Category: visual

“I’ve never liked his things very much, except the very, very early things… I loathe them. I can never see what there is to it, with all those squalid little forms. I can’t bear the drawings either – I absolutely hate his line. I find his line sickly.”

“Analysts and dealers said the late-afternoon drop in Sotheby’s shares reflected investor unease about the sale. Sotheby’s shares fell $2.11 to $23.03 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They’re down 40 percent this year and 60 percent from their peak in October 2007.”

“In selecting Thomas Campbell, the board has demonstrated that it knows what Mr. de Montebello has wrought and doesn’t wish to tamper with it. Tellingly, Mr. Campbell comes with a curatorial background–not, as is the case with some museum directors these days, a business or management degree. This means he is steeped in the culture and values of the museum, not the bottom line.”

“There have been a lot of battles at Ground Zero by New York’s modern-day titans. Mayors versus governors. Architects versus architects. Developers versus Port Authority executive directors. It goes a long way in Christopher. Ward’s mind toward explaining how we got to a point, seven years later, that the $15 billion (and growing) project that’s meant to respond to the 9/11 attacks is so out of whack.”

It would be wrong to compare this to a private gallery show held in an auction house. The size of it, 10 large rooms and more than 200 works, is more like a major career retrospective at Tate Modern.

A whopping 400 hours of footage shot during the Royal Ontario Museum’s “controversial and much-delayed” expansion project has been condensed down to a two-part television documentary. The filmmakers “caught some remarkable behind-the-scenes moments, [including] the startling candour of the ROM staffers who appear in the film.”

“The name Thomas P. Campbell probably won’t ring many bells with the public. Inside the Metropolitan Museum, though, the news of his ascension to director is likely to be greeted by many colleagues with pleasure and relief.”

“Police detectives have issued an international alert for a dozen paintings by Marc Chagall, Diego Rivera and other masters that were stolen from the suburban [L.A.] home of an elderly couple during a daring daytime break-in. The paintings were worth millions of dollars and include rare works by early 20th century artists Emil Nolde and Kees van Dongen. A $200,000 reward was offered Tuesday for help in recovering the artwork.”

Darsie Alexander, 43, has been at the Baltimore Museum of Art for eight years, beginning as associate curator in 2000 and serving as senior curator and head of the contemporary art department since 2005.

“What is it with architects that they don’t–or can’t–retire? In part, it is the nature of their profession. Architecture is a delicate balancing act between practicality and artistry, and it takes a long time to master all the necessary technical skills as well as to learn how to successfully manipulate the thousands of details that compose even a small building.”