Month: April 2000

Modern London is bursting with museum openings this year. “There is a tremendous on-rush. Wherever you look, there are things happening,” said Richard Cork, art critic for the Times of London. “It is incredibly important, particularly the Tate Modern. At last we’ve got the full-fledged museum of modern art in this country that we’ve needed for 50 years. Finally, Britain is taking modern art seriously.” – Los Angeles Times

The UK’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is blocking plans for a peace sculpture made of decommissioned weapons to be erected in Belfast. Richard Branson has commissioned a £50,000 work from 97-year-old Josefina de Vasconcellos, the world’s oldest living sculptor. “The idea of the sculpture has been widely welcomed by politicians in Northern Ireland. However, the proposal to make the new work from decommissioned weapons is causing disquiet at the Northern Ireland Office.” – The Independent (UK)

New York’s Museum of Modern Art is trying to catch up with its name. On the eve of a major expansion it’s taking a look at its own collections with a sharpened eye. “It’s a chance for a monumental institution, one with a reputation for having a glacial metabolism when it comes to change, to rethink the modern-art tradition that it helped to invent, and to consider its own identity in what is often called a postmodern world.”  – New York Times

A decade after a federal law gave Native American tribes the right to reclaim human remains and sacred artifacts from museums, less than 10 percent of the human remains believed to be in the custody of federal agencies, museums and universities have been returned to tribes. – Chicago Tribune

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are architecture stars of the moment with this month’s opening of London’s new Tate Modern. “All famous architects have mighty egos, and Herzog is unusual only in the openness with which he displays his. If he weren’t brilliant he would be insufferable, but it isn’t unduly flattering to say that he is brilliant. His immodesty is also redeemed by a talent for collaboration with others, most notably his childhood friend and business partner de Meuron. Both are turning 50 this year. They are young – in the slow-moving world of architecture – to have got to their present status.” – London Evening Standard

Some artists know right from the beginning that they want to make art. For others it takes a little longer – after establishing themselves in other ways, some take to art as a second career. Is it any less of one? – National Post (Canada)