Another Eye-Catcher In London's Future? The London Eye (it's that giant Ferris Wheel on the bank of the Thames) is one of the city's most identifiable landmarks, and over the years, it has stood the test of time as a brilliantly designed urban feature. Now, the husband-and-wife architectural team who designed the Eye are planning a "sleek new observation tower" and several other high-profile projects. The Telegraph (UK) 08/01/06

Getty Gets Transparent "In a move sure to please all who crave details from lifestyles of the rich and tax-exempt, the J. Paul Getty Trust has followed through on its pledge in June to add a boatload of public disclosures to its website... Many of the figures were already part of the trust's mandated annual tax filings. But these disclosures, more detailed than those offered by any other Los Angeles arts organization, mean an inquiring Web surfer, having found and learned the details of Rubens and Brueghel's 17th century friendship from the Getty's "exhibitions" pages, can then click on "about us" and "governance" and dive into deep numbers or such fanciful reading as the 53-year-old fine print on the trust indenture by which oil billionaire J. Paul Getty created the institution." Los Angeles Times 07/31/06

Roman Circus Rome's ancient monuments are crumbling, and as best anyone can tell, the Italian government isn't doing a thing about it. "Everyone has heard of sinking Venice, but only a restricted circle of academics wring their hands over crumbling Rome. Yet, for lack of funds, the city's ancient centre is inexorably deteriorating." Recent torrential rains have brought the situation to a head, with experts fearing the worst if something isn't done to stabilize the monuments soon. The Guardian (UK) 07/31/06

Canada's Next Legendary Architect "This June, after winning two U.S. prizes, Bruce Kuwabara received the prestigious Royal Architectural Institute of Canada gold medal at age 57, becoming the first of his generation to join the ranks of Jack Diamond, Arthur Erickson and Moshe Safdie... Kuwabara has made it his challenge to build harmonies in the cacophonous cityscape, but his interests are now moving in new directions. [Lately,] he has been reconsidering Toronto's peculiar challenges." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/31/06

You Complete Me Workers in France are putting the finishing touches on a massive church designed (but never completed) by architect Le Corbusier. "Completed by [Corbusier] protégé José Oubrerie, who has tinkered with many elements of the original sketches, the Church of St. Pierre has stirred debate among Parisian academics about the ethics of finishing a work left behind by a legendary architect." The New York Times 07/30/06

Tate's New Ziggurat Gets Rave Reviews The expansion plan for London's Tate Museum unveiled this week is "a powerful, memorable project, that would have seemed inconceivable when the new Tate was first mooted. Without being showy for the sake of making a spectacle, it takes the form of a glass mountain rearing up behind Giles Gilbert Scott's brick cliff and clearly visible from the river and St Paul's." The Observer (UK) 07/30/06

What's In A Logo? Logos may seem insignificant, but they have a major impact on the way people think about a company or an institution, or whether they think about it at all. So when Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art decided it needed a new logo, it was a major project. Boston Globe 07/30/06

The Long, Slow Fight For Art Recovery Groups advocating the return of art looted by the Nazis in World War II have made great progress in recent years, but the battle is far from over. Just identifying looted art is a major undertaking: "One thorny issue is just how many looted items could have made their way to American museums. Under scrutiny are objects that were created before 1946 and obtained by a museum after 1932. Other criteria are whether the piece was in Europe at that time and whether ownership changed between 1932 and 1946." Washington Post 07/28/06

• Berlin To Return Kirchner Painting The city of Berlin plans to return a 1913 painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to the heirs of the Jewish family who lost it to the Nazis in World War II. The painting, which depicts a Berlin street scene, is valued at $12.5 million, and has hung in Berlin's Brücke Museum since 1980. Los Angeles Times (AP) 07/28/06

Chelsea's Summer Wars "The summer group show wars are raging in [New York's Chelsea neighborhood.] Over the last few years they have become something of an annual rite. Starting in late June and continuing through August, the solo shows drop off and the group shows — four or more artists — proliferate. The densely packed yet oddly discrete parallel universes in which galleries exist for most of the year lose some of their definition... It is open season for cool hunting and power gathering. Hipness prevails over blue-chipness." The New York Times 07/28/06

Boston Museum Sending Loot Back To Italy "The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has agreed to return to the Italian government artifacts long suspected of being looted, according to a tentative agreement announced today. In exchange, Italy will loan the MFA objects from the country's vast holdings of antiquities, and work with the museum to make sure the MFA does not acquire stolen works in the future." Boston Globe 07/27/06

Should A Glance At Greatness Really Cost More In New York? Since going on public display at New York's Neue Gallery, Gustav Klimt's 1907 masterpiece "Adele Bloch-Bauer 1" has been drawing crowds and controversy in roughly equal measures, with the latter sparked by the Neue's quickly abandoned plan to charge visitors $50 to view the Klimt. But despite the Neue's course correction, the outrage over the steep admission price has spread, and a much-needed debate over what it costs to gain admission to New York's various museums and galleries is now well underway. Sydney Morning Herald 07/28/06

View Askew: Africa, As Seen From Europe "The first Europeans went [to Africa] to exploit the continent and were soon followed by artists excited by the 'primitive'. But, as a new exhibition shows, the images they produced bear the stamp of colonialism with a paint brush... Our view of Africa has been an inheritance of 19th-century colonialism, dominated by biological determinism, by repressed and perverse sexuality, and by paintings and sculptures that ignored the realities of the place and time in favour of a romanticised and polemical vision." The Guardian (UK) 07/28/06

