Category: visual

“Curator Philip Barlow’s policy on automatically excluding PandaMania and Party Animals participants from consideration for Washington Project for the ArtsCorcoran’s 2005 Options exhibition has cost him his position. The survey of emerging Washington area artists will now be curated by Libby Lumpkin, an art historian and critic who lives in California. The move came after [the Washington Post] reported Sept. 23 that Barlow did not regard the city-funded sculpture projects as art… WPAC Executive Director Annie Adjchavanich issued a statement last week announcing Barlow’s resignation and condemning his stance as a violation of ‘basic ethical norms of curatorial practice.’ Barlow calls the statement a ‘complete distortion.'”

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is an unlikely hometown hero in a country famous for its purges of artists. Ai’s father, a famous poet, was the victim of such a purge, and the family spent most of Weiwei’s childhood in “reeducation camps” scattered across the Gobi Desert. But this year, the artist has found new fame in China for his contribution to the design of the country’s new Olympic Stadium. But fierce criticism of the design has been emanating from Chinese architecture circles, largely due to the involvement of European design firms.

When Chcago’s Terra Museum of American Art closes forever this Sunday, it will represent a major loss for the city’s art scene, but the Terra Foundation’s extensive collection will not simply be dispersed to the winds. “The entire collection is soon to be made available on the foundation’s new Web site, www.terraamericanart.org. And 50 of the major works, as well as the museum’s complete collection of 350 works on paper, will be temporarily loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago in January.”

Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts has “canceled an upcoming show featuring sexual images and containing racially charged language — a move the artist terms a ‘form of censorship’.”

The United Nations is setting up an international force prepared to fly in and protect culture treasures threatened by war or natural disaster. “The cultural blue berets, as they are already being called, will initially be formed entirely of Italians and could include members of Italy’s paramilitary police, the carabinieri. Yesterday’s move followed international outrage over the looting of priceless antiquities during the US-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq last year.”

Who’s the art world’s most “powerful” figure? Art Review magazine says it’s gallery owner Larry Gagosian. The annual ranking called Mr Gagosian “the world’s greatest art businessman”.

“The better the food, the more intense the museum experience,” says Glenn D. Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art. So it should come as no surprise that the new MoMA, reopening Nov. 20, will include restaurants that complement the art, both aesthetically (the tableware can also be seen in the design collection) and in terms of aspiration (the restaurants are created by Danny Meyer). Ideally, people will refuel in one of the dining spaces and venture back into the galleries, refreshed.

“FBI agents have seized from a prominent Chicago art collector a Picasso painting that European authorities say was looted by the Nazis. The government is allowing ‘Femme en blanc’ (‘Woman in White’) to remain in the possession of the collector who bought it nearly 30 years ago until the courts can resolve questions about its legal ownership. The oil painting, valued at more than $10 million, has been in legal dispute since 2002.”

The British Museum has appealed to EBay to remove potentially important archaeological items found in the UK from the auction website. “The Treasure Act of 1996 stipulates that finders have a legal obligation to report potential treasure finds such as gold and silver objects more than 300 years old. Roger Bland, the British Museum’s head of treasure, called for eBay to remove potential treasure items from its website.”

The number of archaeological finds by citizens in the UK has greatly increased after a new law regulating so-called “treasure” finds. “Everyone’s excited by the idea of buried treasure. It also provides a unique insight into our history, and it is good that the number of finds being reported is increasing rapidly and may reach around 500 by the end of this year, representing almost a 100 per cent increase on 2002. This rise is testament to the effectiveness of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, the expansion of which last year led to an average five fold increase in the reporting of Treasure.”