Friday
March 29
BRITISH
MUSEUM ADMITS SALES - AN EMBARRASSMENT: The British Museum
has admitted selling off valuable Benin bronzes during the 1950s
and 60s. "The museum insisted that its claim to inalienable
ownership of the bronzes and other artefacts such as the Parthenon
(Elgin) marbles was not affected. Until now its standard response
to restitution demands and any other claims has been that it is
forbidden to dispose of items." The
Guardian (UK) 03/28/02
IS
THE BRITISH MUSEUM WHITEWASHING THE PARTHENON MARBLES CLEANING
CONTROVERSY? In 1999 the British Museum participated in a
conference about the controversial cleaning of the Parthenon marbles
in the 1930s that damaged them. Now the BMA has published a report
on the conference. But the report doesn't include contributions
of Greek scholars, leading to charges of a whitewash of the issue.
The Art Newspaper 03/28/02
MONA
LISA MAY NOT BE MRS. GIOCONDO:
While there was an historic Lisa bel Giocondo, "the title
has a perfectly plausible existence without her. Giocondo is an
adjective, meaning 'jocund', so this traditional name for the
painting could have originated as a purely descriptive title -
the witty or playful one, the joker-lady, perhaps even the tease."
And that's only the beginning of the mysteries and confusions
about her.
The Guardian (UK) 03/28/02
COURTHOUSE,
COURTHOUSE, WHO GETS THE COURTHOUSE:
New York's historic Tweed Courthouse was renovated at a cost of
$89 million. Former Mayor Giuliani promised it to the Museum of
the City of New York. But new Mayor Bloomberg says no, it's going
to be used by the Board of Education. So the head of the museum
quit. One answer was suggested in a New Yorker piece (not available
on-line): "Has anyone thought of using it as a courthouse
again."
CNN 3/27/02
Thursday
March 28
RUNNING
OUT OF ART: The world supply of art from the past is running
out. "Ironically, the success of the art market is the cause
of its defeat. Interest in art, and in buying art, has exploded
in the last four decades. Confined until the 1960s to closely
defined circles within clear-cut geographical areas in Western
Europe and North America, demand for art now cuts across social
strata and international borders, scattering worldwide the sum
total of the works of the past." International
Herald Tribune 03/26/02
WORSE
THAN DUMBING DOWN: Hilton Kramer is stunned by New York's
Jewish Museum's decision to present Mirroring Evil, the controversial
show that features Nazi symbols. "Exactly why a respected
institution devoted to the study and exhibition of Jewish art
and culture should wish to inflict this numbskull mockery of the
Holocaust on the New York public is not a question easily answered.
Who could have imagined that the question would ever have to be
raised in this quarter? Given the cynicism that now reigns in
certain parts of the museum profession, opportunism — the hope
of reaping the rewards of controversy — cannot be ruled out. Nor
can the sheer stupidity of museum curators and the trustees who
support their folly." New York
Observer 03/27/02
WHAT'S
THE STORY? Scotland has a new national history museum. But
"instead of working together to tell Scotland’s story, our
national institutions have plodded on within their outmoded categories
of collecting, and this unique, £64 million chance to present
the bigger picture of Scotland’s past has been missed. No wonder
most of the visitors to Scotland’s new museum leave looking bewildered."
The Scotsman 03/28/02
THE
LAST LAST SUPPER? The little town of Brainerd, Minnesota
(made famous by the movie Fargo) has an unusual Easter
tradition: every year, some of the more Biblical-looking townsfolk
grow beards, haul out a good long table, and spend some time becoming
a living reenactment of da Vinci's Last Supper. But the
minister who started the tradition is leaving town, meaning that
the tradition could end after this Sunday. Minneapolis
Star Tribune 03/28/02
Wednesday
March 27
CROSSING
THE LINE: Artists often play with crossing the line between
acceptable and not acceptable. Shock sells, after all. But how
does a critic say an artist has crossed the line without sounding
censorius? Perhaps Gunther von Hagens' Bodyworks grisly
show of bodies crosses that line. "Walking past body after
body, I can't help but feel diminished by the experience. Von
Hagens has made me a voyeur upon a scene I should not have witnessed.
And I feel abandoned as I move through the grizzly tableaux."
London Evening Standard 03/26/02
VAN
GOGH 'FAKE' ISN'T: "Art experts have declared that a
painting by Vincent van Gogh at the centre of forgery claims is
genuine. Experts at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have just
published research into the authenticity of the Sunflowers painting.
They said there is surviving documentation proving the painting
first belonged to Van Gogh's brother Theo." BBC
03/27/02
AND
IT COSTS LESS THAN BRIBERY! "In a campaign reminiscent
of those waged by such art activists as the Guerrilla Girls, students
at the Massachusetts College of Art are protesting the state Legislature's
continuing cuts in the budget of the country's only freestanding
public college of art and design. The MassArt students are...
sending state representatives original, one-of-a-kind art in the
form of eye-catching postcards. Each design is different, but
the message printed on each card's border is the same: 'Public
higher education is an investment in the future. Keep public schools
affordable.' At the bottom of the cards is the simple declaration,
'Art is everywhere.' Even in legislative mailboxes." Boston
Globe 03/27/02
ART
OF OZ: For 10 years John Furphy has been keeping track of
every piece of art that sells at auction in Australia and New
Zealand. "In '92, following the market's collapse, $28 million
worth of paintings, prints and drawings were sold in Australia.
A decade on, the auction houses were turning over more than $70
million, with Aboriginal art contributing $6 million to the total
- up from a mere $157,000 10 years earlier." The
Age (Melbourne) 03/27/02
ARCHITECTURE
AS DIPLOMACY: The Canadian government has been extending itself
quite a bit on the diplomatic front lately, and embassy-building
has been a big part of the plan. But unlike so many embassies,
which resemble uninviting compounds, the Canadians are making
a distinctive effort to create buildings which are an architectural
credit to the cities they serve, and the plan is drawing rave
reviews from around the world. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/27/02
Tuesday
March 26
VENICE
BIENNALE CHOOSES CURATOR: Francesco Bonami, 47, a senior
curator at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, has been chosen
to curate the 2003 Venice Biennale. "The appointment puts
an end to growing speculation about the future of the festival,
which Italians have dubbed the 'Soap-Biennale' in recent months.
