Category: visual

“Moscow’s skyline and architectural heritage are on the verge of being destroyed forever because of low-quality renovations and thoughtless demolition, according to a report released yesterday by a group of Russian and international activists. … The problems have been blamed on a lack of legal consequences for developers who ruin listed buildings.”

“The museum’s curatorial ranks have dwindled as key staff members have retired or moved on to new positions. A search for a Chinese art specialist has dragged on for nearly three years, and five curators have left this year or will depart soon. With a hiring freeze in effect, the situation raises questions about how long the vacancies will remain open. Until the economy improves? Forever?”

“Richard Rogers, the architect whose design for a London building was blocked by the Prince of Wales, is a two-time nominee for the RIBA Stirling Prize, the U.K.’s highest architectural distinction.” Rogers occupies two of the list’s six spots.

“Entitled ‘Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries,’ [the exhibition, to open next June,] charts some of the museum’s most embarrassing errors and faux pas, involving works once thought of as Old Masters but later removed from the walls of the gallery to be stashed ignominiously in the basement.”

“A little more than a month since its first stretch opened, the High Line is a hit, and not just with tourists but with New Yorkers who are openly relishing a place where they can reflect and relax enough to get a new perspective on Manhattan. Despite the complaints about noise, gentrification and tour buses spewing forth their cargo, many locals have fallen so hard and fast for the park that they are acting as impromptu tour guides, eager to show off their new love interest.”

With classes on art history, criminology, international organized crime, museum security and forgery, a three-month master’s program in international art crime studies — billed as the world’s first — is “trying to capitalize on interest in a field that’s been gaining attention through news media reports about the restitution of looted art and through popular literature. Not to mention that police forces around the world have in recent years created special squads to combat the problem.”

From the first days of airports, architects have struggled with their design, even as they “have become as ubiquitous–and about as glamorous–as bus stations. Perhaps that’s really the new model. In the talented hands of a Piano or a Foster, the bus station will be light and airy, but the kind of theatricality shown by the first generation of airports now seems out of place.”

“Dia Art Foundation leaders say that the latest proposed expansion of evaporation pools in the northern end of the Great Salt Lake significantly threatens the ‘integrity’ of Robert Smithson’s iconic Spiral Jetty and that the pools could change the Jetty‘s part of the Great Salt Lake so substantially that it would render a ‘new’ northern end of the lake unrecognizable.”

“The train barreled into the station with the usual deafening roar; it was a big, ugly, gun-metal gray tube, but suddenly one of the cars jumped out at me. It was spray-painted in bright fluorescent colors with blocky letters, and to the side were images of cartoon characters. I stood gaping in awe. To that point, I had only experienced graffiti solely as vandalism, the messy scribbles that made the interiors of subway cars that much more drab. This was totally different; it was public art as mass transit.”

“The physical need to occupy a specific patch of earth has never been less important to one’s success. Everything we might acquire can be tracked down online; most culture we seek can be procured through a handheld device. … All this should signal a death knell to the traditional core. Instead – recession aside – marquee hubs such as San Francisco stand more desirable than ever.”