Category: visual

“For years, minimalism shows were rare events. In just the last year or two, however, they’ve hit the big time, big-time… The current flood of minimalism exhibitions indicates a new desire to come to grips with the movement as a whole and to rethink some of the narrow polemics that have built up around it. Instead of being part of the live, ferocious debates of contemporary art, with people choosing sides for and against, minimalism is now the subject of measured, art-historical contemplation. Which means it has truly arrived — next stop, official, unquestioned Old Master status.”

“Imagine a sports stadium that accommodates thousands of fans for an event, then folds up and disappears. Impossible? Perhaps. But it’s one of the visions that will appear in the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale… It improbably envisions a baseball field inserted within the urban thicket of Chicago’s Loop. The field would be surrounded by a series of movable seating tiers. The tiers, some of which would be constructed into surrounding buildings, would fold and unfold as needed. As outlandish as the idea seems, [the Chicago architectural firm] Studio Gang already has proved it is possible to design and construct a performance venue whose architectural identity changes to suit changing needs.”

Charles Saatchi has never exactly been a favorite with critics. The insanely rich collector has been panned for his lack of discriminating taste, excoriated for inflating prices all over the art world, and even criticized for the architecture of his new London gallery. But the myth of Saatchi, who was once viewed as a mysterious but powerful force in art, may have finally come crashing down in the aftermath of the fire which destroyed more than 100 works in his prized collection. The public reaction to the catastrophe was brutal, the loss “celebrated as a hilarious and deserved comeuppance for Saatchi and his bloated, overpraised, overpaid protegés.”

A man has been arrested in Venice for damaging dozens of statues in the city with a hammer. “Antonio Benacchio, 38, an engineer living in the city, was detained when a priest became suspicious of his behaviour in a church on Monday. Because of his eccentric gestures, Mr Benacchio was already known to Venetians as the ‘engineer who measures the air’.”

Hawaii’s Bishop Museum has “adopted a more activist role in contesting Native Hawaiian claims on cultural artifacts in its possession by asserting that it, too, qualifies as a ‘Native Hawaiian organization’ under federal law.” The museum says “the move will place the museum on equal footing with other groups that seek to gain custody of cultural items and lays out its intention to defend its possession of most items. The museum’s new stance is drawing fire from some in the Hawaiian community who say the policy defeats the intent of federal law enabling the return to native people of cultural treasures held by museums.”

“Two paintings allegedly stolen from an Italian castle in the 1990s were seized after federal authorities learned that Christie’s was putting the works on the auction block, officials said Thursday.”

Unesco is considering 48 nominations for new designation as World Heritage sites. The UN body says that urban growth is the biggest threat to conservation of the world’s important cultural heritage. “What is most important at the moment is the very, very big urban development… which in many cases is made without proper respect for historical sites.”

“The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal announced Monday the appointment of 48-year-old, Sudbury-born anglo-francophone Marc Mayer as director, bringing an end to Marcel Brisebois’s 19-year-long reign there.” Mayer has been the deputy art director for the Brooklyn Museum since September 2001.

The Seattle-area Bellevue Art Museum, which suddenly closed last year, has gone out and found itself some serious new leadership to help it reopen. “Michael Monroe, the former curator-in-charge at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, which specializes in craft such as ceramics, textiles and glass work, will become chief curator and executive director.”

Lisa Rochon decries the treatment of architect Arthur Erickson’s buildings in Canada. He “is the éminence grise of modernism in this country. He led a postwar movement of design that extends landscape through architecture, something Canada’s new generation of award-winning practitioners have absorbed into their own thinking. It’s easy to blame lack of money. Or zoning. Running through all of these moronic moves is a lack of will to safeguard our national treasures.”