“The ability to scan works of art, post them to the Internet and print high-quality digital copies is revolutionizing the way curators around the world are managing their collections. For art lovers, it’s a boon. Imagine surfing the Web and choosing from millions of paintings and photographs, and then placing an order for the perfect living room print. It’s already happening.”
Category: visual
Eakins Sale Has Philly Seething
As anyone who reads ArtsJournal’s visual arts blogs well knows, the sale of Thomas Eakins’ The Cello Player by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is not sitting well with many in the local or national art scene. “The deal, some say, has soured what had been a heady community fund-raising effort to keep Eakins’ masterpiece, The Gross Clinic, in Philadelphia – because now a leader of that effort has done precisely what many donors were upset about in the first place: sold a treasured painting in a secret transaction.”
Gherkin Sets Record For London Building Sale
Norman Foster’s iconic Gherkin building has been sold for a record price for a building in London. “The building has rapidly become a London landmark, featuring in TV and films including Woody Allen’s Match Point.”
Sotheby’s Record-Breaking £94.9m Sale
“The night’s top price was £8.75m, paid for Chaim Soutine’s 1921 L’Homme au Foulard Rouge, far surpassing its estimate of £3.5m to £5m. Just 10 years ago the same picture was bought for £1.5m. The figure recorded was the highest ever for a sale of impressionist and modern art in Europe.
Why Look At The Art When You Can Shoot It Instead?
Whether museums permit or prohibit photography, “the proliferation of digital cameras is changing the museum experience for visitors and the institutions themselves. Museums are packed with visitors who aren’t just looking at art, but photographing it and taking it home, too. For other visitors, the shutterbugs can be an annoyance. For museums, however, the issue is serious: Does the dissemination of copyrighted artwork have financial and legal ramifications?”
ICA To Replace Beck’s With New Prize
Though London’s Institute for Contemporary Art has lost funding for the Beck’s Futures prize, “in 2008 the ICA will be launching a new prize for emerging artists which will take a different format, as yet to be disclosed, to Becks Futures. ‘We’re in the process of developing a new prize to match the enormous strength and diversity of work taking place among young artists in Britain today’.”
Feminism From The Inside
“The generation of women who were radicalized in the 1970s are now in their 40s and 50s, and many of them, have ascended to positions of power at major cultural institutions, and are now reexamining their holdings and the ways in which they are represented to the public.”
Is V&A Becoming The People Magazine Of Museums?
Critics are dumping on The Victoria & Albert Museum for staging a Kylie Minogue show. “The London museum’s decision to mount ‘Kylie – The Exhibition’, which charts the changing image of the Australian singing star, features costumes, album covers, accessories, photographs and videos from the career of the 38-year-old, who this weekend revealed she had split from her boyfriend Olivier Martinez.”
UK Museums – Feeling It In Their Bones
“British pagan groups are increasingly asking for human remains and grave goods from pre-Christian burials to be returned to them as well. The presence of what they see as their ancestors in dusty drawers or under harsh display lights is an affront to their religion. To them, the bones are living beings, whose existence is bound up with their religious descendants and the sacred land.”
No Future For Beck’s Futures
Beck’s is pulling out of the Beck’s Futures Award. “The award, sponsored by the German beer maker, was established seven years ago as the Institute of Contemporary Art’s rival competition to the Turner Prize and was open to any modern artist. But the contest will not take place this year and may be scrapped altogether in favour of a music prize.”