“The Victoria & Albert museum in London will open its £30 million Medieval and Renaissance galleries as planned next year, its director has announced. Ten galleries, occupying an entire wing of the South Kensington landmark, will open in November 2009, said Mark Jones.”
Category: visual
SoHo Mural Needs Restoration (And Maybe A Cat Upgrade)
“Using only oil paint, the artist Richard J. Haas created an entire cast-iron facade in SoHo more than 30 years ago. Ever since, his five-story trompe l’oeil mural at 114 Prince Street, near Greene Street, has beguiled so many people that it might be thought of as New York’s first big two-dimensional architectural landmark. … Today, however, … Mr. Haas’s mural stands defaced, its entire second-story base covered by tags.”
A Bacon Goes Unsold As Art Market Shows Flickers Of Life
“In a bumpy sale of contemporary art at Christie’s on Wednesday, some paintings, drawings and sculptures were eagerly sought, but there were also big disappointments as the art market struggled to adjust to today’s financial climate. What was expected to be the star — a 1964 self-portrait by Francis Bacon that was estimated at $40 million — went unsold without so much as a bid. But other works brought prices that surprised even Christie’s executives.”
Damien Hirst’s Latest Bloody Carcass: Sienna Miller
In a new music video art-directed by Hirst – for “See the Light,” a single by the indie-rock duo The Hours – the English film actress “dons a hospital gown, gets trapped in a glass case in a bag shop, smokes, talks about suicide, cries a lot, undergoes an MRI scan, and smears herself in cow’s blood in front of four eviscerated, wall-mounted bovine carcasses.”
Gehry’s Beachfront Project In Brighton Is Killed
Funding for Frank Gehry’s £290 million King Alfred Leisure Center in the English seaside resort town has collapsed. The architect’s design plan, which featured a pair of wavy towers, is being scrapped.
Botero Scrutinized For Tax Evasion In Italy
“Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero is being investigated on suspicion of tax evasion, Italian authorities said Tuesday.
How Malcolm Rogers Completely Shook Up The Boston Museum Of Fine Arts
In which a mild-mannered administrator from London’s National Portrait Gallery turned into a “maverick with the Midas touch,” perpetrated a “Boston Massacre,” and is massively expanding the MFA’s fundraising, programs and even physical space.
Settling Old Scores In AGO Revamp
“Emerging from the debris of decades of squabbles and hundreds of pages of legal documents, Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario unveils its revamped and redesigned home this week in a state of happy detente with neighbourhood residents who once voiced fierce opposition to its transformational plans.”
Should Pittsburgh Fest Drop Visual Art?
“One of the decisions that the principals deciding the future of the Three Rivers Arts Festival will have to make is what role the visual arts will play, and perhaps it’s time to consider whether they should be included at all… The event is as popular as ever,” but with no admission charge, it’s become harder and harder to pay for, and tough decisions may have to be made.
Gehry On Gehry: The AGO Redesign
The starchitect speaks: “Putting things on a pedestal hurts the art and I didn’t want to do that. It’s a miracle, but the galleries for [Ken Thomson’s] Canadian collection are the best I’ve ever done. Even with white cubic spaces we managed to give them soul… We did the best thing we could do on our budget; a very complicated way of interweaving things within a structure that had been remade many times.”