Category: visual

“The Interfaith Peace Chapel was the last building Johnson designed before his death. Originally intended as a smaller piece of an enormous but still unbuilt cathedral, the freestanding chapel looks more like a biomorphic sculpture or a cave.” As of November, the Chapel is home to the largest gay church congregation in the US.

Tycoon David Walsh is “building a new museum in the bowels of the earth to house his considerable personal art collection. Billed as a ‘subversive Disneyland’, the A$76m Museum of Old And New Art (Mona) will open to the public on 21 January just after Mofo, a [new rock] music festival.”

“Toronto-based AA Bronson had requested the gallery remove his photograph from the gay-themed exhibit Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture after the museum removed a video by artist David Wojnarowicz.”

“The problem first came to light when equipment detected high levels of calcium chloride from de-icing mixtures trodden into the exhibition room floors by visitors. Experts say once this goes into the air as a fine dust, it can contribute to a blackening affect, creating irreversible damage to the paintings.”

In 1973, a portrait of Spanish king Philip IV thought to be by Velazquez was determined by scholars to be merely from the painter’s studio. “Now, after a year of examination and restoration, curators, conservators and scholars have changed their minds.”

“Christie’s will announce record global sales of £3.2 billion ($5 billion) for 2010 next month. The figure includes both auction sales and private sales, and just nudges ahead of the company’s previous high of £3.1 billion in 2007. Sotheby’s will announce its figures in dollars, and its website indicates that its global auction sales have almost doubled last years, reaching $4.3 billion, not including private sales.”

“The situation in Greece is not improving and as time passes all the consequences of an economic crisis such as strikes and fuel shortages are starting to be felt.”

“The ink is nearly dry on a $150,000 deal for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) to oversee the restoration and preservation of the city’s Watts Towers.”

“Six city workers took just under 20 minutes Monday to lower, disassemble, strap down and drive away a sculpture that mysteriously appeared on the front lawn of the Boulder History Museum a week ago. The work of art was deposited overnight Dec. 13 by an unknown sculptor, inspiring people to come by the museum to take pictures and try to decipher its meaning.”

Spanish police have secured 34 of the 35 artworks – pieces by Picasso, Botero, Chillida and others, collectively worth €5 million – in a truck stolen from a warehouse last month. The tipster: a scrap metal merchant to whom the thieves offered some of the sculpture.