Category: visual

Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull will be offered for sale next month. “A sale of the skull for about $100 million would put Hirst, 41, on a price level with Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt, dead artists who produced some of the 20th century’s most famous works.”

Rothko’s hot-hued “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose),” from seller David Rockefeller Sr., and Bacon’s fierce crouching Pope, “Study From Innocent X,” helped propel the 74- lot auction at Sotheby’s to a record $254.9 million. Before tonight, the highest auction price for an artwork from the period was a $27.1 million Willem de Kooning in November.

“Moscow’s unique and diverse architectural heritage is under ‘full-scale attack’ and in serious danger of disappearing altogether, a group of British and Russian experts warned yesterday. Russia’s sprawling capital is being transformed into a series of ‘super-gentrified ghettos,’ an ‘ersatz city’ fit only for ‘Gucci-bagged oligarchs’ wives’.”

“Gordon, 65, is arguably leaving on a high note: For the first time since he arrived, the museum is unencumbered by debt left from the expansion project. Gordon arrived in 2002, just after Milwaukee had landed itself an icon. The building was capturing worldwide attention, serving as backdrop for slick magazine ads and high-concept TV commercials.”

When the project calls for a public space to be constructed mainly underground, as the New York Public Library’s new Mulberry Street branch did, it is indeed possible to keep it from feeling like a giant basement. “In the space for older children (just below street) level, the architects installed clear glass to give young visitors a front-row seat on Manhattan bedrock. ‘We wanted a Harry Potter dungeonlike atmosphere,'” one of the architects said.

The Museum of Modern Art has spent 75 years looking at architecture. To celebrate, the museum stages a show that not only celebrates what the Museum paid attention to, but also challenges its choices along the way.

Putting together a major show these days takes the skills of a diplomat and the wallet of a banker. “The cost of a big exhibition such as ‘Monet in Normandy’ stems mainly from insurance and shipping; museums generally don’t charge hefty fees to lend works of art. But obtaining loans can be difficult for other reasons, such as the physical condition of a painting, or its popularity or importance. Some museums are reluctant to lend their signature works.”

“In August 2005, Ned Rifkin, undersecretary for art at the Smithsonian Institution, asked an external panel of leading US museum directors to assess the eight art museums run by the federal body. The report it compiled, which was submitted to the Smithsonian’s board of regents in January, concluded that these museum are failing on many levels.” Now, Smithsonian art museum directors respond…

“On the job just more than a year, Govan has rejiggered an ambitious expansion and renovation project designed by architect Renzo Piano, recruited high-powered trustees and shaken up the exhibition program. He has envisioned a museum that views its history through Latin America and Asia, and its future through contemporary artists. But his perception of LACMA as a snoozing Goliath hasn’t changed.”

A controversial new museum extension in the UK city of Bath has residents and architecture buffs in an uproar. “The fact that the scheme contravenes the one sine qua non of building in Bath – all projects have to be in Bath stone – has proved a particular source of outrage to its opponents. The material homogeneity of Bath’s architecture is undoubtedly one of the city’s great glories, and should not be sacrificed lightly.”