Category: visual

Art is touted as the great investment now as the market soars and stocks settle. But “the art trade is the last major unregulated market. And while it always involved large sums of money, there was never the level of trading and investing that we have now.”

Ned Rifkin is giving up directorship of the Hirshhorn Museum to concentrate on running the Smithsonian. Taking for the Hirshhorn is deputy director Olga Viso. “Viso, 38, a Florida native whose parents emigrated from Cuba, joined the museum’s curatorial department 10 years ago as an expert on contemporary Latin American art. She became curator of contemporary art five years later, and stepped up to the role of deputy director of the Hirshhorn in 2003. She previously worked for the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla., and holds a master’s degree from Emory University.”

Gilbert and George are no longer young. They still think of themselves as outsiders, even as they represent the UK at this summer’s Venice Biennale. “They claim to have sold only two pieces to British collectors in the past 15 years. Saatchi wasn’t having any. They complain that the Tate won’t hang the little they’ve got. But in Venice, one of the most important Italian collectors will be hosting a dinner in honour of the duo.”

Although the Tasmanian Government will add $4 million to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s annual budget over the next four years, the institution is in danger of becoming a target for dodgy donations according to well-placed art experts.” Case in point: a donated collection of Chinese artifacts that may not be what they seem…

The Chicago Art Institute unveils a major addition designed by Renzo Piano. “The Art Institute will present the design in conjunction with the formal groundbreaking for the new $258 million building, which is to rise in the northeast quadrant of the museum’s site, at the corner of Monroe Street and Columbus Drive. The addition will increase the institute’s size by one third and is to be completed in the spring of 2009.”

Eighteen American museums are looking for directors. “As this leadership shift takes place in the museum world, we can expect big changes in how collecting institutions operate. After several years of controversy over what the mission of museums should be and, in some cases, even outright ethical scandal, there’s good reason to hope that trustees will actively seek out directors who make institutional integrity their first priority.”

Why should the public care about museums? Met director Phillipe de Montebello takes a whack at an answer: “The fact is, in the rooms of our museums are preserved things that are far more than just pretty pictures. These works of art, embodying and expressing with graphic force the deepest aspirations of a time and place, are direct, primary evidence for the study and understanding of mankind.”

The Barnes move to Philadelphia is a coup for the city. Pew Trusts president Rebecca Rimmel: “We had two primary objectives: to make sure the foundation was on secure financial footing and to make sure the art and the education programs were accessible. We could have just given money to solve the first problem, but that would have done nothing for the second…. This is a public asset, something to make Philadelphia even more paramount in art.”

Record auction prices for Canadian art fuel a brisk market for the resale of Canadian paintings.

“Few famous architects had sullied their hands with stadiums before Herzog and de Meuron did so in Basle (for the club they support, FC Basle) and Munich. They are still building Beijing’s Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Games. All this signals a new era: stadiums are becoming keynote urban buildings, as cathedrals were in the Middle Ages and opera houses more recently. When Norman Foster’s new Wembley opens in 2006, it will be his first stadium in more than 40 years in architecture.”