“French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented one of the slabs, or steles, to his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, who was on a visit to Paris. The Egyptians had demanded the return of the Pharaonic fragments and had broken off ties with the Louvre.”
Category: visual
Is Blogging On Visual Art As Bad As All That?
The Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation’s Arts Writers Grant Program, “according to its website, ‘aims to support the broad spectrum of writing on contemporary visual art, from general-audience criticism to academic scholarship.’ The list of 2009 recipients reflects that goal” — except in one area. “As writers on art, bloggers just don’t seem to measure up.”
Beckett And Calatrava: A Lovely, If Unlikely, Couple
The designer of Dublin’s fine new Samuel Beckett bridge is none other than “Santiago Calatrava, the Valencian architect who has made expressionist bridges and weirdly torqued structures a trademark. Never mind that Beckett made a virtue of muted understatement.”
Tate Christmas Tree Is Delightful. What’s Going On?
Tate Britain’s traditional, very Christmassy Christmas tree, decorated by artist Tacita Dean, is “extremely pretty — and confusing. What can this startling outbreak of Christmas spirit at Tate possibly mean? Is it caused by the credit crunch? Is the zeitgeist changing?”
The Louvre Expands To The Countryside
The 150 million euro ($226 million) museum in Lens, to open in 2012, is part of a strategy to spread art beyond the traditional bastions of culture in Paris to new audiences in the provinces.
Oldest Known Santa Figurine Found
“Known as the “Blue Santa,” the object was made circa 1884 by The American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company, which burned to the ground in 1904. The figurine is 2.5 inches tall.”
The Climate-Change Art Of Copenhagen
“I am not denying the emotional impact of these artworks. On the contrary: they’re almost all moving, beautiful and transporting. (Well, not quite all, but many.) But weeping only takes you so far.”
China’s New Art Stars Hit It Big
“Some say it’s the prevailing ethics of a nation in rapid transformation, where big dollars trump all – even party doctrine. Others will tell you that a marginal realm like art, for all its splashy showings at international auctions, has its purpose: As a harmless sprinkling of good public relations for an economic powerhouse determined to take the next step, from the world’s premiere widget-maker to cultural superpower.”
What The Bauhaus Did For Moden Art
“One forgets that modernism before the Bauhaus was a volatile, many-sided, centrifugal affair and that there was little reason to believe that its various factions and groupings–whether Cubist, Futurist, or Constructivist–could ever make common cause.”
The Buildings $8.5 Billion Buys You in Vegas
“The complex was supposed to invent an exuberantly cosmopolitan future, drawing sophisticates with sleek contemporary architecture and a $40 million art installation program (lovely Henry Moore, stunning Frank Stella, ingratiating Claes Oldenburg). Yet CityCenter struggles to find its tone.”