Category: visual

Too bad for the Chapman controversy, writes Richard Dorment. “This has become a Turner Prize tradition, one I am sorry to see. Because, otherwise, the exhibition of the shortlisted artists is curiously coherent. In their different ways, they all share a pessimistic view of nature, history, sex and society, expressed in work that is often beautiful, always compelling.”

An overturned truck on the steps of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center looks like an accident has just happened, and has prompted passersby to call 911. “Open at the back, the truck holds about two dozen video and computer monitors, some of which flicker with chopped-up animation, scrambled convenience-store surveillance tapes and footage of a man rolling paint over graffiti on an outdoor wall. The man has a Sisyphean counterpart in real space: a mechanized wood cutout figure who brandishes a spray can up and down, up and down, reminiscent of Jonathan Borofsky’s famous Hammering Man.”

Much contemporary art is made of materials that are deteriorating. “The technical term is inherent vice, insurance jargon meaning the certainty of future decay because of the materials used. Inherent vice is the timebomb ticking away inside private and museum collections of contemporary art all over the world. The first conference held to consider the problem is bringing together conservators, collectors, lawyers and, above all, art insurance experts, in London.”

Spencer Tunnick’s latest project brought 450 women to pose nude in New York’s Grand Central Station Sunday morning. “For his latest, he said, he first sought permission to use the New York Public Library and the Museum of Natural History but was rebuffed by both. He’s also been arrested several times in New York for previous projects.”

Fulfilling a longheld wish by the artist, a new Picasso Museum has opened in Malaga, Spain. “Yesterday Malaga was festooned with bunting heralding the new museum and events organised to “receive the maestro”. A bullfight, with leading toreros, advertised with a suitable Picasso painting, will be held this afternoon and six bulls will be dispatched in his honour. King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia will open the museum.”

Three curators have chosen 108 artists for 2004’s Whitney Biennale. “While the 2004 biennial may be considered more conservative than biennials of the recent past, with its balance of midcareer and senior artists and unknowns, the mix has been intentional. ‘We deliberately set out to be very intergenerational. The last biennial focused on so many younger people, but some midcareer and senior artists we discovered are making the best work of their careers.”

The Andy Warhol Authentication Board has decreed that any artworks the artist did not directly create will no longer be considered Warhol originals. “Andy Warhol often left assistants to ‘mass produce’ many of his most famous pictures, among them images of the Campbell soup tin. The decision means many art collectors are left with Warhol works which are now considered copies and therefore worth much less, and some are threatening to sue the board.”

Christie’s says it alerted the seller of a painting thought to have been stolen by the Gestapo. The auction house says it was not obliged to tell heirs of the painting of its whereabouts or the authorities. “We do not have the legal right to breach our duty of confidentiality by contacting third parties without the vendor’s permission, nor did we have the right to withhold the painting from the vendor.”

“Christie’s is refusing to disclose the likely location of an 18th century masterpiece stolen by the Gestapo and being claimed by the heirs of its original Jewish owners. It is the second case uncovered by the Guardian in which the London auction house is accused of failing to help families whose property was looted by the Nazis.”

A public art specialist working on a brochure for a historical walking tour for a town in Florida discovers some of the town’s racist history. Should he include it in the brochure? The town leaders aren’t so sure. “Glenn Weiss said he wants to clarify and showcase black history, not to ignite racial hostilities but to acknowledge an important part of the past.”