Category: visual

Is a trove of paintings really by Jackson Pollock? “The biggest mystery of all is this: if Pollock didn’t paint them, who did? And how did they wind up in that dusty storage bin? As with a maybe-Rembrandt or so-so van Gogh, the answer could take years. If we ever get one.”

“After nine years of bitter argument and despite the rage of Florentines including the opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli, the dramatic and imposing new portico at the side of Italy’s most famous art museum was given approval this week by the city’s super-intendent of architectonic goods, Paola Grifoni.”

The French Museums Agencywill work with the developer on design, acquisitions, loans and temporary exhibitions at the museum. “Under a deal signed in March, the Louvre will receive 400 million euros ($548 million) over 30 years for the project and will, along with other French museums, loan artworks from its collections and lend expertise on acquisitions and management.”

“The competition to build a new transit center and skyscraper on Mission Street isn’t a beauty contest. It’s a gamble in city-making that could redefine San Francisco in the sky and on the ground. How fitting, then, that the tower best suited to replace the Transamerica Pyramid as the Bay Area’s tallest building is every bit as startling as that 35-year-old icon once was – and, at first glance to many eyes, every bit as harsh. The design comes from the firm of England’s Lord Richard Rogers, and it hums with surprising life.”

On America’s Interstates, replacing signs lettered in traditional Highway Gothic with those written in Clearview type “is a slow, almost imperceptible process. But eventually the entire country could be looking at Clearview.” The font’s designers “set out to fix a problem with a highway font, and their solution — more than a decade in the making — may end up changing a lot more than just the view from the dashboard. … Fonts are image, and image is modern America.”

Recent events in Chicago exemplify a trend in historic preservation: “the far past gets saved; the recent past gets trashed.” Even as officials were announcing millions in city funds to restore some Louis Sullivan-designed ornamental ironwork on State Street, “wrecking crews were tearing into a little-noticed modernist gem in Pilsen: the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church … designed by the late architect Edward Dart.” Of course, when Sullivan belonged to the more recent past, his work was demolished, too….

In Enumclaw, Wash., “Mayor John Wise has canceled the official unveiling of a public art sculpture while city officials investigate whether the piece is a fake.” The $5,700 bronze, which the city bought sight unseen two years ago on wishihadthat.com to mark the 25th anniversary of its arts commission, “is signed by Jim Davidson, a name linked to accusations of art fraud.”

“Resolving the inherent tension between the museum’s traditional role – collecting, conserving and exhibiting top-quality aesthetic objects – and the need to show museum-goers a good time has become the most difficult aspect of contemporary museumship.” Directors “do whatever seems reasonable to make museums less intimidating and more visitor-friendly. Yet for the most part, this attempt to be all things to most people hasn’t succeeded: Permanent collections continue to be starved for attention.”

In Cologne, Germany, some locals are irked “that some actual Muslims want to build an actual mosque with a dome and minarets. The residents complain that the minarets would clash with the towering spires of the city’s celebrated 13th Century cathedral.” Designed by Paul Boehm, son of Pritzker Prize winner Gottfried Boehm, the $20 million mosque “blends elements of Ottoman classicism with cutting-edge modernity.” Of course, architecture isn’t the real issue….