Category: visual

New York City Sanitation Department architect Mike Friedlander “is to receive a special award from the city’s Art Commission ‘for the quality of design that he consistently brings to the Department of Sanitation’s capital projects.’ … It is nice to be acknowledged, given that Mr. Friedlander is far more accustomed to having to defend his projects. He said it was not easy convincing community boards that anything having to do with garbage would not necessarily be an eyesore or a smelly blight on the neighborhood.”

“In the 1990s,” the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts “was dogged by accusations of financial chicanery, resulting in investigations by the state that led to bitter probate hearings but ultimately no charges. Now, however, a New York filmmaker, who owns a minor Warhol, has used those accusations as a loose springboard for a lawsuit,” which “contends that the foundation has waged a 20-year conspiracy to bend the art world to its will and, by way of ‘enforcers,’ ‘secret meetings’ and doctored files, has tried to win ‘total domination’ of the Warhol market.”

“Earlier this year, news reports that announced Felix Gonzalez-Torres as the American representative for the Venice Biennale mentioned that the centerpiece sculpture originated as a drawing for Western Washington University. ‘I’ve been intrigued as to how people are interpreting this,’ said Western museum director Sarah Clark-Langager. ‘The way it’s being talked about is that he was a finalist and he made it to the jurying process. That’s not true’.”

Until this week, Shin Jeong-ah, 35, was at the top of her profession. Claiming to have a doctorate from Yale and a master’s degree from Kansas University, she was the youngest professor at Seoul’s prestigious Dongguk University and the head curator of the Sungkok Art Museum, home to some of Korea’s most prestigious exhibitions and the recipient of millions of pounds in corporate sponsorship from the country’s biggest conglomerates.

Auction house Phillips de Pury & Co. has made a deal to pay admission fees to collector Charles Saatchi’s new London gallery in a “bid to gain access to more buyers and sellers of art.” Phillips, which sold $135 million of contemporary art in the first half, will pay an undisclosed sum to Saatchi’s museum, scheduled to open in 2008, ‘for a few years’. In return, Phillips will place its Web sites on Saatchi’s Internet gallery.”

Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum has had some rough times. Plans to get into a new home stalled. And there has been rapid turnover in leadership. “The cumulative effect of the museum’s missteps has left some of its biggest fans worried about the future. In short, why does the museum seem to be in such a continual state of confusion with no clear direction?”

“But the announcement this week by Roberta Lapucci — who studied the painting for six months aided by new techniques — has left some Caravaggio experts skeptical. It’s also rekindled a debate in the art world about whether Caravaggio sometimes painted the same work twice.”

“The museum’s $35 million, 63,300-square-foot expansion, designed by the edgy contemporary firm of Coop Himmelb(l)au of Vienna, Austria, opens to the public Tuesday after three years of construction. With jagged, thrusting shapes in glass and steel, the expansion declares that Akron, part of a Midwest industrial region struggling for economic rebirth, is ready to zoom into the future at warp speed.”

“Over the long term, art-historical value is determined by consensus among all four art-world pillars. When any one of the four entities assume disproportionate power, there is a danger that this entity’s personal preferences will cloud everyone’s short-term judgement. Put bluntly, the danger of a collector-driven art world is that money will trump knowledge.”

“The US State Department is funding a new museum initiative designed to advance US foreign policy. The programme has been developed in conjunction with the American Association of Museums (AAM), that will see US museums collaborating with foreign institutions in ‘community-focused’ partnerships.”