Category: visual

Members of the British architects’ ruling council are “being asked to reveal whether they are members of a political party following last year’s discovery that a presidential candidate was active in the far right British National party.”

“Chris Roberts is one of at least two British experts trying to crack one of the art world’s greatest mysteries. Other freelance bounty hunters are also looking for the paintings, attracted by the $5m reward for the safe return of the works. Unlike most crimes, where the trail goes cold the longer the investigation continues, when it comes to high-value art thefts, the years that pass make a breakthrough more likely.”

On the eve of this year’s Venice Biennale, the event’s managing director has quit “amid a welter of snide remarks and angry accusations. Renato Quaglia said he had become exasperated with the exhibition’s curator, the esteemed American art historian and painter Professor Robert Storr. Mr Quaglia said the final straw came when the bill for the festival came in a million euros over budget.”

Organizers of the 2012 Olympics in London have unveiled the games’ logo. But critics immediately pounced: “Lord Coe has described this logo as ‘ambitious, interactive and youth-friendly’. I would describe it as hideous. Questions need be answered as to how we have ended up in this situation. Was there an open competition to supply the designs? If so, what on earth do the rejected ones look like! We need to know how much money this exercise has cost, because whatever it was, it’s been a complete waste of money.”

Philip Johnson’s Glass House is an icon of his acheivement. Later this month it opens for visits by the public. “For Johnson, this 47-acre residence was more than just his home; it was a pastoral retreat filled with buildings he designed, including the transparent house that gives the property its name. And Johnson had another, more personal reason to keep guests at arm’s length: The estate was where he lived with David Whitney, whom he met in 1960.”

The Royal Ontario Museum opens a new $240 million extension by Daniel Libeskind. “A city as large and complex as Toronto has room for this kind of audacious experiment. There is architectural delirium at the reinvented ROM. And ecstasy, too. The Royal Ontario Museum, like many museums of civilization around the globe, offers collections dedicated to the great artistic triumphs of the world as well as the evolutionary complexity of nature. So, why does it feel as though we’ve landed in the Inferno or possibly the Purgatorio of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy?”

Lost in the excitement surrounding this season’s record-shattering art auctions is the inevitable downside to such price inflation: museums are becoming ever less able to afford the acquisition of major works. “What also tends to happen in a rising market is that people who own artworks are more reluctant to give them away when they can sell them for exorbitant amounts of money.”

As Kathy Halbreich prepares to depart Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center after a 16-year tenure as director, she warns that despite its recent run of success, the Walker cannot afford to ever rest on its laurels. “Walker can never be a vanilla organization because other people know how to make vanilla better than we do. That goes for our city, too. Vanilla isn’t good enough. We need to make sure there is spice and adventure in all of our civic institutions.”

“The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach has been like the downtrodden stepchild of Southern California’s glamorous museum family — often ignored by critics, overlooked by art elites and forced to work overtime for every scrap of credibility it can muster… This month, though, MOLAA has put on its glass slipper and is finally ready for the ball. Expanded and remodeled with a dramatic, traffic-stopping facade, the museum is celebrating a grand reopening with a monthlong series of cultural events.”

Not every museum looking for a new addition has the budget or the desire for a massive and eye-catching architectural design. But that doesn’t mean that a great space isn’t possible – it just requires a different kind of thinking. For instance, if you can’t afford a great museum rising from the ground, why not put it underground?