Category: visual

“Three years after reaching a tentative agreement with the city, the Whitney Museum of American Art is forging ahead with plans to build a second museum at the entrance to the High Line, the abandoned elevated railway line that has recently been transformed into a public park.”

“Last year Frieze welcomed 68,000 visitors. Most came because they were interested in art; not in buying it, or schmoozing around it, but because they were excited by the amazing concentration of international works under one temporary, tented roof. Just to have a look. How did this happen? When did the UK become so open to, so excited by, modern art?”

“The stakes in this competition are high. The art world looks to these fairs, along with others in Miami and Basel, Switzerland, to gauge tastes and test markets for top artists around the world. London’s major auction houses time their contemporary fall sales to coincide with Frieze every year. This year, many wary collectors who used to travel to a different fair every month are choosing to attend only one or two fairs.”

“When prices for Chinese art soared, there were grand plans to build more galleries and studios in this artists’ hamlet near Beijing. Yet today, after art prices plunged by some 60 percent in the past year, the expansion plans have floundered.”

“The Egyptians say the Louvre bought the Pharaonic steles in 2000 even though it knew they had been stolen in the 1980s. They are believed to be from a 3,200-year-old tomb of the cleric, Tetaki, in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor.”

“Appalled art lovers cringe at the possibility of the outlet serving up a juicy Double Da Vinci burger with a side of frites. Or a Francis Bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich.”

The Biennial of the Americas, now “a scant 9 months away,” “has been characterized by rumors of its pre-term demise, a hide-and-seek between the city and potential exhibitors about locations, and a question about whether local projects are to be invited and funded as part of the overall vision.”

“When Santiago Calatrava was in town last week for a lecture titled ‘Beyond the Spire,’ I figured he was ready to stick an R.I.P. sign on his plan for the Chicago Spire, the famously unbuilt condo tower that would have twisted 2,000 feet into the sky at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive. Wrong.”

“Quite why so many people would want to believe and disseminate dishonest views of an artwork, I don’t know; but the cultural rhetoric around it seems to be so captivating that everyone wants to join the party, even if it means ignoring the blindingly obvious truth.”