It comes in the wake of a controversial attempt by Vittorio Sgarbi,
Italy's outspoken undersecretary for culture, to appoint the Australian
critic for Time magazine, Robert Hughes, as curator." ArtForum
03/26/02
ART
HEIST: "Thieves stole five 17th century paintings valued
at $2.6 million from the renowned Frans Hals museum in the western
Dutch city of Haarlem, police said Monday. The paintings taken
Sunday night were by Jan Steen, Cornelis Bega, Adriaan van Ostade
and Cornelis Dusart, Dutch television reported." Nando
Times (AP) 03/25/02
FAKES
TO THE RIGHT OF ME, FRAUD TO THE LEFT... Julian Spalding,
former director of the Glasgow Museums, says that Scottish museum
collections are "riddled" with fakes. And that museum
officials know it. "His claims were met with a mixture of
anger and disgust. One union leader accused him of 'clutching
at straws', while Glasgow City Council declined to comment."
Glasgow Herald 03/25/02
MAN
AFTER MONEY: How does the modern museum director spend his
day? If you're Harry W. Parker III, director of the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, you think about money. "Almost
everything Parker does in a day concerns money - how to raise
it, how to allocate it, how to spend it." San
Francisco Chronicle 03/25/02
WARMED-OVER
COOL: The Beck's Futures competition and its £65,000 in prize
money for contemporary art ought to provoke the best new work.
The show that has opened in London's Institute for Contemporary
Art isn't it. "The real problem is one of language. Why is
it that so much of the work depends on quotation and requotation,
sampling, collage and cut-up? Art driven by the idea that there
is a crisis of originality has become a dreary convention. The
death of the author, with its attendant eschatological theorising,
has been a blessing to people with no ideas to call their own.
It is just a dumb conceit." The
Guardian (UK) 03/26/02
BUT
IS IT ART? WELL, NO: That controversial
exhibition featuring human bodies is still open in London. It
is intended, not as art, but as an educational experience, according
to an interview with the professor of anatomy who created it.
"I have been called an artist, but I reject it. I give an
aesthetic feeling to my exhibits--but in the way you would do
in designing a book. Instruction is at the centre."
New Scientist 03/25/02
- Previously: CREEPY
BUT LEGAL: "A controversial exhibition featuring human
corpses has been given the go-ahead by the government. Body
Worlds, due to open in London on Saturday, features 175 body
parts and 25 corpses - including the body of a pregnant woman,
her womb opened to reveal a seven-month old foetus... [T]he
Department of Health said no British law covers such an exhibition
and it will open as planned at the Atlantis Gallery."
BBC 03/20/02
MIRRORING
BIALYSTOCK: The controversial
show at New York's Jewish Museum that uses Nazi symbols is not
the first to try to use those symbols for artistic purposes. "Few
took account of the show's unacknowledged but obvious inspiration:
The Producers. Its effect is what a baby feels while playing
peekaboo: laughter as an explosive release from anxiety. We were
afraid that Adolf Hitler would keep making us feel bad forever,
but you know what? He's dead, and we're not. In "Mirroring
Evil," only one of the nineteen works has a Brooksian zing
to it, but the show plainly owes its timing to Max Bialystock's
reign on Broadway."
The New Yorker 04/01/02
-
Previously: CONFRONTING
THE MONSTERS: Why make art out of the symbols and images
of monsters? The question arises out of the opening at the
Jewish Museum of the show Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent
Art, the "notorious exhibition opening today at the Jewish
Museum, explores the use of National Socialist imagery by
13 contemporary artists, all in their 30's and 40's."
Difficult as the art is, "proximity to the perpetrators,"
Mr. Kleeblatt, the son of refugees from Hitler's Germany,
said recently, "makes you rethink who you are."
The New York Times 03/17/02
BIG
BUCKS ART: Gerhard Richter is now considered the world's most
expensive artist. "Today a major work can command over $9
million, and MoMA itself recently spent some $15 million"
on a work. The Art Newspaper 03/23/02
Monday
March 25
SOMETHING NEW
FOR THE NATIONAL? Charles Saumarez Smith takes over as director
of London's National Portrait Gallery when it needs a rethink.
"It is not elitist to explore the further reaches of art
history. It is depressing, however, to see the National Gallery
fall prey to the kind of clubbish pretentiousness that used to
hold court when art in this country was the preserve of faux-tasteful
philistines for whom Duchamp was non-U, and any 17th-century Italian
painter you could mention was inherently better than anyone alive."
The Guardian (UK) 03/25/02
AWARDING THE
AWFUL STATE OF SCOTTISH BUILDING: The Royal Incorporation
of Architects in Scotland has just launched a £25,000 annual prize
for the best new building in Scotland. "Gordon Davies, the
RIAS president, says: 'Scottish architectural talent is currently
producing buildings of unprecedented quality and originality.'
Unprecedented by what? In the land of Charles Rennie Mackintosh
and Alexander Thomson, it's a claim that is just plain daft."
The Observer (UK) 03/24/02
EXPLOITATION
OR EDUCATION? An artist who collected up "missing"
posters hung everywhere in Lower Manhattan after September 11
for a touring art show intended a tribute. Instead, the "what
could have been a sensitive commemoration into a jarring, tasteless
presentation of some of September 11's most powerful fragments."
This is the danger of using 9/11 as artistic fodder. "The
artists behind exhibits and films commemorating and documenting
September 11 have each had to grapple with difficult questions
about what separates education from exploitation - and how to
clearly mark the distinctions between history and art."
American
Prospect 03/20/02
TRADITIONAL
CONSPIRACY LURKING? Is there a conspiracy to keep more traditional
forms of contemporary art out of the press? "The coverage
of visual art in newspapers does a disservice to the majority
of artists while serving to keep their readership in ignorance
of the true diversity of contemporary art."
NewKlassical.com 03/02
Sunday
March 24
NAZI
LOOT TO STAY IN PRAGUE: "In a disheartening setback for
a Chicago-area man who has claimed a multimillion-dollar art collection
looted by the Nazis, the Czech government has declared the most
valuable of the paintings "national treasures," thereby blocking
their return. The move by the Czech Culture Ministry reflects
the erratic record of the government when dealing with restitution
claims from Holocaust survivors and their heirs. Though the Czech
Republic has passed liberal laws guaranteeing the return of looted
works 'free of charge,' it has invoked a variety of arcane legal
codes to prevent the most valuable works from leaving the country."
