Category: visual

“It’s important to remember that there was already a thriving art world before the boom. And to the extent that the boom has receded, it still leaves more behind than was there before. In fact, what we saw at Art Basel Miami Beach in December was that collectors who left the market because they didn’t like the boom-time competitive atmosphere were actually returning. So there is an influx even as there’s an exodus.”

“The cash-strapped institution announced today that it is reducing its staff by 20% as well as cutting operating expenses. The plan is to reduce expenses by approximately $4.4 million a year.”

“The opportunity to rethink government’s role comes at a time when it is readily acknowledged among arts professionals that cultural support in America is outdated in its assumptions, sclerotic in its methods, biased in its outcomes, and inefficient in its use of philanthropic and taxpayer dollars. It’s time to move on. But where?”

“We believe that the financial and political climate in Russia is such that many potential buyers could have cold feet next May, and hence it is unfair… to hold an event when all indicators tend to say that there will not be much business going on.”

“What’s happening at Brandeis is shameful. Not just because it shows a lack of appreciation for art and the role cultural expression has in the life of a liberal arts college, but because it reveals how low the university has sunk during the Reinharz regime and how vulgar its values are now.”

If the economic catastrophe is going to destroy “young British art” and its still-younger successors, how come artists are so pleased about it? The mood among artists appears to be one of frenzied revolutionary excitement, gloating at the “end of capitalism” and excited about the opportunities it offers. Most new British art now is roughshod, and sees itself as oppositional. A generation of lo-fi subversives may finally have found something to be lo-fi and subversive about.

Priority one is financial stability. The Met’s gargantuan endowment, envied around the world, has inevitably been hit by the crash. It is also braced for a drop in revenue and in donations. But, says Campbell: “This is not a period when we just hold our breath and wait for things to get better.”

Jeremy Strick is off to Dallas to the Nasher Sculpture Center. “The appointment was in the works well before November, when it first came to light that the Museum of Contemporary Art was on the brink of financial collapse.”

“Whereas museums once were supported by the laissez-faire largesse of the wealthy, now it’s common for donors of all kinds to see their gifts as investments with measurable returns. In recent years, the word “grant” has even gone out of parlance–government agencies regularly give out “contracts”– since “grants” sounds so strings-free as to be near irresponsible.”

“The [Office for Metropolitan Architecture] design encompasses three theaters – two that seat 800 and one that holds 1,500 – all of which feed into a central cube clad in corrugated glass that unites their stage accommodations so that the theaters can be used separately or in combination.”