Category: visual

Aboriginal groups are contemplating suing British museums to force them to return ancestral remains. “Many British institutions have been returning body parts over the past decade, but several of the largest and most prestigious, such as London’s Museum of Natural History and Duckworth Laboratory in Cambridge, continue to refuse to release remains.”

Fairbanks, Alaska’s Museum of the North is expanding, hoping to generate some Bilbao-type publicity in the hopes of becoming a tourist destination. “Other museums that have created what we call signature buildings have experienced the same ‘Bilbao effect,’ where the building becomes a destination. I said, ‘We really need to do this because we need to get tourists here in the summer to help us pay our bills.”‘

Over the strong objections of prosecutors, a Manhattan judge yesterday sentenced a Whitney Museum of American Art employee to probation and community service for stealing more than $850,000 in ticket receipts.

A California physicist says he has proof that David Hockney’s controversial theory that Renaissance artists traced their work is wrong. “David Stork used computer imaging of a 1645 painting, Christ in the Carpenter’s Studio, by Georges de la Tour, to show that the only source of light in the work was a candle shown in Christ’s hand. It means the image could not have been projected, he said.”

Marla Olmstead is making an impression with her art. She’s had a gallery show, and the critics were impressed. Of course, Marla is only 4 years old. “She builds her paintings in layers. Children don’t do that. She starts with big swatches of colours and then adds details and accents onto that. That’s what is so impressive and beyond what other children do. She paints with emotion.”

It’s been a while since the Guggenheim generated much heat with its global outpost strategy. So where do the various Guggenheim satellite projects stand? “At present, four additional satellite facilities are in their early stages: Rio de Janeiro, Taichung, Hong Kong and Gaudalajara. The projects all face a certain amount of local opposition, and the Gugg’s current strategy is to leave the local politics to the local politicians.”

Here’s an intimidating project – designing the headquarters for an institution devoted to contemporary architecture. London’s Architecture Foundation will be the city’s first completely new cultural building in 27 years. From the beginning, the group “was determined that the competition should be as open as possible, not only to well-known names but also to those who had never built. An initial list of 208 entrants from as far afield as Mexico, Japan and Lithuania was reduced to the shortlist of eight, half of whom are based in London, half abroad, but none of whom had built a new building in London. All were paid to produce a design.”

Britain’s tallest sculpture has been errected. It’s in Manchester and rises 180 feet. It’s a starburst of spikes “designed by Thomas Heatherwick and took 20 months to put together from 180 tapered steel spikes, connected 22 metres above the ground. To keep it anchored it has foundations weighing 750 tonnes, including a 400-square-metre reinforced concrete slab. The sculpture itself weighs 300 tonnes and leans at an angle of 30 degrees – 10 times more than the leaning tower of Pisa.”

Zaha Hadid has been chosen to design the home of the Architecture Foundation in London. “On a site close to Tate Modern in south London, Hadid’s riveting sense of occasion has found appropriate fulfilment, as the winner of a competition staged to give a home to the Architectural Foundation.”

Frankfurt sanitation workers mistakenly removed and destroyed some yellow plastic sheets on the street that were part of an art installation. “Thirty of the dustmen are now being sent to modern art classes to try to ensure that the same mistake never happens again. The head of Frankfurt’s sanitation department, Peter Postleb, took responsibility for the destruction of the sculpture, saying that confusing the plastic sheets with rubbish was an easy mistake to make. He thought they were abandoned building materials.”