Category: visual

Joseph Beuys was the greatest German artist of the 20th Century, writes Jonathan Jones. “Beuys was very articulate – almost too articulate – about the meanings of his performances, sculptures, installations and drawings. He was a charismatic man, dressed always the same, in his felt hat and hunter’s or angler’s waistcoat. And he said his art was about the rediscovery of Eurasian origins, the translation and storage of essential energies, the spiritual properties of fat… he spoke to a dead hare, he lived in a cage with a coyote. On the face of it, he was a prophet of the New Age, and his art, on that reckoning, ought to be gobbledegook.”

Collector Charles Saatchi has been selling off his BritArt stable and declared painting king once again. Really? “Does Saatchi really believe the claim publicity material makes – that painting continues to be ‘the most relevant and vital way that an artist can communicate’ in an age of video, photography and so forth? In which case, it would seem odd to inaugurate his triumphant year of painting with works made so long ago as to be anything but present in tense. Or is he just taking advantage of the current economic revival to make good in the secondary art market?”

The American dollar’s slide against other currencies has apparently sparked a push by European art institutions to reacquire some of the countless works which had been bought up by American collectors over the decades. “The weak dollar offers European buyers some remarkable bargains. At Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in New York, a Botticelli sold for the equivalent of £246,000. Sources said Italians were particularly active buyers. Italy having produced so much good art, there are plenty of works for Italians to repatriate.”

Harvard University’s art collection is the envy of museums worldwide, comprising more than 250,000 pieces. But having that much art is one thing: finding the space to display, or even to store it all is another matter entirely. For the recently arrived chief of the university’s museum system, keeping the collection intact and secure is becoming a major challenge, especially with much of the available gallery space in desperate need of new climate-control technology and other upgrades.

Greenwich, Connecticut “is the last place… that you would expect to find a major Vermeer on loan from Europe, or several roomfuls of works by Rubens – or, for that matter, hard-core Manhattanites on an art pilgrimage.” But in the last four years, Greenwich’s Bruce Museum of Art & Science has transformed itself into a major player in the East Coast art scene, under the stewardship of director Peter Sutton, who has mounted high-profile exhibits previously though to be beyond the Bruce’s reach. “At the same time, playing on Greenwich’s reputation for private wealth, he has provocatively embraced the art market, organizing exhibitions showcasing high-end private art collections – and even artworks currently for sale.”

As famed UK art collector Charles Saatchi revamps his collection and turns his focus away from the cutting-edge conceptual art with which he has been identified for fifteen years, many in the art world have begun to wonder exactly what drives the enigmatic Saatchi’s tastes. “Some art critics have long accused Mr. Saatchi of being more dealer than collector, less art lover than marketing genius who exhibits his collection to increase its value… In the 1980’s he built up a major collection of postwar American and European art. He then sold it at great profit and channeled his resources into a new generation of British artists.”

“An exhibition inspired by the radical leftist Red Army Faction, loathed by many for its violent attacks in the 1970’s and 80’s yet lionized by some, opens Saturday amid angry debate over the romanticization of terrorism. Critics accuse the organizers of glorifying the guerrilla group’s campaign of bomb attacks, kidnappings and assassinations, which left more than 30 people dead. Curators and artists, however, defend the show as a subtle exploration of the ways images can traumatize a society.”

“More than 23 years ago, an artist with a growing international reputation for public art made a brief stop in Allentown, [Pennsylvania] to grace the west wall of a popular downtown gathering place with a light sculpture. With much fanfare he strung together 35 galvanized steel bars, etched to catch the rays of the sun and reflect them in an ever-changing prism. Over time, the downtown struggled and the restaurant closed [and] officials made plans to tear down the former Good Spirit eatery and replace it with shiny new offices.” Dale Eldred’s sculpture very nearly went down with the building, but now, thanks to the tireless efforts of a city official, the work has been preserved, and will be moved to a prominent position on Allentown’s new Arts Walk.

Philadelphia Mayor John Street proposes big reductions in the city’s support of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “Street’s austerity budget proposes to cut city support for the Philadelphia Museum of Art by $250,000 to $1.75 million. City funding for the art museum provides for security and maintenance. By 2010, under the mayor’s proposed five-year financial plan, city support would be scaled back to $500,000. Art museum officials called the proposed cuts a “major setback” and noted that there already had been a 7 percent reduction in staff and elimination of Wednesday-evening programs due to city funding cuts last year.”

New York’s Whitney Museum has a new expansion plan. It calls for a new, nine-story building just a few feet south of the current museum. “The new plan, by Italian designer Renzo Piano, is “more moderate” than previous iterations, said Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director. “What we want to do is balance the needs of preservation and the needs of the neighborhood with making great architecture,” he said. Piano’s design calls for demolishing two brownstones next to the museum, and using that space for a new entrance that would feed onto a plaza.”