Category: visual

“The French billionaire and owner of Christie’s, François Pinault, is refusing to collaborate with the Guggenheim Museum to establish a new modern art museum in Venice–despite a ruling by the city council that the two parties should collaborate. The Guggenheim museum has hired the London-based Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid to design the new gallery in the former customs house. Japanese architect Tadao Ando has been approached to submit plans for Mr Pinault’s proposed gallery.”

“Three years after the Seattle Central Library opened to starbursts of praise, including mine, I am trying to understand why, when I need to spend a working day at a library, I retreat to the Bellevue Regional instead of Seattle’s downtown flagship. … This library, incredibly, is an uncomfortable place to read.”

“The Tate’s trustees have been self-flagellating again. According to The Art Newspaper, they have recently decided to buy more works by women artists in an attempt to rectify the gross gender imbalance in the collections across all four Tate branches. It’s a laudable resolve, of course.” So, if they’re filling gaps, which artists should be on the wish list?

“Even as federal politicians are scheming and dreaming of ways to fund national museums in Winnipeg and Calgary, and bring national heritage treasures to the regions, the federal bureaucracy is quietly killing a program that supports the transportation of such treasures. Exhibition Transport Services (15-metre-long, climate-controlled trucks, and drivers trained to handle art) is to be phased out by April, 2008. Alarmed gallery and museum directors calculate that switching to private-sector carriers will up their costs by as much as 30 per cent.”

The Tate Museum has admitted it doesn’t have enough art by women artists. “Of the 2,914 artists represented in the Tate’s collection, only 348 – less than 12 per cent – are women, and only two of the 39 major works bought over the past two years were by female artists.”

“The Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton has been awarded most of the 133 paintings that were the focus of an ownership dispute, and the foundation that has been fighting for their custody says it will appeal the decision.”

The Hermitage Museum will establish a branch in Italy. “The treasures will be housed in the 14th-century Castello Estense, the ‘jewel’ at the heart of Ferrara. A palazzo and park will also be restored to provide a residential study centre for Italian and Russian art experts.”

“The new Guggenheim is designed by Frank Gehry, the new Louvre by Jean Nouvel, who modernised the Louvre in Paris, and the performing arts museum by Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid. The Hadid building is like a reptile head; the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi resembles fallen-over cereal boxes; the Louvre Abu Dhabi is a shallow dome with geometric openings that cause patterns of light to be thrown around the interiors like a geometric reference to Impressionism. But how real can this Paradise be?”

“Two decades after Los Angeles emerged as the nation’s second art capital, the city is reaping the benefits of a migration of artists, galleries, dealers and curators. In recent years more than two artists have moved to this city for every one that moved away, a net rate of gain that is higher than in any metropolitan area in the country. In the process new centers of gravity have emerged for contemporary art and artists in a city that has suffered for years because of its lack of a central arts district.”

“Two and a half years after it reopened, the museum still features more scaffolding and rubble than exhibits. What wasn’t demolished by the Taliban, looted by smugglers or damaged by shelling is mostly in storage. Yet the museum staff is determined to press on.”