Category: visual

Madrid’s Prado Museum is doubling its entry fee – to 8 Euros. Sixty-five percent of the museum’s visitors are foreigners. “Under young director Miguel Zugaza, the museum became a public entity last year and as such has to increase its revenue to cover costs.”

Turkey opens its first museum of modern art in Istanbul. “Warehouse No. 4 was turned into a museum by frantic construction work, which went on until the last moment and cost about $5 million. The building features two stories of 4,000 square meters (1-acre) each. On the upper floor, the permanent collection consisting of about 4,000 pieces — all by Turkish artists — will be exhibited on a rotational basis.”

English Heritage says that announced cuts in budget will be disastrous to the preservation of important buildings. “For the first time the report attempts to assess the state of Grade II-listed buildings – the town halls, corner shops, small country houses and terraces which are the historic environment most familiar to people – and finds a dismal situation. An estimated 17,000 Grade II buildings are regarded as at risk, and although many are in some form of public ownership, thousands are boarded up and many are in danger of collapse.”

Berlin imposes strict rules on any architect wishing to erect a new building, rules drawn up and enforced by the city’s powerful director of urban development. The strict code has had some benefits, but overall, Lisa Rochon says that it is killing German architecture. “Urban-design regulations and zoning bylaws… dictate the maximum height of the building (22 metres), a setback for upper storeys, a careful ratio between window openings and masonry walls and a preference for buff-coloured limestone. The preferred elevation looks taut and minimal. The result is an architectural flatness that, when combined with the city’s grey winter light, can deaden the human spirit.”

Nicholas Grimshaw has named president of the troubled Royal Academy in London. The RA has been rocked by a series of high-profile resignations…

Inspired by stories of New York art collectors avoiding sales tax on their purchases, Washington State revenue agents subpoenaed records of an art shipper and went after state residents who hadn’t paid a “use” tax (essentially a sales tax) on their out-of-state art purchases. Thousands of collectors may have been dinged for the taxes – plus penalties, which can run as high as 50 percent…

Perhaps the Barnes art will benefit from a new setting, writes Roberta Smith. “Of course, it is great to see paintings in an intimate setting that glows with the patina of time and bears the imprint of a collector’s personal vision. But it is also correct to ask whether a collector’s wishes, especially when they are restrictive, must be observed in perpetuity. The Barnes collection is not the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Barnes didn’t make the art; he bought it, one movable object at a time. Very few things remain the same forever, and they change largely because of human need.”

You can move the art of the Barnes Collection, writes Edward Sozanski. But its soul will not be transported. “The uniquely idiosyncratic art school and gallery that had been one of the wonders of the American cultural landscape since the mid-1920s has been ruled officially dead. Whatever replaces it somewhere along Benjamin Franklin Parkway will be something different, perhaps better, but most likely not. Like the London Bridge that an American developer moved to the Arizona desert, the new Barnes will be a simulacrum at best, ripped from its historical context and set down where it will become just another “attraction” on Philadelphia’s developing cultural midway.”

It’s in France. “The 1.6-mile viaduc de Millau has been described as one of the most beautiful bridges ever, a work of art as much as an engineering feat. Its architect, Sir Norman Foster, has said driving across at a record 270 metres (885ft) above the Tarn valley should feel like ‘flying a car’.”

A day after finding out that the Barnes Collection will be allowed to move to Philadelphia, the city’s mayor announced the new Barnes site. It will be at the Youth Study Center, which is now the city’s juvenile detention center at the corner of 20th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. “The move to the Youth Study Center, however, has some complications. The city has already bought land in West Philadelphia to build a new juvenile detention center, but that new building won’t be ready to occupy until October 2007. The Barnes however clearly wants to start building its new museum much sooner.”