Category: visual

“Paola Morsiani, the senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston since 1999, has been appointed the Cleveland museum’s new curator of contemporary art, starting in January, the museum announced Thursday.”

“The Cleveland Institute of Art added momentum to the revitalization of University Circle on Friday by unveiling plans for the $53 million expansion and renovation of its McCullough Center… The four-year art college has raised nearly half the money for the project in cash, pledges and tax credits and hopes to break ground in May.”

Philadelphia is a huge city with a relatively understated skyline, so any new incursion into the downtown airspace is likely to be quite noticeable. Recently, a new building was added to the skyline just down the street from the city’s architecturally stunning City Hall, and Philadelphians are aghast. “The 32-story mixed-use tower flounces onto venerable South Broad Street like a sequined and over-rouged strumpet. Sheathed in a sickly shade of pink concrete, the building resembles, as one blogger wittily observed, a giant Pepto-Bismol bottle.”

Frank Gehry is known for revolutionary buildings made to stand for centuries, so what is he doing designing a stage set for a Portugese fado singer? “The challenge is to envelop the audience in the taberna atmosphere, where singers perform in close quarters, often mingling with the audience.”

The debate over looted art and ownership is hardly as cut and dry as some would like to believe. “Even when museums draw up codes of ethics to help ensure that they won’t abet the plunder of another nation’s cultural heritage, the measures are not legally binding.” Worse, “national laws adopted to combat the illicit export of valuable cultural property sometimes actually encouraged smuggling.”

“Princeton University announced on Friday that its art museum had reached an agreement to return eight ancient works to Italy that the Italian government says were looted and illicitly exported. The pact calls for the Princeton University Art Museum to send back four of the objects immediately and to keep four on loan for the next four years… Princeton will keep seven other pieces that had been part of negotiations.”

“A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena demanding the return of two life-size paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder to Marei von Saher, heir of Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker.”

“After a decade of museum design and other civic commissions being dominated by starchitects such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, and Santiago Calatrava, two of the most sought-after architects at the moment, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, project little in the way of ego, either in person or in their buildings.”

“A trial to determine whether Fisk University can sell a 50 percent stake in an art collection donated by artist Georgia O’Keeffe won’t begin until February despite the school’s precarious financial situation, a judge ruled Wednesday. Fisk’s lawyers had argued that the trial should be set before the end of the year because the historically black college is projected to run out of cash by Dec. 15.”

“A truck driver who authorities say stole an art masterpiece from an unattended transport truck and then claimed he found it in his basement has been charged with theft. Steven Lee Olson, 49, was charged with stealing ‘Children with a Cart,’ a 1778 painting by famed Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, federal prosecutors said. The painting was insured at a value of about $1-million.”