Chicago Tribune 03/22/02
CORPSE
EXHIBIT GETS A PAINT JOB: A controversial exhibit featuring
dozens of preserved corpses has opened to the public in London,
to a great deal less public outcry than one might have imagined
from the furor that preceded it. The general impression of most
visitors seemed to be that the display was interesting, but not
art. One man apparently felt more strongly, and dumped paint on
the floor of the gallery in protest. The relevance of the paint
was not explained, and probably can't be. BBC
03/23/02
Friday
March 22
BRITISH
MUSEUM CLOSURES: The British Museum has closed a number of
its galleries in a cost-cutting move. "The museum recently
projected a budget deficit of $7 million for 2004-2005, its largest
ever, unless it cuts expenses by 15 percent. As a result, it imposed
a hiring freeze and suspended plans to build a study center. It
also cut the opening hours of 23 of its 94 permanent exhibition
galleries to as little as 3 hours a day." Nando
Times (AP) 03/21/02
OLDEST
PHOTO SOLD: The earliest known photographic image was sold
for $443,000 at a French auction this week. "The 1825 print
by French inventor Joseph Nicephore Niepce, which shows a man
leading a horse, was bought by the Musees de France, which runs
the country's museums, for France's National Library, officials
at Sotheby's said." Nando Times
(AP) 03/21/02
WHERE
YOU FIND IT: Great architecture is in the eye of the beholder,
and goes well beyond the ultra-public theaters, museums, and skyscrapers
that are alternately panned and praised in the world's big cities.
If you ask the Society of Architectural Historians, great buildings
can be found in every nook and cranny of all 50 U.S. states, and
they've got the books to prove it. Chicago
Tribune 03/22/02
Thursday
March 21
CHANGING
FORTUNES: The Maastricht Art Fair is billed as the world's
leading art and antiques gathering. This year a report on the
world's art sales was released in conjunction with the fair. "From
1998 to 2001, the average price of a work of fine art sold at
auction in the EU declined 39% to $7,662. The average price of
a painting sold in the United Kingdom advanced 54% to $24,968;
in the United States, the average price advanced 75% to $79,003.
The EU as a whole has lost 7.2% global share of market since 1998.
The Continental EU has lost 9%. The US, the principal competitor
of the EU, increased its market share by 7%." New
York Observer 03/20/02
A
NEW GENERATION OF PUBLIC ART: Funded by proceeds from a large
$6 billion construction project, "Melbourne is about to be
decorated by the largest public art program since the cavalcade
of bronze statues that was funded by the 1850s gold rush."
But many in the city have ambivalent feelings about what kind
of art might be chosen. The Age (Melbourne)
03/21/02
PAY
TO NAME: "The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum
has quietly removed the name of aviation pioneer Samuel P. Langley
from its movie theater and renamed the facility for the Lockheed
Martin Corp. The change comes weeks before the global technology
company is giving the museum a gift of $10 million."
Washington Post 03/20/02
KEEPING
GROUND ZERO FOR THE PUBLIC: The debate over how a rebuilt
WTC site might memorialize the victims of 9/11 has become a contentious
one, and one architecture critic says the key is to keep the decision
out of the hands of private interests who want merely to cut their
losses, and put up a quick-and-dirty memorial surrounded by office
space that may well go unused. "The real issue is how to
build a living city --a place that offers a vibrant mix of culture
and commerce; a place that is easy to reach by subway, commuter
train or ferry boat; a place where a frazzled office worker can
find a few minutes of serenity at the waterfront; a place, like
Rockefeller Center, where great buildings form an even greater
urban whole." Chicago Tribune
03/21/02
Wednesday
March 20
KNOW-IT-ALL
NEGATIVISTS: They've started demolishing the old deYoung Museum
in San Francisco, in preparation for building a new one. But despite
numerous reviews and public meetings, a small band of opponents
is still trying to stop the project. This "fledgling band
of negative nabobs refuse to give up and have now cost the museum
close to $500,000 in attorneys fees for a campaign they're all
but destined to lose -and all for the single reason that they
don't happen to approve of the new museum's design."
San Francisco Chronicle 03/19/02
ABANDONING
MUSEUM ISLAND: The Berlin government - trying to deal with
a budget crisis - has announced it will no longer fund restoration
of the five museums collectively known as "Museum Island."
That leaves the federal government as the sole funder. "The
Museum Island was added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization's list of world cultural heritage sites
in 1999." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 03/19/02
CREEPY
BUT LEGAL: "A controversial exhibition featuring human
corpses has been given the go-ahead by the government. Body Worlds,
due to open in London on Saturday, features 175 body parts and
25 corpses - including the body of a pregnant woman, her womb
opened to reveal a seven-month old foetus... [T]he Department
of Health said no British law covers such an exhibition and it
will open as planned at the Atlantis Gallery." BBC
03/20/02
SACKLER-FREER
GETS NEW DIRECTOR: "Julian Raby, a British art historian
who has taught Islamic art at the University of Oxford since 1979,
has been named director of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur
M. Sackler Gallery, the two-part institution that functions as
the nation's museum of Asian art. Raby, 52, will assume the post
May 20. He succeeds Milo C. Beach, who retired last October --
amid considerable bitterness -- after 17 years at the Sackler-Freer,
the last 14 as director." Washington
Post 03/20/02
BYGONES
IN SYDNEY: The architect behind the revolutionary Sydney Opera
House has never seen his creation in person. Back in 1966, with
the hall only partially completed and facing stiff criticism for
huge cost overruns, Joern Utzon walked off the project and vowed
never to return. Decades later, he's back on the job, agreeing
to oversee the AUS$24 milion opera house's renovation.
BBC 03/20/02
FRESCO
FRACAS: "The official unveiling Monday of Giotto's restored
frescoes in Padua's Scrovegni Chapel, commissioned 700 years ago
for a banker's private place of worship, included VIP guests,
fanfare and entertainment. It also revived criticism that restorations
-- especially those that aren't crucial -- can harm the original
art." National Post (AP) 03/20/02
TAXING
ART: The US Congress' repeal of the estate tax last year appears
as though it will have an impact on sales of inherited art. Owners
of inherited art will have to keep track of values and pay new
taxes on capital gains. The Art Newspaper
03/15/02
HOW
TO KILL AN EXHIBIT: "Efforts by [Canadian] Heritage Minister
Sheila Copps to use federal money to move a major art show from
Toronto to Hamilton have left the exhibit without a home and Canada
with diplomatic egg on its face. An exhibition of Sami and Inuit
art, jointly organized by Norway and Canada, was slated to be
opened at the University of Toronto Art Centre by King Harald
V and Queen Sonja during their state visit to Canada in May. Sources
in the art world say Ms. Copps threatened to hold back federal
funding unless the show was relocated to the Art Gallery of Hamilton,
in the city she is from." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/20/02
BACK
TO THE FOREGROUND: If there can be anything positive said
to have come out of the 9/11 attacks, artistically speaking, it
is that New York City's shining example of glorious urban architecture
is once again the city's tallest and most prominent building.
