Category: visual

Turkey plans to go ahead with a controversial dam that theatens to submerge important historical sites. “If the dam goes ahead the whole town will be submerged with the exception of the citadel, perched on top of the cliffs. Among the losses will be the Sultan Suleiman Mosque, the minaret of which is one of the most outstanding examples of early 15th-century Ayyubid architecture; the cylindrical tomb of Zeynel Bey, a rare example of Central Asian style architecture in Anatolia; and the tomb of the holy Imam Abdullah, grandson of Cafer-i Tayyar, uncle of the prophet Mohammed, a shrine visited by about 30,000 Shia pilgrims each year.”

“The British government has quietly dropped plans for a database of stolen art and antiquities, although this was a key element in helping to enforce a new law. The Dealing in Cultural Objects Act came into force at the beginning of 2004, and the government then advised dealers that consulting the projected database should be part of the “due diligence” process, to help establish that they were not knowingly handling tainted objects.”

How should a museum mark the occasion when it’s about to shut its doors for renovation? The Art Gallery of Ontario thinks it knows: “Leading with an elite squad of eight paintball marks-people, the Argentinean-born artist [Fabian Marcaccio] is coating part of the east and west walls of the AGO’s George Weston Hall tonight for 30 minutes starting at 9:15 p.m. with an impressionistic palette of blues, whites and magentas. The instant painting ends at 9:45 p.m. But it will still be drying and fading when the space closes permanently to make way for architect Frank Gehry’s massive reconstruction of the entire gallery.” The public is invited, and the whole gooey spectacle will be accompanied by an original score for trumpets and percussion.

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s decision to close many of its galleries over the next three years as it readies for a major expansion is a risky one, but the museum is hoping to stay visible in the city through a program of neighborhood events. “While the museum plans to hold off-site programs, concerts and performances through the fall and winter, it has no specific information yet on where those events will take place.” The $258 million expansion will require the entire museum to be closed for almost two years.

Congo was a chimpanzee who painted. Picasso owned one of his works, as did Miro. “Now, for the first time, three Congos have come on to the open market and will be auctioned alongside works by Renoir, Andy Warhol and the Chapman Brothers at Bonhams in London this month. The pictures, created with tempera on paper, are from the artist’s most productive period in the late 1950s. They are estimated to be worth between £600 and £800 for the three, but such has been the interest already that they may well fetch much more.”

UK researchers say that public taste in art has gone through a dramatic change. It appears that the public is more interested in designer art than that found in museums. “Indeed, it appears, the popularity of famous artists makes them less appealing because people want their homes to look individual and do not want the same picture as their neighbours. When talking to people, Alison Kidd found being “fresh” and “individual” was more important than fame or quality.

“Belgium is known to be a key transit point of stolen art in Europe. And its bad reputation for tackling the problem has yet again been slammed in ‘La Collection egoiste’ (The Egoist’s Collection), by Liberation journalist Vincent Noce. Noce highlights just how active the ‘art mafia’ is in the country, French-language daily La Libre Belgique reported on Thursday.”

A Corcoran student stands outside the gallery with nothing. It’s a performance piece: “The piece began in January when Melissa Ichiuji started giving up things: coffee, television, soda and medication, followed in February by fast food and alcohol. As the seasons changed, she gave up cosmetics and chocolate, meat and magazines. Since the beginning of May, she’s had: no newspapers, no music, no mirrors, no cell phone, no e-mail, no driving, no sex, no books, no family or friends or running water. No appliances, no speech, no clocks, no shoes, no food, no shelter. The idea is to let go of things that matter to the woman as a meditation on what matters most to the artist and, by extension, the audience.”

It’s official – plans for anything having to do with whatever replaces the World Trade Center are a big compromised mess. “Bit by bit, elements of Michael Arad’s original design for the World Trade Center Memorial have been whittled away, whether because of logistical realities at ground zero (the memorial will be built above PATH train tracks), client demands (the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is calling the shots), the many other interests involved (the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site; victims’ families; downtown residents) or the assorted architectural cooks (three other firms).”

What has Tate Modern meant to London in its five years? “Today London is acknowledged to be the centre of the art world, a role that once belonged to Paris and then New York. No other city comes near us for the number and quality of its exhibitions, contemporary art galleries, and important young artists. Maybe all that isn’t entirely due to the existence of Tate Modern, but a lot of it is.”