Category: visual

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has announced a $10m gift from one of its trustees to go towards LACMA’s new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. “The donation is earmarked for contemporary art programs and acquisitions.”

“The three-level, 41,000-square-foot building, to be named the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in honor of its lead donors, will have an aluminum and glass exterior, plus an adjoining outdoor sculpture garden.”

“LACMA Director Michael Govan faces a tougher task: hailing Eli Broad’s generosity and opening LACMA’s new Broad Museum of Contemporary Art while Broad tells the world how he decided not to give the museum his art collection.” Govan’s spin on the announcement is that, since much of Broad’s collection will remain at the museum anyway, ownership isn’t that important.

“Online bidding for a wall painted on by graffiti artist Banksy has closed with a final bid of £208,100 ($409,860)… The final bid does not include the cost of removal and repair of the wall, estimated to be about £5,000.”

“Richard White’s ceramic sculpture “Insignificant Works of Art” was censored, with the removal of two of its 10 figures, then what remained was put on display in a makeshift configuration — all without White’s being notified.”

German academics believe they have solved the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the Mona Lisa in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait.

The Chicago-based Merchandise Mart has bought the Toronto International Art Fair. “Since it entered the international contemporary fair business with the purchase of Art Chicago in spring 2006, the Mart has acquired the Armory Show in New York City and the Volta Show of New York and Basel, Switzerland.”

It’s ‘Between Earth and Heaven’, created by the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui in 2006. “The Met’s collection of African art is mostly traditional, ranging from ritual sculpture and monuments of wood and stone to gold and silver ornaments, masks, costumes and other textiles.”

“The Met has remained a bastion of curatorial authority, where curators, not board members or directors, take the lead in conceiving exhibitions based on sound scholarship. “I keep them in line but they keep me in line,” Mr. de Montebello once said of the Met’s 100 plus curators. Will his successor continue that approach?”

“Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist whose installation ‘The Weather Project’ drew 2 million people to the Tate Modern in 2003 and 2004, has designed what will likely be the city’s biggest public art project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s ‘The Gates’: a series of freestanding waterfalls in the East River.”