Category: visual

“The popular Chicago Children’s Museum has settled on a new site in Grant Park after ruling out several other options, including a controversial plan for the north end of the park… Museum officials expect to build a two-story, 100,000-square-foot building, nearly double the size of the museum’s current space. They hope to break ground in 2007.”

Much was revealed in a new scan of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. “More generally, the researchers said they realized that centuries of grime had obscured some elements of the painting. ‘You’re seeing a lot more fine detail, showing that this remarkable painting is actually more remarkable than we believed’.”

London dealer Jay Jopling is upgrading his iconic White Cube gallery in London wih a $20 million makeover. “The 12,500-square-foot building in Mason’s Yard, resembling a little Whitney Museum, opens on Sept. 29 with an exhibition and sale of works by Mexico’s Gabriel Orozco.”

“The sale yesterday raised more than double the 50,000 pounds expected by the paintings’ Belgian owners. The highest bid was for a painting called ‘The Church of Preux-au-Bois,’ which sold for 10,500 pounds.”

Canada’s new Conservative government announced this weeks that it would be making major cuts in the Heritage Department, “$4.6-million of which would be coming from the Museums Assistance Program (MAP) over the next two years.” The announcement has rocked the country’s regional museums, which are already underfunded, and will be in danger of closing if new revenue streams can’t be found to replace the federal money.

So who’s behind the Canadian culture cuts? That would be finance minister Jim Flaherty, and Martin Knelman says that Flaherty seems to be doubling back on his own word. “In the course of slashing $4.6 million from the Museum Assistance Program of Ottawa’s heritage ministry — not to avoid a deficit but to fluff up a surplus — Flaherty seemed to be grabbing money from one culture-world pocket while only midway through putting money into the other pocket. In effect, he has taken back a large part (close to 25 per cent) of the increased funding he promised to the cultural sector last spring in his first budget — not a dime of which has yet made its way to anyone in the arts.”

Planning for the World Trade Center site have been a disaster. “A generation that never knew the city without the Twin Towers has placed them high in skyscraper hagiography because of their terrible fate. But the New York skyline has changed many times, and will again.”

“The Tate in London and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh announced yesterday that they were jointly trying to acquire some 700 works of contemporary art from Anthony d’Offay, the retired London dealer. If the millions of dollars needed can be raised, the acquisition will represent the largest addition of contemporary art either institution has received.” The two institutions have agreed in principle to share the art, but the details of that arrangement remain to be worked out.

Gates wanted onerous terms for display of his Leonardo codex and the Victoria & Albert Museum felt it couldn’t comply. “The terms for the showing of [the codex] included having people being searched going in, having to leave all their metallic objects behind and so on. The security people said that if you had these two airport-style walkthroughs, the corridors would be jammed up.”

“After a period of near ruin in the 1970’s under the Khmer Rouge, when this city was forcibly emptied, and then years of struggle to raise money and hire staff members, the National Museum of Cambodia has made a comeback. Visitors are coming in droves, catalogs of the permanent collection have been prepared, and conservation is now a major priority.”