The Empire State Building, with its 102 stories of art deco styling
and forward-thinking design, is the building New Yorkers most
think of as theirs, and it, not the World Trade Centers, is the
skyscraper that it would truly be a tragedy to lose. Chicago
Tribune 03/20/02
Tuesday
March 19
NEW DIRECTOR
FOR NATIONAL GALLERY: Charles Saumarez Smith, currently director
of the National Portrait Gallery, is expected to be named the
next director of London's National Gallery. "He has
pushed the frontiers of what was seen as possible in a gallery
of portraits, including a conceptual piece by Marc Quinn, unveiled
last year, which contains real DNA." The Guardian (UK) 03/18/02
FITTING
RIGHT IN: "The Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which officially
opened Saturday, has its aspirations, but they are as much civic
as architectural. The $22.5 million building plugs a gaping hole
in a 1930s municipal square in the heart of downtown, using the
same limestone and massing as its neighbors while also preserving
the shell of an art moderne movie theater. Such quietly dignified
ensembles, once common in American cities, are becoming extinct."
Dallas Morning News 03/18/02
OUT OF THE
GALLERIES: "The echoey white cubes of contemporary galleries
still display art, but is that the best place for it to be seen?
Of all the places where today’s artists experiment, they are perhaps
least comfortable with domestic space." A new project in
Scotland has artists making work for people's houses.
The
Scotsman 03/18/02
ART
OF ENRON: In the year-and-a-half before it filed for bankruptcy,
Enron spent about $3 million on art for 20 pieces for its new
building. An art committee of five decided what art to buy, and
its choices included some of the best-known contemporary artists
working today. "The mandate was to build a collection of
forward-looking, cutting-edge art that would represent the Enron
culture." So what happens to the art now? Dallas
Morning News 03/19/02
Monday
March 18
AUCTION
FALL-OFF: So in the year after the auction
house scandals, how did their business fare? "For what it's
worth - which is not a great deal - Christie's won the annual
turnover contest for the second year running, outselling Sotheby's
by $1.8 billion to $1.6 billion. But Christie's turnover was down
by 23 per cent, the biggest drop since the dark days of the art
market collapse in 1991. At Sotheby's, the decline in turnover
was 16 per cent, with American sales dropping by 22 per cent to
$809 million and European auctions suffering an eight per cent
decline to $723 million." The Telegraph
(UK) 03/18/02
HIDING
BEHIND THE THEORY? Shows like the Jewish Museum's Mirroring
Evil aren't pushing the boundaries of art. "That was
what was so disappointing about the essays in the Mirroring Evil
catalog, which are incessantly patting themselves on the back
for their "daring," their "transgressiveness," but which seem
to me collectively to constitute a retreat from facing the subject:
a retreat into a comforting, familiar and fashionable art-theory
framework. One that shields the theorists from questioning the
postmodern preconceptions so dear to them."
New York Observer 03/14/02
HOME
SHOPPING FAKES: Giorgio Corbelli, the owner of an Italian
auction house, has been arrested for selling fake art over a TV
shopping channel. "Mr Corbelli is accused of attempting to
sell thousands of forged works by contemporary artists, mainly
by Michele Cascella but also some by Giorgio de Chirico, Giuseppe
Migneco or Mario Schifano among others." Oddly, the Italian
undersecretary for culture has defended Corbelli. The
Art Newspaper 03/15/02
THE
NEXT BIG THING? He's famous for championing art
of the fillet 'o shark, elephant dung and unmade bed variety.
But we haven't heard from collector/dealer Charles Saatchi for
awhile. So what's his latest predilection? Landscapes. Landscapes?
You bet, but as you might expect, not the traditional variety...
The Telegraph
(UK) 03/18/02
WHAT'S THE POINT? Architect Renzo Piano's proposed
1000-foot tall London Bridge Tower would be England's tallest
building. "But the big question is not whether or not the
building is good architecture, or even to do with its prodigious
height, but rather what real purpose does it serve? It may be
a catwalk model of a building, lithe and eye-catching, but is
it little more than a naked machine for making money beneath its
sleek and glassy dress? Or will it make a real contribution to
the culture and economy of the capital?"
The Guardian
(UK) 03/18/02
Sunday
March 17
A
NATIONAL ARCHITECTURE POLICY? Cities build showy signature
buildings in hopes of attracting attention and becoming players
on a national or international stage. But do such buildings really
mean much? "A signature building is the definition of a second-rate
city. They need something to say 'Here we are!' By itself, a signature
building is not important. The real importance is the texture
of the city and its vitality. . . . What we really need is better
urban design." The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/16/02
CREATIVITY
- SO GOOD IT HURTS: Performance art has a long tradition in
20th-century art. "Much 20th-century avant-garde art was
fuelled and punctuated by a series of theatrical happenings and
events. The Dadaists, Futurists and Surrealists were all fond
of these manifestations." Performance art of the 1960s and
70s led to many artists trying to shock audiences by hurting themselves.
Why would anyone want to hurt themselves in the name of "creativity"?
The Telegraph (UK) 03/17/02
THE
ART OF NEVER GIVING UP: Christo and Jeane-Claude have been
trying for 21 years to swath New York's Central Park walkways
with bright fabric. They've been repeadedly thwarted. But a new
mayor (who has supported the idea) and for "a city determined
to re-energize tourism after the attacks of Sept. 11, a boffo
attraction might not be such a bad idea."
The New York Times 03/17/02
CONFRONTING
THE MONSTERS: Why make art out of the symbols and images of
monsters? The question arises out of the opening at the Jewish
Museum of the show Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art,
the "notorious exhibition opening today at the Jewish Museum,
explores the use of National Socialist imagery by 13 contemporary
artists, all in their 30's and 40's." Difficult as the art
is, "proximity to the perpetrators," Mr. Kleeblatt, the son of
refugees from Hitler's Germany, said recently, "makes you rethink
who you are." The New York Times 03/17/02
Friday
March 15
LESS THAN THE FUSS: Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent
Art, which opens Sunday at New York's Jewish Museum, has
provoked much controversy before it even opens. But as often happens
with notorious shows, the art turns out to be lower wattage than
the controversy. This show "is dominated by the sort of dry,
cool, Conceptual art that a vocal part of the contemporary art
world invariably congratulates itself for finding endlessly fascinating.
