Category: visual

“Ever since Le Corbusier and the Italian futurists salivated over biplanes, steam trains, ocean liners and automobiles in the early 20th century, architecture has been in awe of moving machines. But, as much as the modernist pioneers eulogised these dynamic inventions, they never dared disobey the sacred rule that says buildings stay where they’re built. Architecture is architecture. Unleash it from its static condition and you’re in some hazy no- man’s-land…. Yet this nebulous zone is becoming an intriguing place to visit.”

“What Edward Hopper cherished most about his home in Truro were the silence and the view. From his window looking north over the windswept heathlands and Cape Cod Bay, the American artist found inspiration for some of the most celebrated paintings of the 20th century.” Planned for an adjacent lot is “a 6,500-square-foot mansion, complete with reflecting pools and a wine cellar, on nine acres in the middle of what locals call the Hopper landscape. And the proposal has incited sometimes loud debate over the once silent landscape of South Truro.”

“Call it the latest wrinkle in a technology that has reshaped everyday life and now bids to transform art museums and galleries: the packaged audio tour that lets anyone with a cell phone hear about the artworks they are seeing on the same device that keeps them in touch with the rest of the world.”

“Denise Bradley, executive director of the Museum of the African Diaspora, is reporting for work for the last time today. Bradley has been at the helm of the museum, which is devoted to the origins, dispersal and cultural legacy of African populations, since it opened two years ago. … Bradley said the museum’s financial health had nothing to do with her departure. Several sources said MoAD is having significant financial problems.”

Chinese artist Lei Yixin is sculpting a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. that’s bound for Washington, D.C. “For China’s artists, the selection of Lei as the lead sculptor for the project, to be unveiled in 2009 on the Mall, is a triumphant moment.” But some Americans object. “By awarding the contract to a Chinese artist, the foundation financing the project has touched on sensitivities at the core of U.S.-Sino relations: nationalism, racism and worries about what China’s emergence as an economic and cultural world power means for America.”

“No matter which team gets chosen and what actually gets built, the Transbay competition already demonstrates how environmental awareness has entered the development mainstream. Competition rules required an emphasis on green design, to be sure. But each proposal seems designed to woo Al Gore…. Another nice twist: Projects of this size are mandated to have large budgets for art, so the Pelli team brought an artist in from the start….”

As the Mostly Mozart Festival takes place inside Lincoln Center, a multimedia installation on the exterior of Avery Fisher Hall attracts nighttime audiences outside. “Standing with concertgoers examining the 12-foot-tall light boxes in the portico, the word you hear most often is ‘interesting.’ … The first light box takes its inspiration from a story about Mozart buying a pet starling, supposedly after hearing it sing a musical theme he had written.”

“Of all the arguments for designating Baltimore’s Morris A. Mechanic Theatre a city landmark, one of the strongest comes from the owner itself. Others have reasoned that the 1967 building is a laudable symbol of its times, an inspired work of modern design by an architect of international stature,” John M. Johansen. “But the owner has filed plans with the city indicating what it might do to the vacant building in Charles Center if it’s not protected by landmark status and, in doing so, it demonstrated exactly why it needs to be protected.”

“Thomas W. Gaehtgens, an internationally recognized scholar who is director of the German Center for the History of Art in Paris, will be the new leader of the Getty Research Institute, sources close to the Getty say. His appointment, expected to be announced today, will end a 10-month search for a successor to Thomas Crow, who left the prestigious position to chair the department of modern art history at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.”

“The founders of a new art ‘hedge fund’ envision a day when investors in the art market may be able to buy Impressionism futures, instead of an actual Monet. The Art Trading Fund, based in London, plans to develop an art market index — like the Dow or the S&P 500 — on the basis of which people could bet on which direction the market will go.”