Category: visual

Four sites in Washington DC are being considered for the Museum of African American History and Culture. “Many supporters of the museum and President Bush have said the museum should be on the Mall. The new museum would be part of the Smithsonian; officials there have estimated it would cost $300 million to $500 million. The study says costs could range from $356 million to $1.4 billion in 2006 dollars. The building is expected to be 350,000 square feet — roughly the size of the National Museum of the American Indian.”

A new report says that heritage items in America’s museums are deteriorating and require urgent conservation care. “Millions of items in American public collections that may be lost unless they receive urgent preservation attention. In a study to be released on Tuesday in New York, Heritage Preservation, a Washington-based conservation group, reports that many such collections are threatened by poor environmental controls, improper storage, inadequate staffing and financing and poor planning for emergencies like floods.”

“Italian prosecutors began to make their case on Monday against Marion True, a former antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the American dealer Robert Hecht, who are being tried on charges of dealing in looted antiquities…”

None of the thousands of artworks owned by the British government is insured. “Culture Minister David Lammy said the government carries its own risk for the works dating from the 16th Century to the present day. The collection includes pieces by John Constable, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud and works are shown in hundreds of government buildings worldwide.”

What was hot at this year’s Art Basel Miami fair? “One began to discern certain strands. One was for the artist simply to exhibit the most unnoticed of objects just so that one noticed them. Willys de Castro hung two wooden sticks on a wall. Anna Maria Maiolino had framed some torn squares of white plasterboard. After seeing those, one certainly looked at things such as taps in the bathrooms with more curiosity — but not for long.”

The Scottish government is studying an idea of transforming an old building into A Scottish version of Tate Modern or the Guggenheim. “Arts insiders say the 15,000sqm building could become a Scottish version of the Tate Modern or the Guggenheim.” But Sir Timothy Clifford, the flamboyant director general of the National Gallery of Scotland, has told culture minister Patricia Ferguson that the project smacked of “regional towns in England.”

“How is it possible a city now defined around the world by its art museum could suffer such a drought when it comes to public art? This is a question that is raised perennially, with lots of strong opinions voiced and little change resulting.”

“Aboriginal art generates exponential profit for all those who touch it – even, though perhaps not proportionately, for the people who make it. The rules are now very strict: Aboriginal artists retain all their intellectual and moral rights in the work after it has been rolled up and tucked into a backpack or bolted to the wall of a banking hall, in perpetuity. Amid the frenzied buying and selling, with important Aboriginal art objects changing hands as often as several times a year, there is still a pervasive anxiety that Aboriginal art might be a con.”

“Latin American art, which used to be collected mainly by Latin American buyers, is now reaching a broader audience than ever before. US, European and Southeast Asian collectors make-up 50% of the market today.”

Only one in every five paintings in public art collections is on display. One man is assembling catalogues in an attempt to bring the art to light. “The catalogues are both wonderful social histories and crammed full of small-scale artistic discoveries. You find yourself building little stories up about both painters and subjects; armchair travelling around places you might normally only drive through. It is like flicking through Pevsner’s counties without the small print; as English as the shipping forecast or Marmite.”