Category: visual

“For more than 20 years the Whitney has been unveiling sunny expansion plans for its Marcel Breuer home on Madison Avenue, only to have them crash against the reality of neighborhood politics. With its decision to build a second museum in the meatpacking district, the Whitney seems to have found its bearings.”

“Several lawsuits, brought by collectors or dealers against artists’ estates or so-called ‘authentication committees’, are pending in New York City courts. The most recent suits, against the Jean-Michel Basquiat authentication committee and the Alighiero Boetti Archive — an organization run by relatives of the late Arte Povera artist — raise difficult questions about the powers and responsibilities of such committees.”

“No reason was given for Cay Sophie Rabinowitz’s departure. She was not available for comment. In an interview with The Art Newspaper earlier this year, she spoke of her plans to focus the fairs back onto the artists, saying that ‘it’s important for us to acknowledge that they are the centre of everything Art Basel does’.”

“When German police searched a warehouse in the southern city of Munich they discovered an incredible treasure trove: Packed inside crates and cardboard boxes were over 1,000 Latin American antique pieces of art, thought to be worth more than $100 million.”

A senior Iraqi official has accused the West of not doing enough to stop the thriving trade in antiquities smuggled out of the country’s depleted archeological sites and sold in auction houses across Britain, America and Europe.

“Before Leibovitz, Cyrus was regularly photographed on red carpets dressed as a 35-year-old in sequins and chiffon with heavy makeup, hair extensions, fuck-me shoes, and occasionally a segment of baby breast escaping at an ill-cut armhole. Otherwise she dresses as a schoolgirl in long socks, very short skirts and the same hanks of rather gluey-looking hair. These publicity shots are far cheaper and far nastier in implication than the Leibovitz image, which has class.”

“Financial turmoil may be present everywhere else, but so far there is no evidence of a disintegrating art market. Even so, the auction houses don’t seem to be taking any chances. This season’s sales are significantly smaller than the stem-winders of 2007. Sotheby’s has 10% fewer lots and Christie’s has 24% fewer lots in the main event evening sales.”

The seven German artists are living in an Israeli museum for three weeks. “The idea is that we live in the museum as their guests, and at the same time we are hosting lice on our heads,”

Los Angeles artist Kent Twitchell has settled his lawsuit against the U.S. government and 11 other defendants for painting over his six-story mural “Ed Ruscha Monument,” painted on the side of a federal government-owned downtown building, for $1.1 million.

New York’s new New Museum is “a freeze-dried packet of desiccated minimalism. It is in no way miraculous. We are in more trouble than I thought if this is the project that is supposed to restore faith in New York City or point the way toward the future of architecture. The most that can be said in its favor is that in the New Museum, as in the firm’s other projects, SANAA raises provocative questions about the value of minimalism in architecture.”