings and clamouring for their demolition. The critics need not have been so nervous. What the poll showed was the public's remarkably sanguine attitude towards modern buildings, despite numerous Lottery-funded projects that might have been expected to generate controversy." The Telegraph (UK) 12/11/05

The New Istanbul Modern - City Of Ferment? "The Istanbul Modern's chief curator, Rosa Martínez, calls the museum's opening 'a strong aesthetic, social and political statement' about Turkey's will 'to live together with the other European countries.' Indeed, the plan to build a contemporary museum in the city's heart had stalled for years until Erdogan's government cleared the way. Can art in Istanbul remain immune to political pressure or even criticize the status quo? Or will this art be co-opted by political and economic forces?" Los Angeles Times 12/11/05

Spain's Architectural Revolution "Powered by a democratic awakening after decades of Fascist rule and by the dividends of European Union membership, Spain is clearly outpacing its European siblings in the breadth and daring of its new architecture." The New York Times 12/11/05

The Metropolitan Museum's Problem Antiquities Donor "The Levy-White collection could prove a complicating factor in discussions between the Met and the Italian Culture Ministry, which says it has evidence that more than 20 objects that the Met already owns were illegally removed from Italy. As the case has unfolded, the Italians have issued subpoenas to the Met through the United States Justice Department." The New York Times 12/10/05

SF Mayor: Architecture Matters San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom wants to make quality architecture a priority in his city. "He takes potshots at predecessors who allowed "a dumbing down of quality." He says developers should be held responsible for how their buildings look, and he wants the city to be known for new landmarks as well as old favorites -- even if some people cringe at what they see." San Francisco Chronicle 12/09/05

The Biggest Art Fraud Of The 20th Century "Between 1986 and 1994, Myatt churned out more than 200 new works by surrealists, cubists and impressionists, passing them off as originals with the help of an accomplice, John Drewe, an expert at generating false provenances. Despite the fact that many of Myatt's paintings were laughably amateurish (they were executed in emulsion, not oil), they fooled the experts and were auctioned for hundreds of thousands of pounds by Christie's and Sotheby's. It was, said Scotland Yard's art and antiques squad when they finally caught up with Myatt in 1995, bursting into his Staffordshire studio at the crack of dawn, 'the biggest art fraud of the 20th century'." The Guardian (UK) 12/08/05

Digitally Detected - A Computer That Can Spot Fakes? Dan Rockmore, a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College, wants to "bring digital technology to the art of authentication. Using hi-res digital cameras and software that he wrote himself, Rockmore aims to examine the brushstrokes from Flora and 24 other works to reveal Rembrandt's unique mathematical fingerprint." Wired 12/08/05

Seattle's Stealth Entry Into Basel Miami Seattle galleries were shut out of official selection for the Basel Miami art fair. So a group of Seattle galleries got together and "booked an entire motel in Ocean Beach, a short walk from Basel/Miami. Then they crossed their fingers and asked 35 galleries to join them." The idea was a hit... Seattle Post-Intelligencer 12/08/05

Turner Prizewinner Mussels His Way Into Canada Artist Simon Sterling, fresh off his Turner win, has announced plans for a new project in Toronto, and the he'll be employing the services of a much-hated invasive species to help him symbolize the original invasive species of North America- European colonizers. "The core proposal involves casting a replica of Henry Moore's Warrior with Shield, a 1954 bronze in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and sinking it into Lake Ontario for six months, where it will become encrusted with zebra mussels before being displayed as the centrepiece of an exhibition of Starling's work." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/08/05

Has The Turner Prize Become Too Safe? "Monday night's Turner Prize presentation was a confirmation, if any were needed, that that acceptance has now very much arrived. Watching three of the nominees talking about their work (painter Gillian Carnegie chose not to appear), you couldn't help feeling that modern art, more than ever before, has become safe, approachable… comfy." The Telegraph (UK) 12/08/05

New Role For London's ICA? The new head of London's Institute for Contemporary Art says that "the institute's historic role as the place in Britain where fresh developments in modern American and European art could be witnessed - it was the first British gallery to show a Jackson Pollock - was no longer relevant, given the proliferation of galleries and museums such as Tate Modern. But its programmes of performance, film, music, art and talks should 'provoke and challenge, keep pushing the boundaries. Britain deserves a space that tries to ask the deep questions; where people can look at the complexity of the world around them'." The Guardian (UK) 12/07/05