But it is art that leaves much of the public feeling confused,
excluded and finally bored, if not pained and offended, which
is of course the point." The New York
Times 03/15/02
WOMEN'S MUSEUM MERGING WITH AUTRY: The Women of the West Museum in
Colorado is disappearing, becoming part of the Autry Museum of
Western Heritage in Los Angeles. "WOWM was founded in Boulder
in 1991 'to discover, explore, and communicate the continuing
role of women in shaping the American West'."
Denver Post
03/14/02
DECODING
MONA: A German art historian believes he has solved the mystery
of the Mona Lisa. "Until now, the most popular theory had
been that the enigmatic beauty was a young Florentine woman named
Monna Lisa, who married the well-known figure Francesco del Giocondo
in 1495 and came to be known as La Giaconda." Instead, she
was really "the Duchess of Forli and Imola, who had been
born the illegitimate Caterina Sforza."
Edmonton Journal 03/15/02
Thursday
March 14
SFMOMA
GETS ITS MAN: "After a seven-month search, the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art has named Neal Benezra as its director. Mr.
Benezra, who has been the deputy director and curator of modern
and contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago, succeeds
David A. Ross, who left the museum abruptly after a whirlwind
three years in which he spent $140 million building the museum's
collection of contemporary art." The
New York Times 03/14/02
CONTRAVENING
PARTS: The British government has 10 days to decide whether
a controversial exhibition of "175 body parts and 25 full
corpses to go on display at the Atlantis Gallery on March 23 contravene
the Anatomy Act created after the 19th century Burke and Hare
bodysnatching scandal. But anatomist Gunther von Hagens said last
night that a government legal challenge would not stop his Body
Worlds exhibition opening in London next week. He called on
British art-lovers to donate their bodies to future exhibits of
corpses posed to look as if they are engaged in 'interesting'
activities such as chess." The
Guardian (UK) 03/12/02
HOLOCAUST
ART CALLED OBSCENE: "Jewish leaders and Nazi death camp
survivors have denounced as obscene an exhibition of Holocaust-related
art in New York. Among the items on show at the city's Jewish
Museum are sculptures of the infamous concentration camp doctor
Joseph Mengele. The exhibition, entitled Mirroring Evil: Nazi
Imagery/Recent Art, also includes a children's Lego building
set with a picture of a concentration camp on the cover."
BBC 03/14/02
- SELF-INDULGENCE,
NOT ART: It's not that the Holocaust should be completely
off-limits to the art world, says one New York critic, just
that the art should serve the subject, not vice versa. The offensive
thing about Mirroring Evil is "not that it uses
contemporary art to probe the Holocaust, but that it uses the
Holocaust to promote contemporary art." New
York Post 03/14/02
A
CLOUDY VISION: "In the realm of outlandish architectural
fantasies, a building made out of mist surely has to rank near
the top. But this bizarre-sounding concept, dubbed the Blur Building,
is no fantasy at all. It's under construction in Switzerland,
and is one of five architectural projects featured in Architecture
+ Water, a new exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz
Architectural Center." The Christian
Science Monitor 03/14/02
FIREBALL:
Edinburgh artist Marc Marnie fell behind on his taxes. So the
sheriff came and seized a collection of his photographs for payment.
But they were irreparably damaged after they were stored in a
damp basement, so now Marnie plans to "create a 30ft wall
of fire out of the photographs" and film the event. "I’m
trying to find a positive way of finishing the exhibition, of
getting closure so I can move on to other things."
The Scotsman 03/13/02
RIOPELLE
DIES: "Jean-Paul Riopelle, a great but impulsive artist
who even when famous would burn his paintings to heat his apartment,
died on Wednesday at his home on the Ile-aux-Grues in the St.
Lawrence River. He was 78." The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/14/02
Wednesday
March 13
LOOKING
FOR SMUGGLERS AMONG THE POSH SET: The European Fine Art Fair,
held annually in the Netherlands, is the largest of its kind in
the world, and collectors, connoisseurs, and casual art fans gather
in Maastricht each year to browse and buy. But this year, the
fair had some unexpected visitors - camera-wielding Italian cops,
to be precise - who are trying to determine if some of the art
on display was illegally exported from Italy. The
New York Times 03/13/02
CONTROVERSIAL
RESTORATION: Frankfurt's much-loved 19th Century central library
was ruined in World War II. Now there are plans to rebuild it,
incorporating some of the remaining ruined facade. But the plans
may be more trouble than they're worth. "Such plans do not
suggest urban vitality, but rather the kind of blind ad-hoc approach
Frankfurt is often prone to, to the detriment of its art scene
and atmosphere. Initial delight at the chance of regaining one
of Frankfurt's finest buildings quickly evaporates in view of
greater losses." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 03/12/02
CANADIAN
AWARDS HANDED OUT: The Governor-General's awards were announced
in Canada this week, with seven artists taking home a $15,000
grant each. "Success in mixed media work was a theme in the
awards founded in 1999 and presented initially in 2000."
Toronto Star 03/13/02
ALL
ABOUT THE CONTEXT: An exhibition attacked this week for including
body parts (see previous story below) played to great success
in Belgium before coming to the UK. "Everyone came away feeling
that they had learned a lot about the human body. It is basically
an anatomical exhibition. Some 5% of the Belgian population -
505,000 people - saw it in Brussels, with five-hour queues to
get in." BBC
03/13/02
- Previously: PARTLY GRUESOME: Critics, including two members of
parliament, are protesting a show called "Body
Worlds, due to open in London later this month, featuring
175 body parts and 25 corpses - including the body of a pregnant
woman, her womb opened to reveal a seven-month old foetus. The
government has already said it may take legal action because
the show may contravene a 19th century dissection law."
BBC 03/11/02
DON'T
COUNT OUT VEGAS YET: Despite the general panning of the Guggenheim's
expansion to the city of casinos and sloth, and the massive wads
of cash the organization has dropped on its new Las Vegas outpost,
the city may yet become a serious arts destination. Perhaps all
that's required is a true understanding of Vegas's curious blend
of artificial city and real-life desert solitude. Or maybe just
a scaling back of expectations. National
Post (Canada) 03/13/02
HARVARD
GETS RELIGION: "Curators of Islamic art collections around
the country are reporting an increase in attendance in their galleries,
a growth they can only attribute to the current political situation.
Harvard is now in a far better position to present Islamic culture
than it had been, thanks to a major gift of 120 works just donated
to the university's Arthur M. Sackler Museum by Stanford and Norma
Jean Calderwood." Boston Globe
03/13/02
Tuesday
March 12
REMEMBERING THE WTC: Two twin towers of light were activated
in Lower Manhattan as a memorial to the World Trade Center Monday.
