Category: visual

So what are UK museums’ chances of getting a 25 percent increase in their funding from the government? “If the words “snowball”, “chance” and “hell” were in the air, a week before budget day and a few months before a tough spending review, nobody uttered them.”

London’s Spitz Gallery was shut down on Sunday night after detectives from Scotland Yard showed up in response to concerns by some patrons that a photograph by American Betsy Schneider featured a child in a pornographic pose. The photograph in question is part of a series of shots Ms. Schneider had taken of her daughter, from infancy through the age of 5. The child is nude in most of the photos, but the artist insists that there is nothing pornographic about them. The gallery is reportedly considering its legal options.

Winning Australia’s $35,000 Archibald Prize is one of the fastest ways for an artist to get a stunning amount of media exposure, so it’s no wonder than so many enter. But as any Hollywood celebrity will tell you, fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Winning the annual portrait prize has many consequences for the careers and lives of artists, beyond the sudden fame. Doors open, certainly, and commissions might follow. But bruised egos, ruined friendships and a broken marriage have been among its unanticipated results.”

The cleaning of Michelangelo’s David is more than half completed, and the scrubbed statue will be unveiled in May. “But tests will continue to explore one problem that emerged in the restoration – an apparent fragility of the statue’s ankles, which support more than six tons of dead weight.”

This year’s European Fine Art Fair opens in Maastricht. It’s the world’s top bazaar for prized paintings. Expectations always run high because the dealers exhibiting here are among the best in the world. Experts consider the fair a barometer of the art market, and many visitors come for the sheer fun of enjoying beautiful art and objects.”

“The scale of the event is astonishing. When it opened last Thursday, the art on show had been insured for more than $1 billion and included an estimated 70 per cent of the important Old Master paintings available for sale in the world. The stock of one leading jeweller is so valuable that when it arrived, security men sealed off the building until it was safely inside.”

Charles Saumarez Smith, director of London’s National Gallery, has just become a juror for a new competition to find the best writing about art. But what defines good writing about art, these days, he wonders…

“A report by the conservation group Save says that Britain is in danger of throwing away a treasury of court buildings, usually the most important civic buildings – architecturally and socially – in their areas.”

With a project so emotionally charged as the memorial at the World Trade center site, It had to happen of course; protests are pouring in about the winning design and the process to choose it. “The whole competition stinks of collusion, rule-breaking, and fraud,” is the general tone of criticism. “At least one organized group hopes to stop the winning design from getting built. Called the World Trade Center Memorial Focus Group, it consists of losing competitors and is led by an employee of the New York City transit authority named Jeff Johns.”

It’s time for the art world’s every-two-years’ food fight – the Whitney Biennial. “Some Biennials simply recap the commercial activity of the preceding two years. Others look ahead; the 2002 edition, for example, anticipated the current interest in youth culture, collectivism, sound art and craft-intensive, Pop-ish work. This year’s show will probably do both. Although much of the work comes straight out of recent gallery exhibitions, a substantial chunk is brand new and being shown for the first time. A few pieces have even been commissioned for the occasion.”