Category: visual

It seems as if nearly every big museum in the U.S. has been sucked into the international debate over looted art and rightful ownership that has gripped the art world for more than a year now. But somehow, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been spared – in fact, not a single Philadelphia museum has had any problems of the variety plaguing the Met, the Getty, and so many others. “Thanks to policies long in place that aggressively discourage trade in cultural booty, this region’s museums and academic institutions have turned their backs on the Indiana Joneses of the art and antiquities market and their dealer middlemen.”

“Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha has been awarded the 2006 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Mr. Mendes da Rocha – renowned for designing bold, open structures that blend with their surroundings – will receive a $100,000 grant and bronze medallion on May 30 at a ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey.”

Shanghai is experiencing a building boom like few other cities have ever seen, and within a few years, the entire city will be utterly transformed. “Many feel, though, that what Shanghai is losing is even more vital than what it will gain. Shanghai was China’s first, and remains its most distinctive, experiment in modern urbanism, and conservationists say that much of what made it so special in the last century will soon fall victim to the wrecking ball.”

“A meteorite believed to have come from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has sold for $93,000 (U.S.) at an auction of rare space sculptures. The 355-pound chunk of iron, thousands of years old and discovered in the Campo del Cielo crater field in Argentina, was one of 10 meteorites that went for high prices at a Bonhams New York natural-history auction. Known by its place of discovery as the ‘Valley of the Sky’ meteorite, the pristine item was purchased Tuesday by a private collector in the United States who bid by phone and plans to display it as a work of art.”

A scandal may be brewing over a well-intentioned exchange program between the Louvre and two leading American museums, Chicago’s Terra and Atlanta’s High. Under the proposed plan, all three museums would loan some art across the pond, and American corporate sponsors would pay part of the cost of refurbishing some of the government-owned Louvre’s galleries. And therein lies the problem: “Many in France’s cultural establishment have what might be called an ideological distaste for linking public art and private money. And while in practice French museums routinely seek corporate sponsorship for exhibitions, anything approaching the American model of privately-financed culture sets off alarm bells.”

It’s been a year since Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center opened its massive addition to the public, and the museum has gotten great press and serious local buzz ever since. Donations are also up, but the uptick in attendance the Walker had hoped for hasn’t materialized. “The figures for the first post-expansion year are somewhat unexpected since museums often see a substantial upswing in visitors when they open a new wing, especially when it is designed by a high-profile firm such as Herzog & de Meuron.”

A selection of drawings, sketches, and jottings from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci will go on display for the first time this fall at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. “The display of these small, delicate, detailed works will present a challenge to the V&A, which expects up to 150,000 visitors in a year of unprecedented interest in Leonardo.”

The shortlist is out for the 2006 Gulbenkian Prize, which honors Britain’s best museum of the year, and one of the judges says that the experience has been eye-opening. “There are so many different museums that sometimes it’s like comparing oranges with apples. And yet, when you get the measure of a place, there are a few magic ingredients. Top of the list is the sort of enthusiasm that’s catching: an enthusiasm that means you turn up somewhere knowing little about a subject, and leave feeling inspired by it. Beyond that, there are things like how welcoming a place is; how easy it is to access information; how much sense the layout makes; in a nutshell, how user-friendly it is.”

“While there’s something inherently contradictory in the notion of a contemporary art museum having a permanent collection, most do… Until last month, [Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art] had no collection. But last week it announced the acquisition of four more pieces, which will be part of a permanent collection put on display this fall… They cover a decent range of media, including video and installation. Yet building a collection, while necessary, presents a challenge. The museum should be wary of getting entrenched as a steward of culture rather than providing a vehicle for the iconoclasm of contemporary art.”

A sudden jump in the Asian art market is rapidly inflating prices for works that used to be bargains. “These sales have been dominated by Asian and, specifically, Chinese buyers, who believe that if a Picasso can sell for $100 million, then the best Chinese artists of the 20th century should be worth much more than they currently are.” But those bidding up Asian art are no longer confined to the Far East – recent sales in New York and an upcoming one in London are proving that Western collectors are as high as anyone on the new popularity of Asian works.