Category: visual

That Iraq’s museums would be pillaged was a forseeable thing, writes Kenneth Baker. “We have to wonder how the Pentagon and the State Department could fail to see the cultural calamity coming, such a predictable consequence of urban war chaos. Weeks before the invasion, the Archaeological Institute of America published an ‘Open Declaration on Cultural Heritage at Risk in Iraq,’ signed by hundreds of scholars from around the world.”

Is the fact that American troops protected oil fields but not museums significant? Caroline Abels writes that “we might never know why the looting continued unchecked despite strong early warnings from the world art community that Iraq’s treasures required protection. But the cynic in me wonders whether the American military would have done more to protect the museums had we been a country that better recognized the value of art.”

Winnipeg Canada is planning to build a $270 million international museum of human rights. About $130 million has been raised so far for the first $200-million phase, to be built on vacant land at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in downtown Winnipeg.

Why did the Bush administration choose not to protect Iraq’s cultural treasures? “Only two of the thousands of pieces of art that were stolen after the first Gulf War were recovered. Even if a sculpture of a bronze Akkadian king isn’t important to the Bush administration, you’d think its own self-interest would be: In the eyes of the world, the war’s success will be measured as much by what happens now and over the coming months as by the shock and awe campaign.”

Rio de Janeiro officials are hoping that a splashy new Guggenheim museum there will help the city. “Local officials are hailing the proposed museum project as part of a grand new vision of Rio, the South American capital of sun and samba that in the future also could be considered an art lover’s tourist destination. But even as the project inches closer to final approval, the new Guggenheim branch’s critics are growing in numbers, threatening to derail the city’s plans. They say the museum should be subordinated to more pressing social needs such as roads, schools and health care…”

A big story before the war on Iraq began this spring had the United Nations covering up a copy of Picasso’s “Guernica” that hangs outside the Security Council. Were US officials skittish about being shown on TV talking about war in front of a powerful anti-war work? No, writes Claudia Winkler. Here’s what really happened: As the Iraq drama was playing out at the United Nations, the press corps covering the Security Council swelled. The usual press stakeout, where ambassadors routinely take reporters’ questions outside the Security Council, simply couldn’t hold the numbers – expected to reach 800 for Powell’s address on February 5. So the Secretariat moved the stakeout down the hallway. As over 200 cameramen were setting up, they complained that the background at the new location didn’t work for them.” They asked for a plain background…

Edinburgh museums have been given £117,000 by the government to “train community education workers in how to access the full range of cultural resources available to them through museums, libraries and archives.”

The economic slump has spread through galleries and museums, and is now hitting individual artists who make their living selling paintings to the public. James Auer thinks that part of the problem is that most artists don’t actually buy any art themselves. “It’s very difficult to persuade someone to do something you haven’t done yourself. And that includes the act of acquiring a fairly costly artwork – and paying off the debt, if necessary, on the installment plan. Collecting fine art can be a creative act, too. Indeed, it’s the other, essential end of a vital continuum.”

“A Denver developer has offered to donate one-third of an acre in the Central Platte Valley to the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver as the site for a $3.6 million to $4 million permanent home… If it is realized, the free-standing, 18,000- to 20,000-square-foot structure would be part of a proposed development that would include 60 units of affordable housing and 11 luxury townhomes.”

A judge has authorized the sale of the Enron art collection. The company had a budget of $20 million for art, and reportedly spent $4 million. But “the collection is expected to bring $1.3 million to $1.8 million” at auction. “Enron creditors have filed 23,000 claims worth $400 billion.”