Category: visual

“Congestion pricing” for access to the Neue Gallerie to see the newly-acquired Klimt painting might have had the reverse effect its owners wanted. “The plan to raise prices on Wednesdays from $15 to $50 was rapidly abandoned after visitors took exception to such naked elitism, but it’s unlikely the plan would have worked anyway.” Make something expensive and elite, and more people, not fewer, would have clamored to get in.

“In a rocketing economy where government owns the land but is curtailing rampant speculation with new regulations, art is the new real estate in China. But, longtime observers bemoan speculation, saying it artificially warps the prices, and even affects the form and quality of the art. Yet China offers a one-of-a kind, forward-racing, ever-morphing art scene, a heady stew stirred by artists, speculators, critics and curators. Buyers are also playing a role in molding the new faces of Chinese art.”

“Thursday, attorneys representing artist Kent Twitchell filed a claim against the U.S. Department of Labor in connection with Twitchell’s large-scale mural “Ed Ruscha Monument” — a six-story portrait of fellow artist Ruscha on a building owned by the federal agency — being painted over in early June. Twitchell said he received no notice, as required by law, that the paint-over would take place.Within the past few days, two more downtown murals, Frank Romero’s “Going to the Olympics” and Willie Herrón’s “Luchas del Mundo” (Struggles of the World) were partly covered with mud-colored paint, an apparent error by a Caltrans work crew cleaning up graffiti.”

Chicago is celebrating the 150th anniversary of architect Louis Sullivan with the restoration of the historic cornice of one of his iconic city buildings – the Carson Pirie Scott.

“Home to an estimated 34,000 archaeological sites, Greece is viewed as Europe’s biggest open-air museum. Along with Italy, it has attracted tomb raiders since before its foundation as a nation state in 1830. But Athens is toughening its stance, homing in on the dealers, curators and collectors that are the source of demand.” So the looters? Why they’re just moving on to easier pickings…

Could there possibly be anything good or useful about the scourge of e-mail spam currently clogging up the world’s inboxes? It all depends what you do with it. “When Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu looks at junk e-mails, he sees patterns – bits and bytes that can be manipulated into colorful plantlike images or stark architectural forms.”

“Dealers whose pictures were consigned to and sold by Berry-Hill Galleries before it filed for bankruptcy, risk losing the proceeds from their sale, unless Berry-Hill can raise enough money to make a first payment to its secured creditor by 2 August. The amount of money they will get back is uncertain.”

The Tate has been rebuked by the Charity Commission for buying artwork made by one of its artist trustees. “The media attention drawn by the Ofili case has proved deeply embarrassing to the Tate, which has acquired a particularly high profile in the British art world since the splashy opening of Tate Modern in a converted power station on the south bank of the Thames in 2000. Next week the Tate is expected to announce a major expansion of Tate Modern.”

Seattle’s skyline is changing. “This is not the time for American skylines. What was once a blazing symbol of optimistic speculation—the photographer Alfred Stieglitz proclaimed he saw the ship of America charging toward him the first time he set eyes on the Flatiron Building in New York—has become a problematic mess. The vaunted nature of skylines has been tarnished by awareness of their environmental, historic, and socioeconomic implications.”

Work on the Portrait Gallery of Canada has been suspended and the government is reviewing the project. Said review will take until November. “Sources say the gallery is in limbo partly because of competing priorities within Library and Archives Canada (created in 2004 out of the former National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada, it’s the institution responsible for the Portrait Gallery), and partly because the Stephen Harper government wants to fulfill its promise to increase accountability.”