Needed - New Ethics On Artifacts "The latest troubles should cause Americans to ask questions about our ethics and practices. Do the Met, the Cleveland Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston - places that bring together cultures from around the world, act as safe houses for civilization and provide public access to millions of people - also have claims to the world's art, claims that legitimately compete with the nationalist goals of countries that cannot always provide the same care and access? Isn't it better for an ancient pot dug out of some farm in Sicily to end up at a museum like the Met, where it can be studied, widely seen and cared for, than to become booty in some billionaire's safe in Zurich, Shanghai or Tokyo? At the same time, does encouraging the movement of artifacts into museums stimulate looting and, in the process, impede the circulation of critical information about the provenance, or history, of these objects?" The New York Times 12/08/05

Next Thing You Know, The Scream Will Turn Up On eBay "The folks at [Germany's] Pirmasens Museum had long given up hope that a cache of paintings by that city's most famous 19th-century painter, Heinrich Burkel, would ever be found... Then this fall Heike Wittmer, the museum's director and archivist, saw what looked like three of the missing Burkels on a Web site advertising an art auction in Concordville, Pa., outside Philadelphia. Wittmer contacted cultural officers in the German government, who in turn contacted the FBI's new Art Crime Team... The paintings, valued at about $125,000, found their way in the 1960s to a New Jersey man who bequeathed them to his daughter about 20 years later." Washington Post 12/07/05

On Further Reflection, The New MoMA Does Not Suck New York's Museum of Modern Art may have gotten an unprecedented wave of publicity when it opened its new home last year, but that doesn't mean that the critics spared MoMA their sharpest critiques. It seemed that nearly everyone had some quibble or other with the new building, but after a year to get used to the new setting, no one seems to be complaining any more. Washington Post 12/07/05

Ukraine's New Wave of Political Art The so-called "Orange Revolution" that gripped Ukraine in 2004 and carried opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency had a profound impact on every facet of existence in the former Soviet republic. One side effect of the month of protests and confrontations was the emergence of a newly energized political art movement. "[The revolution] announced a new wave of Ukrainian artists, several of whom pulled off the neat postmodern trick of simultaneously appropriating, satirizing and extending the conventions of Soviet-style poster art from Stalin to Gorbachev." Chicago Sun-Times 12/07/05

London's Affirmative Action Plan For Curators Less than 6% of London curators are from ethnic minorities, compared with 29% of the city's population. So a new initiative plans on placing five minority trainees at the city's major museums. BBC 12/06/05

Basel Miami By The Numbers Art Basel Miami was a hit. This year's show features a record 195 exhibiting galleries, and drew about 36,000 visitors... Miami Herald 12/06/05

Sites Weighed For African American Museum Four sites in Washington DC are being considered for the Museum of African American History and Culture. "Many supporters of the museum and President Bush have said the museum should be on the Mall. The new museum would be part of the Smithsonian; officials there have estimated it would cost $300 million to $500 million. The study says costs could range from $356 million to $1.4 billion in 2006 dollars. The building is expected to be 350,000 square feet -- roughly the size of the National Museum of the American Indian." Washington Post 12/06/05

America's Crumbling History A new report says that heritage items in America's museums are deteriorating and require urgent conservation care. "Millions of items in American public collections that may be lost unless they receive urgent preservation attention. In a study to be released on Tuesday in New York, Heritage Preservation, a Washington-based conservation group, reports that many such collections are threatened by poor environmental controls, improper storage, inadequate staffing and financing and poor planning for emergencies like floods." The New York Times 12/06/05

Italy Vs. Marion True "Italian prosecutors began to make their case on Monday against Marion True, a former antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the American dealer Robert Hecht, who are being tried on charges of dealing in looted antiquities..." The New York Times 12/06/05

UK Art - Not Insured None of the thousands of artworks owned by the British government is insured. "Culture Minister David Lammy said the government carries its own risk for the works dating from the 16th Century to the present day. The collection includes pieces by John Constable, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud and works are shown in hundreds of government buildings worldwide." BBC 12/06/05

Basel Miami - A Riot Of Color What was hot at this year's Art Basel Miami fair? "One began to discern certain strands. One was for the artist simply to exhibit the most unnoticed of objects just so that one noticed them. Willys de Castro hung two wooden sticks on a wall. Anna Maria Maiolino had framed some torn squares of white plasterboard. After seeing those, one certainly looked at things such as taps in the bathrooms with more curiosity — but not for long." The Times (UK) 12/06/05

