Category: visual

Anxious to clean Michelangelo’s David by next year’s 500th anniversary of its sculpting, officials in Florence have resumed cleaning of the statue. “At a news conference yesterday in front of Michelangelo’s marble vision of naked male beauty, experts defended their decision to resume the project, which was interrupted when an internationally respected restorer quit rather than follow orders to use a cleaning method she feared could harm the sculpture.”

“After a major price-fixing scandal in which Al Taubman was sent to jail, Dede Brooks placed under house arrest and numerous former Christie’s senior officers were exposed as hypocritical backstabbing cowards, why does business at the high end of the New York market continue, without any major, or minor, reforms whatsoever?”

New archaeological study is shedding light on sometimes long forgotten massacres in American history. “Archaeology can fill gaps in the incomplete oral and written histories of these atrocities, resolve discrepancies among various accounts, and help people to better understand what happened. This better understanding can lead to closure for many people, but archaeology can also cause controversy. These events all raise different issues and debates on the place of archaeology, and its helpful or damaging effect.”

Florida artist Bradley Arthur was hired to make sculpture out of melted guns. He did. But shortly after the sculpture was installed, it began to rust. “The county now contends Arthur has delivered a defective product. He must have done something wrong in making the sculpture. Officials with the county’s public art program want him to ‘fix’ it.
Arthur, 50, of Land O’Lakes, says there’s nothing broken. Of course the pieces are rusting, he said, because they’re made largely of gunmetal. He fully expected his artwork to rust in parts, and took that into account in his design.”

“Troubles are mounting for the eighth Havana Biennial as Dutch sponsors pull the plug on funding, while visual artists in Miami and Costa Rica turn down invitations to participate in the international showcase opening Nov. 1. The Cuban government’s crackdowns earlier this year on dissidents and artists’ charges of censorship fueled the decisions.”

The British Museum has rejected a request by Egypt to return the Rosetta Stone or loan it. “The trustees do not consent to the loan of what might be called ‘iconic’ objects which we consider to be central to the collection’—such as the Rosetta Stone. It added: ‘We have excellent relationships with all our professional colleagues in Egypt. Whilst we are always willing to discuss new ways of cooperating with them on joint projects, we are clear, as are they, that the Rosetta Stone will stay in London.’ This statement appears to rule out a loan.”

The Guggenheim board is considering a plan to build a branch of the museum in Taiwan. “The planned museum is to become part of a new NT$12.4 billion ($360.4 million) district in Taichung to include an opera house designed by Jean Nouvel, architect of the proposed Guggenheim Rio, and a new City Hall to be designed by Frank Gehry, architect of the Guggenheim Bilbao. The familiar roster is no coincidence, as Mr Krens served as advisor to the city in selecting the architects.”

Colonial Williamsburg, the “museum” that tries to recreate American colonial times, is suffering. “With declining attendance and a $35 million budget deficit, the nation’s largest living history museum is laying off nearly 400 of its 3,500 employees and cutting programs. Officials at the private, nonprofit foundation that operates Colonial Williamsburg blame the weak economy, lingering fears of terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, less focus on Colonial history in schools and rainy weather this year. And they note that other such ‘heritage’ sites also have falling or flat attendance.”

“Germany now is in the process of transforming the five neoclassical museums that are clustered on an island in the Spree River in Berlin into a cultural center to rival Paris’ Louvre and London’s British Museum. The complex eventually will unite collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, Egyptian artifacts, 19th century paintings, Byzantine art and Near Eastern antiquities long scattered by last century’s wars and political divisions. While construction has been underway for five years, Berlin’s financial woes have discouraged anyone from predicting completion.”

About 3,400 artifacts stolen from the Iraq National Museum have been recovered. But about 10,000 are still missing. “The majority of the work remaining, that of tracking down the missing pieces, will likely take years. It will require the cooperative efforts of all nations. Already 750 stolen objects have been recovered in Great Britain, Italy, Jordan and the United States.”