Category: visual

Five ivory sculptures stolen from the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto a few weeks ago, have been recovered. “The palm-sized sculptures – valued at $1.5 million – were dropped off at the office of Toronto lawyer Dennis Morris, who turned them over to police on the weekend.”

“A Montreal auctioneer reached an out-of-court settlement yesterday with the estate of legendary Quebec painter Jean-Paul Riopelle after the auctioneer had sued to recover costs associated with an aborted sale of the late artist’s work. Iégor de Saint-Hippolyte had been hired last fall by Huguette Vachon, Riopelle’s widow and primary executor of his estate, to host a sale of about 50 works by the artist who died in 2002. The sale, scheduled for mid-November last year, was opposed by two of Riopelle’s daughters who obtained an injunction against it. Total presale value of the paintings and sculpture was estimated at $13-million.”

When Toronto artist John Coburn prepared to ship a half-dozen of his paintings to London for an important exhibition, he took no chances. Coburn carefully sealed the paintings in a plywood crate, and sent them via a globally respected courier. The crate arrived in London in plenty of time, at which point the Brits realized that they had no idea how to open the damn thing. “The screws used to fasten the crate were Robertson square drives — a circular screw with a recessed square made to receive a matching hand driver. Quite common in Canada, the make is all but unheard of across the pond.” Informed of the problem, Coburn had just enough time to pocket the correct screwdriver before leaving Canada.

“The Barnes Foundation has not yet proved that it needs to move its multibillion-dollar art gallery from Lower Merion to Center City, a judge ruled yesterday, delaying his final decision until the foundation provided more evidence.” The judge also criticized both sides in the case for a lack of hard numbers to back up their arguments. The Barnes needs the court’s permission to move, since the will of its founder stipulates that the collection must remain in Lower Merion. The plan to move to Philadelphia has been quite controversial, but has the support of multiple area foundations.

In addition to delaying his ruling on the Barnes move, Judge Stanley Ott yesterday issued a blistering critique of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office, accusing the state’s counsel of being little more than a cheerleader for the Barnes proposal, and “[preventing] the court from seeing a balanced, objective presentation of the situation.” According to the judge, the attorney general’s duty is to assess the situation objectively, and be sure that all the numbers add up in a demonstrable way. Instead, said Judge Ott, “it was left to the court to raise questions relating to the finances of the proposed move and the plan’s financial viability.”

Tyler Green sees some important subtext in Judge Ott’s decision to delay ruling on the Barnes move. “In a backhanded way he acknowledged that the Barnes’ management has underwhelmed him. If they couldn’t do the right and obvious thing the first time, does Ott really think they’ll get it right now? Ott chose not to simply rule against the Barnes, but I wonder if (instead) Ott is giving the Barnes leadership the rope with which to hang itself…”

New York being the trendy city that it is, it can be all a gallery owner can do to stay on the cutting edge of such important matters as what neighborhood your business needs to be in in order to attract your better customers. Of late, the hot gallery location has been the West Chelsea neighborhood, but now, there appears to be a retro movement afoot, with several prominent art dealers moving their galleries back to the old “traditional” art neighborhoods of Midtown and the Upper East Side.

“An antiquities dealer with offices in New York and Geneva has been arrested for illegally importing an Iranian object, described as ‘the most important representation of a griffin in antiquity,’ and facilitating its sale to a private collector. The dealer, Hicham Aboutaam, a principal in Phoenix Ancient Art, S.A., was arrested on 13 December, following an investigation by the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The antiquity is alleged to have been part of the plundered Iranian Western Cave Treasure, much of which, the government says, is said to have been looted and dispersed since 1992 around the world.”

Frank Gehry grew up in the same Toronto neighborhood which houses the Art Gallery of Ontario, and this week, he returned home to present the AGO with his plans for the museum’s latest expansion. “Mr. Gehry’s design includes a frontal promenade covered by a tilted 60-foot-high glass window the length of two football fields. There will be multistory light blue titanium walls intended to fade into the sky and turn gold on cloudy days. A grand glass roof will cover the museum’s central Walker Court. And a giant winged spiral staircase made of Douglas fir will double as a piece of interior sculpture that soars into the court’s glass ceiling.”

Martin Knelman sees a great deal of Frank Gehry’s own past, as well as Toronto’s cultural progression, in the AGO design. “Rather than showing off, it makes connections, weaving together threads of its own past, its roots in an eccentric neighbourhood, and the ambitions symbolized by its increasingly impressive art collection. Like Toronto itself, Gehry’s AGO refuses to call attention to itself. Rather it whispers and entices, draws you in, and reveals its secrets only to those willing to explore hidden pathways. It’s the perfect articulation for a city whose essence is not skyscrapers but almost invisible ravines that tourists often fail to notice.”