Still Museum Names Design Finalists Colorado's Clyfford Still Museum has named five prominent architectural firms as finalists in the race to design the museum's 30,000-square foot headquarters. When completed, the privately funded museum will house 2,100 of Still's works, donated to the city of Denver by the artist's widow. A final decision on the architecture is expected in early November. Denver Post 07/27/06

Irish Find 1000-Year-Old Psalter In Bog "Irish archaeologists are celebrating the discovery of their own Dead Sea scrolls after a bulldozer unearthed fragments of a psalter that may have lain in a bog for more than 1,000 years." The Guardian (UK) 07/26/06

Canadian Museum Attendance Up "More than 35 million people made a trip to a museum, art gallery, historic site or zoo in Canada in 2004, a 10.7 per cent increase from 2002, according to Statistics Canada." CBC 07/26/06

Americans Return Looted Artifact To Iraq American officials have returned an important artifact looted from the Iraq National Museum three years ago. "The headless stone statue of the Sumerian king Entemena of Lagash was turned over to the Iraqi government when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Washington on Wednesday. The statue, which weighs hundreds of pounds, was taken by looters who slid or rolled it down the steps of the museum, damaging both the steps and other artifacts." CBC 07/26/06

Chicago Art Institute Protests NYT Story The Chicago Art Institute is protesting a caption and characterization of one of the museum's artworks in the New York Times. The museum says that contrary to a Times caption, "a landscape painting by Gustave Courbet long owned by the Art Institute of Chicago was never found to have been confiscated by the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II." Chicago Sun-Times 07/26/06

• Art Institute Disputes NYT Characterization "Nowhere in the article is the Art Institute of Chicago even mentioned as one of the museums that responded in a timely manner to the survey sent by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany; that the museum follows the guidelines of the American Association of Museums on Nazi-era provenance research; and that the Art Institute has been committed to provenance research since before the guidelines were issued." Modern Art Notes (AJBlogs) 07/25

• Previously: Survey: Many American Museums Haven't Checked Provenance Of Nazi Era Art "Of the 332 museums that were sent questionnaires by the conference in February, 214 responded before a deadline of July 10. Of those, approximately 114, or slightly more than half, said that they were actively conducting provenance work. The remaining 100 museums either said they were not doing such work or did not provide enough information for the Claims Conference to be able to make a determination." The New York Times 07/24/06

Chicago's Ugliest Buildings What are they? The Chicago Tribune has made a list... Chicago Tribune 07/26/06

Are American Museums Serious About Ownership Of Their Art? Not according to a new report. "The survey found 140,000 objects that 'need provenance research,' far more than the 18,000 objects posted on the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal maintained by the museum association. Most of the museums actively conducting provenance research have completed work on less than half the relevant items in their collections, only about 33% of the museums have a separate budget for the purpose and only about 10% have employed a full-time researcher, the survey says." Los Angeles Times 07/26/06

• Previously: Survey: Many American Museums Haven't Checked Provenance Of Nazi Era Art "Of the 332 museums that were sent questionnaires by the conference in February, 214 responded before a deadline of July 10. Of those, approximately 114, or slightly more than half, said that they were actively conducting provenance work. The remaining 100 museums either said they were not doing such work or did not provide enough information for the Claims Conference to be able to make a determination." The New York Times 07/24/06

A Look At Tate Modern's Expansion Plans "The addition will make the museum comparable in size to the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The annex, which resembles glass boxes stacked up arbitrarily to form a 220-foot pyramid, has been designed by the Swiss firm Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the same architects who in the late 1990’s turned an abandoned power station on the south bank of the Thames, across from St. Paul’s Cathedral, into Tate Modern." The New York Times 07/26/06

Why Tate Modern Needs To Be Bigger Tate Modern is proposing a £165 million extension. Why? "Tate Modern has been a victim of its own extraordinary success. On all too many weekends, it can feel like a surreal cross between some brutalist shopping mall, Piranesian airport lounge and the Seven Circles of Hell. Deadly queues form for its hard-pressed cafes and lavatories. The bookshop can resemble a jumble sale. The galleries are often little more, for all their lofty grandeur, than corridors for crowds to tramp through in search of novelty, rarely stopping to look at the art on display." The Guardian (UK) 07/26/06

Philly's City Hall, Minus The Coal Stains Philadelphia's hulkingly opulent city hall, an architectural lightning rod since shortly after its completion in 1901, may be about to see its best days yet. "A restoration of the building’s lavish statuary and exteriors, perhaps the nation’s largest-ever art conservation effort, is slowly transforming its dingy main floors into bright granite and marble. Ironwork that was once rusty is now a crisp white. Viewed from the northwest, the renewed facades are a shining panorama its builders could only imagine." The New York Times 07/25/06

Survey: Many American Museums Haven't Checked Provenance Of Nazi Era Art "Of the 332 museums that were sent questionnaires by the conference in February, 214 responded before a deadline of July 10. Of those, approximately 114, or slightly more than half, said that they were actively conducting provenance work. The remaining 100 museums either said they were not doing such work or did not provide enough information for the Claims Conference to be able to make a determination." The New York Times 07/24/06

How Do You Tell A Real Pollock? Jackson "Pollock at his peak burned his past conditioning and present turmoil, his very identity and character as a man, and he burned them clean. There’s nobody to recognize. That’s why it can be hard at first sight to tell a true Pollock from a fake. He prepared us to believe that absolutely anything was possible for him. What determines authenticity for me is a hardly scientific, no doubt fallible intuition of a raging need that found respite only in art." The New Yorker 07/24/06

