Category: visual

“A shipwrecked first-century vessel carrying delicacies to the richest palates of the Roman Empire has proved a dazzling find, with nearly 2,000-year-old fish bones still nestling inside clay jars, archeologists said yesterday. Boaters found the vessel’s cargo of hundreds of amphoras in 2000 when their anchor got tangled with one of the two-handled jars. After years of arranging financing and crews, exploration of the site off the coast of Alicante in southeast Spain began in July….”

“The Harvard University Art Museums is reconsidering plans to turn a former bank building in Allston into its temporary home when it closes the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger museums for renovation in 2008. … The original plan called for housing the majority of the 250,000 objects in the university’s collection at the former bank building. At 25,000 square feet, the second site is less than a third the size of the former Citizens Bank building.”

“Most masters have at least a few disputed authorships in their oeuvre. On the say of one person the worth of a painting can rocket or plummet overnight. No wonder canvases have been the fields of such ferocious battles.”

The Goya painting owned by the Toledo Museum of Art, and stolen as it was being transported to the Guggenheim in New York “was insured for just over $1 million and was in the hands of a professional art transporter when it was snatched Wednesday in the Scranton, Pa., area. The transport vehicle was unattended at the time of theft.”

Phillipe de Montebello has been associated with the Metropolitan Museum since 1963 and director since 1978 – an unusually long tenure. He shows no signs of moving on, but CultureGrrl has taken it upon herself to compile a list of possible successors…

So Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Gallery is selling off some of its art. So what? “Museums are devoting more and more resources to acquiring large amounts of contemporary art, work about which the judgment of history–supposedly what museums are all about – is far from settled. Such acquisition policies may be acceptable, but not when done by getting rid of masterpieces whose importance has been validated by time and critical opinion and that provide a context for the work of the present. Ironically, this plan is driven by perceptions about the notably erratic and currently inflated contemporary art market, rather than by any dire financial crisis.”

“Guy Cogeval, the director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Art since 1998, announced he will leave at the end of his contract next year.”

The head of the Glasgow Art Fair may step down after criticism. “Pete Irvine was criticised by some Glasgow galleries for deselecting them in favour of more high-profile London and international collections. And following this year’s annual event in April, two of the Scottish galleries excluded called for a public consultation over the event’s future.”

A new study of art in Britain’s public institutions says that “over 80 percent (120,000 pictures) are probably held in storage or in buildings without access. What is publicly owned is not publicly accessible. Of the 150 collections which have so far been recorded by the foundation, only one (a hospital) was able to provide a complete set of data on the first attempt.”

“A 1778 painting by Francisco de Goya, ‘Children With Cart,’ has been stolen near Scranton, Penn., on its way to the Guggenheim Museum of Art.”