Category: visual

“When it comes to swimming against the tide, Olympic gold medals should go to all representational artists. For half a century, they have been almost completely ignored by museums, boycotted by prestigious galleries and scoffed at by critics.” Still, a renaissance of figure drawing has been evident for some years, led by countless amateurs and enthusiasts, and embraced by a few diehard pros. But “in a society that values quick and easy success… and when so many galleries and museums prefer to give their space to video art, conceptual art and installation art, why do so many keep struggling to master a skill that art critics insist is anachronistic and old hat? Why this continuing compulsion to draw?”

The Venice Architecture Biennale is full of plans for fancy projects made possible with the wizardry of computer design. But gadgetry doesn’t make up for lack of imagination…

British sculptor Tom Otterness Otterness is mounting “the biggest one-man sculpture exhibition in New York City parks since a show of Henry Moore works in 1984.” Otterness is “well suited to the diversity and commercial energy of Broadway. He is both popular and populist — an artist whose sculptures are intended to work everywhere and be understood by almost everyone. The sculptures in ‘Tom Otterness on Broadway’ range in size from under 2 feet to over 20 feet tall.”

Sculptor Tom Otterness is mounting “the biggest one-man sculpture exhibition in New York City parks since a show of Henry Moore works in 1984.” Otterness is “well suited to the diversity and commercial energy of Broadway. He is both popular and populist — an artist whose sculptures are intended to work everywhere and be understood by almost everyone. The sculptures in ‘Tom Otterness on Broadway’ range in size from under 2 feet to over 20 feet tall.”

This fall brings a number of important architecture events around America – from the opening of the Museum of Modern Art, to the opening of the Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. Blair Kamin enumerates…

Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain has been commissioned by a Bombay businessman to create a series of paintings called “Our Planet Called Earth” for $21 million. “It is believed to be the biggest ever art deal in India. Husain, who is almost a cult figure in the world of Indian art, says he will use the proceeds of his sale to make a mega-budget Bollywood film.”

A Maxfield Parrish painting, stolen 20 years ago in San Francsico, has turned up just blocks away from the gallery where it was stolen. “Investigators have been told that somehow it wound up with the owner of a hair salon, who died and left it to the woman who had cared for her, who in turn died and left it to her son. The son was trying to sell it at the Geary Street gallery, unaware it had been stolen.”

American veterans groups are criticizing the Warhol Museum’s plan to show images from the Abu Ghraib scandal. “Tom Sokolowski, the Warhol museum’s director, said Friday the museum has not decided which photos will be displayed, but will choose from numerous images collected from various news outlets and Web sites.”

The Riba Stirling Architecture Prize is Britain’s most prestigious. This year’s finalists include some of the world’s best-known architects. “The list was generally welcomed by architects yesterday for its variety, although punters showed an overwhelming early preference for the gherkin: the new London landmark took 57% of the first 4,140 votes cast in a BBC internet poll, while Libeskind got 13% and the innovative Kunsthaus in Graz, designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, was a whisker behind with 12%.”

A Chicago attorney has has filed a series of complaints alleging abuses by the City’s public art program, “including holding meetings without a quorum. But the judge denied the city’s motion on three other counts, which accuse the program of inadequate record keeping and awarding at least $101,400 in taxpayer-funded commissions without proper authorization.”