Category: visual

Rowan Moore has had it with some extremely popular designers. “I like things such as nuance, complexity, multiplicity and depth, in architecture as in other art forms. It seems obvious and fundamental to me that cities are made of multiple buildings playing off each other, not by autonomous objects. I also oppose a culture that invests little in the dignity and beauty of everyday places – streets, schools – but finds billions in its back pocket for corporate spectacle.” – The Observer (UK)

Robbins – who just died at 93 – changed the relationship of the average, at-home painter to abstract art through his homely scenes that, reduced down to color shapes with numbers in them, influenced (and delighted) Andy Warhol. Robbins’ clever idea did more, though – “its secret influence can be seen right through 60s American art.” – The Guardian (UK)

Maybe. Australia seems to have prizes for everything in art, but none is a big national prize like the Turner in the UK. “A major, national contemporary art prize therefore needs two things: a continuing bequest to support the prize financially, and a group of major institutions to support it.” – The Guardian (UK)

While an awful lot of art and architecture folks are asking what (the hell) happened to the original LACMA redesign, Michael Govan, as he must, defends the plan: “I’m just going to say, for the record — and I believe it fully — that through the process of refinements, we now have a better building.” – Los Angeles Times

What is this sci-fi word salad? The underground park will have a ventilation system and a year-round garden, “thanks to remote skylight technology that filters sunlight underground through fibre optic helio tubes.” Obviously. – The Observer (UK)

Joseph Giovannini: “What we are witnessing is the systematic destruction of an institution whose history has been chaotic, whose architecture has been less than perfect, but that was at the same time on the verge of greatness, had a proper director been chosen to lead its rebirth,” said one prominent Los Angeles museum figure, who like virtually everyone I interviewed asked for anonymity. – LA Review of Books

There’s Slow Food. There’s Slow (Longform) Journalism. Now there’s Slow Art. To get people in the mood for slow art, Christie’s, the V&A and the Natural History Museum have been offering yoga and sound meditation baths before visitors step foot into their exhibitions. But rather than putting them in a trance, it’s all about switching on their senses. – BBC

Chip Colwell: “As a museum curator and scholar of the repatriation movement, I am stunned by the pace of these unfolding events, which seemed unlikely not long ago. I now understand that the repatriation battles are not isolated to a few museums wrestling with their colonial legacies. These clashes are fueling a war over the rights of former colonial subjects and the future of museums.” – The New York Times