Category: visual

Nashville’s new Schermerhorn Symphony Center has received plenty of raves since opening two weeks ago. But not everyone loves the design: “The symphony’s leaders could have chosen to make a bold statement about the present and future of classical music in their city, as orchestras in Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia have done in recent years by commissioning Frank Gehry, Cesar Pelli and Rafael Vinoly, respectively. Instead they turned to David Schwarz, a capable architect but hardly a visionary, who has delivered exactly what was ordered: a custom-made amalgam of recycled architectural elements from the past, most connected only tenuously to Nashville.”

Jerry Saltz looks for women in New York art institutions. “According to the fall exhibition schedules for 125 well-known New York galleries—42 percent of which are owned or co-owned by women—of 297 one-person shows by living artists taking place between now and December 31, just 23 percent are solos by women. On the fourth and fifth floors of the Museum of Modern Art, in the galleries devoted to the permanent collection of art from 1879 to 1969, there are currently 399 objects. Only 19, or 5 percent, of those objects are by women. Meanwhile, since 2000 only 14 percent of the Guggenheim’s solo shows of living artists have been devoted to women.”

A Turner painting which sold for a record £5.8 million at auction earlier this year has been banned from export from the UK. “The temporary export ban gives UK arts institutions two months to express a serious interest in buying The Blue Rigi, which features a Swiss landscape.”

Italy is pressing Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts to return artifacts whose ownership is in dispute, and a deal appears close. Here’s a list and discussion with the MFA’s former curator…

James Russell reports that the Daniel Libeskind-designed building is “an extraordinary celebration of the city’s idealism and aspiration. The building has the peculiar magnetic power of a glowing geode produced by a crashed meteorite. Its folded planes in luminous matte titanium catch the sharp, high-altitude light, kaleidoscopically alternating deep shadows with shades of reflection.”

The artists who created the famous charging bull on Wall Street is suing eight companies, including Wal-Mart for infringing on the copyright of his work. “Arturo Di Modica claimed the companies are selling knockoff copies of his sculpture or using images of the famous statue in ad campaigns without his permission, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court.”

Art at Lincoln Center isn’t just about performances. Forty-five years ago the center set up the “List Poster and Print program, which was established in 1962 to bring world-class contemporary poster art to the new performing arts center.” Artists who have created work for the program include Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, and Gerhard Richter.

Overall Smithsonian attendance is down. But “the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum have drawn nearly a quarter-million people to the Reynolds Center since it reopened in early July. That is a dramatic upturn; the museums had never drawn more than 450,000 a year.”

Young American art is taking London by storm this autumn – not in the salerooms, but in our public institutions and private galleries where, behind the scenes, a new, potentially volcanic market is bubbling.

“The Grand Palais is paying homage to Walt Disney — seriously, academically and without a trace of disdain for American pop culture. Disney “was one of the great geniuses of the 20th century and the greatest storyteller of the 20th century,” gushed curator Bruno Girveau, who tirelessly promoted his project to skeptics who couldn’t understand why he wanted to put Mickey Mouse on walls usually graced by Matisse or Monet… Lately, the French seem intent on debunking the stereotype that they turn up their noses at Americana.”