Category: visual

The Getty Villa is reopening after a $250 million refit. “The complex, designed by Machado & Silvetti Associates of Boston, is genuinely an exquisite work of architecture. Reconfigured as an elaborate architectural narrative, it approaches the historical past with the scholarly attention normally reserved for real ancient ruins. But to what end? The gaudy beauty of the old Getty was its underlying message: the vision of a dying oilman thumbing his nose at the pretensions of the East Coast art establishment. By comparison, the newly expanded villa strives for Old World respectability. And in wrapping the old villa in the aura of good taste, it comes close to embalming it.”

The Barnes Foundation has raised $3 million in operating funds to carry it through the next two transitional years, as the foundation prepares to make its controversial move from Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, to Center City Philadelphia. “Plans for the highly anticipated relocation of The Barnes Foundation’s gallery have been proceeding smoothly, including fundraising efforts, which have been accelerating even during the current “quiet phase” of a campaign. The Foundation is continuing to expand its Board of Trustees as part of its overall plan to secure the future of its educational activities and art collection.”

The township commission of Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, still isn’t prepared to just watch the Barnes Foundation walk away, and officials are proposing a series of zoning changes intended to convince the Barnes to scrap its planned move to Philadelphia. “Among the proposed changes are allowing the Barnes to be open to the public seven days in the summer (up from three), to take 50 walk-up visitors per day without reservations (up from zero), and to host school groups without reducing the number of allowable paying public visitors.” The Barnes isn’t saying whether it might be tempted by the proposal, but a spokesman has confirmed that the foundation has no immediate plans to break ground on its new home, so the door may be open.

Ex-Getty curator Marion True got a loan from two collectors only days after the Getty bought their collection. “True was a driving force behind the Getty’s 1996 acquisition of Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman’s 300-piece collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan artifacts, considered one of the finest private antiquities holdings in the world. The Getty paid $20 million for 32 pieces in the collection, and received the rest as a donation. Three days after the deal was closed, records show, Lawrence Fleischman agreed to lend True $400,000 with an interest rate of 8.25 %, market rate at the time.”

Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz has amassed a major art collection. “To date, no one has gone behind his collection to describe what he did to amass it early on. It’s a tale of ambition, greed and ego not only on his part but also on the part of those who did business with him. In the process, Ovitz helped change the art world for the worse by bringing the same ruthless tactics to SoHo and 57th Street that he’d used to rule Hollywood.”

Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Arts is on track and on time for next September’s opening of its much-anticipated new home on the city’s waterfront. “The new ICA, designed by the New York firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, will be marked by a distinctive glass cantilever that stretches out toward Boston’s harbor. Inside, it will feature a 325-seat theater and two-story educational center. The 65,000-square-foot museum will triple the ICA’s current exhibition space… ICA leaders hope the museum will transform an institution that’s been considered no match for its counterparts in other major cities.”

The businessman behind Swiss authorities’ seizure of 54 paintings from Moscow’s Pushkin State Museum this week has been trying to collect a debt from the Russian government for 14 years, and his “relentless legal assault on Russian assets abroad has previously been denounced… as “financial terrorism’… This is a man, after all, who once filed suit to seize President Vladimir V. Putin’s personal jet. In 2000, he impounded a Russian sailing ship in the French port of Brest, along with its crew, for 11 days. He nearly seized two Russian fighter jets at an air show in Paris a year later.”

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has officially taken its $100 million capital campaign out of the so-called “quiet phase,” having already raised $75 million from its wealthiest donors. “Part of the money will pay for a $50 million renovation and addition to the museum’s building, a nearly complete project designed by Michael Graves that is scheduled to open June 11, 2006. The additional $50 million will be invested as an endowment for the purchase of art, especially 20th-century objects.”

A 365-foot-long painting depicting the battle at Gettysburg is being restored in a mammoth conservation effort. “One part art and one part commercial venture when it opened in Boston in 1884, this colossal canvas, now in Gettysburg, has become as ragged as an old Army tent – worn, torn, sagging and covered in grime. Art conservators here are embarking on a $9 million federally financed project to restore vigor to a painting that has lost its visceral power. On Sunday the cyclorama and the sound-and-light show that brings it to life will close to visitors at the Gettysburg National Military Park for two years of renewal.”

The trial of former Getty curator Marion True opens in Italy Wednesday. American museums are anxiously watching the proceedings. “Making an example of the Getty trial will signal that ‘the age of trafficking in art pieces is over,’ the Italian culture minister, Rocco Buttiglione, said in an interview. ‘This isn’t about seeking revenge for the past. It’s about reclaiming property rights for Italy’.”