Category: visual

New York City offisicals say the Central Park “Gates” added $250 million of revenue into the city’s economy in the two weeks the project was up. “Hotel occupancy around the park jumped to 87 per cent during the two weeks, compared to 73 per cent the same time last February, and many stores, restaurants and other services in the area compared the crowds to those that gather during the holiday season.”

One of the Ukraine’s richest men wants to build a museum of contemporay art. But the country’s new president wants to build a historical museum on the same site. “Whether the government’s actions are motivated by animus for the controversial Pinchuk, or whether this is simply an honest misunderstanding and conflict between opposing visions, the government should reverse tack and let the businessman build his museum. First of all, Kyiv needs a museum of forward-looking contemporary art more than it needs a historical-cultural museum that, valuable as it may be, will inevitably be backward-looking.”

American scientists are collaborating with Chinese counterparts to study the effects of pollution on the terra-cotta warriors in Xian. “Based on continuous observation of the pollution and studies onthe change and chemical reaction mechanism of corrosive gas, aerated solids and dust, researchers will work out an evaluation report on the mechanism of pollutants’ corrosion on the rare cultural relics.

There are very few legal statutes regarding the return of stolen art appropriated by the Nazis. While court rulings decide the fate of some, the majority of cases are fought on moral and ethical grounds and many victims of the Third Reich base their cases on emotional pleas.

Sir Henry Raeburn’s “The Skating Reverend” may be the country’s version of the Mona Lisa. It is seen by many as one of the finest paintings by a Scottish artist in existence, but controversial new research has suggested that it is not in fact Raeburn’s at all, but that of a little known French artist called Henri-Pierre Danloux.”

Time for the annual Maastricht European Fine Art Fair. Prices keep going up as the supply of Old Masters goes down. “Old masters have appreciated about 17 percent since October 2003 after a 30 percent drop in the previous five years, according to Art Market Research’s index of the 25 percent most expensive works sold at auction. The top-priced old master is owned by billionaire Ken Thomson, who paid 49.5 million pounds ($76 million at the time) for Peter Paul Rubens’s “Massacre of the Innocents” at a London auction in July 2002.”

Art has always been a popular preoccupation amongst Wall Street’s more successful high rollers, and a new generation of newly minted billionaires is making a significant mark on the collecting scene. In fact, some of the most aggressive specimens amongst the new breed of collectors are willing to pay almost any price for a piece they’ve set their sights on, and that is leading to accusations that such newcomers are creating an artificially inflated market for high-end art, and purchasing works more as trophies than anything else.

Shouldn’t blind people have art too? “Sense & Sensuality, at the Royal College of Art, is the first in a planned annual art competition and exhibition open equally to sighted and unsighted artists and launched by the new charity BlindArt. The charity has ambitious plans for a permanent national collection of art which can be stroked and listened to as well as looked at, equally enjoyable to sighted and blind and indeed to anyone in a wheelchair or with a disability that can make visiting galleries a nightmare.”

A new art magazine is launching in China. Called “Art”, it will (promises its editors) be full of articles that “will be neutral and objective on the assessment of art works, while closely monitoring the movements of art market.” Will it be readable? “The magazine will adopt a simple and vivid style,” we’re assured.

UK police have busted an art theft ring responsible for millions of pounds of art thefts from homes and galleries in the past few years. Two men and a woman have been arrested and half a million pounds worth of stolen art recovered from the Flogg It auction house in east London and several other premises. But art worth some 30 million pounds taken in thefts over the past two years was still missing.”