Category: visual

“While the politicians continue to bicker over the old issues of teachers’ pay, class sizes and the national curriculum, there is one thing that has been proved to make a profound difference to pupils’ grades both at Kingsdale and many other schools in Britain and around the world: the physical design of the building.”

“The Turbine Hall presents an enormous opportunity, but also a huge career risk. One doesn’t want overblown monstrosities, or for artists just to make grandiose versions of the kind of things they have done elsewhere.”

“The Turner prize is about finding and rewarding brilliance, and it should be able to convince us that someone on the shortlist might turn out to have a touch of genius. Two of this year’s list, the Otolith Group and Dalwood, are in my opinion duds – as far from genius as it is possible to get. Which leaves two worthwhile contenders.”

The Oakland Museum of California’s return to active life offers a way to measure, yet again, the gap between architectural theories and real life.

“Andrew Alpern, an architectural historian and lawyer who published a collection of ephemera by Gorey in 1980, donated the more than 700 items, which include nearly every edition of every work that Gorey published.”

“The Museum of Sex,” which is a for-profit company, “has a tax-exempt affiliate, known as the Muse Foundation of New York, that takes in tax-deductible donations for the museum’s collection. … The arrangement is far from typical, though, according to several lawyers who specialize in tax matters involving foundations.”

New York City’s Department of Buildings has “issued a stop work order” to the owners of the downtown land “where Fairey’s mural was erected last month. The buildings department said the owners did not have a permit to erect a structure in the area and that the mural violated zoning laws prohibiting advertising on the property.”

“Jean Nouvel’s Tower Verre was going to be the biggest thing to hit the midtown skyline since the Empire State Building. Then the city told him to chop off 200 feet. Scoffs the French architect: Why is Manhattan, of all places, afraid of heights?”

Critics are labeling the resale royalty scheme for Australian artists a “bureaucratic nightmare” for galleries and auction houses that will do nothing to help artists and their families.

“Counter-intuitively, now may be a good time to put a masterpiece on the block. The uncertain economy means auction catalogues aren’t clogged with goods. Buyers can focus. A dearth of enticing offerings over the last couple of seasons means buyers are primed.”