Category: visual

An assistant deputy warden at New York’s Ryker’s Island jail was found not guilty of masterminding the theft of a Salvador Dali drawing. “The $250,000 drawing, which depicts Christ’s crucifixion, was signed and dedicated by the artist to Rikers inmates in 1965, and was displayed in a case near the entrance of the Eric M. Taylor Center. The artwork has not been recovered.”

A big revelation following the Saatchi art fire: “What was amazing in the days following the fire was the level of sheer hatred shown towards British art from every section of society. A nation united, pissing on the flames. People hilariously offered to crochet a new tent for Tracey Emin with their name all over it. Parents hilariously got their children to scrawl all over a piece of paper and then sent it to Charles Saatchi.”

“A Scottish author believes he has discovered the only photograph in existence of Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch master painter, as an adult.
With a fixed stare and pale skin, the neatly suited man with the bristling beard glares out of the nineteenth century photograph with the intensity of a master painter.”

Critic Robert Hughes blasts the state of the art market in a speech in London: “I don’t think there is any doubt that the present commercialisation of the art world, at its top end, is a cultural obscenity. When you have the super-rich paying for an immature Rose Period Picasso $104m (£57m), close to the GNP of some Caribbean or African states, something is very rotten: such gestures do no honour to art: they debase it by making the desire for it pathological.”

Robert Hughes says that London’s Royal Academy could help save art from commercialism: “An institution like the Royal Academy, precisely because it is not commercial, can be a powerful counterweight to the degrading market hysteria we have seen too much of in recent years. I have never been against new art as such; some of it is good, much is crap, most is somewhere in between, and what else is news?”

“The National Galleries of Scotland has been warned that it may have to scrap its free admissions policy, close a gallery, or cut its opening hours in an effort to combat a multi-million pound deficit. It has a projected annual deficit of more than £3m and by 2009 could have a cumulative shortfall of more than £8m”

David Hockney says drawing should be regarded as a major artform, says David Hockney. “Despite long being seen as almost irrelevant, drawing is a vital part of every creative process. Drawing has been neglected for the last 30 years in art education. That was based upon the idea that photography would suffice as a view of the world.”

“An oil painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners may find sanctuary at San Francisco City Hall after provoking some irate viewers to threaten and assault the owner of the art gallery where it was originally shown.”

“Struggling to balance its budget, [Boston’s] Museum of Fine Arts told 23 staff members yesterday that they would be laid off immediately. Though museum officials declined to say exactly who had been let go, they did say the layoffs had come from across the museum’s divisions, including its curatorial staff. That is in addition to five positions eliminated since January.” The layoffs included no curatorial department heads, unlike MFA’s last round of firings in 1999.

World Trade Center site developer Larry Silverstein is in a bitter argument with Daniel Libeskind over fees the Libeskind firm says it is owed. “Even assuming that the Libeskinds do manage to come to terms with Mr. Silverstein before July 4, the episode has the potential to leave a bad taste in the mouths of Mr. Silverstein’s landlord at the World Trade Center, the Port Authority, which is in the process of evaluating whether or not to allow Mr. Silverstein to develop the rest of the buildings planned for the site.”