Category: visual

“The Denver Art Museum’s attendance in the first year following the glitzy opening of its $110 million Hamilton Building was either a big success or a major disappointment. It all depends on your point of view.”

The Turner Prize consistently falls back on “the oldest of all western ideas about art: the belief in God-given genius. When you get rid of technical achievement, get rid of excellence in painting or sculpting as standards of comparison, you are left with a messianic belief in the inspired artist – the same belief that led Renaissance Italians to claim Michelangelo was literally a gift from heaven. This prize has abolished talent and replaced it with genius….”

Randolph College has decided “to sell the prized Bellows canvas and three other paintings from its art collection this fall at Christie’s in New York. The auction house estimates that the Bellows alone, which goes on the block on Nov. 29, could bring in $25 million to $35 million — at least 10,000 times what the students paid in 1920. The college’s goal is to raise at least $32 million over all to shore up its endowment and reduce a steep operating deficit.”

“The Istanbul Biennial, in its tenth edition, is one of the first non-Western biennials, and one of only a few in Muslim countries, out of the scores of contemporary-art festivals that speckle the planet from Santa Fe to Kwangju. Like most biennials of late, it is strenuously fun-filled and earnest, in soft-core, we-are-the-world veins.”

“Venetians are now looking up to the skies with trepidation as freak rainstorms are blamed for bringing chunks of masonry crashing down from landmark palaces.”

The BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art in northeastern England, has closed an installation of 149 pictures by American photographer Nan Goldin, at Elton John’s request. “After the removal of one image from the series it was no longer possible for BALTIC to exhibit the collection of works as the artist intended,” the gallery said.

And “the annual Hiscox Art Market Research report also claimed modern art, produced from the late 19th century to the 1970s, has jumped in value by 44%.”

“Can — and should — technology right a historical wrong? That’s a question Italians have been asking since a facsimile of Veronese’s 16th-century ‘Wedding at Cana’ was installed on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore a few weeks ago. At the heart of the debate is the digital re-creation of this vast 1563 painting, which Napoleon’s forces removed from the refectory in the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore 210 years ago and took back to France as war booty.”

It’s a yacht packed with galleries that lands where the collectors are. “Wealthy people in the U.S. have more money than time. This is designed to make it an interesting, easy experience within 15 minutes of their house. Because many art collectors have multiple homes and may visit the yacht at different ports, the ship will operate like a theater with constantly changing productions. Dealers, chefs and menus will change monthly.”

“It’s just 60 seconds closer to the action on Independence Mall than the current site a half-block north of Market, but it’s an important 60 seconds. With a translucent glass skin that grants anyone on Independence Mall a glimpse of what’s going on inside and an illuminated, simulated eight-foot flame near the top of the structure, the building will give this little museum that tells the history of Jews in America an expanded mission, a heightened presence, and, leaders hope, a big boost in attendance.”