Category: visual

“Art sales also move in close tandem with the global money supply, which is unlikely to shrink much while most governments keep monetary policy loose. Even if economic growth is only modest in coming months, investors with an eye for Sotheby’s should enjoy higher rewards.”

“No one would argue that environmental fluctuations should be allowed to occur unchecked within a museum. But the question is this: given the scientific evidence that works of art made from multiple categories of media have not been shown to sustain damage from the incremental fluctuation of relative humidity to a greater extent than currently prescribed, is it time to arrive at an international consensus on loosening environmental strictures?”

“The economic downturn is reshaping American museum expansions. Recently, two well-known museums have cancelled plans by internationally known firms and commissioned more modest projects by local firms, while a third high-profile addition remains on hold.”

“Just as the original Pompidou was designed to reinvent a large area of central Paris, so the Pompidou-Metz forms the centrepiece of … a district formerly given over to industry. It is, by any standards, an important building: much cultural pride rides on its curving shoulders, locally and nationally.”

Photos and a photo backdrop have been withdrawn from an auction of items that once belonged to Charles and Ray Eames after Charles Eames’ daughter, Lucia, “filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to remove two of 134 lots … being put up for auction by Marilyn and John Neuhart, who worked with the famous designers and became caretakers of some of their work.”

“When the painter Susan Rothenberg moved to New Mexico from New York City in 1990 at the age of 45, she didn’t give a lot of thought to the parallels between herself and Georgia O’Keeffe, another woman who gained fame in New York and began spending a lot of time here at around the same age.” But with a retrospective of Rothenberg’s work now showing in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, “the comparison has become hard to avoid.”

“On Wednesday, the American Society of Media Photographers and other groups representing visual artists plan to file a class-action lawsuit against Google, asserting that the company’s efforts to digitize millions of books from libraries amount to large-scale infringement of their copyrights.”

Pissarro’s “Rue Saint-Honore,” purchased by Spain from a Swiss art collector in 1993, “has been displayed in a government-run museum near the famed Prado since then and reproduced for sales and promotions.” An 88-year-old Californian, born in Berlin, is suing for the return of the painting the Nazis forced his grandmother to sell.

“Berry-Hill’s latest troubles come at a time when a number of New York galleries are struggling amid the recession. Nearly two dozen galleries in the city have closed amid the art-market downturn, including blue-chip spaces on the Upper East Side such as Salander O’Reilly Gallery and grittier warehouse spaces like Bellwether in Chelsea and Rivington Arms on the Lower East Side.”

The Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs “has been perpetually short of the cash needed for the Sisyphean task of reattaching bits of ornamentation washed off by the rain and filling internal cracks caused by moisture and heat. Under the plan, LACMA would contribute its expertise and direct the conservation work,” while the city would “pay for manpower and materials.”