Category: visual

Two expensive Tokyo museums – so-called “bubble babies” – operated by the Tokyo metropolitan government – the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography – are heavily in debt. “Faced with huge losses, the directors are doing everything they can to educate staff members to the concept of profit and loss, nudging them to be more customer friendly and cost efficient. While working with their employees, the directors have also been busy trying to create more compelling exhibits to attract a larger clientele.”

An American archaeologist said in London this week that the “systematic looting of major archaeological sites and the destruction of artefacts” in Iraq “may prove a greater disaster than the well publicised looting and destruction at the national museum in Baghdad, and the museum in Mosul.” She urged that looters be killed if caught. “I would like to see some helicopters flying over these sites, and some bullets fired at the looters. I think you have got to kill some people to stop this.”

San Francisco’s new deYoung Museum, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, and scheduled to open in 2005, is rising. “The structure of the $200 million city-owned museum, made with 2,122 tons of steel and 2,500 tons of rebar, is nearly complete. In the next few weeks, the twisting concrete tower that will afford panoramic views of the city, the Golden Gate Bridge and the ocean – a nod to the signature tower of the old Spanish-style de Young, demolished 14 months ago – will take shape.”

“Illegal Art, which opened last week at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Artists Gallery, showcases a variety of works that push the restrictions of current trademark and copyright laws. The exhibit is intended to illustrate the limits that such laws impose on artists’ freedom of expression…”

Why was the Stonehenge constructed? It’s long been a mystery. “A University of British Columbia researcher who has investigated the great prehistoric monument for several years has announced he has uncovered its true meaning: it is a giant fertility symbol, constructed in the shape of the female sexual organ. ‘There was a concept in Neolithic times of a great goddess or Earth Mother, Stonehenge could represent the opening by which the Earth Mother gave birth to the plants and animals on which ancient people so depended’.”

Last Thursday, American authorities in Baghdad put objects from the Iraq National Museum on display. But only for two hours. “As propaganda stunts go it was not very successful. American archaeologists immediately accused the authorities of putting at risk the fragile 3,000-year-old golden ornaments by rushing them from the vaults of the Central Bank and back again to show that the looting of the museum had not been as bad as first claimed. ‘I think it is an act of propaganda. It is to show that nothing really happened to the museum. No curator in the world would allow this sort of exhibition unless ordered to do so’.”

An Italian Baroque painting lost 300+ years ago, has turned up. “The picture, The Montalto Madonna, has been copied many times by artists in Rome, both in painted and engraved form. It was last mentioned officially in 1672 by the biographer Gian Pietro Bellori but thereafter vanished without trace and has been considered lost ever since. When a client took a small copper panel bearing the familiar composition of The Montalto Madonna into Sotheby’s head office, the instinctive reaction was that it was not the real thing – or rather that it could not possibly be the genuine article after a lapse of more than three centuries. However…”

“Rated as number one spender on art this year is London resident Sheikh Saud al-Thani of Qatar. His interests range from antiquities, Islamic art, furniture and jewellery to Old Masters, Impressionist paintings and vintage photographs. The surprise entry is the London jeweller Laurence Graff, who is included in the top 10.”

“Four years ago, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani blasted a painting of the Virgin Mary that was decorated with elephant dung. In an exhibit that opened Wednesday, it’s the portrait of Giuliani that has elephant dung painted in it…”