Category: visual

“In the latest row over the depiction of nude children, Morris Lemma and the state Opposition Leader, Barry O’Farrell, are so offended by the nude pictures of a young girl they want the magazine that published them stripped of federal funding. But the girl says the picture is her favourite image and still hangs in the house.”

“The new building, designed by the Miami firm Arquitectonica, is open and running. The museum has more than quadrupled its private fund raising and has run surpluses for two years in a row. This year’s gala, in May, raised $140,000 — an almost 40% increase over last year. The museum’s re-energized board, expanded to 19 members from 14, donated an additional $100,000.”

“According to the editor of Art Monthly, its latest cover is an effort to “restore dignity” to the discourse about the artistic portrayal of children. To its critics, including the Australin Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, it is “disgusting”. What it has achieved is to bring to the boil a simmering row over the difference between art and pornography in a country with a long tradition of censorship.”

“Despite everything, there is a sense that building here is one of those rare chances architects get to make history, so how can they say no? This is a capital that has rebuilt itself faster than any other in the history of the world. In two decades it has moved from the middle ages, with an overlay of bicycles and Stalinism, to a shimmering surreal vision, two parts Las Vegas, two parts Dubai, and five parts the most brutally unequal capitalist society on earth.”

“Sales in London last week generated a fresh round of head-spinning prices: a Freud for £11.8m and a Jeff Koons sculpture for £13m. By comparison, the South African-born artist Marlene Dumas became the most expensive living woman artist at auction on Tuesday when her work The Visitor sold for £3.2m at Sotheby’s. It’s a constant source of disappointment to see the discrepancy in prices between outstanding female artists and their male counterparts.”

“The thunderous popularity of a number of contemporary Chinese artists compels a political analysis. Much of the work is powered by a startling and completely delusionary infatuation with Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. This is more sinister than anything we have seen in the already fairly astonishing annals of radical chic.”

“The Italian government has been forced to declare a state of emergency at the archeological site of Pompeii because of its severe state of disrepair. Archaeologists and art historians have been decrying the decay at Pompeii for many years. Its upkeep has been strangled by a lack of funds, litter, looting, mismanagement as well as illegal tour guides and stray dogs.”

“If you could capture it in a manageable form, would the collective judgment of all visitors to a major art museum be better than that of the people with Ph.D.’s, the curators or, heaven forbid, the professional critics? That is what “Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition” at the Brooklyn Museum invites us to ponder. The results are inconclusive, at best, and the exhibition itself is not very interesting to look at, but the issues it raises are fascinating.”

“The transformation of London, a sleepy backwater for two decades, into an art capital that rivals New York has never been more apparent than in this past fortnight of auctions, with record prices fetched for works by artists ranging from Monet to Francis Bacon.”