Category: visual

The Dutch government is deciding whether to return a major art collection to the descendants of a Jewish art dealer whose holdings were taken by the Nazis…

“China’s spectacular economic rise over the past quarter-century has started to create enormous wealth, and prices for Chinese art have risen steeply, especially in the last three years. But Chinese art collectors have barely begun to show interest in Western masterpieces. Few doubt that in the years to come, wealthy Chinese on the mainland and in Hong Kong will become important buyers of Western art.”

Numerous important artifacts in major museums have disputed ownership. Roger Atwood makes a list…

The Metropolitan Museum has agreed to send disputed artifacts back to Italy. So now the negotiating for how and when intensifies. “The Met has requested that it be allowed to keep the krater and a disputed set of Hellenistic silver at least through the end of next year so that the objects can be on display for the opening of the museum’s expanded Roman galleries in spring 2007. The two sides are also still discussing the possibility that the vase, which the museum bought for $1 million in 1972, might be allowed to return to the Met at some point as a loan from the Italian government and remain in the United States for as long as four years.”

“Chinese work has seized the imagination of the Western art world for several reasons. There’s the sense that Chinese artists have sprung up seemingly full-blown since the end of the repression and censorship of the Cultural Revolution. There’s a fascination with a country that’s become a world economic powerhouse. And there’s the intoxicating fascination of new love: Chinese artists are spending as much time and energy trying to figure us out as Western art lovers are trying to figure them out.”

“Govan, 42, is a well-known figure in the art world who rose from deputy director at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York to the top job at Dia, a leading cultural institution that collects contemporary art, supports massive outdoor projects in the American West and maintains large exhibition spaces in Manhattan and Beacon, N.Y. During his 11-year tenure, he is credited with transforming Dia from a highly specialized source of funding for individual artists’ projects into an institution that brings contemporary art to a broader audience.”

Two art schools in Adelaide, Australia illustrate competing approaches to making art. “Put at its crudest, one is identified with the painterly tradition; the other is all-inclusive, taking in everything from performance and video to glassmaking. The latter is our major art school, SA School of Art, where teaching artists to think is deemed as important as teaching technique. In contrast is the Adelaide Central School of Art, where the focus is on training and technique.”

Austria says it won’t buy five paintings by Gustav Klimt stolen by Nazis that were awarded to the family of the original owner. “Austria’s minister in charge of education and culture, said the government wanted to acquire the masterpieces but decided it could not afford the $300-million price tag. Last month, an arbitration court awarded the paintings to Maria Altmann of Los Angeles, who says they were looted from her family by the Nazis.”

“Antiques and art treasures, possibly including works by Picasso, Rubens and Titian worth millions of pounds, have been stolen from the 17th century Wiltshire mansion of the reclusive multi-millionaire Harry Hyams in what police believe could be Britain’s biggest ever burglary. Precise details of what was taken have not been released, although there have been estimates that property worth between £20m and £30m was stolen.”