Category: visual

“The diffusion of information technology hasn’t revolutionized everything. Existence is always a negotiation between fact from fiction. Long before MGM or the Internet, Cervantes and Flaubert were writing about characters who acted as if ‘life itself were just like a book.’ Most of us can still tell where one ends and the other begins.”

New York’s PaceWildenstein will open Pace Beijing, a 22,000-square-foot space in a former munitions factory. “The site is in the heart of the city’s gallery neighborhood, the Factory 798 District. The $20 million project is scheduled to open on Aug. 8, in time for the Summer Olympics.”

“One of Britain’s defining landmarks, it lacks any of the elegance of London’s great urban spaces – such as St James’s, Bedford or Belgrave squares – or the historic drama of a Trafalgar Square or George Square, Glasgow. With its fumes and noise, this is not a place for congregating, strolling, or even protesting. Instead, outside the so-called Mother of Parliaments and abutting one of the finest abbeys in northern Europe, Britain boasts an oversized roundabout barely able to come to life on even the grandest state occasions.”

“This is an abstract and modern addition to the church, which not everyone will like. But St. Martin-in-the-Fields is an important space that deserves an artistically rich addition. Handel once played there, and the venue is still one of the best in Britain for early Baroque and early classical music. The church hosts 350 free concerts a year, in addition to a wide range of events and programs.”

There are many stories in the press these days speculating on a crash in the art market. The evidence, at the moment, seems a bit thin. So why all the interest in predicting a crash?

“Here’s a basic truth about architecture: A style is almost always held in contempt by the children of the generation that produced it. It’s the grandchildren who finally begin to treasure it.” Now that Seattle is in the midst of a construction boom, what buildings should be saved as important?

A sculpture by Sir Anthony Caro, intended as a gift to the nation for permanent public display, has been rejected by council officials and could now be sold abroad for £2.5m.

“It was architecture – not the main concern of the Science Museum show – that was actually most influenced by the Dan Dare dream of a futuristic Britain. Not only were the strips pacy, patriotic reads, they were astonishing in terms of their architectural prescience. Hampson pushed design boundaries, showing how a bowler-hat, pinstripe Britain could endure quite happily in a future world of atomic-era design. His imaginings were eagerly lapped up by some of the youngsters who would go on to create Britain’s highly regarded school of hi-tech, space-age influenced architecture.”

“Like everything else in Beijing, the 798 district has evolved at warp speed. Just a few years ago it was funky, brave, cutting edge, postindustrial and vaguely dangerous, like the Soho district of New York in the 1960s. It took 30 years for Soho to become dominated by boutiques and chic restaurants. It took only five years for the same phenomenon to happen in Beijing.”

“Iraq’s National Museum on Sunday recovered 701 artifacts stolen in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s ouster, raising hopes of restoring the nation’s rich cultural heritage after five years of war.”