Category: visual

“Faced with a class-action suit over artists’ royalties that potentially would expose them to a huge cash verdict, Christie’s and Sotheby’s likely will challenge the constitutionality of the California law on which the claim is based.”

Museums now try to stake a claim for all hours of the day, including the ones where you’re sleeping. Sleeping on the floor, that is, in the museums themselves.

“Our job is about trust. People have to be comfortable with you because some of these pieces are thousands of years old.”

“In the end, as with so much that agitates the curator, this may not matter very much. Art is not interior decoration. What I really want is to be able to see the painting, appropriately lit and without distractions. The best wall colour is drab – a dreary colour that the gallery-goer does not even notice. The colours you should remember are those of the paintings.”

“During his tenure in Indianapolis the institution’s attendance more than doubled to 450,000 visitors annually. He launched innovative web-based tools to engage the public, like a dedicated video channel for art and artists known as ArtBabble, as well as Dashboard, which provided users with real time statistics such as the number of visitors to the museum that day along with a deaccessioning database.”

“While the main, arched hall of the museum with its ornate, massive clock has not been touched, now nearly all the building’s other smaller gallery spaces are more intimate, and give the sense of being in an entirely different museum, one that also feels more accessible. The effect, officials say, is not unlike what one might have encountered in the homes of collectors at the time the paintings were created.”

“Some 34 employees, mostly security guards, staged the walkout to protest the fact that no additional workers had been recruited at the museum despite the addition of more than 21,000 square feet of display space, a museum spokeswoman said.”

“There are two ways in which the Booker – for all this year’s fuss – remains a more serious cultural event than the Turner. Both are encapsulated in this year’s outcome. When all was said and done, the 2011 Booker went to Julian Barnes. There are two reasons why, if he were an artist, he would not be in the running for this year’s Turner.”

“In a statement, the foundation said the move reflects its intent to shift focus toward maximizing “grant making and other charitable activities.” In recent years, the foundation has been involved in legal disputes over its authentication process for works whose owners said they were by Warhol.”

Renovating a museum can be a tricky business – repairing or fixing what is outmoded or no longer works, all while hanging on to the museum’s identity and mission. Such a project is still trickier for New York’s National Academy Museum, which was so conservative for so long that it didn’t even recognize abstract artists until 1980.