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If all goes according to plan, you can hear me tomorrow commenting about the Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum on New York Public Radio's Morning Edition, WNYC: 93.9 FM or 820 AM.  Or you can listen live here. They tell me it should be aired at one or more of the following times: 6:35, 7:35, 8:35 a.m. I will, of course, post the podcast on CultureGrrl, when available. … [Read more...] about My Murakami Musings: Tomorrow on New York Public Radio

Leonardo da Vinci, "La Belle Ferronière," Musée du LouvreDidier Rykner, whose La Tribune de l'Art had spearheaded the unsuccessful petition against the Louvre's deal to create a satellite museum in Abu Dhabi, now reports (in English) that the Paris museum intends to send to Verona, Italy, an exhibition of some 140 works, including such masterpieces as Leonardo's "La Belle … [Read more...] about Louvre Reportedly Sending Masterpieces to Italy for a Steep Fee

Louis Godart, advisor on culture to Italy's President, has now made good on his promise to send me the list of works relinquished to his country by Shelby White and now on display at the Palazzo Poli in Rome. I already published the list here, but now I've also got the images. All are catalogued as having come from "clandestine excavations" in Italy, except for the last fresco, … [Read more...] about The Shelby White Files: Images from a Restitution

Takashi Murakami, speaking at the Brooklyn Museum's press preview today. Director Arnold Lehman listens.Sorry I've been away all day, art-lings, but I've been prowling the Murakami press preview at the Brooklyn Museum, on which I'll be commenting soon (if all goes according to plan) on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I think I'll save my first (mostly favorable) takes on the art … [Read more...] about Murakami Meets the Press

The Mount, Edith Wharton's Berkshires Mansion Upon hearing in February of the impending bank foreclosure of The Mount, Edith Wharton's idyllic estate in the Massachusetts Berkshires that I had visited in 2006, I wrote: I think Stephanie Copeland, The Mount's president and executive director, has made this site a joy to visit. But now emergency-campaign donors need a level … [Read more...] about Management Shake-Up at Edith Wharton’s Estate, The Mount

UPDATE: Yikes! They took it down. If you click the video, below, it now says: "We're sorry, this video is no longer available." Does that mean it was done by a Banksy hoax-ster? Or was it created under professional auspices and not intended for free sharing?Here's what I wrote right after I viewed the video:There are lots of YouTube videos about Banksy, but now there's one on … [Read more...] about Banksy Performs for YouTube? You Decide. UPDATED

Red figure calyx krater with Zeus and Ganymede, attributed to the Eucharides painterThe Italian Culture Ministry has at last published on its website a list of the objects relinquished by Shelby White and now on display at the Palazzo Poli in Rome. (Go here, click on "Cartella Stampa" and then on "oggetti in mostra." The White objects are interspersed among the others in this … [Read more...] about Italy Posts the Shelby White List of Relinquished Objects

Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl," 1918 (unfinished) In 2006, the Bloch-Bauer heirs famously received five Klimts (including the celebrated "Adele Bloch-Bauer I") that were restituted by Austria in response to their claim that they paintings were wrongfully expropriated during the Nazi era.But the heirs were actually seeking six.The same lawyer who improbably … [Read more...] about Heirs Still Seeking the Sixth Bloch-Bauer Klimt

Anthony Calnek, vice president for communications and marketing for the NY Public Library, responds to Kindred Gamers: NY Public Library as Video Parlor:I won't comment on your parenting observations, but when it comes to your speculation about the use of "Kindred Spirits" funds ("Let's just hope this is not where the art-sale proceeds are going."), I think you could take your … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Anthony Calnek on NY Public Library’s Kindred Gamers

Italian Prosecutor Paolo Ferri at the Athens conferenceSeveral previously confidential details of the antiquities agreement between the Getty Museum and Italy were publicly outed by Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri at the conference on "Return of Cultural Objects" that I recently attended in Athens. And in conversation with me after his presentation (during which which I … [Read more...] about Details of the Getty’s “Confidential” Agreement with Italy

Jean Nouvel, 2008 Pritzker WinnerAs occurred last year, the media-embargoed announcement of the winner of architecture's highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, was leaked a day early (here and here). Prescient (or well informed at an early date), Arthur Lubow has a long profile of Nouvel slated for NEXT Sunday's NY Times Magazine, already available online here. That piece includes … [Read more...] about Nouvel Wins the Pritzker Prize (and Media Embargo Broken Again, UPDATED)

Kanye West's latest album cover, designed by MurakamiI thought I should really give the Vuitton thing a rest, until another designer-branded press release hit my inbox yesterday from the Brooklyn Museum: Turns out that "special items, created by Takashi Murakami as part of the latest collaboration with Louis Vuitton, ...will be auctioned during the gala dinner to benefit the … [Read more...] about Brooklyn/Murakami/Vuitton: It Keeps Getting Worse

Shelby WhiteThey were not in the recently closed Nostoi exhibition of repatriated works, but the nine objects recently relinquished to Italy by American collector Shelby White will go on display at Rome's Palazzo Poli beginning this Saturday, according to Louis Godart, advisor on culture to Italy's President. Chatting with me at the recent "Return of Cultural Objects" … [Read more...] about Italy’s Rutelli Expects to Reclaim “Hundreds of Other Works”; Shelby White’s Returns to Be Exhibited

Rendering of the planned new museums on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi:Gehry's Gargantuan Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (left) dwarfs the rest.People tend to be more controversially candid in interviews published abroad than in those that they do for domestic consumption. This was true of Philippe de Montebello in Le Monde, blasting the Louvre Abu Dhabi (and, by implication, the … [Read more...] about Krensmania in Der Spiegel: “Pharaonic” Aspirations Undiminished

Peter Schjeldahl lecturing last night in New YorkWith too much art to see at the Armory Show of contemporary art that opens today at Pier 94 in New York, how can you hone your must-see list to something manageable?One way could be cross-referencing the list of the art fair's exhibiting artists with those with work in the current Whitney Biennial.When I last I covered the … [Read more...] about More on the Whitney Buy-ennial, and a Schjeldahl Thumbs-Up