Category: visual

Renzo Piano fills in more details of his design for the makeover of the LA County Museum of Art. “I was yesterday in New York where we’re working on the Whitney Museum. So different! There is no reason to repeat yourself — unless you are a stupid guy. There is always a new story to tell.”

“Renzo Piano Building Workshop is the firm you hire when what you need from your architect is clarity, craftsmanship and refinement. But the latest version of the architect’s scheme for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art suggests that in this case, the combination of a tight budget and an ill-matched collection of existing buildings is severely testing those skills.”

An Italian culture ministry lawyer says talks between his government and the Metropolitan Museum on disputed artifacts have soured. ” ‘I’m very worried,’ said Maurizio Fiorilli, a ministry lawyer involved in the talks, saying the Met’s lawyers are demanding excessive proof that the objects were stolen. The Met said it doesn’t see any snag in the talks and expects to send Italy a proposal for a settlement next week.”

The Detroit Institute of Art has filed suit to keep a disputed Van Gogh painting that a family claims was stolen from them by the Nazis in World War II. “In the wake of the publicity surrounding the controversy, the museum took ‘The Diggers’ out of storage late in the day Thursday so weekend museumgoers could see it.”

A new African American history museum will be built on a site in the capitol’s Mall. “The five-acre site has belonged to the government since 1791 and was endorsed by both the major plans for downtown Washington, the L’Enfant Plan of 1791 and the McMillian Plan of 1901, as an suitable place for a building. It was considered as a location for the State Department and the World War II memorial.”

Seattle’s Burke Museum is coming under fire for its collection. “A team of outside experts that examined the museum’s collection concluded last week that the excavation site of many specimens was so poorly described in museum records that the bones and fossils have little scientific value. The team also questioned whether the museum had the proper permits to collect fossils from federal, state and tribal lands.”

The museum has outgrown its current building and plans to build someplace new. “The gallery, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, seems to have its sights set on a world-class facility that would reflect its ambitious programming and reputation in the contemporary arts. That is why the master planning summary included photos of the Denver Art Museum, the Guggenheim and the Mori Art Center in Tokyo.”

“Today the Getty Villa in Malibu reopens after a closure of more than eight years. The villa, where the oil tycoon JP Getty lived and which housed his original collection of art and antiquities, has remained the spiritual home of the world’s richest art institution… The grandeur of the villa, refurbished at a cost of $275m (£155m), does not disappoint… But overshadowing the opening is a scandal. Marion True, curator of antiquities for the Getty Trust and coordinator of the villa’s programmes, is on trial in Italy on charges that she conspired with antiquities dealer Robert Hecht to export illegally excavated treasures.”

It’s not a new development, but increasingly, it has become impossible to ignore the fact that the world of high art (and the acquisition of large amounts of it by private collectors) has expanded well outside its traditional Western borders. A milepost will be planted this spring, when Christie’s opens its newest auction house – in Dubai.

“Think of the potency of combining one of Britain’s greatest artists with the twin national obsessions of food and gardening. Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t do it better. Hence the rather eclectic nature of the planning application for ‘Horkesley Park’ – an interactive experience of ‘the life and times of John Constable’, to include a Fine Art ‘outstation’ of the National and other leading galleries, side by side with a Suffolk Punch breeding centre, a Farming Yesteryear exhibition, a Food Experience, gardens dedicated to the great plant collectors and an authentic Chinese garden.”