Category: visual

Indian art is fetching record prices. “Just who is buying the art reveals a novel trend. Indian-born but foreign-based Indians, especially those who are self-made, see the new art as a way of reconfirming their ethnic identity and as an opportunity to move up into the rarefied world of elitist arts. The result is rapid inflation in art prices. More than $500m is expected to flow into the market when the half-dozen private museums currently being built by India’s new elite start acquiring work.”

“The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, a Moscow-based organization headed by Vladimir Semenikhin, the owner of construction company Stroyteks, opens Russia’s first private contemporary-art exhibition hall this evening. … ‘Many Russian collectors hide their art, but our collection is for all to see,’ Semenikhin, 39, said….”

Jeffrey Weiss, a “curator who has worked at the National Gallery since 1994, is best known for the exhibitions he has organized there, most recently ‘Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965,’ which opened last month.”

“If built, the lamentable Freedom Tower would be a constant reminder of our loss of ambition, and our inability to produce an architecture that shows a genuine faith in America’s collective future rather than a nostalgia for a nonexistent past.”

“In recent years, a growing number of private collectors have been opening all manner of exhibition sites — from casual warehouse spaces to full-fledged museums — to show off their holdings and assert their aesthetic views, often subsidized by enviable tax benefits. The trend has been hastened by an enormous flow of disposable income and an insatiable public interest in art (not to mention keeping up with the Joneses).”

Was the theft of Munch’s “Scream” merely a diversion for another crime? The “gang needed what Sicilians call an ‘illustrious corpse’ to distract attention. What could be more spectacular than stealing The Scream? After all, it caused a sensation when the other version of Munch’s picture was stolen from Oslo’s National Gallery in 1994 and recovered in a sting operation. Stealing the Munch Museum version proved an even bigger story. And that was the point.”

“Topping the list are the Empire State Building, the White House and Washington National Cathedral. New York and Washington, D.C., each account for eight of the Top 20 buildings and, along with Chicago, are home to 65 of the 150. San Francisco had nine entries on the list, led by the Golden Gate Bridge at No. 5.”

Seattle’s new sculpture park has been a hit with visitors. It also seems to have inspired local artists. Several of the park’s sculptures have spawned miniature offspring. “They’re not part of the museum’s collection, but we’re going to leave them where they are. This kind of engagement is positive and respectful to the art. We welcome it.”

“An unprecedented urge to buy, regardless of style, medium or period drove bidders” at last week’s London contemporary art sales. “On Feb. 7 at Sotheby’s, the first 32 lots, mostly priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, sold straight off. This had never happened before. By the time the seventh lot, ‘White Canoe’ by Peter Doig, came up, a tense businesslike atmosphere prevailed.”

Tufts University’s new Granoff building works well for the purpose it was intended. But “a building like this, a building for the arts, can seek to be memorable. Instead, the Granoff is a tame effort of a kind familiar from many college campuses. It seeks to bridge the gap between traditional and innovative and thus make everyone happy. As often is the case, it falls between those two stools.”