Category: visual

The new $70 million Walker Art Center addition takes architectural chances. “Like much modern art, the 130,000-square-foot addition that opens April 17 takes a provocative stand. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland, its one-story glass-clad wing is topped by a six-story rumpled cube wrapped with squares of perforated metal mesh.”

The US Secret Service is investigating an art exhibit at Columbia College in Chicago. “Two federal agents arrived at the exhibit’s opening night Thursday, took photos of some of the works and asked for the artists’ contact information. The agents were most interested in Chicago artist Al Brandtner’s work titled “Patriot Act,” which depicted a sheet of mock 37-cent red, white and blue stamps showing a handgun pointed at Bush’s head.”

“Lackluster modern architecture in Rome is so pervasive that even the Italian government is doing its part to spark a revival. The Senate is examining legislation to promote better urban architecture after decades of economic expedience and careless design. The movement’s centerpiece is Maxxi, the first national contemporary art museum. The 60-million-euro project was designed by Ms. Hadid, an Iraqi-born architect who has lived in London since 1972 and is known for her daring designs.”

David Rockefeller has given the Museum of Modern Art $100 million for its endowment. “Mr. Rockefeller said the gift was intended to shore up public programs at the Modern, which just completed an ambitious $858 million expansion that more than doubled its size. Mr. Rockefeller, who is 89, said the museum would receive the money after his death. In the meantime, he said, he would give the Modern $5 million a year as if the money were already invested in the endowment.”

The Art Institute of Chicago is acquiring land next to its current building so it can build a 230,000 square foot addition. “Art Institute officials last year placed the cost of the addition at $198 million, more than half of which they had already raised. They also planned to raise another $87 million for an endowment for the addition, which according to district documents will house modern, contemporary, Asian, Islamic and architectural collections. About 65,000 square feet would be dedicated to gallery space and another 15,300 square feet will be dedicated to educational programs.”

The Mona Lisa gets a new gallery home of her own, and crowds throng to the Louvre. “The Mona Lisa is not so much “hung” on its special wall as set, like a jewel, within it. With its stylishly brushed sgraffito surroundings, at once bare and luxurious, and its solitary magnificence behind glass, it’s for all the world like a watch in Cartier’s window. You need to be in the right frame of mind, but you can, for the first time in my memory, get a decent acquaintance with the Mona Lisa. Intimacy, even. So it’s finally possible to ask yourself critically: is she worth it?”

If you can have a Poet Laureate write verse for official events, why not commission an artist to record an election? That’s exactly what the British Parliament has done. “The artist, who was commissioned by an all-party parliamentary committee to present a unique portrait of Britain en route to the polls, will spend the next three weeks on the stump with politicians and plans to travel on both opposition battle buses. He is struggling to get access to Tony Blair’s strictly-controlled entourage, however.”

Scientists are opposing a bill in the US Congress that would “allow federally recognized tribes to claim ancient remains even if they cannot prove a link to a current tribe.” That could block study of the ancient Kennewick man. “Scientists fear that the bill, if enacted, could end up overturning a federal appeals court ruling that allows them to study the 9,300-year-old skeleton, one of the oldest ever found in North America. The skeleton was discovered in 1996 along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash., and has been the focus of a bitter nine-year fight.”

The New York Public Library has decided to sell some of its art work so it can compete better in buying books, manuscripts and other works on paper and bolster its endowment. “Sotheby’s, which has been retained by the library, estimates that the works will sell for $50 million to $75 million. The transactions will be handled either privately or by public auction.”

The bigger Walker Arts Center is attempting to reinvent itself while it expands. “The Walker seems to be one of the few places in the world that tries tackling the progressive element of each art form. The MOMA doesn’t do that, the Guggenheim doesn’t do that, the Whitney doesn’t do that.”