"Relatives of some of the thousands killed stood and watched
as 12-year-old Valerie Webb activated 88 powerful searchlights
arranged to simulate the twin towers. Her father, Port Authority
police officer Nathaniel Webb, still hasn't been found in the
ruins nearby." Yahoo! (AP)
03/11/02
- DESIGNERS BEHIND THE LIGHT MEMORIAL:
"We set out to 'repair' and 'rebuild' the skyline—but
not in a way that would attempt to undo or disguise the damage.
Those buildings are gone now, and they will never be rebuilt.
Instead we would create a link between ourselves and what was
lost. In so doing, we believed, we could also repair, in part,
our city's identity and ourselves." Slate
03/11/02
- WTC SCULPTURE RETURNS: A giant scuplture crushed in the
collapse of the World Trade Center has beeen repaired and was
dedicated as a memorial Monday. "The Sphere, created
by German artist Fritz Koenig, had stood in the World Trade
Center plaza as a monument to world peace through world trade
since 1971." BBC 03/11/02
PARTLY GRUESOME: Critics, including two members of
parliament, are protesting a show called "Body Worlds,
due to open in London later this month, featuring 175 body parts
and 25 corpses - including the body of a pregnant woman, her womb
opened to reveal a seven-month old foetus. The government has
already said it may take legal action because the show may contravene
a 19th century dissection law." BBC 03/11/02
A GAMBLE THAT DIDN'T PAY OFF: A Texan art collector thought he
was buying an original Van Dyck portrait that had been identified
as a Van Dyck copy worth £275,000. But it turns out that the painting
was indeed a copy and the £1.5 million the collector paid was
too much. He sued the London dealer who had advised him, but the
court has ruled against him. The Guardian
(UK) 03/11/02
Monday
March 11
POWER
OF LIGHT: Tonight, two towers of light commemorating the World
Trade Center will be lit on the downtown Manhattan skyline. "A
huge sense of anticipation greets their debut. Partly it's a result
of anxiety. Tribute of Light, as the temporary memorial
to the tragedy of Sept. 11 is called, offers the first real inkling
of what an official, permanent remembrance of the awful event
might be. The complex question of a permanent memorial looms large.
Tribute of Light is an avatar of the long, stressful road
that lies ahead in determining what shape that memorial might
take." Los Angeles Times 03/11/02
ATTACKING
FRENCH MUSEUMS: France's largest museums are in disarray after
a damning government audit of their operations. The museums have
been attacked for "poor visitor figures, understaffing and
underfunding." Museum administrators have fought back, and
government policy towards museums is under attack.
The Art Newspaper 03/09/02
IS
ART SCIENCE, IS SCIENCE ART?
Much attention is currently being paid to the relationship between
art and science. But "this obsession for showing that art
- particularly the visual arts - is similar to science in content
and the creative processes is bemusing. I detect in it an element
of social snobbery - artists are envious of scientists and scientists
want to be thought of as artists." The
Observer (UK) 03/10/02
WORLD'S
LARGEST ROOF: British architect Lord Norman Foster has been
hired to to redesign a major part of Hong Kong’s waterfront with
a project featuring the world’s largest roof. The
Star (Malaysia) 03/02/02
WIRED
ARTIST: A Canadian artist has had microchips embedded in her
hands so she can explore relationships between technology and
identity. "I am expecting the merger between human and machines
to proceed whether we want it to or not. If I adopt it and make
it my own, I will have a better understanding of this type of
technology and the potential threats and benefits it represents."
Wired 03/11/02
Sunday
March 10
HISTORY
ON THE BLOCK? The Polaroid photography collection includes
12,000 pictures. Its historical importance makes it priceless.
"But when Polaroid filed for bankruptcy in October, it owed
creditors $950 million. The fate of its collection of a half-century's
worth of images by more than 1,000 artists is now in the hands
of a bankruptcy judge in Delaware, where Polaroid is incorporated."
Photography curators are worried the collection will be broken
up and sold. Boston Globe 03/10/02
ROUND
AND ROUND AND DOWN? The giant London Eye ferris wheel that
towers above the city has been a big hit. "It is a beautiful
structure that could be seen as the ultimate expression of the
dominant high-tech aesthetic, where engineering merges with architecture.
Architects love it, and in a recent opinion poll voted it the
building with which they most wish they had been involved."
But it was meant to be a temporary structure - intended to be
taken down in five years. "To make the London Eye permanent
would be to undermine the transience - a quality we find increasingly
hard to value, at least in buildings - that made the idea so appealing
in the first place." The
Telegraph (UK) 03/10/02
Friday
March 8
LOVING
TO HATE YOU... The Whitney Biennial, the show everyone loves
to hate, is open. "The biennial is, by nature, a giant version
of a gallery group show, a kind of art fair with curators. So
you can ask only so much of it. In its present edition, though,
more than half the work is of lingering interest — a high average."
The New York Times 03/08/02
STOLEN
ART RETURNED TO POLAND: A year and a half ago museums all
over the world struggled to get lists of art they owned of questionable
provenance posted publicly. The goal was to identify any art that
had been stolen by the Nazis in World War II. Most lists haven't
yet turned up any claims. Now the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art has identified and turned over to a Polish museum a "late
medieval Persian or Mughal canopy that was looted from a Polish
collection by the Nazis and has spent most of the last three decades
in storage." Los Angeles Times
03/07/02
- COULDN'T
IT HAVE STUCK AROUND FOR A COUPLE DAYS? There's no question
that returning the canopy to Poland was the right thing to do.
But at least one critic wishes that the LA museum could have
held onto it just a bit longer, long enough for Californians
to have a chance to see it. Los
Angeles Times 03/08/02
THAT
SINKING FEELING: A 360-foot tower, "the centrepiece of
Scotland's most expensive millennial attraction has been forced
to close its doors for at least three months after engineers discovered
it was sinking. The £10 million Glasgow tower at the science centre
on the Clyde was hailed as a unique structure - the only tower
in the world which turns through 360 degrees. Unfortunately, it
is not unique in exhibiting that feature common to innovative
building across the globe: teething troubles."
