Category: visual

“For the third time in just 10 months, it was being opened to the public. There was no royal presence this time, and no speeches, just a cluster of anxious park officials keeping an eye open for downpours, the wrong kind of leaves, paddling infants, tourists dropping litter and roaming stray dogs. They were desperate that this time it was all going to work and that there would not have to be yet another unscheduled closure.”

Rem Koolhaas has built a new concert hall in Portugal. It’s a building that challenges the concert hall norms. “Koolhaas keeps his concert hall at arm’s length. Its pleasures — derived from the architect’s wry brand of invention when it comes to form-making, structure and circulation — are no less impressive for their unmistakable detachment. To sit in its auditorium, a hard-edged, hangar-like space, is to consider the question of whether music can sound lovely or fully resolved in a space that works so hard to avoid appearing that way architecturally.”

“Tate Modern is five years old next week. By any terms, it is a success. In fact, it often feels swamped by its own popularity. Since it opened in May 2000, almost 22 million visitors will have passed through its doors, double the number originally estimated. They thought they had a museum. Instead, they have a tourist attraction.”

Architect Daniel Libeskind has been whisked into San Francisco to drum up interest in his design for the city’s new Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the PR process may be more interesting than the eventual result. “The Contemporary Jewish Museum is about something else: the way that building designs evolve in an era when so-called starchitects are public figures. An institution hiring an architect of Libeskind’s stature acquires a recognizable look; in this case, buildings that from some angles appear to have been carved by bolts of lightning… But in today’s world of powerful computers and constant travel, the gap has never been greater between how noted architects are perceived — and the design work they actually do.”

In what could be viewed as either an attempt to restore public confidence in New York’s massive Ground Zero reconstruction project, or the continuing erosion of said confidence, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki have publicly endorsed the security-based redesign of the proposed Freedom Tower. “People involved in the rebuilding processs say that the tower, unveiled 18 months ago as the product of a contentious collaboration between two world-famous architects, is likely to lose its signature twisting form, along with its distinctive spire – a conscious reflection and reply to the Statue of Liberty’s upraised arm in New York harbor. Mr. Pataki, his aides and others stressed, however, that the Freedom Tower would not be reduced to an unsightly, fortress-like bunker, and that it would be built on the same general location planners had long ago settled on.”

“A sculpture by Romanian Constantin Brancusi has broken the world auction record for a sculpture by fetching $27,456,000. Brancusi’s Bird in Space, a marble piece depicting a bird soaring into the sky, was sold by Christie’s New York to an anonymous buyer on Wednesday. The previous record was for another work by Brancusi called Danaide, which was sold for $18.1m in May 2002.”

The Brancusi sale was only the main highlight of a stunning night of art sales at Christie’s in New York, as the auction season appeared to come to life on the back of a single event. The auction went a long way towards restoring the confidence of art insiders, who had blanched after a disappointing showing at Sotheby’s the previous night. “Compare the results: Christie’s sale totaled $142.8 million, far above its low estimate of $111.2 million but not quite reaching its high estimate, $149.6 million. Of the 59 lots offered, only 7 failed to sell. Sotheby’s sale totaled $91.2 million, after a low estimate of $127.3 million, with 20 of the 65 lots unsold.”

Police have nabbed a fourth suspect in the brazen theft of Edvard Munch’s classic painting, The Scream, arresting the man at his job in suburban Oslo. The paintings stolen from the city’s Munch Museum have yet to be recovered, and media speculation has raised the possibility that the works were burned. Police officials deny that this is the case, and insist that they are still hopeful that the art can be recovered.

“Chinese officials have asked the United States government to share responsibility for the depletion of Chinese artifacts in the country by imposing restrictions on the import to the U.S. of all cultural property over 95 years old. They argue that huge demand in the United States for China’s rich cultural heritage is the root cause for increased looting and smuggling of artifacts and works of art. China is not the first country to ask the United States to impose import restrictions on antiquities. The controversy surrounding China’s request stems from the fact that the list of items presented to U.S. customs authorities as imports to be prohibited is far more sweeping than current restrictions on export of cultural items from the country.”