Category: visual

Radio 4 has posted the top ten contenders in its poll picking the greatest painting in Britain. Any painting hanging in a British collection is eligible, regardless of its country of origin.

So Britons are picking the best art in Britain. What kind of exercise is this? “Cognoscenti may dismiss the list as the work of a country that does not know much about art but knows what it likes on a nice birthday card. Populists may hail it as a triumph of popular taste over critics, conceptualists and postmodernists. And regionalists may regret that only two of the works on the list are in galleries outside London.”

Is the UK’s Channel 4 show “Demolition” one of the dumber shows ever aired? The show has viewers vote on their most-hated building, and the show promises to buy the building and tear it down. “How can you seriously argue that, when heading the list of ‘vile’ buildings scheduled for consideration by the demolition jury, is the new Scottish parliament? The same parliament, designed by the late Enric Miralles, that is currently hot favourite to win this year’s Stirling Prize as the best building in Britain. Whose life is going to be made better if the Scottish parliament is demolished? And how do Channel 4 think that they are going to demolish it anyway, should it win?”

“The case against Channel 4’s Demolition is clear. This programme is a crude way of bringing what is supposed to be an informed debate on the state of contemporary architecture to a mass audience. Yet all it really does is pander to the shamefully destructive spirit that lurks somewhere in all of us.”

More than “50 artists, galleries and collectors are suing the art storage and shipping company Momart, following the disastrous fire in their East London warehouse on 24 May 2004. Total claims are expected to amount to around £20 million.”

Recent attention on the condition of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in LA have preservationists hoping that Angelenos will decide “that care of the buildings is a civic responsibility. But in a city where distinctive architecture has been overwhelmingly driven by the resources of affluent owners, it is no easy task. For one thing, while the city’s popular midcentury modern houses have come to represent a way of life that is appealing to many wealthy people, Wright’s crumbling concrete buildings, remain an acquired taste. They bear little resemblance to his earlier and later work, and none of them were designed for conventional family living.”

At the end of World War II, the Nazis used military trucks for months and months to dump in crate after crate of stolen art, money and treasure into Austria’s Lake Toplitz. “The Nazis eventually commissioned locals to do the deed, bringing the crates by oxcart, transports which occurred more and more frequently in the frantic last days of the war.” While some of the treasure was recovered after the war, much is still there, and authorities are now worried that repeated search missions are harming the lake.

An art student painted 20 unauthorized portraits of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Hoping to raise some money, he put them on sale in a gallery in Sag Harbor. “From the moment the Greenspan images appeared, people began wandering in off the street to gaze at the paintings, which capture the Fed chairman’s face in a variety of expressions ranging from exasperation to perplexity to mirthful amusement. Titles of the works include “If You Say So,” “I Gotta Tell Ya” and “Humpf.” Several visitors to the gallery bought paintings, telling stories of how they adored the Fed chairman, how he had saved the world and made them millions.”

Added security at Italian cultural sites is causing higher admission fees and longer waits to get in. “At the Uffizi, the first site where security was tightened after the deadly London bombings on July 7, the new measures are prompting crowds to turn away. The thousands who brave long lines and summer heat to glimpse Botticelli’s Birth of Venus have found the wait is getting longer because of metal detectors and a limit of 780 visitors allowed inside at a time. Ticket sales fell by 11 percent at the Uffizi in July, but rose by 1 percent at all of Florence’s museums combined.”

London has pulled aheaad of New York in art sales. “London racked up a 38.2-per-cent share (or $854 million)of the $2.23-billion of fine art sold by Sotheby’s Holdings Inc., Christie’s International and other houses between Jan. 1 and July 18, Artprice said in an e-mailed report. New York sales in the period totalled $833-million or 37.3 per cent of the total, which rose 10.2 per cent from a year earlier, it said.”