Curatorial workers, librarians, secretaries, archivists and bookstore clerks at the Museum of Modern Art go on strike for a living wage. New York Times
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IN CHINESE ART THERE IS NO RULEBOOK
A dozen experts meet in New York to determine whether a large painting at the Metropolitan is a rare 10th century Chinese masterpiece or a forgery cooked up just a few decades ago. “You take any great classical [Chinese] painting and call up twenty different art historians and you’d probably get twenty different opinions,” says one expert, who finds the lack of consensus “embarrassing.” ArtsJournal.com
GARBAGE IN …
Artists tackle the problem of what to do with a giant mountain of garbage in Israel. A pond? Homes? A photovoltaic garden? Financial Times
ARTIST PAUL CADMUS –
– dead at 94. New York Times
BETWEEN JUDGMENT AND BEAUTY
Trying to come to terms with questions of aesthetic judgment. “The trouble is that it has proved impossible to establish the principles that govern the production of aesthetic pleasure.” Threepenny Review
ARTISTS OPPOSE RESALE LEVY
The Art Newspaper 12/17/99
- Previously: IF ELTON JOHN AND THE SPICE GIRLS GET IT, why not Damien Hirst? The case for a resale levy on art sold in Europe. ARTNewspaper.com 12/16/99
- And: BRITAIN FIGHTS RESALE LEVY: European Commission has proposed a levy on the resale of art in Europe to go to artists. The London Times writes that “A recent report to the French National Assembly shows that most artists lose more than they gain from the levy. It penalizes the least successful, whose work is not resold, because buyers ask for reductions on first sales to take account of future resale levies. Nearly half the money collected goes to the most prosperous 3 per cent; 97 per cent receive less than £300, of which the collecting agency keeps a fifth. And, to avoid the levy, all but 7.6 per cent of French paintings are now sold in New York and London.” London Times 12/15/99
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
makes $20 million in grants. Here’s the national list. NEA
“HIGH ART” TURN-OFF
Discouraging new study says after a half-century of English Arts Council’s attempts to broaden appreciation for the arts, British teenagers feel “alienated” and excluded from the “high arts.” London Evening Standard
TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO THE ARTS?
This fall the arts have attracted unprecedented attention in Scotland. Now everyone’s an arts reporter, and the result isn’t always pretty. The Herald (Glasgow)
THE FRENCH CENSORS
“It has taken five years for Eric Hobsbawm’s world-acclaimed Age of Extremes to appear in French – even though it has been translated into more than 20 languages. By November, one month after publication, the book was on all the best-selling lists, with 40,000 copies printed. The whole affair has revealed the disquiet and ambiguities that surround intellectual life in France. No-one denied the quality of the work. Nor was it a question of financial considerations. It was Hobsbawm’s ideas that were in question, in particular his unrepentant position on the left.” – Le Monde Diplomatique