Category: visual

China’s rising prosperity has led to a boom in the market for Chinese art. “The boom has several causes. It is a product of an economy that has grown at more than 8% a year for two decades and also reflects a change in China as it rediscovers a passion for art. But with prices rising and hidden works becoming available, there are fears that a free market in art might be detrimental to China’s heritage.”

Museum audio guides are getting more and more sophisticated. “Changing expectations on the part of gallery-goers primed by a media-saturated society are prompting museums to demand Hollywood-style production values coupled with star power. If you can watch a movie on your phone and tote your entire music library in an iPod, why should your audio guide be any less entertaining?”

The British parliament is considering a bill that would make the return of Nazi-looted art easier. “The country’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport has begun consultations on the proposed bill, which would be limited to items taken between 1933 and 1945. The legislation was inspired by a situation at the British Museum, which had wanted to return four Old Master drawings to the family of Czech lawyer Arthur Feldman. The museum is stopped from doing so by the British Museum Act, which prevents it from dispersing anything in its collection.”

New York’s “Frick Collection has had difficulty breaking even in recent years – for the coming fiscal year, it projects a deficit of $400,000 – and Anne Poulet has been given the task of shaking up the place. Since her arrival in 2003, the museum has adopted the status of public charity; commissioned a major architectural study for an expansion and refurbishment; acquired three new board members; and reorganized its approach to fund-raising. She wants to make more acquisitions in sculpture and the decorative arts, areas in which she believes the museum has unheralded strengths and the market still offers good value. And she would like to set up a major study center for the history of private collecting in the United States at the Frick Art Reference Library. The library, also in the mansion, is considered one of the best, and most underexploited, resources of its kind.”

Organizers of the 2003 Prague Biennale had a fight. Now there are two Prague Biennales…

“Last Wednesday’s unveiling of the dazzling, but still-evolving 115-story hotel and condo tower marked a major milestone in an ongoing revolution: The skyscraper and the tall office building no longer are synonymous. For more than a century, they were. But as Calatrava’s design reveals, life and cities have changed and the skyscraper is free to adapt to those changes in stunning new ways. Though far from faultless, it is one of the freshest and most captivating skyscraper designs Chicago has seen in decades, fully taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the fact that it would be a place to live rather than work.”

Richard Serra’s new installation for Guggenheim Bilbao “is the 65-year-old American’s most ambitious project to date and one of the most extravagant single-artist sculptural installations in modern history. The Basque government agency that partnered with the Guggenheim to create the museum has again put its faith in the vision of Guggenheim director Thomas Krens, providing E15 million for the material and fabrication of seven new works. The ambitious project is intended to revitalise the eight-year-old museum that transformed the post-industrial port into a cultural destination through an act of museum-as-development now referred to as ‘the Bilbao effect’.”

“For those of us who have long advocated that forward-looking, inventive architecture and planning form the basis for good development, that they provide enhanced value and longevity, the selection of a design genius like Calatrava for an iconic project such as Fordham Spire should represent the fulfillment of a cherished ideal. Instead, it signals that developers now believe that today’s best-known architects not only sell condos, they sell financing. Developers are beginning to wave their architects around like letters of credit to get bankers on board, or like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to tame community boards and critics. Such newfound zeal for design can and should be a good thing, and we should applaud it. Unless it’s a pyramid scheme – and this slender, twisting triangle is a physical expression of such.”

“The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Salvador Dalí exhibit generated $55 million in economic activity in the Philadelphia region, created 830 equivalent full-time jobs, and added more than $4.46 million in increased tax revenue, according to a report.”

Why did the director/founder of Newfoundland’s provincial art gallery suddenly resign? “Gordon Laurin said he had objected to a proposed restructuring of gallery staff and management, including cutting staff by 40 per cent, to eight employees. This move would eliminate several key positions, leaving only two curators, two administrative assistants, and those who look after the collections. It would also see some staff, such as technical or outreach workers, reporting to different provincial departments including financing and marketing, diluting the gallery’s in-house ability to handle such processes as exhibit loans, or artist-in-residence programs, he said.”