The Guardian (UK) 03/06/02
REHABILITATION
THROUGH ART: The city of Genoa thought to put itself back
on the international map last summer when it hosted the G8 political
summit. But then violence broke out and the city felt like it
suffered a black eye. To rehabilitate its image, Genoa is taking
to art. It's sending some of its finest Renaissance art for an
exhibition at London's National Gallery. "The city clearly
sees the National Gallery exhibition as a marketing tool to put
it back on the Italian 'grand tour' art circuit. But it is also
likely to find itself embroiled in typically Italian domestic
politics." Financial Times 03/08/02
SOON
TO BE BOUGHT BY RON POPEIL: "The most valuable Rembrandt
painting ever likely to reach the market is on sale at the Maastricht
art fair for an estimated $40m (£28m)... The painting of Minerva,
which has undergone a year of careful restoration work, was once
owned by the Swedish inventor of the Electrolux vacuum cleaner
and then by Baron Bich, the Bic ballpoint pen magnate." BBC
03/08/02
Thursday
March 7
DIFFICULT IMAGE:
After September 11, many people expect artists to somehow respond
to the event in their work. "But now, six months later, many
artists are hesitating to churn out likenesses of the towers:
If they render them in any obvious way, they may be at best sentimental,
at worst exploitative. Being metaphorical and ironic isn't necessarily
the answer, either: An artist who contorts the towers till they're
as abstract as a Picasso nose risks public scorn."
Christian Science Monitor 02/07/02
PAY
PER VIEW: Though others may buy physical pieces of art, artists
retain copyrights to their work. After 18 months of negotiations,
Australia's auction houses have agreed to pay artists a fee whenever
images of their work are used to illustrate sales of the work.
"The rates range from $50 for one-eighth of a page for works
estimated to fetch up to $2000, to $187.50 for a full-page illustration
of higher-priced pictures." The
Age (Melbourne) 03/07/02
IN
A FRIGHTFUL MOOED: Some 500 fiberglass cows are set to hit
the streets of London. Yes, it's the invasion of the Art Cows.
Animals on Parade were "originally scheduled last summer:
the sites had been found, the artists lined up - and then came
foot and mouth, and the prospect of cows dressed as ballerinas
prancing against a daily backdrop of reports of smouldering pyres
of their real sisters. The event was cancelled."
The Guardian (UK) 03/06/02
PUTTING
YOURSELF INTO YOUR ART: Australian artist Pro Hart worries
about the authenticity of his work. He believes if you buy a Hart
you ought to get a Hart. So he's "signing" his work
with his DNA. "Hart's DNA is harvested by scraping the inside
of his mouth with a cotton bud to collect cheek cells, which are
sent to a laboratory and processed before being applied to the
artwork. The precise method of application to the works is secret,
but the location of the DNA is put on a database with the work's
particulars - the title, the size and who bought the painting
- for easy identification in the future." The
Age (Melbourne) 03/07/02
HUGHBRIS
- CRITIC UNDER GLASS: Australian artist Danius Kesminas compacted
the rental car Time Magazine art critic Robert Hughes was driving
last year when Hughes had a car accident, sealed it in glass,
and added objects meant to comment on Hughes' life. "Mr.
Kesminas was able to create Hughbris by tracing the wreckage
of Mr. Hughes's car to a dealer who was about to melt it down.
He persuaded the dealer to swap it for three cases of beer and
worked for several months to convert the scrap metal into a comment
on the event." The New York Times
03/07/02
Wednesday
March 6
THE
RUINS OF BAMIYAN: "One year after the Taliban destroyed
two colossal, centuries-old carvings of Buddha, and several months
after the last of the radical Islamic movement's operatives left
the area, this former marvel of the ancient Silk Road remains
a largely desolate ground zero. There are no repair crews, no
guards, nothing to suggest this was a treasure considered by the
United Nations as a world historical monument. The Buddhas long
dominated the mountain valley below, and now so does their disfigurement."
Washington Post 03/06/02
- Previously: LAST
DAYS OF THE BAMIYAN BUDDHAS: Here's a chilling, detailed
account of the Taliban's efforts last year to destroy the giant
stone Bamiyan Buddhas. "The destruction required an extraordinary
effort, so complex that foreign explosives experts had to be
brought in and local residents were forced to dangle on ropes
over a cliff face to chip out holes for explosives. According
to witnesses and participants, the Taliban struggled with ropes
and pulleys, rockets, iron rods, jackhammers, artillery and
tanks before a series of massive explosions finally toppled
the statues." Los Angeles Times
02/24/02
THOSE
BLOODY AMERICANS: There's something about America that fascinates
the British, and a new batch of art exhibits drives home the point.
Tate Britain is taking on 19th-century Yankee landscape painting,
while Tate Modern is jumping on the always-crowded Andy Warhol
bandwagon. Add a good-sized Nan Goldin retrospective at Whitechapel,
and it becomes clear that what attracts the Brits is the sheer
outsizedness of the whole American art thing. Everyone hates it
when America talks big and walks big, but when the same quality
translates into art, the results are extremely alluring. Boston
Globe 03/06/02
ART
AND HORROR: A new exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York
is causing much controversy for its mixing of Nazi symbols and
art in works that some consider flippant and demeaning. "It's
also driven a wedge into the Jewish community between those who
say fresh approaches are needed to reveal new insights into Nazi
atrocities, and those who say the works bring unnecessary pain
to Holocaust survivors and their families." The
Christian Science Monitor 03/06/02
JUST
LET US BUILD SOMETHING: "Being a young architect in Britain
is the ultimate exercise in learning life’s hard knocks. You spend
seven years at college dreaming up arty squiggles to save the
world, then another 20 designing drainpipes in some enormous firm
called BGTHJ, after which every last drop of youthful ambition
is squeezed from you till the pips squeak. Either that or you
go it alone like Eva Castro and Holger Kehne." Even then,
after winning a top prize, it's still a struggle just to get someone
to let you build something. The Times
(UK) 03/06/02
EXTRA-LARGE
POPCORN TO THE CRITIC IN ROW 3, PLEASE: "One has to wonder:
How many people have actually watched a video exhibition from
start to finish? After all, they can run anywhere from one to
30 hours long. Even their curators never watch them all at one
go. Yet this is how the medium is packaged for the public."
One Toronto critic adds herself to the list of people who have
watched such an installation, and, along the way, discusses where
the video art medium is going. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/06/02
Tuesday March 5
BEAMING
THE WTC: Next week, a memorial at the World Trade Center will
go online, when two giant beams of light will shine up from the
site. "The beams will be lighted from nightfall until 11
p.m., but are subject to temporary shutdown based on Federal Aviation
Administration concerns about how the light plays in certain weather
conditions and conservationists' concerns about the impact on
bird migratory patterns." Washington
Post 03/05/02
GETTING
HUGHES TO VENICE: The invitation to critic Robert Hughes to
direct the Venice Biennale still hasn't been withdrawn, even though
Hughes has publicly attacked biennale politics. "Italian
dailies have speculated that the deal has not been clinched because
Hughes asked too high a fee - the figure of $US700,000 has been
mentioned." The Age (Melbourne)
03/05/02
- HUGHES
BLASTS BIENNALE: Last week's attack by Hughes was carried
in Neal Travis' column in the New York Post: "I informed them
I was pulling out yesterday. Life's too short to waste fooling
around with ditherers." He complains that the Biennale is 'a
shambles' at this stage and wonders whether it will even happen."
