“The Public Gallery in West Bromwich closed just two days after its grand opening in June because of technical problems with the high-tech art installations. The Will Alsop-designed arts centre cost £60m, nearly half what it cost to open Tate Modern in 2000. … The Public Gallery told us that it will reopen this month, although no date has been given.”
Category: visual
Getty To Give $2.8 Million For Shows On LA’s Postwar Art
“The J. Paul Getty Trust is stepping up its support of projects that tell the story of post-World War II art in Los Angeles. The Getty Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the trust … is expected to announce an additional $2.8 million in grants to 15 Southern California institutions for a batch of 2011 exhibitions exploring the development of the local art scene, sources close to the Getty say.”
Picasso’s Cubist Harlequin Withdrawn From Sotheby’s Sale
“A Picasso Cubist painting that was to have been a star of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art sale on Nov. 3 has been abruptly withdrawn from the auction. … It had been rumored for weeks that the work would be taken off the market because of fears that art prices were heading the way of the world financial markets.”
Via JetBlue, A Whiff Of Travel’s Romantic Past
Eero Saarinen’s masterpiece, the long-empty TWA terminal at JFK Airport, “is making a halfway comeback. The Port Authority has begun to restore it, but the work won’t be finished for months, and it remains unclear whether the building has a destiny as a food court or just a white elephant. Meanwhile JetBlue has transformed it into a neat little accessory for its new $743 million Terminal 5, designed by Gensler.”
Council Orders Banksy Mural Removed
London’s Westminster Council wants to take down a mural by street artist Banksy but admits the work “has value in the right location”.
Did Guggenheim Bilbao Over-Pay For Art?
“Mr. Krens, with a budget of €96m (£76m) provided mostly by Basque regional authorities, paid more than the market value for the works, offering whatever price the artists demanded, a Basque regional MP who is examining the museum’s records said yesterday.”
The Spire That Makes The Building
“Done right, a spire makes its leap so deftly and so inevitably that a skyscraper would seem incomplete without it. Done wrong, it’s a clunky afterword, an unnecessary bit of embroidery, a vainglorious flagpole that’s simply trying to set a record.”
Earthworks Art Under Threat
Real estate development and and energy exploration threaten several iconic earthworks art from the 1970s…
The Art Forger As Touchstone
Han van Meegeren, “since his death, in 1947, has become a compulsive reference for philosophical discussions of fact and fraud in art–a subject bound to disquiet art lovers. (Be honest. What you are given to believe about an art work is going to color your experience of it.)”
The Essential 1000 Works Of Art
The Guardian writers make a list and explain it…