A Protest To Save Stonehenge "English Heritage is particularly worried because Unesco, the United Nations education and cultural body, has warned it may remove the monument's World Heritage status unless Britain tackles the serious problem of traffic passing right beside Stonehenge, which is one of the world's richest reservoirs of Stone Age circles, henges and alignments." The Observer (UK) 07/23/06

Scuplture Comes Undone, Kills Two Two women were killed and 13 people injured when an inflatable sculpture in the UK was blown 70 feet into the air by a gust of wind. "The Dreamspace installation was designed by Maurice Agis, 74, a renowned abstract artist who was at the scene yesterday. The structure is made from thin PVC sheets forming 115 multi-coloured inflated rooms and is about half the size of a football pitch. Visitors pay £5 to enter and wear a cape." The Independent (UK) 07/24/06

Questions About Selling Museum Art "Decisions to sell objects from museum collections must not be subject to the subjective judgments or personal preferences of individual curators, however knowledgeable and well-intentioned they may be. The governing presumption should be: What enters the public domain stays in the public domain, except for works that are clearly inferior in quality or condition. The public has paid for them, after all, through the tax deductions given to the donors of money or of art." CultureGrrl 07/24/06

Building Consensus -Zaha Hadid Vs. The Real World "The gulf between what Hadid sees, and enables others to see in her beautifully crafted but highly distorted drawings and paintings, and the realized architecture that results from these two-dimensional fantasias, is vast. The buildings, the few that have been built, seem to exist in a slower, duller universe. Someone has turned the lights on, and the music off, and suddenly the world no longer twinkles, and Hadid's buildings no longer feel quite so much like spaceships rocketing to galaxies unknown." Washington Post 07/23/06

Why "Congestion Pricing" Wouldn't Work With Klimt "Congestion pricing" for access to the Neue Gallerie to see the newly-acquired Klimt painting might have had the reverse effect its owners wanted. "The plan to raise prices on Wednesdays from $15 to $50 was rapidly abandoned after visitors took exception to such naked elitism, but it's unlikely the plan would have worked anyway." Make something expensive and elite, and more people, not fewer, would have clamored to get in. The Guardian (UK) 07/23/06

Thames Views At Risk From Tate Expansion "Adventurous plans to build a new huge extension - described as a cut-glass ziggurat - at the Tate Modern gallery in London will be unveiled this week to warm applause from large parts of the architectural world and some criticism from design experts. The Twentieth Century Society, which was consulted on the plans, said the stepped pyramid extension - to be shown for the first time on Tuesday - detracts from the architectural importance of the existing gallery and warns that it has 'serious issues' with the plan." The Observer (UK) 07/23/06

Denver Museum Director Stays, Top Curator To Leave "The Denver Art Museum's collections and exhibitions are not the only thing in transition as the institution prepares for one of the monumental events in its history - the Oct. 7 opening of its $90.5 million addition. At least two major staff changes are expected to coincide with the Hamilton Building's inauguration, none more significant than the recently delayed retirement of director Lewis Sharp, one of Denver's most prominent arts leaders... Dianne Vanderlip, curator of modern and contemporary art, [also] revealed she is leaving her position in January." Denver Post 07/23/06

The Lasting Legacy Of Rembrandt "Museum attendance continues to set records in America and Europe, yet probably fewer people now than 50 years ago could give an informed response to a Rembrandt painting... But enter into a Rembrandt drawing, almost irrespective of its subject, and for an instant its very fluency makes it feel doable: a soothing sensation of deliverance from incapacity comes forward." San Francisco Chronicle 07/22/06

New DecArt Curator For Carnegie Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art has hired decorative arts curator Jason Busch away from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "He was formerly assistant curator of American decorative arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut... The [Carnegie's] assistant curator of decorative arts, Elizabeth Agro, will be leaving soon for a position at the Philadelphia Museum of Art." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 07/22/06

What's In A Ticket Price? The admission hikes at various New York museums have sparked a great deal of debate over what, if anything, museums should charge the public to see their treasures. "A museum’s admission policy is charged with meaning. It encodes the institution’s core values — its sense of itself, its mission and its public — and broadcasts them to that public. It’s like a thumbprint, a tiny yet accurate key to a whole identity." The New York Times 07/22/06

Impermanent Art When Tate Modern decided to rearrange its collection around a series of vaguely defined "hubs," many in the art world were skeptical. But the rehanging has been a major hit with visitors, and other contemporary art museums around the world are beginning to experiment with ways to make their permanent collections seem less, well, permanent. "With contemporary art, where history is still fluid and museums have yet to become pantheons of unchallenged masters, flexibility seems advisable." The New York Times 07/22/06

Speculators Buy In To Chinese Art "In a rocketing economy where government owns the land but is curtailing rampant speculation with new regulations, art is the new real estate in China. But, longtime observers bemoan speculation, saying it artificially warps the prices, and even affects the form and quality of the art. Yet China offers a one-of-a kind, forward-racing, ever-morphing art scene, a heady stew stirred by artists, speculators, critics and curators. Buyers are also playing a role in molding the new faces of Chinese art." San Francisco Chronicle 07/21/06

Bad Summer For LA's Murals "Thursday, attorneys representing artist Kent Twitchell filed a claim against the U.S. Department of Labor in connection with Twitchell's large-scale mural "Ed Ruscha Monument" — a six-story portrait of fellow artist Ruscha on a building owned by the federal agency — being painted over in early June. Twitchell said he received no notice, as required by law, that the paint-over would take place.Within the past few days, two more downtown murals, Frank Romero's "Going to the Olympics" and Willie Herrón's "Luchas del Mundo" (Struggles of the World) were partly covered with mud-colored paint, an apparent error by a Caltrans work crew cleaning up graffiti." Los Angeles Times 07/21/06

