Category: visual

“Though the study of Chinese art still focuses [mainly] on court life, it has broadened to include the lives of ordinary citizens. These revisions largely come from archaeology of the last hundred years, and particularly of the last three decades… Archaeology has upset and confounded the traditional linear narrative with discoveries that no one could have anticipated. What we call China is revealed as a complex world more culturally diverse, more multiethnic than previously imagined. Archaeological discoveries are redefining what it means to be Chinese.”

Despite a steady flow of tips, consultations with international art experts, and a continual media focus, police in Oslo say that they have made no progress in tracking down Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which was stolen at gunpoint in late August. There are currently no suspects and no leads, and the thieves have made no attempt to ransom the painting.

James Dyson’s resignation from the leadership of London’s Design Museum may have seemed like little more than an internal debate over direction writ large, but to hear Dyson tell it, nothing less than the future of the design industry is at stake. “If design museums shy away from explaining the guts of design, he worries, the next generation will perceive the designer as ‘little more than the creator of ineffectual ornaments.’ And what’s left of Western industrial manufacturing will spiral into decline.”

The Art Gallery of Ontario has forged an unlikely partnership with Russia’s Hermitage Museum in recent years, and the AGO’s Matthew Teitelbaum is determined to take it to “‘the curatorial level,’ which, despite its formal-sounding nature, really means more of a hands-on deal between the Hermitage’s art experts and his own. In short, he wants AGO people to start arranging what the Hermitage might send our way. But put this in some perspective. Since the entire AGO, with or without Frank Gehry touch-ups, probably would fit nicely into the Hermitage’s cat-infested basement, Teitelbaum’s approach can be seen as remarkably progressive, pushy, or somewhere in between.”

The Cleveland Museum of Art has filled a key curatorial post from within its existing staff. “Anita Chung, formerly an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the museum, has been appointed associate curator of Chinese art. She is assuming responsibility for the Chinese collection, overseen for the past 6½ years by Ju-hsi Chou, who retired in June.” The Mellon Foundation has made a challenge grant to permanently endow the position of curator of Chinese art, which has yet to be filled.

“What do you buy just before you board a plane? Most frequent fliers take what they can get: tabloids, Godiva chocolates, $5 paperbacks, duty-free liquor and cigarettes. But the brand-new Airport Gift Shop at [New York’s JFK Airport] has turned shopping into an art – literally. Designed and curated by New York artist Tobias Wong, the Airport Gift Shop is part of a just-opened art installation called Terminal 5 – which uses all the space in Eero Saarinen’s landmark (and defunct) TWA Terminal 5.”

The Toronto International Art Fair may not measure up to the top art bazaars of Europe, but the event has become the place to see and be seen for movers and shakers in the Canadian art world. “At capacity this year with 83 dealers from near and far, the fair appears to be cresting the summit of a long, slow climb, from an inaugural year of relative obscurity to its current status as perhaps the essential event of the year.”

“The court hearing into whether the Barnes Foundation can move its one-of-a-kind art collection from its home in Merion to a new museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway concluded yesterday just as it began: with two starkly differing visions of the gallery’s future… The decision now rests with Montgomery County Orphans’ Court Judge Stanley Ott, who is not expected to rule for at least a month.”

A foundation based in suburban Philadelphia has offered a $100,000 contribution to the Barnes Foundation, conditional on the organization dropping its attempt to move to the city. The move will be seen as a largely sentimental move, since three major foundations have offered to raise $150 million if the Barnes goes ahead with its move.

Charles Saatchi’s infamous collection of controversial work by the so-called Young British Artists is headed for storage, and won’t be back on view at the collector’s London gallery until 2006. In their place, a “new show is devoted to the work of five painters, Peter Doig, Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas, Jörg Immendorf, and Martin Kippenberger, described by Charles Saatchi as ‘key European artists’… Yet those who believe Mr Saatchi has lost his appetite for shrewd investment in the work of unknown artists should think again.”