Category: visual

Christopher Knight: “The dynamic 2006 building designed for Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art contains one serious flaw. Unfortunately, it appears that architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro … are about to repeat the error in … the Broad Collection [building]. The mistake: In Boston, it’s a long schlep from the front door to the art galleries.”

“To an area where emerging-art galleries occupy storefronts and cramped walk-up spaces, Sperone Westwater will bring an eight-story sliver designed by Sir Norman Foster with laminated-glass facade, three floors of gallery space and a display room that moves from floor to floor.”

Wright built only four of his innovative “textile block” houses, all in Southern California. Two of them, La Miniatura and the Ennis House, have been on the market for more than a year without selling, despite reductions of 40% to 50% in the asking prices. There is even talk of moving one of the houses for an overseas buyer, if necessary.

“Claes Oldenburg’s Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A, a nearly 10-foot-long electric plug, a cube tap grown to monstrous proportions, [is] now protruding from a grassy knob outside the [Philadelphia Museum of Art’s] west entrance.”

“Egypt plans to set up a security control room to monitor all museums after the theft of a $55 million Vincent van Gogh painting in Cairo, Zahi Hawass, head of the country’s antiquities agency said today.”

“More than 1,500 people from all 50 states and more distant places including Antarctica and Australia applied to spend a Month at the Museum, an immersion experience that lets the winner roam the museum freely, updating visitors about the experience and sleeping in exhibits like the U-505 submarine or the coal mine.”

Christopher Hawthorne: “[The] high-powered private competition … essentially produced six versions of a steel-framed box. … Diller Scofidio prevailed by focusing its design attention not on sculptural form but on a smart if showy conceptual clash between public and private visions of L.A. culture.”

Christopher Knight: “[Virtually every American single-collection museum] follows in the wake of a ravenous period in which a larger social philosophy of ‘greed is good’ takes hold. … Regardless of philanthropic motive, the Broad Collection – like the Huntington, the Frick and most of the other great private art institutions before it – is also Gilded Age residue.”

“The controversy surrounding a stash of photo negatives that its owner claims were taken by Ansel Adams took a legal turn on Monday when the trust representing the famed nature photographer filed a lawsuit to halt the sale of prints.”

“Mannie Garcia, a former Associated Press freelancer, has settled with the news wire his claim of ownership of the image at the centre of a legal fight over the Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster.”