Category: visual

Moscow planners have approved Lord Foster’s design for the world’s biggest building – likened by critics to an alien spacecraft and a “dahlia stuck in a string bag”. The British architect’s £2bn “city within a city”, Crystal Island, will be built on the banks of the Moscow river, with a total floor area of 2.5m square metres, making it the largest enclosed space ever to be constructed.

“No matter the age, maps have always inspired that eternal human penchant for dreaming of far-off places, for locating oneself in the universe. As vessels of wishful thinking, they transform us into explorers lured by the mystery of the unknown, if not a lust to conquer it.”

“Nobody has done more to capitalize on Andy Warhol’s increasing popularity than Jose Mugrabi. Together with his two sons, this self-made former cloth merchant from Bogotá, Colombia, says that over the past 20 years he’s amassed about 800 of the artist’s works, a stake that’s easily three times larger than any other private Warhol collection in the world and nearly as large as the paintings collection owned by the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.”

“As contemporary art becomes more mainstream, and successful artists become “brands” that draw huge sale prices and big museum crowds, legions of art viewers are now finding themselves confronting “original” works created by someone other than the person listed on the wall label.”

The rise of easily-produced online video has meant a transformation in the world of video art. “Art video still has a funny reputation, left over from the 1960s, of being a serious medium, made for function rather than pleasure.” The new generation of video artists is changing that, and fast.

A famous Velazquez nude depicting the Goddess of Love has had one of the more fascinating histories among paintings of the period. And we still know relatively little about it – was it a late work, or one from the artist’s middle period? And who is the Venus in the painting supposed to be?

Those who care about architecture in Philadelphia have been continually frustrated by the city’s haphazard approach to urban planning. “This big-league city treats critical land-use questions with the amateurism of a small town. Actually, many small towns do it better.”

“Art is supposed to come out of some discernible effort on the part of the artist, and the apparent effortlessness of a good joke inevitably undermines that expectation. If art is a joke then it’s not art, or so the thinking goes.”

“Sotheby’s sold $5.33 billion of art at auctions, and arranged more than $668 million of private deals outside the public salerooms. That was a 46 percent increase from $3.66 billion a year earlier. Christie’s estimated its art sales at about $6 billion last year.”

Dan Keegan revitalized the smaller San Jose museum. With an aim of attracting “venture culturalists” – museum visitors willing to take a risk and experience art that connects to the human experience – Keegan spearheaded a drive to attract patrons by offering free admission at the museum from 2001-06. The campaign increased museum attendance by 115 percent, to nearly 200,000 visitors a year.