Celebrating Louis Sullivan's 150th Chicago is celebrating the 150th anniversary of architect Louis Sullivan with the restoration of the historic cornice of one of his iconic city buildings - the Carson Pirie Scott. Chicago Sun-Times 07/21/06

Artifact Looters Adapt As Greece, Italy Clamp Down "Home to an estimated 34,000 archaeological sites, Greece is viewed as Europe's biggest open-air museum. Along with Italy, it has attracted tomb raiders since before its foundation as a nation state in 1830. But Athens is toughening its stance, homing in on the dealers, curators and collectors that are the source of demand." So the looters? Why they're just moving on to easier pickings... The Guardian (UK) 07/21/06

Dealers May Lose Out In Berry-Hill Bankruptcy "Dealers whose pictures were consigned to and sold by Berry-Hill Galleries before it filed for bankruptcy, risk losing the proceeds from their sale, unless Berry-Hill can raise enough money to make a first payment to its secured creditor by 2 August. The amount of money they will get back is uncertain." The Art Newspaper 07/20/06

For His Next Trick, He'll Turn Telemarketers Into Symphonies Could there possibly be anything good or useful about the scourge of e-mail spam currently clogging up the world's inboxes? It all depends what you do with it. "When Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu looks at junk e-mails, he sees patterns - bits and bytes that can be manipulated into colorful plantlike images or stark architectural forms." The Christian Science Monitor 07/20/06

Tate Criticized For Artist Acquisition The Tate has been rebuked by the Charity Commission for buying artwork made by one of its artist trustees. "The media attention drawn by the Ofili case has proved deeply embarrassing to the Tate, which has acquired a particularly high profile in the British art world since the splashy opening of Tate Modern in a converted power station on the south bank of the Thames in 2000. Next week the Tate is expected to announce a major expansion of Tate Modern." The New York Times 07/20/06

• Previously: Ruling: Tate Broke Law In Buying Ofili Work Britain's Charity Commission has ruled that the Tate Museum broke the law when it cought a £600,000 work by Chris Ofili. "Most major art institutions are set up as charities. By law, trustees cannot receive monetary benefit from their charity without express permission, usually from the commission. The Tate failed to seek permission, not only in the case of the Ofili work, The Upper Room, but in 17 previous purchases of work by artist-trustees going back 50 years." The Guardian (UK) 07/18/06

A Time For Skylines? Seattle's Profile Changes Seattle's skyline is changing. "This is not the time for American skylines. What was once a blazing symbol of optimistic speculation—the photographer Alfred Stieglitz proclaimed he saw the ship of America charging toward him the first time he set eyes on the Flatiron Building in New York—has become a problematic mess. The vaunted nature of skylines has been tarnished by awareness of their environmental, historic, and socioeconomic implications." The Stranger 07/20/06

Merrill: Art's Not A Great Investment As art prices soar, buying art might look like a great investment. But Merrill Lynch reports oterwise. "While stocks or bonds are almost certain to make investors a profit over five years, art has a high chance of declining in value, the world's biggest brokerage company said. The probability of losses on small-cap stocks, corporate bonds and long-term treasury bonds is 3 percent or less if they're held for five years. Art investors have a 17 percent chance of losing money over five years, Merrill said." Bloomberg 07/19/06

Canadian Portrait Gallery Stalls Work on the Portrait Gallery of Canada has been suspended and the government is reviewing the project. Said review will take until November. "Sources say the gallery is in limbo partly because of competing priorities within Library and Archives Canada (created in 2004 out of the former National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada, it's the institution responsible for the Portrait Gallery), and partly because the Stephen Harper government wants to fulfill its promise to increase accountability." The Gloibe & Mail (Canada) 07/19/06

Neue Gallerie Drops $50 Charge To See Klimts New York's Neue Galerie has scrapped plans to charge $50 to view its newly purchased Klimt portrait on a day its doors are normally shut. The Gallerie says the offer was "misread by the public." The New York Times 07/19/06

Ruling: Tate Broke Law In Buying Ofili Work Britain's Charity Commission has ruled that the Tate Museum broke the law when it cought a £600,000 work by Chris Ofili. "Most major art institutions are set up as charities. By law, trustees cannot receive monetary benefit from their charity without express permission, usually from the commission. The Tate failed to seek permission, not only in the case of the Ofili work, The Upper Room, but in 17 previous purchases of work by artist-trustees going back 50 years." The Guardian (UK) 07/18/06

Sotheby's Sales Gaining On No. 1 Christie's "Sotheby's first-half art sales totaled $1.96 billion, according to the company's Web site. They were helped by Pablo Picasso's 'Dora Maar au Chat,' which took $95.2 million at a New York auction in May. Christie's estimated total was 'in excess of' $2.09 billion." Bloomberg 07/18/06

Pondering The Value Of A Really Expensive Klimt “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (1907), by Gustav Klimt, sold last month for a record $135 million. "Is she worth the money? Not yet. Paintings this special may not come along for sale often, and the hundred and four million dollars spent for a so-so Picasso, “Boy with a Pipe,” two years ago indicated that irrational exuberance could be the booming art market’s new motto. But Lauder’s outlay predicts a level of cost that must either soon become common or be relegated in history as a bid too far. And the identity of the artist gives pause." The New Yorker 07/17/06

