Category: visual

The architect hastens to remind us that the reason his design for the Museum of Tolerance was, at $250 million, twice as expensive as the new version, is “[b]ecause mine was twice as big. People are always complaining that my work is too expensive.” He says of the project, “I’m glad I got out of it.”

“150 winners will have their images printed on 5-inch-by-6-inch postcards and displayed at the Rush Arts Gallery in Chelsea or at three city-owned spaces on the Lower East Side, in Harlem and on Staten Island for 10 days. The city is spending $40,000 on the competition.”

“Among the problems cited in the suit are cracks in concrete floors, condensation clouding the main vestibule glass and an air-conditioning system that can’t maintain a safe climate for artwork.” The estimated cost of repairs is $10 million.

“As custodian of Henry Clay Frick’s limestone mansion” – and its fabulous art holdings – “it would have been easy for [Anne] Poulet to keep things as they had always been. But instead she has continually improved the surroundings,” refurbishing the building, running an ambitious exhibition program, and expanding the museum’s board and funding.

Architect John Pawson, whose Calvin Klein store in Manhattan is the very model of luxurious austerity, has found an ideal medium in his “Novy Dvur Trappist Monastery in the Czech Republic, which manages to blend the solidity and timelessness of medieval Cistercian architecture with a stripped-down modernism.”

“In a surprising and unlikely move, auctioneer Christie’s has hired, from outside, a former publishing, record company and Disney executive as its CEO. For the firm known for, literally, centuries (it was founded in 1766) of Eton-educated top managers and very little turnover, this is a huge cultural shift.”

“Cuts of between 25% and 40% are clearly going to have a dramatic effect everywhere in British society, but in the case of museums the nature of the pain will be shaped by the scale of their success. Hence, it will feel like an act of vandalism when these beautiful institutions are knocked about, trashed and uglified.”

Director Rochard Koshalek “plans to convene forums in the bubble – which is being designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro – that will insert art into the dialogue of national and world affairs.”

“Many people don’t understand the intricacies involved with collecting art. The auction house premiums, the framing, the storage, the upkeep. First-time buyers are often shocked.”

“New research into the sustainability of Aboriginal art claims the market for new works is already falling away, even for sought-after artists, because some indigenous works are still being treated as ethnographic objects.”