Category: visual

A collection of 22 Rodin sculptures valued at $25 million is to be given to the Raleigh-based North Carolina Museum of Art as part of a major donation from the Cantor Foundation. The museum will house the collection in a new $75-million wing it plans to build, and will establish a companion study center.

The four artworks shortlisted for the Turner Prize are being sent on a tour of rail stations. “A mini-tour of UK train stations will give travellers the chance to comment on the works vying for the big prize. Commuters will be able to write their thoughts on the work – good or bad – on a giant wall.”

A Rome prosecutor is said to have offered reduced jail time to an antiquities smuggler if he would testify against big museums like the Metropolitan and MFA. “If you accuse the Metropolitan and Getty and the Berlin Museum, Boston, Cleveland, Copenhagen and Munich — one piece each – – I can make this go away,” prosecutor Paolo Ferri said two weeks ago, according to the smuggler, Giacomo Medici.

“Car parks are architectural scum, lower down architecture’s evolutionary scale than Travelodges. If your nearest [parking garage] was demolished you’d no more bat an eyelid than if you’d stood on a cockroach… Sounds like just the job for Rem Koolhaas, who likes nothing better than a bit of Modernist dystopia to turn on its head. In theory, with all those spirals, all that concrete, a car park should be a gift for an architect. Koolhaas has been busy regenerating Almere, a faded Dutch Alphaville from the 1950s, though not for the trim, cappuccino-sipping bike riders that give most modern urban planners wet dreams. Koolhaas is rebuilding his new new town around that great modern evil: the car.”

“Over the past two decades, the Impressionist and modern art market has seen demand reach dizzying heights and then collapse, and supply fluctuate from feast to famine. But last week it had a solid, confident air as buyers spent almost £165 million at Christie’s and Sotheby’s main New York sales. Helped by a bumper crop of estate sales and the controversial decision of several American museums to sell works to fund new purchases, there was plenty to tempt buyers, who reacted enthusiastically.”

When the UK’s new culture minister approached the “comments board” for this year’s Turner Prize finalists, he was surely remembering the uproar that ensued three years ago, when then-minister Kim Howells scrawled a profane condemnation of the prize and its organizers, sparking a general uproar (and quite a bit of muttered support from a public that had grown to loathe the conceptual art-heavy Turner.) There can be no question that current minister David Lammy did not repeat Howells’ mistake. But in his caution, he may have forgotten to say anything at all.

“Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis likes motorcycles and rock stars, lavish parties and jewels. She is known among the international jet set as the ‘punk princess’ who collects contemporary art. But sometimes, she cleans house. Last night she put 50 works by some of today’s trendiest artists – including Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman and Paul McCarthy – up for sale at Phillips, dePury & Company… The sale totaled $6.3 million, [but] art dealers familiar with her collection say she has held on to the best work.”

“Art Exhibitions Australia began 25 years ago with $1 million from government and orders not to come back for more. Charged with bringing international art to Australia, it has staged 57 exhibitions – the latest being Dutch Masters – and attracted more than 10 million visitors. With a total turnover of $130 million, it has raised $42 million in sponsorships, started a million-dollar foundation, and has an enviable $9.5 million in reserves… Naturally, then, it has a cache of variously motivated critics,” and many in the Australian art world say that the AEA has outlived its usefulness.

Dada stands as one of the strangest art movements of the 20th century, rising from humble beginnings to embrace grotesquery as a reflection of the violence and desperation of the era. “When we look at the remains of Dada, we see the 20th century with its skin peeled off. Surrealism was to reject Dada in favour of something supposedly less gestural. Yet Dada spoke the truth.”

It’s a fairly well-known fact that Adolf Hitler started out as an artist. It’s also fairly well known that he wasn’t a very good one. But that hasn’t stopped the market for authentic Hitler artworks from booming. “Isn’t the business of collecting the personal effects of Nazis – even their artwork – rather questionable?” Of course it is, and most art dealers won’t go near the stuff. But for the “narrow band” of collectors who are interested, price (and geo-political baggage) seem to be no object.