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What's my take on the latest in a long series of aborted Global Guggenheims?Heikki Heiskanen, foreign news correspondent for YLE Uutiset, Finnish Broadcasting Company, yesterday sought my views in a phone intervew. If you understand Finnish (I think I need a crash course), you can listen to the news broadcast (which aired this morning) here. (Guggenheim segment starts at 0.48.) … [Read more...] about Sunk in Helsinki: My Finnish Radio Commentary on Rejected Guggenheim Project

Edvard Munch, "The Scream," pastel, 1895, sold for $119.92 million [UPDATE: MoMA informed me at 1:11 p.m. Thursday that it did NOT acquire the Munch. And I was so hoping to see it on display there!] Maybe it's just a combination of wishful thinking and circumstantial evidence, but I'm guessing that Edvard Munch's "The Scream" was bought by a museum---maybe an American … [Read more...] about Who Bought “The Scream”? Could It Be an American Museum? UPDATED

I'll bet those two locales won't find themselves in the same headline ever again! In breaking news (relayed to me by Finnish journalist colleagues), the Helsinki City Board voted today 8 to 7, largely along party lines, against the proposed Guggenheim Helsinki. The board's approval was required before the project could be voted upon by the City Council. Does this sink the … [Read more...] about Endangered Buildings Follow-Ups: Helsinki’s Guggenheim & Goshen’s Government Center

Dartmouth College's Baker Library, home of José Clemente Orozco's monumental mural, "The Epic of American Civilization," 1932-34 Photo by Lee Rosenbaum In my Wall Street Journal piece, Becoming Jackson Pollock, to appear on the "Leisure & Arts" page of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal (but online now), I state that before you can fully appreciate the Hood Museum of Art's Men … [Read more...] about Grrl in the Hood: My WSJ Piece on Pollock/Orozco Show at Dartmouth (online now)

Withdrawn: Giacometti, "Buste de Diego,"  1957, as seen last Thursday at Christie's presale exhibition (but not seen in today's sale)Photos by Lee RosenbaumThe last-minute withdrawal from Christie's Impressionist/modern sale tonight of what was to have been one of its star works, Giacometti's "Buste de Diego," left a very thin sale even thinner. "Diego," tied for the … [Read more...] about Where’s Diego? Christie’s Very Thin Sale Gets Thinner with Withdrawal of Giacometti (Where’s Christopher?)

Almost done? The new Philly Barnes, as seen today from its webcamI'm planning to visit and report on the new Philly Barnes Foundation in two weeks. You, art-lngs, can help make this possible! (More on that at the end of this post.)On Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer will scoop us all (or at least most of us) with a special section on the Barnes Foundation's new facility in … [Read more...] about Coming Sunday: Philadelphia Inquirer’s First Look at the New Barnes (plus a new CultureGrrl Challenge)

Interior of Paul Rudolph-designed Orange County Government Center, 2010Mark your calendars, architecturally-attuned art-lings! The Orange County Legislature is expected to vote at its meeting this Thursday afternoon, beginning at 3:30 p.m., on whether to save or demolish the flood-damaged Paul Rudolph-designed Orange County Government Center. There will be a chance for public … [Read more...] about Goshen Commotion: Vote Expected Thursday on Endangered Paul Rudolph Building

Good luck trying to get a good view at Sotheby's presale exhibition (open, until noon on Wednesday, but only to Sotheby's clients) of one of the best-known images in the world---Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Partly for security reasons and partly to convey the dramatic awe of a "chapel" (as a Sotheby's specialist called it), the small pastel-on-board is engulfed by a dark cave. … [Read more...] about Munch’s “The Scream”: Who Will Buy It? For How Much? (plus video)

Zeus, we hardly knew you. When you were catalogued by Sotheby's for its Dec. 8, 2011 sale, you looked like this: Marble head of Zeus Ammon, Roman Imperial, c. 120-160 A.D., bought at Sotheby's by Metropolitan Museum for $3.55 million (presale estimate: $800,000-$1.2 million)But when I saw you yesterday, installed near the entrance to the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court for … [Read more...] about After a Good Scrubbing, $3.55-Million Zeus Installed at the Met

Will the above works by Georgia O'Keeffe at Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR, soon be joined by this?Georgia O'Keeffe, "Radiator Building---Night, New York," 1927, Fisk University, NashvillePosting Monday evening in haste, I suggested (based on accounts I had read) that the prolonged court battle regarding the fate of Fisk University's Stieglitz Collection is finally … [Read more...] about Nashville/Bentonville Saga: What’s Next in Fisk/Crystal Bridges Stieglitz Collection Case?

Alice Walton, speaking in Bentonville, AR Chalk one up for Alice Walton, one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. This just in from the Tennessean's Heidi Hall: The Tennessee Supreme Court has rejected the state's latest move to keep Fisk University's art collection in Nashville year-round. In January, Attorney General Bob Cooper appealed a lower … [Read more...] about News Flash: Court Clears Way for Fisk-Crystal Bridges $30-Million Collection-Sharing Deal

Timothy Potts, Getty Museum's director-designateNo Getty Museum director has been so bedeviled by controversy before even assuming his post.First, Timothy Potts, who comes on board Sept. 1, told me in an interview that he hadn't yet "seen a document on the details" of the Getty Museum's highly important (and unusually stringent) antiquities-collecting policies---an oversight … [Read more...] about Chinese Jade Theft: Security Breach at Potts’ Fitzwilliam Museum Compounded by Publicity about Alarm Setup

From the 2012 Whitney Biennial: LaToya Ruby Frazier, "Corporate Exploitation and Economic Inequality!," 2011. © LaToya Ruby Frazier; courtesy the artist Photograph by Abigail DeVilleThey had me for a moment.Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg and I had shared a very early period of our careers working in the Union Square office of the Art Workers News, an artists' rights … [Read more...] about Prank Alert: Whitney “Press Release” Turns Museum over to Demonstrators UPDATED

Close up of the exterior and windows of the Barnes Foundation's new Philadelphia facility, opening May 19Photo by Lee RosenbaumTwo readers respond to Rent-a-Barnes: Disregarding the Founder's No-Parties Intent:Robert Zaller, professor of history and politics at Drexel University, informs me there were plenty of parties (notwithstanding the prohibition in founder Albert Barnes' … [Read more...] about BlogBacks: Readers Weigh In on the Philly Barnes

Returning repeatedly to the Barnes Foundation's website to see whether there was any acknowledgement of the death of its general counsel (which has now been reported as a suicide in an obit by Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer), I stumbled across the Special Events section. It appears that CultureDaughter, still engaged in her nationwide mission to find the perfect … [Read more...] about Rent-a-Barnes: Disregarding the Founder’s No-Parties Intent