Category: visual

“The Bay Area’s pre-eminent fine arts schools – the California College of Arts and Crafts and the San Francisco Art Institute – are considering merging into a single new institution that would be one of the biggest independent art colleges in the country.”

The first Guangzhou Tirennial is a good check of the stew of styles emerging from Chinese art in recent years. It’s been a period of experimentation, and the rest of the world is taking notice. “As evidence of the growing global buzz about China’s art, opening night drew groups of collectors and donors from the Museum of Modern Art and the Asia Society in New York. And in a sign that its museums are also entering the global mainstream, the gift shop at the Guangdong Museum was filled with attractive tie-in products, including T-shirts and watches with images by leading artists.”

“Norman Rosenthal is the master of the big production. He occupies a unique and enviable role in British art. While other gallery directors find themselves bogged down in bureaucracy, in running an institution, Rosenthal can devote his time to conjuring up the dreamiest exhibitions. His track record is amazing. When he arrived at the Royal Academy 25 years ago, it was a fusty and largely irrelevant institution. Today, it is one of the world’s great exhibition spaces.”

Richard MacCormac’s design for a London Tube station has attracted hrodes of fans. “The station manager enjoys its obvious theatricality and musicians have responded to its magic. There isn’t even any graffiti on the wall. It is a lovely thing, a happy surprise as the jaded tube traveller emerges from the fetid heat of an underground train into the regenerative joys of born-again Southwark.” The station design was inspired by music and theatre, says MacCormac. So why can’t more public buildings be this way?

Last summer Canadian art collector Ken Thomson paid $117 million for a Rubens (or maybe it wasn’t a Rubens, depending on who you ask). This month he announced a gift of $300 million to the Arts Gallery of Ontario. The man’s appetite for things art is voracious. “To describe Ken Thomson as a driven collector is like describing Glenn Gould as a gifted pianist; the words cannot quite do it justice.”

The new Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth opens to the public in two weeks. But this past weeks critics were allowed in to take a look. “In addition to a sublime building designed by award-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando, it now boasts works of a quality one expects of a museum that has suddenly become the country’s second-largest arena for postwar art. The message rings clear: What was once considered a regional museum with modest ambitions has become part of the international mainstream.”

Since retiring New York collector/dealer Gene Thaw “has made philanthropy something of a second career. The Thaw Charitable Trust, established in 1981, is endowed largely from the sale of a van Gogh painting, The Flowering Garden, a decade ago. A founding member and past president of the Art Dealers Association of America, Mr. Thaw retired from active dealing a decade ago but remains an insider’s insider.” Says the director of the Morgan Library: “Gene’s generosity has been so great that he must be regarded as the single greatest patron of this institution since the death of its founders.”

England’s great regional temples of culture – “mostly built and stocked by Victorian philanthropy, – have become tatty and are withering for want of love, money and inspiration. The municipal museums and galleries of England have for too long been run by local authorities. When money is tight, their museums, like the libraries and parks, are the first to suffer.” The Central government has said it wants to help… but where is that help?

Courtroom artists don’t generate much excitement in the art world. But collectors are starting to pay attention. “Celebrity criminals tend to garner the most interest… But even white-collar cases can fetch a fat price if the parties have brand-name appeal and the trial is deemed historic. The sale of an original drawing from the Microsoft antitrust trial, for instance, earned courtroom artist Walt Stewart $8,000.”

So what does you average art critic look like? The National Arts Journalism Program has produced a new report with some answers. “For starters, most art critics make less than half their annual income writing criticism. Only 40 percent of those surveyed are employed as full-time critics, yet 75 percent function as chief art critics for their publications. Furthermore, some of the nation’s largest daily papers do not have full-time art critics. The most notable example is USA Today, Gannett’s national newspaper with a circulation of 2.3 million. Most critics are older than 45 and make less than $25,000 a year from their work as critics.”