Category: visual

For all its rich artistic tradition, Italy is lacking a single major museum devoted to contemporary art. “The absence of a high-profile contemporary art museum has been keenly felt, not least of all by Italian artists. [But] now, the wait might be over. In the spring, the city of Venice entered into a renewable 30-year agreement with François Pinault, 70, one of Europe’s most active art collectors.” Pinault is to develop a modern art museum at Dogana di Mare, “an extraordinary Renaissance-era customs warehouse.”

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to build 3 million new housing units for Britons of all income classes by 2020, and that presents a distinct architectural challenge. The key to success, says Stephen Bayley, is to “avoid the hideous mistakes of the past and replace dogma with design.”

Akron, Ohio has a glitzy new museum with an architecturally stunning facade any big city would be proud of. “Unfortunately, that spirit stops at the gallery doors. After the initial euphoria of taking in the big public spaces, the galleries feel surprisingly drab. You’re left with the deflating impression that the client and the architect experienced a failure of nerve at the moment that mattered most.”

Damien Hirst’s shark is being loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for three years by hedge fund manager Steven Cohen. “The 1991 work, whose full title is ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,’ was bought by Cohen for $8 million in 2005. The original shark was disintegrating at the time of the sale, and the artist had it replaced.”

“London-based Christie’s sold 1.61 billion pounds ($3.27 billion) of art and collectibles in the first half, compared with 1.24 billion pounds a year earlier, according to a statement to be released today. Contemporary auctions more than doubled to 459 million pounds, including an Andy Warhol car-crash picture that took $71.7 million in New York.”

“In New York, Andre Balazs’s project wraps up just ahead of Ian Schrager’s much-anticipated 40 Bond St. (designed by Herzog & de Meuron). Projects by Richard Meier, Robert A.M. Stern and Bernard Tschumi are on the way.”

“Airport terminals are increasingly the go-to places for contemporary art. Today’s mega terminal continues to morph toward something more akin to the modern upscale mall, theme park or play world. In all of its mammoth made-up quality, it’s a world existing almost entirely apart from the host country, a kind of glowing, Never Never Land of a non-place. Yet it is in constant contact with other airports worldwide, in a private world of high functioning connectivity. It is, of course, the perfect mirror to the world of the contemporary artist, now with studios, dealers and backers worldwide.”

Alan Artner writes that the death of photography curator John Szarkowski calls to mind anew how unique his talents were. “Everybody is lesser than Szarkowski, for no one active at an art museum today has come close to his record of nearly 30 years of defining contemporary photography or 45 of reapproaching masters of the medium through eye-opening writings and lectures. Without any exaggeration, it can be said that, at Szarkowski’s death at age 81 last Saturday, he left no heirs with comparable acuity of vision, liveliness of wit and elegance of expression.”

Toronto will be the home of a soon-to-be-built museum housing an impressive collection of Islamic art. The Aga Khan Museum is still in the planning stages, but its future collection is on display this week in London. “The Toronto site was announced in 2002, after two attempts by the Aga Khan Foundation to find suitable London properties failed.”

Dallas’s Museum of Nature & Science is in the final stages of selecting an architect for its new home, and last month, took the unusual step of inviting the four finalists to address a public gathering and lay out their vision for the museum and the city around it.