$20 Admission? How 'Bout $49.99? The Metropolitan Museum of Art's decision to raise its admission price from $15 to $20 has Christopher Knight thinking: Why such a puny increase when the Met could really stick it to its customers? "It's 2006! America has been through Reagan, Bush, Clinton and another Bush. Whether it's health insurance, schools, campaign funding or any of the arts, liberal concepts of public responsibility have been out of fashion for a quarter-century. Didn't the Met get the memo? Americans want things fully privatized." Los Angeles Times 07/18/06

Plaintives Lay Claim On Iranian Artifacts To Collect Judgment Five Americans who won judgments against Iran in an American court have adopted an unusual tactic to collect on their claims. They are "laying claim to some 2,500-year-old cuneiform tablets that are on loan from Iran to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. The survivors are demanding that the university sell the tablets, unearthed by American archaeologists at the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis in the 1930’s, and compensate them with the proceeds." The New York Times 07/18/06

Chinese Investors Drive Up Art Prices "Chinese investors are beginning to collect contemporary Chinese art as they accumulate wealth. Oil paintings, statues and other works created by artists since the 1980s used to sell for no more than $1,000 a piece a decade ago. Today, they can go for $600,000 or more. Sales at the latest autumn and spring contemporary art auctions in Hong Kong more than doubled to HK$276 million ($35.5 million) from a year earlier." Bloomberg 07/17/06

London's Frieze Fair Bans Print Dealers "The organisers of Frieze have sent a letter to print publishers such as Alan Cristea, Paragon Press and Two Palms saying that “a certain category” of exhibitor will not be admitted this year. The reasons given are that “prints don’t look good in a fair”, and that the dealers do not have “primacy of representation” of the artists they show." The Art Newspaper 07/13/06

Vatican To Collect Modern Art The Vatican Museum houses one of the world's great art collections, but it doesn't own much contemporary art. Now the Vatican says it'll start collecting modern art. "The Vatican's museums are among the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with three million visitors seeing its art, sculptures, tapestries and maps every year." BBC 07/17/06

Is Venice Dying In A Sea Of Tourists? "If left unmanaged, the sea of tourists may be a lot more threatening than the Adriatic Sea. Currently, around 15m people visit Venice each year, while the city has a resident population of about 60,000. Around the world literacy and cultural awareness are increasing. Incomes in India, China and Eastern Europe are now increasing very rapidly; there are 2.5 billion people in India and China alone who within 50 years might have incomes comparable to ours. That means that the number of people who want to see Venice and will be able to afford to see Venice might very plausibly expand by a factor of three or more over the next few decades." The Art Newspaper 07/13/06

UK Museums Closing For Lack Of Local Funding Support Britain's museums are in crisis, according to one of the country's leading arts charities, which has released research showing that historic institutions are being neglected by cash-strapped local authorities. The Observer (UK) 07/16/06

The British Museum's Pragmatic Reconfigure Neil McGregor has transformed the fortunes of the British Museum in his four years at the top. Now he's planning a major show, and, to get enough room to show it, is taking over the historic Reading Room. "Few, however, expect the plan to pass uncontested. Curators at the BM are resistant to disturbance and backwoods traditionalists and backbench MPs will doubtless rally in support of the dodo. Stand by for a tabloid outcry, the anti-literate in defence of the unread, before the Reading Room is finally submersed." La Scena Musicale 07/12/06

Chihuly Lawsuit Poses Ownership Questions A lawsuit brought by glass artist Dale Chihuly against a former employee raises "intriguing questions about what makes any artist's work unique, what qualifies as inspiration and what defines a mere knock-off." The ex-employee's dealer "expects the suit to cost him $1.6 million. He says the suit already has cost him a lot of business, including a cancelled deal with Costco stores to produce a special line of sea shapes for $550 a pop." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 07/16/06

Group: Canadian Museums Are Endangered "Canada is in danger of losing several of its museums because of a funding freeze that has lasted 34 years, says the Canadian Museums Association." The situation has been brought about, the association says, by a funding freeze that has lasted 34 years... CBC 07/15/06

Curators Association Protests Brooklyn Museum Reorganization Plan The Association of Art Museum Curators is objecting to the Brooklyn Museum's plan to reorganize its curatorial departments. The group says that "the new structure 'undermines the traditional vocation of the curator-as-scholar whose commitment to a particular collection renders him or her uniquely qualified to make recommendations regarding its care and interpretation.' The plan, which has been criticized by some curators at other museums and within the Brooklyn Museum itself, 'raises issues that are central to the health of art museums in North America, and in fact, throughout the world'." The New York Times 07/16/06

At The Met - Pay What You Want To Enter (Really?) So the Metropolitan Museum's admission is going up to $20. But it's just a "suggested" donation, and in truth, you can pay whatever you want. But is social pressure at the ticket window to pay the full fare enough to preclude paying less? A Times reporter goes to ticket windows with a roll of quarters to find out... The New York Times 07/16/06

Met Museum Joins Art-For-Money Loans The Metropolitan Museum joins the ranks of museums loaning works in their collections for fees, with a show going to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. "The upcoming Met blockbuster is an 'opportunistic event,' made possible by the need to remove the museum's French 19th-century paintings from the walls while those galleries are expanded. It is, he said, intended to 'raise funds for this construction' - the first time that the Met has structured a traveling exhibition as a big moneymaker." CultureGrrl 07/14/06

Anti-Bad Provenance Insurance An insurance company is selling a new policy that insures the ownership of art. "Their brainchild, art title protection insurance, 'transfers risk to a third party so that people can buy and sell art with the confidence that there is not a World War II claim, an import-export issue or a lien or judgment against the artwork'." Los Angeles Times 07/14/06

