Category: visual

The 18th-century Hohenzollern Stadtschloss in Berlin was “a hulking, unlovable pile. Even the emperors didn’t want to live there.” Damaged in WWII, the Schloss was torn down by the East German government and replaced with the Palace of the Republic, which was in turn torn down after German reunification. Now the government wants to rebuild the Schloss, and not everyone likes the idea.

“When the dusty heirlooms and bric-a-brac of a once-stately French family went under the hammer at a minor auction eight years ago, an anonymous portrait of the Dutch scholar Erasmus sold for €2000… [now] experts have established that the work was the last ever portrait that Holbein painted of an ageing Erasmus, and the painting – one of a tiny minority of Holbein works to be in private hands – is worth millions.”

“Dr Nicholas Penny, the director of the National Gallery in London, who has previously criticised the growth of blockbuster exhibitions that offer up major artists, is advocating recession austerity for 2009 with exhibitions consisting of a single work of art.” He also calls for admission fees of £1.

Haus Schöneweide, in suburban Berlin, is “a refuge for homeless men which, following a €100,000 (£98,000) refit, has been dubbed the swankiest homeless shelter in the world. Before its revamp, the shelter, which was tiled in blue from top to bottom, resembled the cold interior of a butcher’s shop.” Then artist Miriam Kilali got her hands on it.

“Art prices extended a seven-year surge for much of 2008, with a Claude Monet painting of water lilies, Lucian Freud’s portrait of a civil servant called Sue and a Francis Bacon triptych setting records. A 111.5 million pound ($162 million at current rates) sale of Damien Hirst works in September featured pickled unicorns, flying pigs and a golden calf with 18-carat hooves and horns.” Then, of course, everything changed.

Charles E. Young, UCLA’s chancellor emeritus and now MOCA’s first chief executive, “said he does not consider himself an ‘arts person,'” but he also doesn’t expect to have the job more than 18 months. “His goal at MOCA, he said, is to set about correcting financial and management problems that have plagued the museum. ‘We need to get it back into a position where you can go out and recruit a really top-flight director,’ he said.”

“Swindler extraordinaire Bernard Madoff got a taste of his own medicine last weekend when a burglar stole a $10,000 statue from his posh, $9.4 million Palm Beach estate, according to a police report.”

“Henri Matisse made drawings of her, with spare, pure lines. Aristide Maillol sculpted her in bronze. And these days, in France, the muse of those 20th-century artists — Dina Vierny — speaks of them with affection and clarity. Vierny was Maillol’s last model, and has opened a museum named for him in Paris.”

“Works of art worth hundreds of thousands of pounds are missing from British embassies and other official buildings around the world. At least 50 paintings from the Government Art Collection are unaccounted for, according to the latest audit.”

It’s got it all: charges, dismissals, rehirings… “the museum is immersed in a controversy that has more in common with television comedies like The Office than debates about expenditures on paintings.”