New York Post 02/28/02
ONE STRING SHORT: The new American quarters honoring
Tennessee include images of a guitar and a trumpet. But sharp-eyed
musicians have noticed that the guitar only has five strings and
he trumpet's valves are in the wrong position. "Will the
[US Mint] pull the plug for a while on the giant quarter-making
machines to fix the Tennessee design for the rest of its production
schedule?" Nando Times
(Scripps Howard) 03/04/02
KILLING PUBLIC ART? Philadelphia's Percent-for-Art program,
which has put hundreds of artworks on the city's streets, is being
challenged. "More than four decades after the city founded
the Percent for Art Program requiring developers to set aside
1 percent of their construction budget on public art, a developer
is trying to get an exemption for his multimillion-dollar riverfront
apartment high-rise." Nando Times
(AP) 03/04/02
WHERE IS THE RISKY NEW ART? If risky contemporary art has ceased
to live at London's Institute of Contemporary Art (as the ICA's
former chairman claimed), where can it be found in London? "Because
of its roster of film, art and talks it is often referred to as
'an alternative ICA', but The Horse Hospital is privately run
by a staff of just three and receives next to no public funding."
London Evening
Standard 03/05/02
COMPUTER
BUILDING: More and more buildings are being designed - and
their parts shaped - with the aid of computers, resulting in ever
more complicated designs. But no one has yet invented a computer
that will build them." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 03/05/02
Monday March 4
REDOING
LA COUNTY: So the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is going
to get a major redo. "This brand new LACMA had never been
in anyone's cards. The museum was supposed to get a face-lift,
not the wrecking ball. So how did a fixer-upper become a
tear-down? Why did the museum choose a design that its fans call
a brilliant clarification of an architectural muddle and its detractors
consider merely a $300-million roof?" Los
Angeles Times 03/03/02
REBUILDING THE
BUDDHAS: UNESCO policy opposes rebuilding monuments that have
been destroyed. But the Afghan government has proposed rebuilding
the Bamiyan Buddhas, which were destroyed by the Taliban. So UNESCO
is convening an international meeting on the plan. "Reconstruction
at Bamiyan is regarded as 'an absolute political priority'. Symbolically,
it would be a dramatic rejection of what the Taliban and Al-Qa’eda
represented. Economically, it would encourage foreign tourists
to return to Bamiyan." The
Art Newspaper 03/01/02
ROGUE
WHITNEY: An alternative website dedicated to the Whitney Biennial
goes online. "The Internet has made it relatively fast and
easy for anyone with a computer to bedevil entrenched governments,
mammoth corporations and venerable museums. As these institutions
embrace the Internet, they became more vulnerable, with their
own online offerings ripe for criticism and parody, not to mention
the embarrassing possibility that someone searching the Net will
stumble upon a rogue site and think it authentic." The
New York Times 03/04/02
PROOF
OF ART: No more taking sellers of art at their word that the
work they're trying to sell isn't stolen or forged. Insurance
companies have gotten into the act, and auction houses, museums
and galleries are demanding proof for all claims... The
Telegraph (UK) 03/04/03
SICILY
- LAND OF LINCOLN? "Sicily wants to copy Mount Rushmore,
one of the most important memorials to U.S. patriotism. It will
not be an exact copy, of course. What business do George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt have
on the Mediterranean island, after all? But the concept is being
openly plagiarized." Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 03/04/02
Sunday March 3
WHAT'S
A BIENNIAL TO DO? Art biennials are everywhere. "Just
this year, one could biennial-hop through 17 cities in 15 countries."
Some wonder what the point is? To promote artists? Cities? Egos?
"As mega-events, however, biennials may be a troubled form.
Last month, the Venice Biennale approached bureaucratic meltdown
as it was announced that the entire biennial committee and chairman
had resigned amid wrangling over political and artistic control.
In fact, some professionals see down- scaling — call it a countermovement
against globalism — and events held outside Europe or the United
States as the real trend." The
New York Times 03/03/02
SELLING
THE MODERN MUSEUM: Merchandising has become a major factor
in the business plans of most museums. "While catalogues
are the largest revenue producers, it is the variety of manufactured
products - from stationery, vases, T-shirts, jewellery, mugs and
even underwear - that characterises the modern museum or gallery
shop." The
Telegraph (UK) 03/02/02
Friday March 1
THE
NEW PICASSOS: Nearly 30 years after Picasso's death, significant
collections of his work are still coming to view for the first
time - a show of 103 works inherited by the artist's grandson,
many never before seen in public, is opening in Germany. Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 03/01/02
TURNER.COM:
When landscape artist JMW Turner died in 1851, a collection of
tens of thousands of his paintings, sketches, and drawings was
left to the United Kingdom. Since then, they have rarely been
seen, and are in fact currently housed in closed vaults at the
Tate Britain. Now, the Tate has announced a plan to display the
works online. BBC 03/01/02
BRAND
NEW RUBENS: "Sotheby's auction house said Thursday it
has identified a previously unknown painting by Flemish master
Peter Paul Rubens, a find it says is one of the greatest Old Masters
to be offered at auction in decades... The painting, "The Massacre
of the Innocents," from between 1609 and 1611, is expected to
sell for anywhere from $5.7 million to $8.5 million when it is
auctioned on July 11, the auction house said." Nando
Times (AP) 02/28/02
WARHOL
THE PACKRAT: An exhibition celebrating the legacy of Andy
Warhol doesn't sound like anything new. Next to Norman Rockwell,
Warhol may just be the most overexposed American artist of the
last century. But at Pittsburgh's Warhol Museum, the latest tribute
to Mr. Fifteen Minutes focuses not on his art, but on his obsession
with collecting. Says the museum's curator, "Collecting itself
was a form of artistic practice for Warhol." Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette 03/01/02
ART
OUT OF SUFFERING: "Drawings by a World War II veteran
depicting horrific scenes from Japanese prisoner of war camps
in Burma are to be sold at auction next month. The collection
of more than 100 drawings and paintings by Jack Chalker, 83, goes
under the hammer on 16 April at Bonhams auctioneers, in London.
It is expected to fetch up to £80,000." BBC
03/01/02
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