Category: visual

Paris’ new museum for indigenous art has been mired in controversy for 11 years. “The Musée du Quai Branly – the biggest museum to be built in Paris since the Pompidou centre in 1977 – is Mr Chirac’s attempt to cast himself as the defender of art from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. A long-time fan of indigenous artefacts, he also wanted to leave Paris with an architectural imprint to rival François Mitterand’s legacies, such as the glass pyramid at the Louvre.”

“Why should it be Klimt – a modest, quiet man – who set this record and not Picasso or Matisse or Hirst? Forget the cliche of Klimt – the gilded Valentine cards, the Athena posters; in short, The Kiss, the one image by this artist that we all think we know. Klimt is so often undervalued, just because of this travestied masterpiece. So tear your mind’s eye away from it. The paintings by Klimt displayed on these pages are pieces of modern intellectual history to set beside a formula scrawled by Albert Einstein or a score by Arnold Schönberg.”

The Egon Schiele painting was missing for more than 60 years after it was stolen by the Nazis in 1938. “For decades it was feared that Wilted Sunflowers had been destroyed during World War II. The painting was last exhibited in Paris in 1937, when it was owned by Austrian art dealer Karl Grunwald. Mr Grunwald fled Vienna for Paris in 1938, but Wilted Sunflowers was among 50 paintings confiscated by the Nazis in Strasbourg. It disappeared after being sold at auction in 1942.”

A new record has been set for sales price of a David Hockney painting. “The painting, dating from 1966, had been in a private collection in California for the past 20 years. The piece, in Hockney’s minimalist style, depicts the moment someone hits the water, diving into a swimming pool.”

The Getty has offered to return 21 antiquities to Italy. “Getty trustees authorized the offer last week after a presentation by museum director Michael Brand, the sources said. It includes a marble statue of two mythical griffins, a statue of Apollo and a 2,600-year-old cup made by the Greek artist Euphronios, all prominently displayed at the newly renovated Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades.”

“Getty officials have been eager to put the antiquities scandal behind them and find a mutually agreeable solution with Italian authorities, but the magnitude of the case continues to grow. Since negotiations over the 52 objects started in January, Italian authorities say they have identified 15 additional items in the Getty’s collection that they believe were looted and should be returned. Efforts to reach an agreement have also been complicated by the continuing criminal trial of the Getty’s former antiquities curator, Marion True, on charges that she conspired to purchase looted art for the museum.”

“The Modern’s director, Glenn D. Lowry, said that Bsrry Bergdoll’s appointment underlined the museum’s “commitment to having an interesting program in architecture and design that can deal with the historic sweep of Modernism as well as the present.”

“When did you become fascinated by Klimt? Lauder: I took a trip to Vienna as a teenager and saw Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Bloch-Bauer.’ I found them absolutely stunning. Whenever I went back to Vienna, I visited them. How long did it take you to decide to buy the Klimt? Lauder: Thirty seconds.”

The museum, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, is French president Jacques Chirac’s legacy to France. “The museum displays indigenous art from Africa, Asia and Australasia. But the project has been controversial. It opens as France debates how to heal the scars of its colonial past and accept a multi-ethnic nation.”

“As an epitaph to a presidency, Chirac really couldn’t have chosen a more controversial subject. The new museum contains that stunning national collection of ethnographic artefacts that so entranced Modernist artists in Paris — it is Chirac’s passion, too, as the self-styled ‘great defender’ of global culture. But at a time of national soul-searching over the stagnant economy, the loss of the Olympics and the recent race riots, this is bold indeed. True to form, the project has been dogged with controversy — not just the usual ‘will it be finished in time’ (not quite), the cost (£180 million), the ‘Elgin Marbles’ debate, but its very purpose.”