Greece To Close Ancient Theatres Greece's two main ancient theatres will be closed in August for urgent repairs, the Greek government has announced. The theatres are used for performances and the crowds have worn down and damaged the ancient sites. CBC 07/13/06

How Two Guys Sold Scam Art On eBay "Their method was simple. They bought cheap paintings at estate sales, antique shops, small auction houses and even garage sales, then turned around and offered them for sale on eBay. They bid against each other (shill bidding) to drive up the prices and wrote descriptions of the art that suggested the sellers didn't know the extent of the "treasures" they owned. They listed art under a wide range of user IDs (legitimate) and complimented each other's false practices (illegitimate)." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/13/06

Adele's New Home Conventional wisdom these days says that art unfairly looted by invading armies (especially Nazis) should be returned to its rightful owner and country of origin, no matter the consequences. So it was that Gustav Klimt's famous portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was removed from Austria's National Gallery and returned to the model's heirs last year. Rather than keep the painting, however, the family promptly took it to auction, where it sold for a record $135 million. Now, one of the most famous paintings in the world is hanging in a New York businessman's Fifth Avenue gallery, 4000 miles from its Austrian home. New York Post 07/13/06

Musée du Contradiction Paris's new Musée du quai Branly has been absorbing plenty of body blows from critics since opening last month, but Lisa Rochon points out how seldom the city of light has even attempted architectural provocation, and says that the Branly "a scandalous and necessary aberration that drags its jagged edge over the lousy, looting history of the French colonial era... And herein lies the great dilemma of the museum -- its very existence is an assault on aboriginal peoples around the world." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/13/06

Native Museum To Go It Alone "After nearly 30 years together, Kendall College and the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian are going their own ways. On Sept. 1, Kendall plans to give title to the museum's land, building and collection, all in northwest Evanston, Illinois, to a non-profit formed to assume them." The split has been years in the making, as "Kendall wanted assurances that the new non-profit -- which was named after the museum -- had the wherewithal to sustain the Mitchell." Chicago Tribune 07/13/06

Met To Hike Entrance Fee 33% In an attempt to compensate for an operating deficit that has been averaging $3 million per year, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is hiking its suggested admission fee to $20. The Met's admission charge has always been voluntary, but the museum doesn't go out of its way to call attention to that fact, and some are already complaining that the hike will discourage many lower-income individuals from seeing one of New York's great museums. The New York Times 07/13/06

CultureGrrl: A Fake Duccio? Really? Lee Rosenbaum takes a look at claims by one scholar that the Metropolitan Museum's Duccio (for which it paid $50 million last year) is a fake. "None of this proves that the painting is a fake from the 19th century, as Beck somewhat recklessly claims, or even that it's not by Duccio. The Met's conservation lab has done a technical examination of the painting that it says provides additional support for the attribution. It should release those findings in detail (including any attempts to date the painting scientifically), to help clarify these matters." CultureGrrl 07/11/06

Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Motive? So Abu Dhabi is to get a Guggenheim Museum. "If there's one place that doesn't need an economically regenerating 'Guggenheim effect' it's surely oil-rich Abu Dhabi. Is this a genuine cultural initiative, or just a ploy to lure Middle East shoppers away from Dubai's designer boutiques? But what will they actually put in the new museum?" The Guardian (UK) 07/11/06

Canada Chooses Venice Biennale Representative David Altmejd, 32, a Montrealer who works in New York and London, was chosen by a Canada Council jury in a nationwide competition. CBC 07/11/06

SF Museums, Victoria & Albert Museum To Share Collections The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London have made an agreement to share collections. "Under the new arrangement, the Fine Arts Museums and the V&A will have preferential position for sharing exhibitions they respectively organize." San Francisc Chronicle 07/11/06

SOS For The Smithsonian The Smithsonian Museums need some urgent attention from Congress - both financial and ethical. "The Smithsonian's leaders and their congressional overseers are allowing too much of our national museum to be transformed into a series of pavilions where, in exchange for sponsorship money and other deals, corporations may determine what parts of the American story should be told." Los Angeles Times 07/10/06

Kansas African American Museum Stalls Frustrations among some board members of the Kansas African American Museum are building amid reports of a stalled capital campaign, poor attendance at board meetings and a high travel budget. Wichita Eagle 07/10/06

Turner Prize To Liverpool? For the frst time in 24 years, the Turner Prize will be staged outside of London. "The 2007 show is likely to open at Tate Liverpool, rather than at its traditional home at Tate Britain - a huge coup for Liverpool, which takes up its role as European Capital of Culture in 2008." The Guardian (UK) 07/11/06

Greece: We Want It All Back Thrilled by its success at getting the Getty to return artworks, Geece plans to "reclaim hundreds of looted art works and antiquities from museums and private collections around the world, the government said yesterday. 'Whatever is Greek, wherever in the world, we want back'."
The Guardian (UK) 07/11/06

Preserving Video Video art has been around for a while. Much of it is stored away. But now there's a question about how to store and preserve it, and two California institutions are working on solutions... Los Angeles Times 07/09/06

Getty Makes Deal To Return Greek Art The Getty Museum has agreed to return two artifacts to Greece. "The compromise accord, which was initially hammered out in May at a meeting in Athens between the museum's director, Michael Brand, and the Greek culture minister, Georgios A. Voulgarakis, provides for the return to Greece of a large stele, or grave marker, acquired by the museum in 1993 and an archaic votive relief bought by the museum's founder, the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, in 1955. It also includes a provision for heightened collaboration between the museum and the Greek government." The New York Times 07/10/06

