Category: visual

GAteshead’s Baltic gallery opened in 2002 with great fanfare and high hopes. But “the Baltic has become the safely provincial test bed of the wannabe cutting-edgers. You know the kind of thing: formulaic novelty and predictable, in-your-face transgression, not to mention those darkened rooms containing videos that render visitors comatose. Fair enough, Bill Viola is a master, but how about the others? If the Baltic’s programme of institutional avant-gardism has been underwhelming, its managerial record has been abysmal.”

A planned Alexander Calder museum in Philadelphia has died. “Both the state and the proposed museum’s major financial backer have withdrawn their support for the project. The proposed museum was to have been a permanent home for about 100 artworks, mostly those of Alexander (Sandy) Calder, a Philadelphia-area born sculptor famous for whimsical mobiles and steel sculptures.”

New Orleans artists talk about what they lost and how Katrina will change their work. “The imagery has to change; it’s inevitable. I was always interested in the street life, the poor and what is at the root of that lifestyle. Now my concern is that New Orleans will become a middle-class city. The whole landscape of American art is in the process of upheaval. Between 9/11 and Katrina, I am seeing artists dealing with history. When I was at school we were concerned primarily with form. Now that’s all changed.”

Project after project has been foiled at the site of the old World Trade Center. “On this anniversary weekend, it may be time to face up to what few have wanted to acknowledge: that nothing of value can be built at ground zero while the anguish and anxiety remain so fresh – nor while political and economic forces are eager to exploit those emotions.”

How do you describe the art of a sprawling country like Russia in a single exhibition. The Guggenheim attempts to negotiate the premise…

“Deep racial and class divisions aside, New Orleans is one of the few places in America that, in the best sense, looks its age. Though it is unusually vulnerable to natural disaster, nearly all of its neighborhoods have managed to avoid the urban renewal and crass commercial projects that have taken their toll elsewhere. This is partly due to the intractable poverty here, which has made great sections of New Orleans unattractive to national developers, and partly to a long-standing preservation movement. Katrina, in other words, has managed to do to this city what a wrecking ball never could.”

Does Britain’s major deal with China to trade archaeological treasures damage Tibet’s culture? “By lending their prestigious names to the Chinese government, the British Museum and others implicitly sanction Beijing’s cultural policy and, with it, the ongoing artistic, linguistic and religious genocide in Tibet. Over the past 10 years, mainland China has rediscovered its pre-communist past. The iconoclastic modernism of the Great Leap Forward has been replaced by official respect for China’s ancient civilisation. But this admiration for heritage has come too late for the people of Tibet.”

Fresh off the success of polling for Britain’s greatest painting, producers intend to export the idea worldwide. “Voters will be asked to discriminate between Picasso and Pollock, Botticelli and Bosch, in the latest manifestation of the trend to popularise high culture by applying the voting principles of Big Brother. The global success of television formats such as Pop Idol, Big Brother and Strictly Come Dancing has shown an appetite for interactive entertainment formats that can be replicated internationally.”

Tate director Nicholas Serota has big plans for the Tate. “He plans a radical unseating of painting and sculpture from their positions as the “king and queen” of art. In addition, he aims to create a Tate that “does not appear monocultural” but reflects a “broader British society, in all its richness”. His ambition also includes representing the full depth of contemporary life, such as club culture.”

A group of 9/11 families rallies against plans for a Freedom Center Museum at the site of the World Trade Center in New York. “Family members worry the International Freedom Center will take attention away from those who died in the attack. They said the museum should not be allowed to show exhibits about struggles for freedom around the world. ‘These are important stories to tell. Elsewhere, not at America’s memorial’.”