Greece Opens Seas To Looters? "The Greek parliament's unprecedented step last month to allow divers access to the once forbidden coastline has raised fears that archaeological riches preserved in an untouched world will be taken by ruthless thieves." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/05

Shed Wins Turner Prize "Simon Starling is no provocateur. Nor was he a shock winner - the bookies made him the even-money favourite. But none the less, it will come as no surprise to those who regard the Turner prize with disdain that he has won £25,000 for dismantling and assembling a wooden shed." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/05

• A Shed With A Backstory Simon Starling's Turner-winning shed is all about the backstory (of course). "His work was in its way the least satisfying installation in the show, mostly because his art is less about the things in the gallery than about how these objects came to be there in the first place." The Guardian (UK) 12/06/05

A Scottish tate Modern? Hmnnnn... The Scottish government is studying an idea of transforming an old building into A Scottish version of Tate Modern or the Guggenheim. "Arts insiders say the 15,000sqm building could become a Scottish version of the Tate Modern or the Guggenheim." But Sir Timothy Clifford, the flamboyant director general of the National Gallery of Scotland, has told culture minister Patricia Ferguson that the project smacked of "regional towns in England." Glasgow Herald 12/04/05

Milwaukee Has A Public Art Problem "How is it possible a city now defined around the world by its art museum could suffer such a drought when it comes to public art? This is a question that is raised perennially, with lots of strong opinions voiced and little change resulting." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 12/04/05

Peru Makes Claim On Yale Artifacts Peru is threatening to sue Yale University, demanding return of artifacts from Machu Picchu. "Peru has notified [Yale's president] Richard Levin that a lawsuit is prepared if its rights to the archaeological pieces are not recognised," the Peruvian foreign ministry said in a statement. The Guardian (UK) 12/05/05

Classical Ideals - Still Relevant? "Epic tales, attributed to the Greek poet Homer, aren't just adventure stories, although on that level alone they deserve to have endured for centuries. They're also instructive moral and ethical allegories about virtues such as courage, fidelity and honor. European artists of the 17th through the 19th centuries were inspired by these sagas, which attests to their durable appeal. But now we're in the 21st century. Do paintings and sculptures that propound classical ideals still have anything to say that today's museumgoers would find meaningful?" Philadelphia Inquirer 12/04/05

Art Basel Miami's Gold Rush Business The world's largest art fair does great business. But many collectors who swept in on the first day and reserved art, later canceled. “Last year we had more South Americans and Europeans. This year there were more Americans and institutions.” The Art Newspaper 12/05/05

Is Aboriginal Art Any Good? "Aboriginal art generates exponential profit for all those who touch it - even, though perhaps not proportionately, for the people who make it. The rules are now very strict: Aboriginal artists retain all their intellectual and moral rights in the work after it has been rolled up and tucked into a backpack or bolted to the wall of a banking hall, in perpetuity. Amid the frenzied buying and selling, with important Aboriginal art objects changing hands as often as several times a year, there is still a pervasive anxiety that Aboriginal art might be a con." The Age (Melbourne) 12/03/05

Latin-American Art Takes On World "Latin American art, which used to be collected mainly by Latin American buyers, is now reaching a broader audience than ever before. US, European and Southeast Asian collectors make-up 50% of the market today.” The Art Newspaper 12/02/05

Uncovering Britain's Art Only one in every five paintings in public art collections is on display. One man is assembling catalogues in an attempt to bring the art to light. "The catalogues are both wonderful social histories and crammed full of small-scale artistic discoveries. You find yourself building little stories up about both painters and subjects; armchair travelling around places you might normally only drive through. It is like flicking through Pevsner's counties without the small print; as English as the shipping forecast or Marmite." The Observer (UK) 12/04/05

Hugo Boss Finalists The Guggenheim Foundation announces six finalists for this year's Hugo Boss Prize. "This year's finalists are an international sampling of today's trendiest artists. The group is heavily tipped toward performance art; none of the finalists are painters." The New York Times 12/02/05

Building Threatens Watts Towers? A new municipal building is being erected in the parking lot next to LA's Watts Towers. "Neighbors are concerned about congestion, and preservationists who cherish Simon Rodia's fantasia of folk-art sculpture worry that the new building, which would augment the smaller, existing arts center nearby, will obstruct views of the towers. They question why officials decided to place a new, $4.7-million youth arts center near the towers, rather than on city-owned property around the corner that originally was designated for the project." Los Angeles Times 12/03/05

