Category: visual

“It’s a common complaint that many fairs lack a ‘focus’. In this process of transformation the curator, together with the artist and the gallery owner, can provide new perspectives on contemporary art practices and trends and redefine the art fair artistically. The fair benefits from the prestige, know-how and contacts of the curator and, in exchange, the curator gets a new curatorial platform.”

Prices “went up 500 percent over 10 years, now they’re up 250 percent. Now good things are beginning to come on the market.”

“Atlantic Yards is really through with Frank Gehry. An award-winning architect, Mr. Gehry will not be designing any of the 17 buildings planned for the 22-acre development in Brooklyn on which he has labored for the past six years, a spokesman for the architect confirmed Wednesday. … His designs just cost too much, the developer said.”

“Every now and then in New York City, you will come across a thing so perfectly useless it reminds you of an old idea you managed to forget: Superfluous things are often beautiful, and beautiful things are generally superfluous in the end.” One such useless thing is “the century-old bowling alley in the basement of the Frick Collection, the mansion/museum on Fifth Avenue that houses an amazing array of European art.”

“Organized by Daniel Birnbaum, this 53rd version of the venerable Biennale is tidy, disciplined, cautious and unremarkable. If any show can be said to reflect a larger state of affairs in art now, this one suggests a somewhat dull, deflated contemporary art world, professionalized to a fault, in search of a fresh consensus. It has prompted the predictable cooing from wishful insiders, burbling vaguely about newfound introspection and gravity.”

“An environmentally friendly ringroad and a school sports hall made from recycled freight containers are among the 24 finalists competing for Britain’s top public architecture prize. One of the projects, picked from 125 submissions of new work from the public sector, will be chosen to win the ninth Prime Minister’s award for Better Public Building in October.”

“Striking at a longtime practice in the Four Corners area, federal authorities Wednesday unsealed indictments against 24 people in what they called the largest investigation ever into the looting of Native American artifacts on public lands. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the charges at a Salt Lake City news conference and said in a telephone interview that many of the stolen items, valued at $335,000, came from sacred burial sites.”

“Over the decades, an artistic refuge enabling dispossessed communities to express their anger and grief has even turned into a focus of commerce. Not only can a new retail store claim neighborhood legitimacy by allowing a mural to remain, as in the case of Gainesville’s American Apparel, but other businesses are starting to offer mural painting for a fee.”

“Like a slow-burning fuse, graffiti has smoldered in the contemporary art world for decades: omnipresent in the streets yet not quite hot enough to catch fire in the market. But this year it exploded, with graffiti and ‘street art’ shows in major museums and gallery spaces both sides of the Atlantic — and people have been lining up round the block to get in.”

“In a western suburb of Paris, on the ÃŽle Seguin, developers are planning a vast art center, combining art warehouse, showroom and tax-free trade zone. Half a world away, in Singapore, an even grander project aims to revolutionize art storage and trading. With the global art market suffering in the economic downturn, the projects, privately financed and state supported, seek to bolster art markets by combining traditional notions of storage, exhibition and tax-free trading.”