Guggenheim Coming To The Mideast Frank Gehry will design a new Guggenheim outpost in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Gehry, who also designed the Guggenheim's much-vaunted museum in Bilbao, Spain, expects ground to be broken shortly in the city's new cultural district, with completion slated for 2011. BBC 07/08/06

• Will Islamic Law Trump Artistic Quality? The UAE Guggenheim "could present a headache for curators - how to balance artistic expression and Islamic cultural sensitivities?" For instance, nudes would likely be forbidden, as would any other depictions that might offend ultra-conservative Islamic sensibilities. And with that kind of self-censorship a necessity, the new Guggenheim might be dooming itself to irrelevance before it even opens. Australian Broadcasting Corporation 07/09/06

Museum's Ready - Who's Bringing The Art? The tiny country of Luxembourg opened its spectacular new I.M. Pei-designed modern art museum this month, an enterprise nearly twenty years in the making. "Still, this striking symbol of modernity is not quite what its name implies. Because Luxembourg owned virtually no Modern art, and the museum could hardly afford to start building a collection of works by, say, Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Dalí, Miró and the like, this is really a museum of contemporary art... The size and sober grandeur of Mr. Pei's building still suggests a museum awaiting a collection. But at least the museum exists, something that at times seemed less than certain." The New York Times 07/08/06

The Met's $45m Duccio May Be A Fake "A Columbia University professor known for challenging the art historical establishment asserts that a painting purchased in 2004 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an estimated $45 million is not the work of the early-Renaissance master Duccio di Buoninsegna, to whom it has long been attributed. The Met's scholars have dismissed his argument, citing detailed scientific testing and scholarly study of the work." The New York Times 07/08/06

Dali Museum To Get New Home "Salvador Dali never set foot in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the dominant art form is the watercolor beachscape. But in a strange twist worthy of one of the Spanish Surrealist master's paintings, St. Petersburg will soon be home to a $30-million museum to house the world's most comprehensive collection of Dali's work... Groundbreaking is set for early next year. The new facility will open in 2010." Los Angeles Times (AP) 07/08/06

Portland Art Museum Struggles With Cost Overruns Conctruction costs for an expansion of the Portland Museum of Art have ballooned from $33 million to $45 million. "The troubled project has prompted a lawsuit against the project architect, tensions among museum trustees and a dose of uncertainty for the institution just as it is getting serious about hiring a successor to John Buchanan, the museum's departed executive director." The Oregonian 07/04/06

Met Museum Says Painting Is Authentic The Metropolitan Museum of Art says the Duccio painting it bought last year for $50 million is authentic and denies claims by an art historian that it is a fake. The museum says the painting has been "carefully examined... as a matter of course" and that it had "no reason to doubt" the authenticity of Madonna and Child, attributed to medieval artist Duccio. BBC 07/07/06

• Previously: Expert Says Met's $50 Million Painting Is A Fake When the Metropolitan Museum bought Duccio’s Madonna and Child last year for a reported $50 million, the painting was hailed as a masterpiece. Now James Beck, a leading art historian and Professor of Art History at Columbia University in New York, believes that the painting, which the Met dates to 1300, is not by Duccio at all. “It is a fake based upon indications found in works by or associated with Duccio. It is not even a good forgery.” The Times (UK) 07/06/06

Iran, U Of Chicago Fight Court On Ruling The University of Chicago and the government of Iran are fighting a U.S. court ruling that aims to compensate victims of a 1997 Jerusalem bombing by auctioning off a rare collection of Persian tablets. The Guardian (UK) (AP) 07/07/06

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere The Philadelphia Museum of Art has acquired a series of nine studies by Andrew Wyeth. The studies are a gift from Wyeth's family, who were impressed enough by a private tour of the museum's Wyeth retrospective to offer up the additional works, which show "how Wyeth's thinking evolved before he arrived at the final eerie image of a place setting absent a diner" in his painting, Groundhog Day, which is part of the museum's permanent collection. Philadelphia Inquirer 07/06/06

Museum Acquires Van Gogh Correspondence "The Van Gogh Museum said it bought 55 letters written by Vincent van Gogh that give important information about the 19th Century painter's worldview and development of his artistic thought. The letters were written by van Gogh to fellow artist Anthon van Rappard from 1881 to 1885, when van Gogh was undergoing major transformations in his conception of art and his skill as an artist. Officials from the Amsterdam museum did not say how much the museum paid for the letters, but... a manuscript expert at Sotheby's auction house put their value in the millions." Chicago Tribune (AP) 07/06/06

It's Summer, And Basel's Art Awaits "Every art institution here seems so dazzlingly meticulous and thought out, with their clean, uncluttered galleries, thorough exhibitions and, often, interesting yet unobtrusive architecture. Museum shops featuring mostly (gasp) catalogs and postcards, and the sense of physical hospitality alone can amaze, as with the leather armchairs in which you can read, doze or watch people in the upstairs lobby of the Basel Kunstmuseum. It's easy to feel that museums back home have a lot to learn." The New York Times 07/06/06

Expert Says Met's $50 Million Painting Is A Fake When the Metropolitan Museum bought Duccio’s Madonna and Child last year for a reported $50 million, the painting was hailed as a masterpiece. Now James Beck, a leading art historian and Professor of Art History at Columbia University in New York, believes that the painting, which the Met dates to 1300, is not by Duccio at all. “It is a fake based upon indications found in works by or associated with Duccio. It is not even a good forgery.” The Times (UK) 07/06/06

