Category: visual

Seeing the Mona Lisa is almost a requirement for tourists visiting Paris. But objectively speaking, the experience is a serious waste of time and energy, fighting huge crowds and long lines for a fifteen-second glimpse of a painting squirreled away behind layers of glass. “Waiting to see the Mona Lisa has all the thrill of standing in an airport check-in queue. The crowd pushes forward, cattle-like and unquestioning, performing a ritual they know they have to go through with in order to complete a pre-ordained tourist experience.”

“This summer, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the establishment of a vast new department of 19th-century, Modern, and contemporary art, embracing European paintings from 1800 to the present, international 20th-century sculpture, drawings, prints, decorative arts, and design.” The department’s chief says that his first objective has been to mount an exhaustive study of the Met’s current holdings, identify weaknesses in the collection, and develop a plan to fill in the gaps, particularly those in the 20th century collection. “The great unanswered question is the degree to which the Metropolitan will differentiate itself from New York’s other museums of Modern and contemporary art.”

Office construction is on the rise in the U.S., but new studies suggest that the workers who spend an ever-increasing percentage of their lives in those concrete monoliths are suffering from a lack of daylight. “There is a striking lack of understanding by CEOs, boards and corporate real-estate executives that designing buildings with greater access to daylight saves money and improves productivity and the bottom line.” Great architecture is all well and good, but why can’t architects design buildings for the people inside as well as the people on the street admiring the facade?

As architects continue to take their place as the new rock stars of the art world, an interesting crossover effect seems to be taking place. From Norman Foster’s famous erotic pickle to Frank Gehry’s trend-shattering Bilbao museum to Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, some of the best art in the world today is being done by architects, a fact which the art world has been slow to accept. “Why is architecture so much less hyped than art? The fact is that artists are more glamorous than architects. Building is a business, and even younger architects find it hard to accept that Foster, a business genius, is also an aesthetic one.”

Glamorously controversial UK artist Damien Hirst has an auction all his own this week at Sotheby’s in London. “This sale, which Sotheby’s expects will net between £3 million and £7 million will also be an opportunity for Nigel Q. Public to buy an authentic Hirst, even if it’s only an authentic eggcup.” The pieces up for auction are actually the detritus from Hirst’s now-defunct, clinic-themed Pharmacy Restaurant & Bar, which was conceived as part of the “Cool Brittania” movement a few years back.

When New York’s Museum of Modern Art unveils its new Manhattan home next month, a private party for the city’s arts elite will kick off the festivities. Oh, sure, you can see the new MoMA ahead of time for a mere $75 membership contribution (and, truth be told, that’s probably your best bet if you really care about the art,) but why visit with the plebes when, for $2 million, you can get invited to the most exclusive event of the year? The museum will tell you the guest list for that event is closed, but don’t you believe it…

In many ways, Seattle is the perfect city for an architect looking to make his mark. Adventurous, forward-thinking, loaded with money, and possessed of a deep appreciation for the arts, the city has become known for its willingness to take chances with its public spaces and buildings. Of course, that kind of freedom can create the opportunity for spectacular failure as easily as great success, and many architects have fallen into the trap. But for Rem Koolhaas, Seattle may just be the city that revived his career.

“At 5 p.m. on Oct. 31, the Terra Museum of American Art, which has existed for almost a quarter century, will close its doors and Chicago will lose one of its cultural institutions… 50 paintings from the Terra collection and all 350 of its works on paper will go on long-term loan to the Art Institute of Chicago, where they will be shown in a new installation beginning next spring. The remaining 300 pieces will be placed in storage, shown in the Terra’s sister museum in Giverny, France or be lent for exhibitions at other institutions.”

A new exhibit at New York’s Parsons School of Design has taken a direct approach to combining politics and art: students were each given an actual Florida voting booth from the 2000 election debacle, and asked to express themselves in whatever way they chose. The range of results is a fascinating look at the varying ways in which young people view the modern political world: some of the works are hilarious with a twinge of bitterness, while some are simply bitter. Some are even cautiously optimistic about the future.

“[Dallas’s] Nasher Sculpture Center opened a year ago to nearly universal critical acclaim… Nothing has happened since to discredit those opinions. The trifecta of Renzo Piano’s building, Raymond and Patsy Nasher’s exemplary collection and Peter Walker’s lush garden has produced a cultural attraction that actually deserves the overused acclamation ‘world class.'” So why hasn’t the Nasher’s attendance matched its reputation? In its first year of existence, the Nasher drew 175,000 visitors, compared with 425,000 for the Dallas Museum of Art and 370,000 for Fprt Worth’s Kimbell Museum.