Category: visual

Speculators are driving up the prices of contemporary Chinese art. “Most analysts attribute the rise in prices to speculative buyers from mainland China, where an under-regulated, cash-based financial system encourages wealthy people to seek easily portable vehicles for their investments.”

Many UK museums have stopped collecting art. Why? No money. “Of the institutions surveyed, 60% said they were unable to allocate money for purchasing new items last year. The Art Fund has called on the government to adopt a “more positive” approach to funding collections.”

“As the Morgan’s longer name indicates, the library’s $106 million transformation is intended to make it more appealing to museum-goers and cultural tourists in a city where the competition from such powerhouse institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art is all but overwhelming.”

“The Louvre is so immense — both in literal space and in image — that it can be hard to fathom that it has struggled to keep pace with the other great museums of the world — and of Paris — that have become hotspots for cultural tourism, bringing people back for more and different art experiences by repackaging and marketing their collections to make them more compelling.”

“Like most museums in the United States, the Art Institute of Chicago owns nothing by Leonardo, but that doesn’t mean its permanent collection isn’t studded with artworks that harbor secrets of their own. In some cases — particularly in works from the Renaissance, the golden age of “coded” art — the images originally were meant to be mysterious. To demonstrate their erudition, the artists packed their paintings with so many symbols, allegories and allusions that viewers were forced to resort to reference books in which the most popular emblems of the day were unpacked and explicated.”

“Long known as the work of the great Italian Renaissance painter Titian, this somber, unsigned oil portrait of a middle-aged, 16th-century Italian duke was consigned to obscurity when an art critic questioned its authenticity nearly 70 years ago. But an art historian who has spent eight years researching the painting believes it is a Titian after all.”

“According to the government-run Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation, the museum will feature 67 of Paik’s works, three of his personal belongings and a video archive of his 2,285 studies.”

“The dispute is the latest in a nearly six-year battle over the authenticity of a group of plasters attributed to the French master Auguste Rodin and destined for the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont. The Rodins, 52 plasters and several dozen bronzes in total, were to have served as leverage for the creation of an ambitious “international sculpture park dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century sculpture” in the small city 90 kilometres north of Toronto. That plan is now in ruins and the MacLaren is more than $4-million in debt.”

“In a request pending at the U. S. State Department, the Chinese government has asked the U.S. to ban imports of any Chinese artifact made before 1912. The proposed prohibition, which has come under fire from American art dealers and museum directors, would cover metal objects, ceramics, stoneware, paintings and calligraphy, textiles, ivory, and wooden or bamboo objects. The Chinese government says the sweeping ban is necessary because pillaging of archeological sites and smuggling of artifacts have become rampant in recent years, despite government efforts to stop them.”

Why did Chicago’s Merchandise Mart step in at the last minute to rescue the ailing Art Chicago? “Art Chicago helped establish Chicago as a cultural mecca. We produce over 25 shows a year in Chicago. Anyone who produces a show here gets a black eye if that show goes down.”