Category: visual

National Gallery And Tate Reach Turf Truce

“The two titans of the British art world, the National Gallery and the Tate, have finally edged towards a truce after four years of disagreement about where the cut-off between their collections should be. The armistice comes just days before the opening of the National Gallery’s latest blockbuster, devoted to Picasso – an artist whose natural territory is, arguably, Tate Modern rather the National Gallery.”

Neither Scornful Nor Reverent, Architects Revive Tully Hall

“Sunday’s opening of a remade Alice Tully Hall, the first phase of an overhaul of Lincoln Center scheduled for completion in 2010, is a revelation. Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the womblike performance space, its surfaces flush with new life, makes it hard to remember the dreariness of the 1969 original. The freshness springs from the architects’ willingness to break with worn-out urban design strategies.”

Saint-Laurent Collection Livens Up A Sluggish Auction Market

“[R]arely has an event been more ‘mediatized,’ as the French like to say, than next week’s auction of the collection of one Yves Saint Laurent, who died last June at 71. Christie’s has spent $1.2 million alone on renting and refurbishing 140,000 square feet of the Grand Palais for the auction. Six separate sales are scheduled over three days.”

You’ve Heard Of Verdana, But How About Its Designer?

Matthew Carter has been “the creator of Georgia, Verdana, Galliard and 70 other typeface families during his 53 years in the field, and the Design Museum in London hails him as ‘the most important typography designer of our time.'” He “classifies his job under industrial design because he is perfecting a product — the English alphabet — that must perform a specific task for many people.”

Sales Limp As NY’s Art Show Opens Sans Sponsor Lehman

“Several dealers among the 70 with booths [at the Art Show] reported meager sales or none at all. Patrons — the women wearing large jewels and the men dressed in suits — spent as much time eating thumb- size vegetable dumplings, Peking duck in scallion pancakes and pulled pork sandwiches as they did perusing the art. ‘Everyone is paralyzed,’ said dealer Per Skarstedt. ‘It has to be either rare or inexpensive or both.'”