Category: visual

“Daniel Libeskind, the master planner for the World Trade Center site, and Larry A. Silverstein, the commercial leaseholder, are fighting over how much Mr. Libeskind should be paid for his work on the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower.”

“After displaying a painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nations unresolved anguish over the incidents at Abu Ghraib – a black eye and bloodied brow delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to the art work.”

A crowd of supporters turned up to help the San Francisco gallery-owner who has come under attack for showing a controversial painting. “The supporters had hoped to persuade Haigh, 39, to reconsider her decision to close the Capobianco Gallery, which came after she was threatened, spat upon and, most recently, punched in the face for showing Guy Colwell’s painting of torture. Gathered on the sidewalk outside the small studio, her supporters talked of vigils, petitions and even providing volunteer security to help keep the gallery going.”

“If art museums can benefit from ties with architects, can an architecture museum profit by partnering with artists? Officials at the National Building Museum think so.”

Eric Gibson isn’t ready to declare the Saatchi warehouse fire a disaster for art. “Art disasters normally have a visceral impact. Such incidents as the looting of the Baghdad Museum last year and the ravaging of Florence’s art treasures by floods in 1966 set the mind reeling at the thought of pieces of man’s cultural patrimony permanently lost or damaged. This time, though, I was strangely unmoved. It’s not that I think incinerating art is a good thing. It’s just that the work of these artists–as of all contemporary artists–is too new and untested to have acquired the cultural heft that makes it seem an indispensable part of one’s existence. I regret the fire happened, but I can’t quite see it as a body blow to civilization. Listen to the wailing that followed the conflagration, however, and you’d think the world had come to an end.”

“The new National World War II Memorial in Washington DC is the latest memorial that critics love to hate. It is built in a monumental style that makes many people uncomfortable in this age of irony and ambiguity. It somehow manages to come off as both self-important and self-conscious. It treads on the hallowed National Mall. And yet, it is neither thoughtless nor bombastic, as some have argued.”

A company in New York has started a pension fund for artists. “The fund, called the Artist Pension Trust, is designed to offer some retirement security for a fairly select group of up-and-coming visual artists now in their 20s and 30s. Instead of investing money, artists will contribute their own artwork to a trust. The artwork will be held for a number of years, then sold, with the proceeds going into the trust, from which artists will draw their pensions.”

Mass MOCA has been open five years. And the contemporary art center far away from the cities has changed its host town. “Once a sleepy, economically depressed mill town, with the state’s highest unemployment rate and lowest downtown occupancy rate, North Adams has changed. According to state government figures, unemployment has declined to less than 6 percent from more than 18 percent in the late 1980’s. A study conducted by the museum shows that the storefront occupancy rate, which was below 30 percent in the mid-1990’s, now stands at 75 percent. In the last five years eight restaurants have opened in North Adams. About 120,000 people a year visit Mass MOCA, the center says.”

“A major work by Francis Bacon seems fated to leave the UK after the Tate reluctantly decided yesterday that it could not afford even to contemplate the £9.5m price tag.”

“The falling-out between the Art Gallery of Ontario and its longtime benefactors Joey and Toby Tanenbaum has ended, as the gallery announced Wednesday that Joey Tanenbaum will immediately rejoin its board of trustees.”