Want Me To Shop? Give Me A Show! "A simple plate-glass window festooned with goods is no longer enough to stimulate the desensitized public. To compete with soulless megamalls and the Internet, shops are returning to their loyal old helpmeets: architects. The ancient Romans concentrated their stores in dense arcades, an idea that the 19th century picked up with enclosed gallerias, which in turn begat the modern indoor mall 50 years ago." Newsday 07/05/06

The Museum Will Be Podcast "Thanks to podcasting, it's becoming as easy to download a museum visit onto a portable digital audio player as it is a pop tune. And museums, realizing this is a way to reach a younger generation of potential patrons, are racing to get involved. They are making their in-house audio tours of special exhibits, as well as original programming, available on their websites for free use on iPods and other MP3 players. And art lovers can listen through their home computers as well. There's even a newly coined term for the phenomenon - 'artcasting'." Denver Post 07/05/06

Falling For The Picasso Hype? Christie's has been hyping the sale of an expensive Picasso owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber. But maybe it's not a very good Picasso. "Lloyd Webber recently suggested to Bloomberg that his sale announcement would be 'the biggest news in the art market in 30 years.' Why does it matter if someone actually falls for such hype? After all, the proceeds will reportedly go to a good cause---the education of young performers. The problem is that feverish prices pose a threat to the longterm health of the art market. The acquisition of lesser works for exorbitant amounts is the art trade’s version of 'irrational exuberance.' It can only set the stage for the next correction." CultureGrrl 07/05/06

Canadian Portrait Gallery Stalled While Americans celebrated the reopening of Washington's National Portrait Gallery, plans for a Canadian portrait gallery have been languishing. "If the U.S. National Portrait Gallery's reopening in Washington is 'symbolic of the American spirit,' what does it say about the Canadian spirit that Canada Day, 2006, has passed with completion funding for the Portrait Gallery of Canada still in limbo?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/05/06

Koolhaas Re-imagines The Serpentine Each summer London's Serpentine Gallery has commissioned an architect to imagine a new space. "The architects commissioned so far have taken the idea and run with it, invariably assisted by the structural know-how of Cecil Balmond, co-chairman of Arup. But even by the Serpentine's standards, this year's design should be something else. It is the brainchild of Dutch visionary and long-time Londoner Rem Koolhaas." The Guardian (UK) 07/04/06

Top Collectors ArtNews is out with its annual list of the world's top art collectors. "This year’s list contains 20 collectors who did not make it last year. The study showed that 61 percent, or 122 collectors, who made the list in 1996 were not on the 2006 list." ARtNews 07/06

Paris' Quai Branly A "Disaster" "It is, if you will forgive a little flourish of Gallic overstatement, a catastrophe sunk in a swamp of hubris, though there is a lovely caff and ace office block in the not quite finished garden. Like many messes, it began with the noblest of intentions." The Guardian (UK) 07/03/06

Kimmelman: New Paris Museum "Brow-snappingly Wrongheaded" Paris' new Musee du Quai Branly "simply makes no sense" writes Michael Kimmelman. "Old, new, good, bad are all jumbled together without much reason or explanation, save for visual theatrics. If the Marx Brothers designed a museum for dark people, they might have come up with the permanent-collection galleries: devised as a spooky jungle, red and black and murky, the objects in it chosen and arranged with hardly any discernible logic, the place is briefly thrilling, as spectacle, but brow-slappingly wrongheaded. Colonialism of a bygone era is replaced by a whole new French brand of condescension." The New York Times 07/02/06

Turning That Flat-Screen TV Into Art "Want to pretend you don't have a TV? Get the Groove Tube, a low-tech way to turn a high-tech TV into a light sculpture. Designed by Seattle artist Matt Griesey, it's a translucent box made of paper and plastic with a grid of opaque dividers that attaches to the screen with suction cups. When the TV (or computer) is on, the Groove Tube averages the picture pixels and creates an ever-changing display of colors in each square. Just turn down the sound and turn up the stereo." Detroit Free Press 07/02/06

Chicago's Greatest Artist? Harry Callahan was "the greatest visual artist who ever grew to maturity in Chicago," writes Alan Artner. He was "up there with Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. His work has been collected by every major art museum and has been seen in several retrospectives. But while most Chicagoans have heard of Adams, ask about Callahan and you're likely to hear only about the movie cop played by Clint Eastwood, suggesting that special measures need to be taken." Chicago Tribune 07/02/06

McDonald's Reinvents Its Look "The new, Starbucks-like look that McDonald's has rolled out in this classic Middle American test-market tickles the design palette in a way that no knock-your-eyes-out architectural whammy by Frank Gehry or Santiago Calatrava ever will. We visit museums by those architectural stars, but we practically live in McDonald's. The company estimates that more than 25 million people a day eat at its U.S. outlets. And now McDonald's is playing a controversial, high-stakes game of architectural catch-up, transforming its harsh, plastic-heavy interiors into soft, earth-toned places where you might linger with your laptop in an upholstered chair beneath a stylish pendant light." Chicago Tribune 07/02/06

Guernica Wants "Guernica" Back "With the approach of the 70th anniversary of Guernica's destruction by German bombers serving the nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War", the townspeople of Guernica are seeking the iconic Picvasso work's relocation from Madrid's Reina Sofia modern art museum. The Age (Melbourne) 07/02/06

US Gallery Cancels Iraqi Gold Show The famed Nimrud Gold was to have been shown at Washington's Sackler Gallery. “I always felt that the gallery could not serve as a venue unless we received clear guarantees on a number of points, principally relating to security and funding. When no such guarantees were received, we concluded that we could not proceed.” The Art Newspaper 07/02/06