Category: visual

The British Museum has broken a record for advance sales for a show, selling almost 11,000 tickets. “Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, overtook the previous record holder, 2005’s Persia exhibition, which had 3,670 advance sales. The Michelangelo show opens on Thursday and features 90 drawings.”

Maya Widmaier-Picasso, the artist’s daughter, who autheticates his work, says that drawings sold on Costco are not by him. “Those two works, photographs of which were shown to her by The New York Times, were offered by the dealer with certificates in French saying that Ms. Widmaier-Picasso had authenticated them. Pointing to anomalies in the certificates — grammatical errors, wording that departed from her style, handwriting that did not match hers and the placement of words on the page — the artist’s daughter said both documents were forgeries.”

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts director Malcom Rogers will go to Italy to meet with officials over Italian claims that the MFA has looted objects in its collection. “What we hope comes out of this is the exchange of information, information we have not received yet. Right now, we don’t even have a list of the objects the Italians believe were looted and sold to the MFA.”

When is an image borrowed from an artist and when is it inspired by him? Jan Herman wonders after spotting a recent magazine layout that contains images he remembers that were made 39 years ago…

“Five multimillion-dollar paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt — looted by the Nazis and recently returned by the Austrian government to the family of Maria Altmann in Los Angeles — will go on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [this April]… The exhibition was initiated by Stephanie Barron, LACMA’s senior curator of modern art, in January after an Austrian arbitration court ordered its government to turn over the paintings to Altmann, whose family fled Vienna in 1938.”

There’s no question that Chicago boasts some of America’s best architecture. But a high-quality backdrop makes it all the more obvious when an architectural mishap has occurred, and Charles Leroux worries that they’ve been happening a lot lately. “The biggest architectural blunder is the devastation of the city’s neighborhoods by bad residential structures tossed up to take advantage of the real estate boom. Some communities have been rendered almost unrecognizable by condoing, townhousing and McMansioning.”

Gagosian is opening a big new gallery in Chelsea. “Already the art world’s leader in exhibition space, Gagosian Gallery is converting a warehouse into a gallery in New York’s Chelsea district. This would be Gagosian’s fifth gallery worldwide, its third in New York, and its second in Chelsea, the city’s contemporary-art mecca.”

Madrid’s Reina Sofia modern art museum opened an acclaimed new wing last September. But there was a serious flaw. “Days before the new wing, designed by France’s leading avant-garde architect Jean Nouvel, was inaugurated by Queen Sofia to international acclaim, drops falling from the ceiling left marks on an important painting by the Spanish master of cubism Juan Gris, Frutero y periodico (fruitbowl and newspaper).”

Costco recently sold a Picasso drawing on its website for $39,999.99. But it looks like the authetication of the drawing was faked, and the incident has sparked questions about the company’s online art purchases.

“The Cleveland Institute of Art may soon build the most highly visible address for the wealthy in Cleveland since the demise of Millionaires’ Row in the early 20th century. The art institute’s board is thinking seriously about replacing an aging, outmoded classroom building opposite the Cleveland Museum of Art with a luxury condominium tower. The building would overlook the museum and the Case Western Reserve University campus, making it one of the most desirable addresses in the region… The condominium tower project, which could also include a ground-floor art gallery or other cultural facility, could generate income to help pay for college operations.”