Category: visual

“The Denver Art Museum’s new wing is like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle strewn on a table, waiting to be assembled. Some of the pieces: It’s still unknown how much the 146,000-square-foot wing will cost, though money in hand would suggest a price of at least $70 million. Museum officials won’t say how much they have raised (or want to raise) in a capital campaign to augment bond money approved by Denver voters in 1999. There isn’t a precise start date for construction, other than late June or early July. The opening date – first 2004, then 2005 – now hovers in 2006.”

Mona Lisa is a star. But who was she? “Over the past five centuries, that smile has been exploited and replicated in so many forms that the Mona Lisa has been transformed from a mere masterpiece into an international celebrity. And, like a Hollywood star, she now has to have her own bodyguards and lives behind triplex bullet-proof glass in a humidified, air-conditioned environment. Aside from the riddle of the smile, it’s the mystery of Mona Lisa’s identity that has inspired amateur art detectives all over the world. After centuries of uncertainty, a vitally important document has recently come to light in the Milan State Archive.” It suggests Mona Lisa’s identity.

Art is stolen for other reasons than the usual profit. “The theft of major paintings is essentially illogical. Contrary to popular belief, high-profile pictures are rarely stolen to order, and the resulting publicity means that they are impossible to sell on the open market. In reality, they pass through a number of hands fairly quickly, and for a variety of reasons…”

Police were called to the Tate Modern gallery in London this weekend, after a visitor to the museum reportedly “attacked” a statue. The statue in question was Auguste Rodin’s classic marble sculpture The Kiss, which is in the Tate because conceptual artist Cornelia Parker has wrapped it in string to represent “the claustrophobic nature of relationships.” The attacker broke free from a tour group, and used scissors to cut some of the twine before being subdued. He has been released on bail.

“The world may not know who painted the first painting or who carved the first sculpture, but we do know who made the first photograph in a modern sense. And it wasn’t Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, whose 1826 invention of a photomechanical printing plate was indeed epochal, or Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre.” It was William Henry Fox Talbot. He’s the man who “set certain basic terms by which photography operated for almost the last 150 years. He invented the photographic negative, the process by which light creates a negative image on a piece of chemically treated paper, which can then be reproduced – once or in great quantity – in a positive form.”

US prosecutors have charged a Connecticut art broker and two New York art dealers with money laundering in a scheme to exchange art for money. The art included a Degas and a Modigliani.

The French government has for some time been deaf to concerns of the art market. But “last year saw the right wing get a resounding majority in Parliament, and the present government is no longer hostile to the arguments of the art market. The reform of auctioneering has shaken up the establishment and brought new players into the field.”

A Los Angeles group holds a graffiti party and want to build an “aerosol art park with an art supply store and big canvas panels. Once embraced by the mainstream and given a legal place to work, poor graffiti artists could stop risking their lives tagging freeway signs and start holding museum openings.” But a Los Angeles Times editorial makes fun of the idea: “Please, hold the breathless praise for graffiti artists.’ They have defaced the sides of too many elementary schools, scarred the trunks of beautiful old sycamores, destroyed sorely needed benches in already scarce parks. In neighborhoods used as canvases for graffiti, people tend to call it vandalism, not art. They don’t throw a party; they call the police.”

One of Seattle’s most-loved sculptures – and the namesake for Seattle band Soundgarden – is on the grounds of a government facility – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration campus. That means, since September 11, the public has not had access to it because of increased security. And the sculpture is degrading, because NOAA doesn’t have a budget for upkeep. So what will happen to an important piece of public art? “We’re not a museum. Taking care of art is not a priority. We’re not going to let any of these sculptures fall over, but our mission is science and research, not art.”

A presidential commission recommends building the new Black History Museum on a Washington DC site near the Capitol. “As we did our town hall meetings around the country, we found that the overwhelming sentiment and expressions were that the museum should be on the Mall, should be associated and affiliated with the Smithsonian, and it should tell the whole story of African American history in this country from slavery to modern times. This advance in the development of the museum does not guarantee that it will be built. The backers of the project will have to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from public and private sources. There are also legislative hurdles. But the recommendation by the presidential commission is an important step and gives supporters a more specific idea to sell.”