Category: visual

“Built between 1970 and 1972, Shift was commissioned by Toronto art collector Roger Davidson on land owned by his family until its sale to developers around 1980. Since then, virtually no maintenance or repair has been done on Shift ‘s six zigzagging walls, each 1.5 metres high and 20 centimetres thick.”

“It’s been a year since the gallery reopened with a rejuvenated space designed by superstar architect Frank Gehry. Along with that came a promise: That this AGO would be different. It would re-commit to contemporary art. It would embrace connections in the local art community many felt it had shirked. It would be, in its own words, transformed. A year later, with Tut, the question now is, into what?”

Google says it will “create a virtual copy of the museum’s collections at its own expense, and make images of four millenniums of archaeological treasures available online, free, by early next year.”

“Under Lewis Sharp’s leadership, the museum’s collection has more than doubled to 68,000 objects, and its annual budget has shot up from $6.5 million to a high of $24 million in 2007-08. In addition, the museum added three new curatorial departments to the six existing ones, significantly broadening its scope: architecture, design and graphics; Western American art; and photography.”

“The former financial director of the Guggenheim Bilbao museum in Spain has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for stealing about half a million euros from the institution’s accounts.”

“Somehow, over the last couple of decades, the elegance of air travel has been demolished. Gone is the notion that the airport is a symbol of seduction for the city that lay just beyond. Airports have become their own bloated cities, with restaurants, nail salons, enormous shopping malls and gated communities jealously guarded by first-class travellers.”

“Non-profit arts organisations and curators are following their commercial equivalents in New York, with a wave of “pop-up” galleries taking advantage of the recessionary real-estate market to strike up partnerships with realtors to stage free exhibitions.”

Taking a cue from “the Bridge Climb at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where visitors pay about $200 for a guided trek along catwalks, up and down ladders and along the outer arch of the coat-hanger-shaped bridge,” Golden Gate Bridge officials see a possible source of revenue in an interactive visitor experience. They draw the line, however, at bungee jumping.

“Staff at the Pompidou Centre decided Tuesday to extend their strike over planned job cuts at the Paris mecca of modern and contemporary art. Museum staff and security guards walked off the job on Monday and after meeting with aides to Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, they decided against going back to work.”

“Some 15,000 artefacts and antiquities were stolen from the museum when it was ransacked after 2003 US-led invasion. … The museum, which only re-opened in February, nevertheless still holds countless relics from the Stone Age to the Babylonian, Assyrian and Islamic periods.”