Category: visual

Hoping to get a glimpse of King Tut when he comes to Los Angeles? It’ll cost you. Tickets will be as much as $30. “A portion of the exhibition’s proceeds will fund construction of a new museum in Cairo, as well as preservation and conservation of archeological sites in Egypt.”

Why did the Louvre decide to expand in “one of France’s most impoverished regions, due to be built on the site of a derelict coal pit. Lens is currently a cultural desert, famous only for its football team and its deserted coal mines. The city, around 40 miles inland from Calais, was badly hit by industrial crises in the 1990s and unemployment stands at 12.7%, or three percentage points above the national average.”

For the first time since 1979, the treasures of Egyptian King Tutankhamen are visiting the United States. “The exhibit, which is now touring Europe, would open in June at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and go on to at least three other American cities. The exhibit will allow the American public the first glimpse in a generation of the ancient Egyptian treasures.”

The Diana memorial fountain in London is being closed again for emergency repairs. “Metal bars will be fitted under the bridges which span the £3.6million fountain because of fears that children could become trapped under them. The fountain has been a source of embarrassment since opening in the summer. Four visitors, including a mother and daughter, required an ambulance after slipping on the wet granite during its first two weeks, and another twisted her ankle slipping on damp grass next to the fountain.”

Peter Schjeldahl has been checking out the new MoMA. “I was amused, at the evening opening that I attended, by a negative consensus that emerged in the crowd, evincing the hysteria of sophisticates who find themselves momentarily at a loss for anything to disdain—apart from the grab-bag miscellany of works in the contemporary galleries, which incurred easy, contradictory complaints. (Some yawned at the predictable names, from Serra to Matthew Barney; others deplored oddities.”

Australian auction houses look likely to have a record sales year, surpassing $100 million in sales this year. “The evermore frequent sales and reports of record prices have attracted an increasing number of new collectors. With the property boom slowing and the sharemarket at an all-time high, cashed-up investors have turned to art as a tradeable commodity.”

The construction and opening of a Wal-Mart-owned superstore in Mexico near an important archaeological site has upset experts. “The presence of the supermarket near the archaeological site, which lies just north of Mexico City, has outraged environmentalists and conservationists but is proving more popular with residents of the small town of San Juan Teotihuacan, many of whom queued up for early bargains when the store opened on 4 November.”

Last month’s departure of Deborah Gribbon as director of the Getty Museum has led to swirling rumors about the inner workings of the Getty. Some of the most popular theories about dissention in the Getty don’t add up, writes Jason Kaufman.

Boston’s Gardner Musweum is announcing a major expansion. “If successful, the project would triple the Gardner’s special exhibitions space, move the cafe and administrative offices out of the ornate “Palace,” and create a new main entrance. It would mark a dramatic leap for the museum, which has long wrestled with ways to modernize its operation without violating the strict, legal limits Isabella Stewart Gardner created to maintain the museum’s distinctive atmosphere.”