Category: visual

A group that helps run New York’s Central Park has approved plans by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, to “erect 7,500 rectangular steel gates, each 15 feet tall with golden nylon streaming from it.” The artists have been trying to get permission for the project for 20 years “The plan still needs approval from the city’s parks department. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he supports it.”

Is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s decision to put off building the ambitious redesign of its campus an act of cowardice? Or is it really the responsible thing to do? The pace of new museum projects has slowed since 2000, and this might not be a bad thing…

The WTC proposals unveiled this week by prominent architects follow some common themes. “In purely architectural terms, the big news was the triumph of the mega-skyscraper. Four of the seven design teams want to put the tallest building in the world at the site. In the end, it’s hard to imagine any scenario in which a truly successful master plan—one that’s at once architecturally inventive and a good use of urban space—is produced within the allotted time.”

Is Italy getting ready to sell off some of its archeological treasures to raise money? The government denies that preparations are underway, and that an inventory of assets is “for accounting purposes” only. But critics don’t believe the explanation,and “the scheme has raised a tempest of protest, with marches and petitions throughout the country.”

The curse of the mummy was supposed to kill anyone who disturbed the tomb of King Tut. And Lord Carnavon, who financed the 1923 expedition that discovered Tut did die an untimely death at age 57. But a researcher who tracked every one of the 44 people in on the discovery says there were no other early deaths – average age at death was 70 or higher. So no mummy curse…

Ever since Frank Gehry’s widely-hailed Bilbao museum opened, architects around the world have faced unprecedented expectations as to what their designs can do, not just for an organization or a neighborhood, but for an entire city. But how much has the “wow” factor actually hurt the practice of serious architecture, and is the movement towards buildings-as-tourist-attractions and architectural star power a sign of growing public interest, or merely the end product of a celebrity-obsessed culture?

It may not be the most profound gauge of public sentiment, but for what it’s worth, the top-selling postcard at the Tate Britain this past year was a semi-nude study by Lucien Freud called “Girl With White Dog.” This is notable mainly because the top-selling card had been Millais’s serene and Victorian “Ophelia” for a decade. The museum’s director hopes the Freud card’s popularity is a sign that audiences are becoming more accepting of contemporary art.

The small Austrian city of Linz has agreed to return a 1916 Egon Schiele painting to the family that once owned it. The painting, which is known as “View of Krumau,” is estimated to be worth $10 million. It was seized by the Gestapo after the family fled Austria during the occupation, and the New Gallery in Linz eventually purchased it without knowing that it was Nazi loot.

Ideas for rebuilding on the World Trade Center site were unveiled in New York Wednesday. In general, Herbert Muschamp was impressed. “In our hype-drenched era, a critic will have to risk raising cynical eyebrows with superlatives adequate to the occasion. Let them rise. Let them arch into furious knots. The architects have risen to the occasion.”

The designs are most impressive, says Benjamin Forgey, and the rollout was “rousing good theater.” But at some point, one of these designs is going to have to actually be built, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is thinking a great deal about such annoying details as funding, phasing of the project, and what purpose the building(s) will serve upon completion. “For the next month or so, however, attention will be focused on the plans revealed today, and deservedly so.”