The Metropolitan Museum hopes to get the major part of Shelby White’s collection of antiquities. But an Italian “investigation into Ms. White’s collection seems to keep expanding. The stock of old evidence that Italian investigators are using becomes more dangerous to Ms. White’s collection as more of her pieces receive widespread notice. That is sure to happen as more than a dozen pieces in her collection—which has been admired by curators as one of the most impressive in the world, even as it has been disparaged by archaeologists as plundered treasure without provenance—are displayed at the Met, where she is a trustee.”
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No Federal Funds For Edinburgh Fest
The Scottish government has rejected calls for it to do more to fund the Edinburgh International Festival, despite strong support for the idea from the government’s own Cultural Commission. Supporters of greater government funding point out that the festival is perennially underfunded (it’s had to be bailed out by the Edinburgh Council at the last moment several times,) but because the event is stationary in Edinburgh, the government doesn’t consider it a national company, and won’t get involved.
A Getty Director’s Home Is His Castle, Apparently
“Already under investigation for questionable executive spending, the J. Paul Getty Trust recently purchased a $3.5-million official residence for its new museum director’s use only to find that the house was contaminated with mold and uninhabitable… The Getty then made an offer on a $5.5-million house near Santa Monica. Spokesman Ron Hartwig said the trust pulled out of the deal Tuesday after inspectors found structural problems with the roof. Meanwhile, the Getty is paying $15,000 a month to rent [the director] a Holmby Hills home with five bathrooms and a swimming pool on a two-acre lot.” The
Salary Disclosure Law Irks MPR
It isn’t often that a public broadcaster will intentionally turn down free money, but that’s just what’s happening in the Twin Cities, where Minnesota Public Radio is balking at a new state law requiring it to release a list of all employees earning more than $100,000 in order to qualify for $190,000 in funding from the state. The law is the brainchild of a state representative who made news two years ago when he proposed another measure which would have proibited anyone working for an arts organization from making a higher salary than the governor of the state.
Bookstores Have An Off Year In ’05
According to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, bookstore sales declined 1.8% last year, to $15.92 billion.
A Record Price For Turner?
Auction watchers are predicting a record price for a JWM Turner when it comes up for sale this week. “The Blue Rigi: Lake of Lucerne, Sunrise, is predicted to fetch more than £2m when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s auction house on 5 June. The current record for a Turner watercolour on paper is £2.04m, set in 2001 by Heidelberg with a Rainbow.”
Does St. Louis Museum Have Stolen Mask?
Allegations have surfaced that the St Louis Art Museum has an ancient Egyptian mask in its collection that was stolen from a warehouse in Saqqara, Egypt in the 1980s.
St. Louis Mask Has A History In Dispute
The St. Louis mask was the subject of accusations as recently as Jan. 19, when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s David Bonetti reported that a “one-time forger and art smuggler” named Michel Van Rijn claimed that the mask was stolen in the 1990s.
A Culture Of Celebrity Swag
“Originally conceived at the Academy Awards in 1989 as a way to thank actors for presenting awards at the Oscars, the gift basket has in recent years outgrown its origins to become a marketing juggernaut in its own right, in some cases all but overtaking the events themselves. Even celebrities seem somewhat mystified by the trend.”
British Dance, 2006 Edition
“Publicly supported British dance seems politically correct to a fault. There were dances for babies and for the elderly, for the fit and the disabled, for people of most every culture and color, for adult audiences and children, for trained dancers and everyday folk. There was no ballet and not much classical-music accompaniment. But there was modern dance (“contemporary dance,” in British parlance) of every kind. Contemporary dance here is strung between the poles of abstraction and ‘physical theater,’ which is so engrained as to seem almost old-fashioned.”