Category: visual

The proposed London Bridge Tower skyscraper soars 1000 feet tall; it would be the tallest building in Europe. But London – which historically hasn’t allowed giant buildings, is debating the wisdom of such a building. It’s not just an argument about architecture but a fight over how development is determined. And it looks – at least for the moment – as though developers have the upper hand. “Until we have world peace, socialism triumphant and pigs with wings, we have chosen, in Britain especially, to have private capital gamble with our space. It’s property developers who give us most of our architecture.”

With the opening of Charles Saatchi’s new gallery, critics are scrambling to pass judgment on his contributions to the art world. His name is “synonymous with the artists who became known as the Brit pack, who rose to fame in the early 1990s. This was the era when British contemporary art became world famous, when the Turner Prize was cooler than the Brits. Fashions change however. Although art is still hip, it has moved on. ‘It was a really defining time. Lots of precedents were set then; some good, some bad. It was an important time, but it?s definitely a thing of the past’.”

The UK’s richest art prize for contemporary art has taken a turn for the serious. “Beck’s Futures is experiencing the post-September 11 blues, and this year’s selection reflects a darker, more critical mood now gripping many contemporary artists. Indeed, Beck’s itself seems to be wracked with gloomy self-doubt, its poster campaign heckling you with the question, ‘If corporate sponsorship is killing art, want to come to a funeral’?”

American soldiers entering Saddam Hussein’s palaces see evidence of the reported $2 billion spent on decorating. But money doesn’t equal taste. “With Saddam Hussein, it’s not about taste, but size. The interiors are monumental, gilded and dreadful,” and the palace interior “looks sad and corporate. It’s too bad he turned his back on his own culture, which has amazing architecture and design, and his own people, who, politics aside, are wonderful artisans.”

Two frescoes stolen from Pompeii last week have been recovered by Italian police. “The 1st Century frescoes were found at a construction site close to the historic city, after roadblocks were set up across the whole of Naples province. The authorities said they had already been packed, and that the aim may have been to smuggle them abroad. Both panels were damaged during the theft.”

The British Museum says it’s a dead issue, but Canadian Greeks are applying all the pressure they can to the UK in an effort to force the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. This month, the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution calling on the British Museum to return the marbles, which have been in Britain for over 100 years. The Canadian push follows similar resolutions by other governments around the world, but the UK has repeatedly said that the marbles will stay right where they are.

Thieves stole two frescoes from the ancient city of Pompeii over the weekend. “Selling such rare art on the open market would be almost impossible so the theft may have been commissioned. ‘This is 1st-century Roman art from Pompeii. It is not something you can find in the window of an antique dealer’.”

Protesters gathered outside the Paris auction house where the contents of Andre Breton’s apartment were being auctioned off. “The flat was an expression of Surrealist thought. Selling it off piecemeal in 4,100 lots is like taking apart a Rimbaud poem word by word and scattering them to the winds. Once broken up, the collection has no meaning.”

Jorn Utzon has won this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize, the profession’s most prestigious international award. Utzon was the architect of the Sydney Opera House, “perhaps the world’s most famous 20th-century building.”

Eric Gibson wonders why the art world accepts the altering – read “vandalism” – of important classic artworks. Tying string around a Rodin sculpture or defacing Goya prints isn’t art, he writes, and it doesn’t make sense to dignify these acts with serious consideration. “It says something that in our own time it has always been the lesser talents who have left their imprint on the works of their superiors. And you can be sure that, whatever motivated Rubens, it had to do with an artistic impulse far more profound than simply “thinking again about a familiar image.”