Court Case: A Threat To Museum Art Loans? "Museum directors are watching as a case pitting the heirs of Kazimir Malevich against an Amsterdam museum winds its way through the U.S. courts. At its core is a novel bid to get around a federal law protecting loaned art from seizure. 'If there isn't some guarantee, I don't know why anyone would lend anything...especially given the litigious nature of the art world right now'." Wall Street Journal 12/03/05

The New New Basel Miami Art Basel Miami opens with a flourish. "While many top galleries returned, 55 percent of the galleries chosen were new this year -- a deliberate attempt to keep the fair fresh, said Art Basel director Sam Keller. The strategy worked, said many fairgoers." Miami Herald 12/02/05

America's Newspaper Architecture Critics America's newspapers don't have many architecture critics on staff. Here's a profile of four of the most prominent: the Boston Globe's Robert Campbell, Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin, LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne, and New York Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff. The Architect's News `12/01/05

Tracing The Priceless Euphronios Cup "The priceless Euphronios cup -- painted with the image of the fallen Trojan war hero Sarpedon -- is the earliest known work painted by the Athenian master, last seen intact publicly in New York in 1990 on the Sotheby's block as lot #6 selling for $742,000 and going to a "European buyer". I considered it a relevant question, since the "European buyer" for the cup last week identified himself to the press in Italy as Giacomo Medici, a man convicted of antiquities smuggling and now appealing a 10-year sentence." Scoop 12/01/05

Explaining Calatrava "The flashy contours, flamboyant engineering effects, and mechanical gimmickry of the Santiago Calatrava style are futuristic in a way that went out of fashion circa 1965, when the last New York World's Fair closed. The seemingly advanced (though in fact retrograde) aspects of his architecture disguise its underlying sentimentality, and make it palatable to patrons of a certain sophistication who would reject more pronounced expressions of kitsch. That he has found a constituency in the art world is perplexing, but his appeal to a popular audience makes perfect sense." New York Review of Books 12/15/05

FBI's Top Ten Art Crimes "After much analysis, the FBI has come up with its list of the top 10 art crimes, and it's asking the public for help in solving them. FBI investigators are on the hunt for Rembrandts, Renoirs, stolen treasures from Iraq, two Van Goghs, and Munch's The Scream." CTV (Canada) 12/02/05

Met To Italy: Where's The Proof? Italian officials have little concrete evidence that objects in the Metropolitan Museum are stolen. "For six of the seven pots, Italian evidence doesn't tie them to any clandestine digs or tomb robbers, according to a judge's conviction of Roman art dealer Giacomo Medici, who was charged with smuggling the pots. Italian negotiators are using evidence from his trial in their negotiations with the Met. For the seventh vase, a 2,500-year-old pot painted by the artist Euphronios, an allegedly incriminating journal found in an American art dealer's Paris apartment makes no mention of the object ever being in Italy." Bloomberg.com 12/01/05

Corcoran Taps A Scholar The Washington, D.C.-based Corcoran Gallery of Art has selected British art historian Paul Greenhaulgh as its next president. "The appointment is part of a wrenching overhaul at the 136-year-old Corcoran after five years of bold plans and occasional turmoil." Greenhaulgh currently runs an art school in Nova Scotia, experience which should serve him well at the Corcoran, where he will also be in charge of the gallery's College of Art & Design. "He succeeds David C. Levy, the Corcoran's director for 14 years. Levy resigned suddenly in May as the board of trustees suspended efforts to build a wing designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry. Fundraising for the project had stalled, and the Corcoran had accumulated deficits in 17 of the past 21 years." Washington Post 12/01/05

By Chicago, For Chicago Chicago is a fabulous museum town, but some residents believe that the city's world-renowned museums frequently ignore the art that's right under their nose. Enter the Chicago Art Foundation, founded a year ago with the mission of building a new museum to showcase Chicago-based art. Such endeavors take huge amounts of time and money, of course, but the foundation has made impressive progress in a relatively short period of time. Chicago Sun-Times 12/01/05

Controversial Library Auction Yields An Underwhelming Result "Defying high anticipation, one of two portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart that have been in the New York Public Library's collection for more than a century failed to sell at Sotheby's yesterday in an auction that had generated advance controversy." The other portrait sold for considerably less than the auction house had expected. "The works are among 16 paintings, watercolors and sculptures that the New York Public Library put on the block yesterday to raise money for its endowment. The decision, announced in April, drew protests from many art lovers and museum curators who said they felt that the library was jettisoning treasures central to the civic history of New York." The New York Times 12/01/05