Category: visual

The Egyptian Council of Antiquities reports that one million stones were used in the building of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. “The number is under half of the previously estimated amount of 2.3 million stones, indicating that the Egyptian pyramid builders were even more organized and efficient than previously thought.”

“Peter B. Lewis, the philanthropist who recently stunned Cleveland, his hometown, by announcing a boycott of charitable contributions there, this week gave the beleaguered Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum a $12 million gift, but only after forcing the institution’s ambitious director to accept a pared-down budget. Mr. Lewis, who is chairman of the museum’s board of trustees and its largest benefactor, said he had presented Thomas Krens, the museum’s flamboyant and controversial director, with a ‘tough love’ choice: he could either bring the museum’s tangled financial affairs in order, or start looking for another job.”

“According to some of our top art conservators, Britain’s heritage is slowly deteriorating, mouldering away in museums, stately homes and churches. Some of the nation’s treasures will be lost within a couple of years unless they are properly treated. Britain’s heritage is being exposed to the ravages of time, humidity and pollution because public institutions simply cannot afford to pay for its proper upkeep.”

Efforts are underway to preserve what’s left of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban last year in Afghanistan. “Scaffolding will be erected to prevent the final collapse of the caves in which the giant statues stood for centuries. Local guards are on duty to combat further looting. And several countries are offering money and assistance to the international venture.” According to UNESCO, “damage extends beyond the statues and artwork in the niches that housed them. In about 25 of 700 nearby caves, are remnants of Buddhist murals – but only an estimated 15 percent to 20 percent of what existed in the 1970s.”

The LA County Museum of Art just got $10 million for its education programs. But fundraising for the museum’s new Rem Koolhaas-designed building (estimated to cost between $200 and $300 million) has stalled out in the bad economy. “That fund-raising campaign, still in its “quiet phase,” suffered a setback in last month’s general election when a $250-million bond measure for improvements at county museums failed to pass. The bond would have given $98 million to LACMA, provided that the museum raised $112.5 million on its own.”

Art Truism #873: The Public does not appreciate art which includes toilets. The Public is particularly irked by artistic toilets combined with religious imagery. But any toilets at all, even immaculate ones with books on top, are unlikely to be well-received at your next exhibition. Nonetheless, artists continue to use the porcelain repositories in everything from sculpture to photography, and a few galleries have even dedicated whole shows to them.

Sandra Esquilant’s East End London pub has been a gathering place for a generation of BritArt conceptual artists. Now, “for her role as a homely mother confessor to the angry generation of British conceptual artists, has won the improbable reward of 80th place in a list of the 100 most powerful figures in contemporary art.”

Who are the most powerful people in the artworld? ArtReview Magazine names them, but there are very few artists on the list. So who makes it? Mostly “collectors, businessmen, a pub landlady… The top 10 “list includes just one artist, German painter Gerhard Richter, with the rest mainly coming from the business sector. Advertising tycoon Charles Saatchi heads the list, which is chosen by critics, dealers and other experts, for his contribution to the British art scene.”

So the Italian government wants to ‘lease or even sell off some of the national treasures”‘ in its care. Will the private sector do any better at managing them? The government “strongly denies that Italy’s world-famous culture is under threat,” while critics fear that is. “At issue is a law passed in June, setting up an agency to make an inventory of state-owned monuments and ‘artistic and cultural assets’, with a view to selling them, leasing them or using them as security for loans. The measure was hotly contested by the centre left opposition.”

Could the British government try to sell its way out of financial hardship by doing an Italy, selling off assets? Couldn’t happen. “The British genius, during nearly two centuries, has been in hiving off various parts of the cultural patrimony and placing them under the control of a motley crew of quangos, boards of trustees and other bodies that have the reputation of independence without, necessarily, the joy of it.”