Category: visual

“Probably only art world insiders felt relief when Neal Benezra took over as director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art five years ago last month. Since his arrival, he has quietly capitalized on the international respect SFMOMA enjoys as a collaborator on traveling exhibitions, while smoothing out museum operations from within.” Now, after half a decade of stabilizing a precarious institution, Benezra says that the museum is on the verge of realizing bigger plans.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, long forced to squeeze too much art into too small a space, is opening a newly expanded building across the street from its stately main digs this week. “The renovated building is the first phase of an ambitious plan to expand and update the Philadelphia Museum.”

Sotheby’s says it will sell a Qing Dynasty horse head looted from China’s imperial retreat. The piece is valued at $7.7 million. China is objecting. “This is stolen property. It should be returned to the Chinese people through the government, not sold.”

“Mayor John F. Street signed legislation that authorizes the city to enter into a long-term lease with the Barnes for a site occupied by a juvenile detention facility. That building will be torn down to make way for the Barnes’ new home as soon as its population can be relocated, officials said.”

Several American museums have dropped admission fees in the past few years. “To varying degrees, all have experienced a swell of new and more-diverse visitors. Attendance at the Walters, which is counted at the door by security personnel, has grown by 50 percent since admission became free, and the visitors are increasingly diverse: Three times as many black patrons and four times as many children are coming since the fees were dropped, according to informal visitor surveys.”

“Part of a decade-old ‘integrated streetscape’ called Second Avenue Project, this art bench, between Blanchard and Bell, has become a magnet for an astonishing array of depraved activities. People smoke crack on it. Sell drugs from it. Fight around it. Pee or have bowel movements near it.”

After decades of operating without a large permanent collection, New York’s Asia Society is opening a drive to collect contemporary Asian and Asian-American art.

Relationships between private collectors and museums have become strained in recent years. “The days when gifts or bequests were put on permanent display in galleries named after the donor are largely a thing of the past. Museums claim they can’t afford the space and are often embarrassed about being seen to glorify privilege and affluence.”

“Christie’s International and Sotheby’s are offering $1 billion in price guarantees to sellers of Warhols and de Koonings before their fall sales. The two largest auction houses are betting that Russians or Asians will support art prices as a credit squeeze threatens to limit Wall Street bonuses.”