British museums – like those in most countries – have only a fraction of their collections on display. But some treasures haven’t been out of storage in decades. Now a British government initiative to get more of the art out to be seen. – The Independent (UK)
Author: Douglas McLennan
A CAR-PARK FOR ICE-CREAM VANS
“Modern Trafalgar Square is a dump: Hayling Island with statues, cut off from the rest of London by the four-ring motorway that encircles it. The pigeons are right to deposit their opinions of it.” The now-famous Fourth Plinth project is “the smartest example of sculptural hype I can remember in London. I cannot imagine a more prominent urban showcase for new public sculpture than an empty platform in Trafalgar Square, opposite the National Gallery, and the wheeze of rotating the solutions on a regular basis means that nobody need ever worry unduly about the permanent impact of the results.” – The Sunday Times (UK)
GARBAGE OUT
A mountainous landfill, “25 million tons of trash piled as high as a 20-story building and stretching nearly a mile alongside the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway – a dump so huge, so rank, so grotesque and so in your face that it is now something more than a garbage heap – is the subject of a new museum show. – Washington Post
BRING BACK THE CHEESY SPECIAL EFFECTS
Computer generated imagery has transformed the world of movie special effects. “Whereas, before, if they were making The Attack of the Killer Ants, they’d have papier mache ants chewing someone in half, now they’ll use a computer graphic ant, because it’s cheap and they can get bigger shots.” But the amazing imagery has gotten predictable, and now there’s talk of a backlash. – National Post (Canada) 03/18/00
A BATTLER
“Susan Sontag’s recovery from her second bout with cancer has been dramatic. You will find few with a stronger will to live than this extraordinary American writer, though not of course without aid: medicine, not any wishful or literary thinking about illness (TB, remember, was once considered a romantic disease), is what her celebrated 1973 essay, Illness as Metaphor, advocates.” – National Post (Canada)
FUTURE PERFECT
Is “modern” art soon to be relegated to the dustbin of history, recognized for the dead end some want to consider it, as Tom Wolfe prophesies? Not so fast, writes one critic. If history teaches us anything… – National Post (Canada)
CLIENT FIXING
Investigators have discovered that auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s swapped confidential lists of super-rich clients. “The shared and overlapping lists of about 50 names which include some of the world’s wealthiest families were described as a crucial tool for auction houses to use in enforcing a form of price control in which certain customers were charged lower commissions, down to zero, that both houses honored.” – New York Times
PLAYING FOR ALL THE MARBLES
One by one, Britain’s excuses for keeping the Elgin Marbles are melting away. Now a poll shows that a majority of members of the British Parliament would vote to return the marbles to Greece. – The Economist
REINTERPRETING THE 20TH CENTURY (PART II)
The Museum of Modern Art continues with its look back at the history of 20th Century art. “There has been a concerted effort to level the playing field, to take modernism out of the hands of the anointed few and show it to be an effort of hundreds of people working alone or together in a range of styles and mediums.” – New York Times
CHARGES OF MISMANAGEMENT —
— of the Hermitage Museum come into play in Russian election. – The Art Newspaper