Category: visual

Art openings aren’t about the art. In the popular imagination, they are glamorous affairs, exclusive soirees where stylish sophisticates rub shoulders with artists from the fringe. In truth, they’re mundane occasions. Imagine a year-end office party held every month and you’ll get the idea.”

When British scientists were designing a small vehicle to land on Mars, they knew they wanted an artist to design a piece of art to go with it. They picked Damien Hirst. He came up with “a spot chart design, scaled down to 26 grams on a background of aluminium, and tinted with copper, cobalt, manganese and molybdenum in the nine colours of Mars, will be bolted to the side of the lander.”

This fall’s auction season has confirmed one big shift in the art collecting world. “Whether new fortunes, changing fashion or opportunity are offered as an explanation, Post-War and Contemporary art has become as or even more valuable a profit center for the three houses as Impressionist and Modern art, the traditional motor of their business.”

Charles Saatchi is probably the biggest collector of contemporary art in Britain. But he’s down on the Turner Prize and its judges (Like a lot of others are these days). He says the real art is going on outside of the Turner world and that he prefers “something that gives real visual pleasure and makes you sit up and think, not the pseudo-controversial rehashed claptrap that Turner judges actually believe is cutting-edge art.”

The Cleveland Museum unveils plans for a major expansion. “With an estimated construction cost of $225 million, the project already has a price tag more than twice that of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, finished in 1995. Designed by New York architect Rafael Vinoly, the project calls for two large new curving wings on the east and west sides of the museum complex, which will frame the spacious, skylighted ‘Great Court’ in the center. The Great Court will be bigger, museum officials say, than the main lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.”

A small band of philanthropists known as the Friends of Heritage Preservation is trying to save important buildings with targeted funds. The group looks for important buildings in need of help. Members of the 20-member group pay $25,000 in dues every two years and the money is used to take on projects that tend to “fall between the cracks.”

It wasn’t too long ago that architects’ drawings were typically thrown in the trash after a project was finished. But they’ve become prized by collectors and scholars who want to study the ideas behind buildings. “Given the rise of computer-assisted design (CADS) as the standard tool for designing today’s buildings, it may seem surprising that architectural drawing remains a dynamic art form – and not only for traditionalists.”

What is America’s Second City of art (after New York, of course)? “Despite its endemic sprawl and persistent inferiority complex, Los Angeles is the nation’s second city for the visual arts, and commercial galleries are a vital part of the scene. With nearly 100 that present public exhibition programs and keep their doors open during regular hours, Los Angeles is second only to Manhattan and well ahead of Chicago, its closest competitor, which has about 60 comparable galleries.”

An artist in Newfoundland is protesting the name of a show of his work at a local gallery that used to represent him. But the name is taken from the name of one of the artist’s own paintings. The artist accuses the gallery of being offensive, but the gallery owner maintains “iIt’s my painting. It’s the title of the painting. The artist named the painting. What’s the problem?” It’s hilarious. I didn’t name the painting. He did. It’s not like it’s written on the back of the painting. He named it. Now he’s claiming the painting is defaming himself.”