Category: visual

Five long-tenured employees have been laid off from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., as a result of what the museum’s director says are serious budget concerns. The firings came out of the blue, and the decision to go ahead with a staff reorganization was apparently that of the director alone, who says that belts have been tightening all over the Smithsonian. The museum has 32 remaining employees.

The Cleveland Museum of Art has laid off six employees, including a paintings curator with 18 years service time, as it prepares to close for several years during a $258 million expansion and renovation. “The number of employees at the museum now stands at 370, down from more than 500 before an earlier and more extensive round of layoffs in 2003 meant to bring the museum’s budget in line… The museum complex will be largely closed during construction, but will start reopening in phases beginning in the fall of 2007. Special exhibitions and other programs will continue, with the exception of a complete shutdown in the first six months of 2006.”

“Over the past decade, the contemporary art market in Australia has exploded, and it’s not only corporations who are buying. An art market analyst, Michael Reid, says 1.3 per cent of the population were buying art 10 years ago – now roughly 5 per cent are purchasing. While a burgeoning market can be an enormously positive thing, in that it encourages diversity in the art market and introduces Australians to art, the dollars do not necessarily trickle down to the majority of artists, especially riskier, less-marketable artists.”

While restoring the old Hudson Theatre in Times Square, workers find some hidden Tiffany. “The restoration of the landmark theater, now part of the Millennium Broadway Hotel conference center, began in November. Although the triple-domed stained-glass ceiling in the green marble lobby was known to be the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the discovery of turquoise, orange and mauve mosaic tiles by the glass designer around the stage arch, box seats, balconies, and columns was unexpected.”

Just 24 hours after a Canaletto painting sells at auction for a record price, another of the Italian painter’s works breaks open that record. “View of the Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi” was expected to fetch up to £8 million, but instead sold for £18.6m – breaking a world record set just 24 hours earlier.

“In the realm of postminimalism, what happens when we compare Smithson to Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, and Ana Mendieta? Who wins? Richard Serra is, these days, way beyond postminimalism with his magnificent rolled-steel sculptures. Hesse, as much as we like her work, did not have Smithson’s cosmic ambition; only Mendieta did, but she was not as early in the game as Smithson. And the other so-called Earth Artists? They made a few good examples, here and there. But what are their ideas?”

Heightened sensitivity to the cultural origins of artifacts is hurting museums, writes Tiffany Jenkins. “Public access, research possibilities and academic freedom are being curtailed and closed down. In the US, at the new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, material is removed and segregated if the objects are sacred or have ceremonial status. Some may be seen only by certain privileged individuals in a specific tribe. The public may thus view only some of the material held in what is supposed to be a national collection.”

It’s tough to get past the irony of calling a monolithic, fear-inspired fortress the Freedom Tower, and John King says that the revamped design is not only a disappointment, but a betrayal of the resilient spirit shown by New Yorkers in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks. “In the 45 months since terrorists slaughtered 2,749 people and toppled the tallest towers in New York, the 16-acre site has mirrored too closely the national response to the changed world scene. The first year brought a resilient courage that suggested New York and the United States might rise from the tragedy in stirring new ways. But since then, the original impulses that united people across cultural and political spectrums have been muddied beyond recognition.”

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is hiking its admission prices as much as 29%, beginning in August. The general admission fee will rise to $12, which puts the museum in the same range as the Art Institute of Chicago, but still well below higher fees at major museums in New York and Boston.

Iraq’s cultural minister says Saddam Hussein’s former palaces will be turned into cultural centers. “The 170 palaces of the former dictator will be turned into cultural centers and will be used by the Iraqi public and visitors.”