Category: visual

The British Royal Collection has 7000 paintings in it. But what has Queen Elizabeth added to it in her 50 years on the throne? Twenty pictures. “Although the scale of acquisitions may be modest, no reigning monarch has done much better since Queen Victoria, and the record under Edward VII, George V and George VI was equally disappointing.”

Ken Thomson’s $370 million gift to the Art Gallery of Ontario will help make possible a $178 million rebuild of the museum by Frank Gehry. Gehry grew up in Toronto before leaving for the US in 1947, but up til now hasn’t designed anything for his hometown. “The Thomson-Gehry alliance is a magical one. The men enjoy a relaxed jocularity together and their admiration for each other is easy to read.”

How fast is Venice sinking? For at least three centuries it’s been going down at a rate of about 8 inches a century. How do scientists know? By looking at the paintings of 18th Century painter Giovanni Antonio Canaletto. The scientists turned to Canaletto because precise measurements of the city’s sea level only date to 1872, while the artist’s works are from the previous century. Canaletto was so true to detail he even painted the dark algae stains on buildings along canal banks, a detail many artists avoided for aesthetic reasons.”

Florence’s Uffizi Gallery could see its lights turned off because it has been unable to pay its utility bills. “The arts authority owes £165,000 for electricity and other bills have been mounting up. Its financial plight, which caused a stir in the art world when it was reported in the newspaper La Repubblica yesterday, is attributed to recent government moves to make the management of art heritage autonomous.”

Ken Thomson is Canada’s premiere art collector. He’s also Canada’s wealthiest person with a fortune worth $23 billion (CDN). Now 79, he says he plans to give “$70-million in cash and $300 million in art to an expanded and renovated Art Gallery of Ontario,” and that the gifts are only “the start of a series of gifts and loans to that institution.” Tuesday he “staggered the Canadian art world by announcing he would donate in trust an estimated 2,000 works to the AGO.”

The foundations of some of the world’s great museum collections generally come from private collectors. But what do collectors get out of giving or loaning their artwork? Quite a bit, actually. “If a gallery is seen not to respect the legal wishes of its donors, that may well undermine other peoples’ confidence in making gifts and bequests. And, in the present climate, where galleries have relatively little financial power in art markets, they are increasingly reliant on the kindness of strangers.”

The American Association of Museums lays down new guidelines “for accepting contributions to ensure the institutions maintain their integrity and donors don’t benefit by giving. A museum’s governing authority and staff must ensure that no individual benefits at the expense of the museum’s mission, reputation or the community it serves.”

“Smithsonian officials yesterday showed off their next museum, a facility so big it could swallow the Titanic, with space left over. The new building is part of the National Air and Space Museum annex near Dulles International Airport that will give the public a close-up view of more than 200 historic aircraft — from sleek spy planes to World War I biplanes. [The exhibition space is] a cavernous structure 10 stories high and covering the equivalent of three football fields.”

“Outsider art — or, to be reductive, folk art made by the unschooled (and frequently unskilled) — is the hottest art phenomenon to sweep galleries and academies since the identity art craze of the eighties and nineties. The poor, alienated, ignorant and mentally marginal are the new ‘ethnics’; their otherness as remote and alluring to privileged art buyers as any African mask… But how innocent can art be when it is so smartly packaged?”

Visitors to St. Louis are often surprised to discover that the famous Arch, which defines the city’s downtown skyline, really isn’t all that accessible, at least on foot. Now, the city is considering several plans to establish a downtown connection to the Arch for pedestrians and tourists. Standing in the way are an interstate highway and a major city boulevard. The plans are all architecturally pleasing, and the final decision will likely come down to cost vs. convenience.