Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation. Photograph by Donald Woodman Art Radio WPS1.org, the Internet radio station of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, will streamcast a live audio feed of The Feminist Future, Jan. 26-27, organized by The Museum of Modern Art. The sold-out symposium features such speakers as Lucy … [Read more...] about Attention All Feminists! MoMA and Brooklyn Go Guerrilla
The Man Who Knew How to Say Goodbye
Buchwald's Last Book "Hi! I'm Art Buchwald and I just died." With that mischievous quip begins the video obit on today's NY Times home page for the consummate humorist and satirist. He died Wednesday night in Washington of kidney failure at the age of 81. He made death the ultimate absurdity: "I was put on earth to make people laugh," he tells Times reporter Tim Weiner during … [Read more...] about The Man Who Knew How to Say Goodbye
Rutelli and True Deliver One-Two Punch to the Getty
Yesterday was the ultimate bad-news day for the J. Paul Getty Trust: Its nemesis, Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli, scored an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, to which the editors obligingly appended the headline "Rogue Gallery," along with a photo of the Getty Villa. WSJ subscribers can find it here. The rest of you can get the text, in English, from the … [Read more...] about Rutelli and True Deliver One-Two Punch to the Getty
In Case You Were Wondering Where the Political Art Has Gone…
...it's over at the Tate Britain, London. Maev Kennedy reports in the Guardian about that museum's current "State Britain" exhibition: Lawyers for the Tate pored over the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act before artist Mark Wallinger recreated a spectacular anti-war protest from Parliament Square, filling the stately Duveen galleries which mostly lie within the exclusion … [Read more...] about In Case You Were Wondering Where the Political Art Has Gone…
Is The NY Times the New People Magazine?
On Monday, the NY Times sardonically reported that, because of planned staff cuts, People magazine might have to make do with just one reporter covering Britney Spears, instead of the seven who supposedly composed a five-paragraph story on the tabloid queen and "her 'new guy,' model Isaac Cohen." On Tuesday, the august paper of record devoted almost two full pages and 16 … [Read more...] about Is The NY Times the New People Magazine?
Big Plans for a Bigger Uffizi
Model for new Uffizi entrance by Arata Isozaki A $39-million construction project to expand the Uffizi Gallery in Florence by 60% gets underway this week, but not without controversy. The museum will grow to occupy the entire first floor of its palazzo, according to the scant information provided on its website. Wanda Lattes reports in Corriere della Sera that Arata Isozaki's … [Read more...] about Big Plans for a Bigger Uffizi
Dealer Robert Noortman Dies; Gallery Was Acquired by Sotheby’s Last Year
The eminent Maastricht-based old masters, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist dealer, Robert Noortman, died of a heart attack at the age of 60, the ANP news agency reported on Sunday. He had been suffering from cancer. On June 8, Sotheby's had released this announcement of its acquisition of Noortman's gallery: Through the transaction, Sotheby's will acquire all the assets of … [Read more...] about Dealer Robert Noortman Dies; Gallery Was Acquired by Sotheby’s Last Year
Lamentable 2006 Artworld Developments—Part II: The Hegemony of the Money-No-Object Collector
(Part I is here.) You know some of the names: Ronald Lauder, Alice Walton, Steven Cohen---collectors who don't mind spending whatever it takes to buy a work that they covet, even if it means negotiating privately and paying a price well beyond what the market might bear if the object of their obsession were sold at auction. It used to be that most megacollectors came by … [Read more...] about Lamentable 2006 Artworld Developments—Part II: The Hegemony of the Money-No-Object Collector
COMING NEXT: The Hegemony of the Money-No-Object Collector
Is Japan the New Front in Italy’s Antiquities War?
American museum directors are always complaining that source countries uniquely target the United States in their antiquities repatriation efforts. (Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, another favorite target of source countries, might beg to differ.) Now, a report in today's Yomiuri Shimbun indicates that the Miho Museum in Japan may soon be targeted by Italy's … [Read more...] about Is Japan the New Front in Italy’s Antiquities War?
Hammering the Hammer: 12-Year-Old Leonardo Disposal Still Pays Museum’s Bills
In today's LA Times, Christopher Reynolds and Hugh Hart reveal that the financial windfall from the Hammer Museum's ethically problematic sale in November 1994 of the glory of founder Armand Hammer's collection, his Leonardo Codex, is the gift that keeps on giving: To help bankroll the institution's exhibitions and programs, the Hammer...[has] been relying on interest income … [Read more...] about Hammering the Hammer: 12-Year-Old Leonardo Disposal Still Pays Museum’s Bills
Museum Insurance Rates Soar in a Post-Katrina World
California art museums are seeing exhibition-threatening surges in insurance premiums, according to the Jan. 12 San Francisco Business Times. Sarah Duxbury reports: Post-Katrina, California is considered a catastrophic zone, and its fine art museums are seeing insurance increases between 40 percent and 300 percent owing to the need to insure against earthquakes. The wide range … [Read more...] about Museum Insurance Rates Soar in a Post-Katrina World
And the Number One U.S. Doctoral Program in Art History Is…
Johns Hopkins University. Or at least so says a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which has published the results of a new "Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index" that based its rankings on "faculty members' scholarly output [number of publications, awards, honors, and grants received] at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the country," according to the Art History … [Read more...] about And the Number One U.S. Doctoral Program in Art History Is…
Real-Life “Da Vinci Code”: Search Intensifies for Major Lost Leonardo
Anyone who attended the Metropolitan Museum's extraordinary Leonardo da Vinci drawings exhibition four years ago was painfully aware of the elephant not in the room: Although a section of the exhibition was devoted to Leonardo's lost masterpiece, the "Battle of Anghiari," only small fragmentary sketches, preparatory to this fabled fresco, were displayed. "No complete copy of … [Read more...] about Real-Life “Da Vinci Code”: Search Intensifies for Major Lost Leonardo
The Megabucks Global Louvre: Abu Dhabi Details Emerge
You already heard (here and here) of GAD (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi). But nothing the Global Guggenheim has done up till now prepares us for the emormous artistic and financial scope of LAD---the Louvre Abu Dhabi. On Thursday, Jacques Follorou reported in Le Monde that he had been given "access to the confidential clauses of the contract" for Abu Dhabi Louvre, and he reported the … [Read more...] about The Megabucks Global Louvre: Abu Dhabi Details Emerge