Category: visual

“Costing $41 million and three months late, the Institute of Contemporary Art is Boston’s first new art museum in almost a century,” and James Russell says that it looks like it will live up to the hype. “The 65,000-square-foot building’s generous, light-filled lobby sweeps you around to a handsome glass elevator the size of a panel truck… The interior has architectural presence without getting in art’s way. The outside pugnaciously asserts this old upstart’s new place on the harbor — and in the city.”

The expectation has been that Canada’s new National Portrait Gallery would be built in Ottawa, the capital. But it appears from internal government documents that the project will be built in Calgary instead. Why Calgary, home of the Stampede ad mythologizer of the cowboy? Prime Minister Stephen Harper hails from the city. ‘Nuff said.

Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art has a stunning new building on the city’s waterfront. “With the possible exception of a lighthouse, there’s probably never been a building more intensely involved with the sea. The ICA and the harbor enjoy the architectural equivalent of a dating relationship.” The Boston Globe puts together an impressive multimedia package to explore what the new buildng means to the city.

“Five years after the Taliban were ousted from power, Bamiyan’s Buddhist relics are once again the focus of debate: Is it possible to restore the great Buddhas? And, if so, can the extraordinary investment that would be required be justified in a country crippled by poverty and a continued Taliban insurgency in the south and that is, after all, overwhelmingly Muslim?”

The Turner Prize has lacked a certain oomph for the last few years, writes a former winner. “Many pundits bemoan the razzmatazz of the Turner and the proliferation of cultural prizes in general, feeling that they are undignified and inappropriately competitive in the arts. I think they are a good way to engage the public in the debate of what makes good art. In a world where a zillion cultural products beg for our attention, prizes strive to champion quality. If, in doing that, they occasionally include the media-friendly option, so be it.”

“Three years ago, the Philadelphia School District went on a treasure hunt to gather up about 1,200 artworks. There were paintings, sculptures and tapestries from more than 260 schools. A Chicago art consultant brought in to catalogue the works said the entire collection could be worth $30 million. But now that the School Reform Commission is struggling to resolve a $73.3 million budget deficit, art experts, along with members of various school communities, are worried that district officials could be tempted to sell the artworks.”

“Yale University, famous for its Gothic buildings, is showing off a newly restored jewel that marked the beginning of its modern era. The university has completed a $44-million restoration of the main building of its art gallery that was designed by architect Louis Kahn…. The Chapel Street building, which opened in 1953, was Yale’s first modernist structure and marked a radical break from the campus’ largely neo-Gothic character. It was also Kahn’s first masterpiece,” and it reopens Sunday.

Nicolai Ouroussoff considers skyline-altering projects in two great cities and advises that “while the design for the Phare Tower in Paris is a work of sparkling originality that wrestles thoughtfully with the urban conflicts of the city’s postwar years, the other, the gargantuan Gazprom City in St. Petersburg, Russia, is a bone-chilling expression of corporate ego run amok. Together, they train a lens on the range of architectural approaches to a daunting problem: the clash between the classical city and the inflated scale of the new global economy. And they underscore the limits of the creative imagination when it is detached from historical memory.”

Russian art is selling briskly, even withstanding charges of fakes coming to market. “The Russian sales are about rediscovering more home-spun talents Often, prices and estimates were inexplicably erratic. But, like the problems with fakes, this is all part of a young and booming market.”

“The Hermitage has been criticised for not having noticed the theft earlier. With a collection of almost three million objects, the process of checking them against inventory is continuous and takes some 10 years.”